"Unread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of young and old to hear. The visits to Dream-dell were less and less frequent, for now how each remembrance so fondly connected with that spot, came fraught with pain; the works of her favorite author's lay opened, but unread, upon her knee; and the fastly-falling tears half-blotted out the impassioned words she had once read with him with so happy ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... have liked to get a peep into the letters, too. But Aunt Olivia would not allow that. They must be burned unread, she declared. She took the wedding dress and veil, the picture case, and the letters away with her. The rest of the things were put back into the chest, pending their ultimate distribution. Aunt Janet gave ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the work, or of vindicating himself and replying to his critics. As a rule, however, the reader is concerned neither with the moral purpose of the book nor with the attacks of the Reviewers, and so the preface remains unread. Nevertheless, this is a pity, especially with us Russians! The public of this country is so youthful, not to say simple-minded, that it cannot understand the meaning of a fable unless the moral is set forth at the end. ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... engines said, Pilots touching head to head. Facing on the single track, Half a world behind each back. This is what the engines said, Unreported and unread. ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... sailor, with not a tenth part of the style nor a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while "Clarissa" lies upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of "Robinson" read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Miss Jessup's wish in one particular. I have sent her the letter which I got from Hannah, unopened; unread; accompanied with a few ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... mystic charm of three volumes, immutable as the sacred triad of the Graces or Destinies, would negative without a division such a work as the "Vicar of Wakefield" were it now to undergo probation. "Robinson Crusoe" or "Paul and Virginia" would be returned unread to their authors, with a civil note of "extremely sorry to decline," &c. "The Man of Feeling" would be made to feel his insignificance. "Thinks I to Myself" might think in vain; and the "Cottagers of Glenburnie" retain their rural obscurity. So much for the measure of the maw of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... tranquil spring evenings, the priest was seen sitting by the mound, his finger closed in the unread breviary. ...
— Pere Antoine's Date-Palm • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... moment before had beat audibly to my own ear, sank like a stone in my breast, and I sat for a time holding the letter mutely, uncertain how to proceed. Should I return it unread, and thus hurl the gauntlet in the traitor's face, or be governed by expedience (word ever so despised by me of old), and trace the venom of the viper, by his trail, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... that she felt any keen interest in the numberless notes from admirers, both male and female, from Portland, Me., to Los Angeles, Cal., to say nothing of South Bend, Opeloosa and Kicking Horse between. These might readily have been consigned to the depths of the wastebasket unopened, unread. But there was always the chance that, intermingled with this mass of adulation, there might be a real letter, from a real friend, or a business communication of importance from some picture company possibly, prepared to offer ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... clothe them, what anguish Must be known in the world of the dead, If the future lies open before them, And fate has no secret unread. And yet, oh how rarely our vision May know the lost presence is nigh; How seldom its purpose be gathered, Be it comfort, or warning ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Haswell in the otherwise deserted reading-room of the National Union Club. Because it was a club chiefly dedicated to the elder generation Thayre came infrequently and it surprised him to find the other there. The big man was sitting with an unread paper on his knee and his eyes were brooding as he gazed out through the Fifth-avenue window on the twilight tide of motors and 'buses and hansoms that passed in an endless and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... read, on a wise instinct that this preliminary contact starts their knowledge. And therefore a favorite volume, even if unopened in the pocket, does nevertheless by its proximity color and enhance the enjoyment of the day. I have carried Howell, who wrote the "Familiar Letters," unread along the countryside. A small volume of Boswell has grown dingy in my pocket. I have gone about with a copy of Addison with long S's, but I read it chiefly at home when my feet ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... dwindled away almost to nothing. Here, or rather at Weeting or at Brandon where he lived, Rous began two years later, on the accession of Charles I, a private diary which was printed by the Camden Society sixty years ago, and has probably remained unread ever since, unless, as in the present case, by some person of antiquarian tastes interested in this remote corner of East Anglia. But to-day one detects a new streak of interest in this ancient ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... denouncing all others. One Cuban, of large fortune and small reputation, being implicated in these matters, brought General Concha a list of all his confederates, which Concha burned before his face, unread. Piteous, laughable spectacle! Better be monkeys than such men; yet such work does Absolutism in government and religion make of the noble human creature! God preserve us ever from tyrants, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... talking in words of not more than three syllables had begun to tell on me. I bade the artist good-bye, wandered away up the half-dozen steps to the Parade, sat down on a bench, and opened the morning paper that I had brought out unread. During the War one felt it a duty to know the worst before breakfast; now that the English polity is threatened merely from within, one is apt to dally.... Merely from within? Is that a right phrase when the nerves of unrestful ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... impossible. They were also the result of vague and unconfessed fears, and that made their strength. For myself, with a very definite dread in my heart, I was careful not to allude to their character because I did not want the Note to be thrown away unread. And then I had to remember that the impossible has sometimes the trick of coming to pass to the confusion of minds and often ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... thick letter from Cossie, which her ungrateful and distracted relative tore up unread. Already, in his mind's eye, Shafto could see Cossie permanently established in Rangoon, informing everyone that she was his cousin, bombarding him with chits, worrying him for visits, treats and ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... in the life of her hostler accomplished what his warning had failed to do; it caused her to neglect her correspondence with the major. His letter lay in a hollow willow-tree on the river road unread for nearly a week. And when, one afternoon, she finally rode by to claim it, her interest was strangely dulled. The spice of the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... people, and whence came they? Each little tribe is a book unread before, and full to the brim of fascination. When they are confronted with the picture of an elephant in a current magazine, they are all excitement. The book is carried eagerly to the old man sunning himself down in the anchored oomiak. Animation, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... impression remains that the greater part of this volume has been passed over and left unread by at least two generations of readers. Old play-goers recall Macready as "Werner," and many persons have read Cain; but apart from students of literature, readers of Sardanapalus and of The ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... protector and entreated him to tell Francis, as from himself, that he ought to listen to the advice of his brethren, among whom there were many learned men, fully capable of governing; particularly as he himself was a simple and unread man, whose ill health did not permit him to bring their affairs into good order. They added, that respect ought to be paid to the ancient rules of St. Basil, of St. Augustine, and of St. Benedict, and that Minors should not differ so widely by a new rule and excessive severity, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... desk and idly read the titles of the books; there were a logger's manual, a few text-books on surveying and timber estimating, several of the latest novels, apparently unread and ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... letter in her hand—the rest unread—and sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... your name. Right—there." "You, Will, stop making faces. Come round here Where you can't make them. What is it you want? I'll put you out with Anne. Be good or go." "You don't mean you will sign that thing unread?" "Make yourself useful then, and read it for me. Isn't it something I have seen before?" "You'll find it is. Let your friend look at it." "Yes, but all that takes time, and I'm as much In haste to get it over with as you. But read it, read it. ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... may be said, had reached Penzance by the same train which conveyed his various missives, all posted too late for the mail upon the previous night. Thus he reached the white cottage on the cliff in time to see Mrs. Tregenza and bid her destroy unread the letter she would presently receive; and, on returning to his parents, himself took from the letter-carrier his own communications to them and burned both immediately. He had also dispatched a boy to Drift ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... home in Charleston, on her return, she unstitched with trembling hands a linen-bound parcel always kept in her tall, cedar-lined wardrobe of curled walnut. On it was scratched in ink "To be burned unread after my death"; it contained, she had once told me, a record of no interest save to her who had written it and lacked the courage to re-read it; a narrative of days she had lived, of joys she had lost; of griefs ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... however, he had made no real discovery. The letters might prove a great deal; for the moment he was obliged to leave them unread, since his time might prove to be very short. Down he went, light out, pausing in the big living-room to listen for some sound from the watcher outside. ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... or sacrifice made as of old, the priestly revenues were plundered; the sacred vessels carried away; the voice of oracles became dumb; the divine tongue of Greece was forgotten, its scrolls of wisdom mouldered unread, and the deluded people turned to human mechanics and fishermen. One faithful servant of Apollo remained, my father; but 'tis seven days since he closed his eyes for ever. It was time, for yesternoon the heralds proclaimed by order ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... a wolf's hair twisted round it, which is noticed by Hogni but not accepted by Gunnar. In the Atlaml something more is made of this; her message here is written in runes, and these are falsified on the way by Attila's messenger, so that the warning is at first unread. But the confusion of the runes is detected by the wife of Hogni, and so the story opens with suspense and forebodings of the doom. The death of Hogni and Gunnar is explained in a new way, and always with the passion of Gudrun as the chief theme. In this story ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... since, not without the thought that, possibly, it might be of farther use than for the entertainment of the Writer: Yet so little express Intention was there of Publishing the Product of those leisure Hours it employ'd, that these Papers lay by for above two Years unread, and almost forgotten. After which time, being perus'd and Corrected, they were communicated to some Friends of the Authors, who judging them capable to be useful, they are now sent into the World ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... victim of injustice, large or small, at the hands of Pyramid Gordon, someone who got in his way, perhaps years ago. Now I am to do something that will offset that old injury. While the name remains unread, we have a bit of mystery, an unknown adventure ahead of us, perhaps. And that, my dear McCabe, ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... bold face, and claim the lady's hand in person, after treating her to a serenade. He agrees to this, and while the serenade is in progress the lady enters; he declares his passion; she rejects him with scorn, and returns his letter unread; whereupon Matthew reads it in her hearing, but so varies the pointing as to turn the sense all upside down; and Ralph denies it to be his. As soon as she has left them, Matthew goes to refreshing him again with extravagant praise of his person, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... journal, do very little, in fact, as make-weights in negotiations. I have been told here, sub rosa, and I believe it that some of our laboured efforts, in this way to obtain redress in the protracted negotiation for indemnity, have actually lain months in the bureaux, unread by those who alone have power to settle the question. Some commis perhaps may have cursorily related their contents to his superior, but the superior himself is usually too much occupied in procuring ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... interval of dulness and indigestion which succeeds a middle-class dinner. Georgy read a great many books; but they were all novels, procured from the Bayswater branch of a fashionable circulating library, and were condemned unread by Mr. Sheldon, who considered all works of fiction perfectly equal in demerit, and stigmatised them, in a general way, as "senseless trash." He had tried to read novels in the dreary days of his Bloomsbury probation; but he had ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Modern." She looked polite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases standing upon doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases that were half filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets of Dickens, Kipling, O. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... for some time watching her from behind his newspaper, while she, with an unread book upon her lap, had, in fact, been thinking deeply and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and far away across the gleaming tossing water from where that red glow burned in the west. The fishermen were on the look out at once, a hail in those days might mean something serious; but their passenger sat with the letter unread in his hand, unheeding anything, reading instead a page out ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... unread. What could it tell me that I did not already know? Could it hold any torture which ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... into obscurity overleaf. The column headed "Distinguished Scientist says Comet will Strike our Earth. Does it Matter?" went unread. "Germany"—I usually figured this mythical malignant creature as a corseted stiff-mustached Emperor enhanced by heraldic black wings and a large sword—had insulted our flag. That was the message of the New Paper, and the monster towered over me, threatening fresh outrages, visibly ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... can take up this book and lay it down again unread. Whoever reads one line of it is caught, is chained; he has become the contented slave of its fascinations; and he will read and read, devour and devour, and will not let it go out of his hand till it is finished to the last ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... instruction to thousands of the race. But we should be judicious in this, and not allow transitional matter to monopolize our time. "Read not the times, read the eternities," cried Thoreau. The shelves of our home and public libraries are filled with priceless volumes yet unread by us. And he who is not cultivating a taste for good wholesome reading is missing one of the highest enjoyments of life as well as minimizing his chances for success. We should ever be exploring new regions of thought. And in the extreme ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... to the contrary, manuscripts sent to the magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more carefully read than the author imagines. Editors know that, from the standpoint of good business alone, it is unwise to return a manuscript unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances where it ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... thickness of the pages read had imperceptibly increased to three-quarters of an inch, while the thickness of the unread pages had diminished to a quarter of an inch. And she also noticed, on the open page, another phenomenon. It was the failing of the day—the faintest shadow on the page. With incredible transience another of those brief ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... their similarity, her inability to find, among sonorous periods, any trace of Dodge's spirit—in reality she knew so blindingly much more than the most penetrating critical intellect—caused her to leave the reviews unread. No one else living had understood Pleydon; and when descriptions of his life spoke of the austerity in his later years, his fanatical aversion to women, Linda thought of the brittle glove in the ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... aside to the pile of letters still unread. Georgina's stern little note beginning "Dear Sir" was the next in order and was in such sharp contrast to the loving, intimate way she addressed her mother, that he felt the intended reproach of it, even while it amused and surprised him. But it hurt ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... at George. He was sleeping peacefully. It was too early to wake him, but I could not lay that letter down unread; was not my name on it? Tearing it open, I devoured its contents,—the exclamation I made on ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... gives one the impression of a strong man wilfully disguising his real characteristics, for hidden reasons; at others, he is like one of those brilliant Frenchmen of the last century, who toyed and juggled with words and phrases, esteeming it a triumph to remain an unread letter even to their intimates. So you see, after all," he wound up, "I cannot tell you what I think of ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Since that day I have often smiled to think how foolishly do the wisest men deport themselves when they first begin to love. Their little starts of passion, their petty angers and their sweet repentances—all were unexplored by me, for Love to me was yet an unread book. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... in the drawing-room when the proposition was made; and when Miss Assher rose to go, she looked towards Captain Wybrow, expecting to see him rise too; but he kept his seat near the fire, turning his eyes towards the newspaper which he had been holding unread in his hand. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... he said, and held out to his father those two important lines, still unread. Mr. Leigh looked at the paper ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... write. If they were to part he could not trust himself to see her. He called a waiter, asked for pen and paper, and pushed aside a pile of unread newspapers on the corner of the table where his coffee had been served. As he did so, his eye lit on a Daily Mail of two days before. As a pretext for postponing his letter, he took up the paper and glanced down ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... to say, however, that my old worries and anxieties started afresh; I stood in great need of money, and had not the vaguest notion whither to go in search of it. I then examined very thoroughly the answer I had received during the preceding winter to my petition for a higher salary. I had left it unread, as the modifications made in it had already disgusted me. If I had till now believed that it was Herr von Luttichau who had brought about the increase of salary I had demanded, in the shape of a supplement which I was to receive annually—in itself a humiliating ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... his father, which were dictated by his aunt, and which one would have pronounced to be copied from some formula; this was all that M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father answered them with very tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... his own character, and which gave Herder frequent opportunities for scathing criticism. Herder gibed at his youthful tastes—at his collection of seals, at his elegantly-bound volumes which stood unread on his shelves, at his enthusiasms for Italian art, for the writings of the Cabbalists, for ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... Felicia's Peril, etc., etc. Commenced Jan. 1, 1895. Finished March 6, 1896. Copied out (three times) December, 1896. Submitted to Messrs. Kesteven, Sydney; but they say they are publishing very little at present, as times are depressed. To James & James, Melbourne; returned. And unread, I am sure; the package had hardly been touched. To Brown & McMahon, Melbourne. A most polite note, but they do not care to publish so long a story. Shortened it, and copied again (July, 1898). Sent again to Brown & McMahon. A printed refusal: 'Regret ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... only relief consists in going over and over again in my mind the tale of my miseries. This time I will write it, writing only to tear up, to throw the manuscript unread into the fire. And yet, who knows? As the last charred pages shall crackle and slowly sink into the red embers, perhaps the spell may be broken, and I may possess once more my long-lost liberty, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... almost forgotten, "Les Rois en Exil['e]" and "Jack" are still parts of current French literature. But "Unleavened Bread" or "The Damnation of Theron Ware" or "Elsie Venner" or the "Saxe Holm's Stories" are so much of the past as to be unread. ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... who read fairy books, or have fairy books read to them, do not read prefaces, and the parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, who give fairy books to their daughters, nieces, and cousines, leave prefaces unread. For whom, then, are prefaces written? When an author publishes a book 'out of his own head,' he writes the preface for his own pleasure. After reading over his book in print—to make sure that all the 'u's' are not printed ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... to the unthinking, and it is a fact that none but the unread in history will deny, that, in periods of popular tumult and innovation, the more abstract a notion is, the more readily has it been found to combine, the closer has appeared its affinity, with the feelings of a people, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... say, occurred to other travelers to remark that the proceedings at such institutions, when visited by them on their travels, are always rose colored. It is natural that the bright side should be shown to the visitor. It may be that many books are called for and returned unread; that many of those taken out are so taken by persons who ought to pay for their novels at circulating libraries; that the librarian and librarianesses get very tired of their long hours of attendance, for I found that they were ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... writer[59]. The contents were written in columns, the lines of which ran parallel to the long dimension[60], and the reader, holding the roll in both hands, rolled up the part he had finished with his left hand, and unrolled the unread portion with his right. This way of dealing with the roll is well shewn in the accompanying illustration (fig. 9) reduced from a fresco at Pompeii[61]. In most examples the two halves of the roll are turned inwards, as for instance in the ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... And call them shames, which are, indeed, nought else But the protractive trials of great Jove To find persistive constancy in men; The fineness of which metal is not found In fortune's love? For then the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin. But in the wind and tempest of her frown Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away; And what hath mass or matter by itself Lies ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... least capturable of themes, Thou, who display'dst a life of common-place, Leaving no intimate word or personal trace Of high design outside the artistry Of thy penned dreams, Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... his furrow, He leaves his books unread For a life of tented freedom By lure of danger led. He's first in the hour of peril, He's gayest in the dance, Like the guardsman of old England Or ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... of their rest of fame, as those who have a stock entire; and Sylvia believed after she had entrusted the secret of one amour to her discretion, she might conceal none. 'See, madam,' says Antonet, 'here is a letter yet unread:' Sylvia, who had been a great while impatient for the return of Octavio's answer from Philander, expecting from thence the confirmation of all her doubts, hastily snatched the letter out of Antonet's hand, and read it, hoping to have found something there to have eased her ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... your story within a week after sending it out. The largest magazines usually require three months and sometimes longer to report on a MS. If you attempt to hurry the editorial decision you will probably receive your MS. by return mail, unread. ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... the letter within the breast of his "soutane," unread. The two lay-brethren were noting ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... to beat rapidly. His mind became equally active, and, although he had no experience to be guided by, he began to suspect the nature of this man's business with Bangs. He almost determined to discover himself, but the letters were yet unread. If that were only done, he would do anything his visitor might request. Recalling the old gentleman's last words, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... The Stoics improved on the military metaphor; for to the soldier, after all, it does matter whether in his part of the field he wins or loses. Life is not like a battle but like a play, in which God has handed each man his part unread, and the good man proceeds to act it to the best of his power, not knowing what may happen in the last scene. He may become a crowned king, he may be a slave dying in torment. What matters it? The good actor can play either part. All that matters is that he shall act his best, accept the order ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... gray walls of its galleries proclaiming Murillo and Velasquez. These things he had forsaken because he believed he was ambitious; and behold into what a cul-de-sac his ambition had led him! A comic-opera country that was not comic, but dead and buried from the world; a savage people, unread, unenlightened, unclean; and for society of his countrymen, pitiful derelicts in hiding from the law. In his soul he rebelled. ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... was heavy, bay-windowed, three-storied. Ugly, immense, unfriendly, it struck an inharmonious note in the riotous free growth of the surrounding woods. The dark entrance-hall was flanked by a library full of obsolete, unread books, and by double drawing-rooms, rarely opened now. All the windows on the ground floor were darkened by the shrubbery outside and by heavy ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... WALTER How quietly we live here, Unread in the world's business, And take no note of all its slippery changes. 'Twere best we make a world among ourselves, A little world, Without the ills and falsehoods of the greater: We two being all the inhabitants of ours, And kings and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... in spite of their reputation are better left unread, are: Giovanni Pietro Maffei, Historiarum Indicarum Libri XVI, Florence, 1588; Antonio de San Roman, Historia General de la India Oriental, Valladolid, 1603; Joseph Francois Lafitau, Histoire des Decouvertes ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... glance of an eye, in which one may easily read—who knows the character—treachery, lying, and deception, just as in the letter Beth was originally easily discerned the effigies of a house, may very easily pass unread by the multitude. The language, or rather the alphabet, is much less complicated than the cuneiform of the Medes and Persians, yet no one studies it, except women, most of whom are profoundly skilled in this lore, which makes them so fearfully ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... streets coming to me as the soughing of wind on the desert or the wash of waves on a distant shore. Here I find a book of my own among the dead. I read its inscription curiously. I must have written it—when I was alive aeons ago, and far from here. But why did I? For see the unread, the shelved, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... the year 1833. It was the very dead hours of the Muses. The great Mr Murray had ceased, as one despairing of song, to publish poetry. Bulwer Lytton, in the preface to Paul Clifford (1830), announced that poetry, with every other form of literature except the Novel, was unremunerative and unread. Coleridge and Scott were silent: indeed Sir Walter was near his death; Wordsworth had shot his bolt, though an arrow or two were left in the quiver. Keats, Shelley, and Byron were dead; Milman's brief vogue ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... you!" A servant opened the door to bring him a message. Oakley dismissed him angrily. What did he want to go down to the Continental for to drink and talk politics to a lot of muddle-pated fools when he had a brother in Paris who was an artist and a letter from him lay unread in his hand? His patience and his temper were going. Leslie was careless and unfeeling. She ought to come; he was tired ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... much as to see you—averse as he was to your creed—and bless you as his daughter indeed, as his son's wife,—may the remembrance of that just man so far prevail over your indignant and outraged soul that these words from the most wretched man on earth, for that am I, Paula, may not be left unread. Grant me the last favor I have to ask of you—I demand it in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Thus, all unread in philosophy, Daylight preempted for himself the position and vocation of a twentieth-century superman. He found, with rare and mythical exceptions, that there was no noblesse oblige among the business and financial ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... yet methinks, if I may guess (Putting aside your heartlessness In leaving me and this your home), You should find favour, too, at Rome. That is, they'll like you while you're young, When you are old, you'll pass among The Great Unwashed,—then thumbed and sped, Be fretted of slow moths, unread, Or to Ilerda you'll be sent, Or Utica, for banishment! And I, whose counsel you disdain, At that your lot shall laugh amain, Wryly, as he who, like a fool, Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule. Nay! there is worse behind. In age They e'en may take your babbling page In some remotest ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... has an absurd valuation and persistency in camps, and for months afterward, "Ah-r?—indeed!" was the battery's gay response to every startling sound. He had luck in catchwords, this Hilary. He fought the scrimmage through with those unread pages folded slim between a thumb and forefinger, often using them to point out things, and when after it he had reopened them and read them through—and through again—to their dizzying close, the battery ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... silence at the festivals to which I may have the honor of being invited—unless, indeed, I may happen to wish to be heard. [Applause.] In that case I trust I may be indulged, as an unspoken speech and an unread poem are apt to "strike in," as some complaints are said to, and cause inward commotions. [Applause.] Judge Lowell's eulogy will be on every one's lips this evening. His soundness, his fairness, his learning, his ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... at breakfast, and hid himself and his moody temper behind his favorite newspaper. Mary had often noticed that men like to be quiet in the early morning; she gave them naturally all the benefit they claim from the pressure of unread mails and doubtful affairs. If her cousin was quiet and sombre, he might have half-a-dozen innocent reasons for the humor; when he felt more social, he would be sure to seek her. And when she saw him sauntering toward her favorite retreat she was nothing astonished. It was the fulfillment ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... other possible place, the letter could not be found; and though Mrs. Kaye assured them that there was probably very little of importance in it, her children could not help imagining something quite to the contrary; and to learn the unread message became the great desire of ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... admirable conscientiousness. His numerous letters applying for out-of-the-way books to buy or borrow, for every pamphlet throwing light on his subject, bear testimony to the careful exactitude which rarely permitted him to leave any record unread or any worthy opinion untested about any event of which or any person of whom he undertook to write. From Templand (1833) he applies for seven volumes of Beaumarchais, three of Bassompierre, the Memoirs of Abbe Georgel, and every attainable account of Cagliostro and the Countess ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... success. Not to reach the moderate competence in literature is, for a professional man of letters of all work, something like failure. But in poetry to-day a man may succeed, as far as his art goes, and yet may be unread, and may publish at his own expense, or not publish at all. He pleases himself, and a very tiny audience: I do not call that failure. I regard failure as the goal of ignorance, incompetence, lack of common sense, conceited dulness, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... the ghost walked, and those hidden things of life came back to mock him. He might forget, sometimes, bending above his desk, or struggling against the perplexing problems of his profession in the field, but not here; not in the glare of the footlights, amid the hum of the crowd. He crushed the unread programme within his hand, striving to converse carelessly with the lady sitting next to him, whom he was expected to entertain. But his thoughts were afar off, his eyes seeing a gray, misty, silent expanse of desert, growing constantly ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... a dejected mind and an aching heart, what were the sorrows of Agnes? The only child of doating parents, she never had been taught the necessity of resignation—untutored, unread, unused to reflect, but knowing how to feel; what were her sufferings when, on waking, she called to mind that "William was gone," and with him gone all that excess of happiness which his presence had bestowed, and for which she had ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... translation of Bottiger's 'Sabina,' a learned account of the Roman toilette. I here send you a companion to that work—not a direct translation, but a very minute abstract from a similar dissertation by Hartmann, (weeded of the wordiness which has made the original unreadable, and in consequence unread,) on the toilette and the wardrobe of the ladies of ancient Palestine. Hartmann was a respectable Oriental scholar, and he published his researches, which occupy three thick octavos, making in all one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... pay a greater compliment than by buying your Marguerites unread. In six months' time you will be a great poet. You will be written up; people are afraid of you; I shall have no difficulty in selling your book. I am the same man of business that I was four days ago. It is not I who have changed; it is you. Last week your ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... of this class, for themselves or their work, are Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham; but their relative repute is one of the oddest paradoxes in literary history. Roughly speaking, the one is remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered. Sydney Smith's name is almost as familiar to the masses as Scott's, and few could tell a line that he wrote; Barham's writing is almost as familiar as Scott's, and few would recognize his name. Yet he is in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... when Craig, stuffing the letters into his pocket unread, seized his hat, and a moment later was striding along toward the museum with his habitual rapid, abstracted step which told me ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... purr of an automobile stopping before the house left Mabel's message still unread. Depositing her wealth of correspondence on the seat of the swing, Grace tripped down the steps and on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... has had her golden age of letters as well as her age of military glory. Her libraries and archives are filled with unread, musty manuscripts, comprising treatises on philosophy and metaphysics, histories, biographies, and poems, rich in the classic erudition of the Orient. In 1336, Sultan Orkan found leisure from war and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... neither will you suffer the fury of Bishops to murder and devour.' The Queen Regent was not disposed to go very far with the bishops, but still less was she fervent for God's glory and public Reformation. Accordingly, on the first Court day she handed Knox's letter, perhaps unread, to the Bishop of Glasgow, with the words, 'Please you, my Lord, to read a Pasquil.' The unwise jest came to Knox's ears, and some years after he published his letter with resentful additions and interpolations. In these ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... when I am of course at your service)—you had better not send me any works of real merit; for I am infallibly prepared to show that there is not any merit in them. I have not been one of the great unread for forty-three years, without turning my misfortunes to some account. Sir, I know how to make use of my adversity. I have been accused, and rightfully too, of swindling, forgery, and slander. I have been many times kicked down stairs. I am totally deficient in personal courage; but, though ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... dubious dodge and curious device To send their letters yet evade the most preposterous price; Still to despatch to London Town a business "line or two" Would cost a Connemara peasant half his weekly "screw;" Still mothers, longing much for news, must let their letter lie Unread at country post-offices, the postage being too high For their lean purses, unprepared. And Trade was hampered then, And Love was checked, and barriers raised—by cost—'twixt men and men. Then up and spake brave ROWLAND HILL in accents clear and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... I am certain," he continued in the same calm, slow voice, "there is within this envelope some lie, some plot. I will not even know what it is. I will not ask you a single question, and I will throw these letters, unread, into the fire; but swear to me, that, whatever this Menko, or any other, may write to me, whatever any one may say, is an infamy and a calumny. Swear ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... of good things and put in the brown man's cupboard, and Mr. Gillet laid his unread English papers on ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... that no educated man or woman, lay or professional, interested in sexual ethics, in our marriage system, in free motherhood, in trial marriages, in the question of sexual abstinence, etc., etc., can afford to leave unread. Nobody who discusses, writes or lectures on any phases of the sex question, has a right to overlook this remarkable volume. Written with a wonderfully keen analysis of the conditions which are bringing about a sexual ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... I was on the porch sitting with Richard Hall's letter in my hand, still unread, Nell herself came down the front walk and sat down ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... He went wandering around it and suddenly caught sight of Queenie Crood. She was sitting on a rustic bench in an angle of the walls, a book in her hand; it needed little of Brent's perception to convince him that the book was unread: ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... living things, or, as some of his critics unkindly put it, "that God hid the fossils in the rocks in order to tempt geologists into infidelity." Gosse had the real answer under his eyes which Fallopius had not, for the riddle was unread in the latter's days. Yet Gosse's really unpardonable mistake was attributed to himself alone, and "Plymouth Brethrenism," which was the sect to which he belonged, was not saddled with it, nor have the Brethren been called obscurantists because ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... though the muse her Homer thrones High above all the immortal quire; Nor Pindar's raptures she disowns, Nor hides the plaintive Caean lyre; Alcaeus strikes the tyrant soul with dread, Nor yet is grave Stesichorus unread. FRANCIS. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... that enclosed may contain some allusion to the rubbish, a perusal of which might check the wholesome convalescence of your thoughts. If you take my advice, you will throw the packet into the fire unread. At least, if you do examine it, postpone the duty till you feel yourself absolutely impervious to any mental trickery, and—bear in mind that you are a worthy member of a particularly ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... formed the sole exception to a very unusual and singular system that Bonaparte had adopted during a part of his campaign in Italy. This was to leave a11 written communications, excepting such as came to him by special couriers, unread for three weeks. He threw them all into a large basket, and opened them only on the twenty-first day thereafter. Still, General Bonaparte was more considerate than Cardinal Dubois, who immediately consigned all the communications he received to the flames, unread, ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... families of ten or twelve sons and daughters might keep under the sixpences and shillings of the circulating library; but they soon became jealous of new books, although they often returned them uncut and unread; and so far from knitting the bonds of acquaintance, we at last thought our plan served to estrange the members, by affording the little aristocracy frequent opportunities for venting their splenetic pride; the books were like disjunctive conjunctions, and when we left the place, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... victims signified, Of its appearances which pleased the gods, How shaped, how streaked each part behoved to be, And the burnt offerings on the altar laid, Thighs wrapped in fat and chine. I read the signs Of sacrificial flames unread before. More yet I did; the wealth that lurks for man In earth's dark womb,—gold, silver, iron, brass,— Who was it brought all this to light but I? All others lie who would the honour claim. In one short sentence a long tale is told Alone ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... was sitting out under the blossoming trees on the old Worden seat, her book lying, unread, in her lap, and her eyes having a dreamy, far-away look in them, when, from the balcony overhead, sounded a ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... adventures, having been found, we shall never know where, by a gentleman in the days of Queen Elizabeth, having lain on his bookshelves unknown and unread for a hundred years and more, having been nearly destroyed by fire, having been still further destroyed by neglect, Beowulf at last came to its own, and is now carefully treasured in a glass case in the British Museum, where any one who cared about it may ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... an entirely reliable house and contain an excellent business proposition on good, substantial paper. For this reason, the letter that departs from the usual standards must assume unnecessary risks of being thrown away unread. ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... one which had been opened and read; but as he unfolded it, there appeared another—unopened, unread; its dainty seal unbroken, and on the back in fair tracery, the words, "Miss Faith Derrick." As Faith read them and saw the hand, her eye glanced first up at Mr. Linden with its mute burden of surprise, and then the roses bloomed out over ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... read my newspaper or some clipping from it. In truth I read little else in those days. Editorials of the daily press interested me as much as the most sensational news, and if some of the more important leading articles in my paper had to be left unread on the day of their publication I would clip them and glance them over at the next ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan |
