"Absorbed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He was intent, absorbed. As they watched, they saw his hands close convulsively on the sheet he was holding, while his lips muttered some words that made the detective ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... still thus absorbed I heard a sudden shout, the trampling of cavalry, and the sound of trumpets. I again raised my eyes. A strong body of French troopers, covered with the dust of the high-road, and evidently exhausted by a long journey, were passing along ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... So absorbed was the captain with this extraordinary scene, that he remained an hour on the staging, watching the course of events. The breakfasts were soon over, having been later than common, and a little hurried; then commenced the more important occupations of the day. A field was already half ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... long noses, the larger freckled one surmounted by a pince-nez, the other slightly pink, as if it had absorbed the tint of the blotting-paper over which it was so continually poised, ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... a grocer for the rest of his life?—This question, which at first scarcely occurred to him, absorbed as he was in the problem of money-earning for immediate needs, at length began to press and worry. Of course he had meant nothing of the kind; his imagination had seen in the shop a temporary expedient; he had not troubled to pursue the ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... and do not forget their own; but Villeroi believes that his master's business is his own, and he bestows thereon the same zeal that another does in pushing his own suit or laboring at his own vine." Though short and frigidly written, the Memoires of Villeroi give, in fact, the idea of a man absorbed in his commission and regarding it as his own business as well as that of his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... that the sense of mystery accompanies the shift of an absorbed attention to some object which brings the mind back to the present. "There are times when the cawing of a crow, a weed, a snowflake, a boy's willow whistle, or a farmer planting in his field is more suggestive to the mind than the Yosemite gorge ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... was very fond of young Musgrave. It was quoted of her, when she was a fat little trot of seven years old and he a big boy of twelve, that she had cried herself to sleep because he had refused her a kiss, being absorbed in some chemical experiment that smelt abominably when her mother called her to bed. The denial was singularly unkind, and even ungrateful that evening, because Bessie had not screamed when he electrified ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Carwitchet in the corridor. She was dressed for dinner, and at her throat I caught the blue gleam of the great sapphire. Leta had kept faith with me. I don't know what I stammered in reply to her ladyship's remarks; my whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of the intoxicating loveliness of the gem. That a Palais Royal deception! Incredible! My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce with the lust of possession. She must have seen the covetous glare in my eyes. A look of gratified spiteful ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... against the panes and pile up on the window-sills; even the master watched it, and rubbed his hands; and all were glad, when they thought of making snowballs, and of the ice which will come later, and of the hearth at home. Stardi, entirely absorbed in his lessons, and with his fists pressed to his temples, was the only one who paid no attention to it. What beauty, what a celebration there was when we left school! All danced down the streets, shouting and tossing their arms, catching up handfuls of snow, and dashing about in ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... moonlight failed him. Another cause was, that, in the act of searching for some books for his boys, in an old garret of the house, which was at once lumber room and library, he came upon some stray volumes of the Waverley novels, with which he was as yet only partially acquainted. These absorbed many of his spare hours. But one evening, while reading the Heart of Midlothian, the thought struck him—what a character David would have been for Sir Walter. Whether he was right or not is a question; but the notion ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... back through the years for the cause of this disaster that has brought me to the point where a woman's reason is overthrown, I see that I was always selfish, absorbed in my own problems and vanities, my own disappointments, grievances, emotions. It was what I could get out of life, not what I could give, that concerned me. I was vain of my good looks. ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... be demoralized by that drunkenness of which the prophets speak, as one of the crying sins of that age. He may have feared, too, lest their settling down as landholders or townsmen would cause them to be absorbed and lost among the nation of the Israelites, and probably involved in their ruin. Be that as it may, he laid his command upon his tribe, ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to work, absorbed, each of them in the sadness of his own thought, till suddenly a shadow seemed to strike between them and the red light of the western sky. They looked up, and before them, as it were ascending out of the very glow of sunset, they saw a woman on a white palfrey approaching ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... open courts Jesus moved over toward the colonnaded treasury of the temple, and there He sat, seemingly absorbed in a revery of sorrow. Within that space were thirteen chests, each provided with a trumpet-shaped receptacle; and into these the people dropped their contributions for the several purposes indicated by inscriptions on the boxes. Looking up, Jesus observed ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... by the action of molten iron. Various considerations, however, tend to show that there cannot be so much advantage in employing it as would appear at first sight. As it is easier to reduce than any other compound, so it is more difficult to produce. Therefore while less energy is absorbed in its final reduction, more is needed in its initial preparation, and it is questionable whether the economy possible in the second stage would not be neutralized by the greater cost of the first stage in the whole operation of winning the metal from bauxite ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the records of the time state. They came to the Red River in 1821, and Garry entered particularly into the arrangement of the Forts at the Forks. The old Fort Douglas was retained as Colony Fort, and the small Hudson's Bay Company trading house as well as Fort Gibraltar were absorbed into the new fort which was erected on the banks of the Assiniboine between Main Street and the bank of the Red River. All the letters and documents of the time speak of Governor Garry's visits as carrying a gleam of ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... intense hush, as if in truth the Spirit had moved him to speak, and every sentence was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath Mitchenor looked at him, over the low partition which divided her and her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt earnestness and truth. She forgot that other hearers were present: he spake to her alone. A strange spell seemed to seize upon her faculties and chain them at his feet; had he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Rhoda already in the lower hall, and knew by their flushed faces that last night's news was still the fascinating topic of conversation. All joined in, and were soon so absorbed that Laura's voice ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... have read of mother's love. I can feel what it should be; I can guess what wonders it may work in the wayward spirit of man; for I longed and yearned for it, but it never came. My elder sister died when a child of two years. My father was then in the zenith of his prosperity, and was absorbed in his affairs; yet this loss—this heavy blow—came upon him like a thunderstroke. Many things occupied his time, but this alone his mind. Deep sighs would escape him in the active prosecution of his business, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... not her mother, who had never written her so much as a line, nor sent her a message, since they had parted on the day of the catastrophe; certainly not her brother; probably not even her sister, whose whole being was absorbed in the tyrannical government of what she called her soul. Sabina, in her thoughts, irreverently compared Clementina's soul to a race-horse, and her sister to a jockey, riding it cruelly with whip and spur to the goal of salvation, whether it ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... The words startled Bruce—shocked him. He never had thought of his father as old, or lonely, but always as tireless, self-centred, self-sufficient, absorbed heart and soul in getting rich. He seemed suddenly to see the bent shoulders, the graying hair and eyebrows, the furrows and deep, drooping lines about the mouth that had not been engraved by happiness. There was something forlorn, pathetic about him ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... bridal pair there? [The couple, absorbed in each other, do not answer.] Oh, I suppose we must not bother you. [He sets ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... is called an affinity between quicksilver and gold. The moment gold touches quicksilver it is absorbed by it, just as a drop of water is taken up by a lump of salt. It thickens the quicksilver, and as it is squeezed through the leather the quicksilver is as it were strained out, and what remains behind becomes thicker and thicker, until, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... had the air of having forgotten their presence altogether. Aided by a microscope, with a grave absorbed face, he studied and compared a series of prints spread before him. So quiet was it all, that the crackle and purr of the coal fire in the old-fashioned grate made itself quite audible, and the leisurely tick of the clock in the hall ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... doubt of it, my good woman"—he was still absorbed in the contemplation of her perfect health and the air of breezy competency flowing out from her, making even the morning air seem more exhilarating—"but you may not want to go for my ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... certain proportion of their produce, a proportion which varied, according to the estimated richness of the soil, from a tenth to one-half. The effect was to discourage all improved cultivation, since it was quite possible that the whole profit of any increased outlay might be absorbed by the State, and also to cramp and check the liberty of the cultivators in various ways, since the produce could not be touched until the revenue official made his appearance and carried off the share of the crop which he had a right to take. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... bit strong," quoth he, "but for the concocting, or, as you might say, com-posing o' verses there's nothing like a drop o' rum, absorbed moderate, to hearten the muse now and then—here's ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... chopped plants, and covering them with dirt. Destruction by poisoning is accomplished by inoculating the thick leaves with arsenic or bluestone, which is sprayed upon them after the plants have been hacked so that the poison may be absorbed by the sap, which distributes ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... Each belongs to the other. Each is all the world to the other—a treasure without price. He is ever after in her as her own being. And she is in him as his own being. Apart from each other they are never again themselves. They are absorbed in mutual joy in ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... a corner, and stayed there till the end. At times he thought of nothing but the magnificent spectacle of the ballet in the great Inferno scene in the fifth act; sometimes the sight of the house absorbed him, sometimes his own thoughts; he had seen society in Paris, and the sight had stirred him ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... moment's deliberation, he turned to the window beside the desk, and asked for a money-order blank. Some one came in while he was filling it out, but he was so absorbed in his occupation that he did not look up until he turned to push the slip and the money through the window bars toward the clerk. Then he saw that it was Ralph Bently who stood behind him, flipping ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... When the children are interested in the whimsical rhymes of Stevenson, his biography should be read; and Eugene Field's life is interesting when his sweet poems are lending their charm to the evening by the fireside. Some of the fables contain deep lessons that may be absorbed by the older children while the younger ones are interested in the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... ills, and have made social reform the chief concern of all politicians, the idea of a social democracy steadily recedes from the political vision, and the conscious movement to Socialism falters. Socialist workmen in Parliament or on city councils soon find themselves absorbed in the practical work of legislation or administration, and learn that there is neither leisure nor outlet for revolutionary propaganda. The engrossing character of public work destroys the old inclination to break up the existing order, ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... whether the water is vaporized from the lungs or skin of the subject or the clothing, bedding, or walls of the chamber; since for every gram of water vaporized inside of the chamber, from whatever source, 0.586 calorie of heat must have been absorbed. ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict
... considering of the matter. Her thoughts were with Harold, who was leaning back in his chair, absorbed in one of those fits of musing, which with him were not unfrequent, and which no one ever regarded, save herself. How deeply solemn it was to her at such times to feel that she alone held the key of his soul—that it lay open, with all its secrets, to her, and to her alone. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... revery, much absorbed in his own thoughts, he gradually became aware of mysterious changes taking place, as if by stealth, about him. A decorated ceiling appeared to be closing over the hall. Mirrors and tinted walls slowly ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... impossible to find the hostess at once, so that in many fine houses in New York the custom of announcing the name has become a necessary fashion. It is impossible to attempt to be polite without cultivating a good memory. The absent or self-absorbed person who forgets names and faces, who recalls unlucky topics, confuses relationships, speaks of the dead as if they were living, or talks about an unlucky adventure in the family, who plunges into personalities, who metaphorically treads on a person's toes, will never succeed in society. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Brabant, the whole of Dutch Flanders, and an indemnity of ten millions. This was proffering more than Henry IV, Richelieu, or Mazarin had ever hoped for. These terms were refused, and the refusal carried with it practically the rejection of Belgium, which could not fail to be soon absorbed when thus surrounded by French possessions. But Louis met these offers with the spirit of an Attila. He insisted on the concession of Southern Gueldres and the island of Bommel, twenty-four millions of indemnity, the endowment of the Catholic religion, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Alyosha," he peeped inquisitively into his eyes, absorbed in a sudden new thought which had dawned on him, and though he was laughing outwardly he was evidently afraid to utter that new idea aloud, so difficult he still found it to believe in the strange and unexpected mood ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... advanced beyond hypothesis. It is exceedingly probable that such a man lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and that the exploits of other less prominent popular heroes were connected with his name and absorbed in his reputation. The noble descent which has often been ascribed to him is in all likelihood the result of the mediaeval idea, that the great virtues existed only in persons of gentle birth. This very prevalent opinion is often ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... Frank remembered how all wanted to put aside the cards and watch the sport except himself. At another time he would have taken great interest in it, and have been on hand to cheer as enthusiastically as any body when the well-aimed shots struck the water; but his mind was completely absorbed in winning money. There was no such noble diversion on deck to-day; and it was only too easy to set? his real reason for getting ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... subscription list had passed away and was forgotten, and that same man and that same multitude stood in altered relations— they were again a reverent flock, and he once more a solemn pastor; the natural play of his nation's mirthful sarcasm was absorbed in a moment in the sacredness of his office; and with a solemnity befitting the highest occasion, he placed his hands together before his breast, and raising his eyes to Heaven he poured forth his sweet voice, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... in favor of protecting the coal and other natural resources in Alaska, yet they are still in grave danger of being absorbed by the special interests. And as for the general conservation movement, Congress not only refused to help it on, but tried to forbid any progress without its help. Fortunately for us all, in this attempt ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... to be absorbed in the captions of the papers in his hand, for he was offended at being kept waiting so long: "As if a bite of victuals was of more ado than business that could bring Matthew Moser all ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... theatre where "Splendour" was playing. Sid Hahn always said that after the big third-act scene he liked to watch the audience swim up the aisle. Josie, hidden in the back-stage shadows, used to watch, fascinated, breathless. Then, one night, she indiscreetly was led, by her, absorbed interest, to venture too far into the wings. It was during the scene where Haddon, hearing a broken-down street singer cracking the golden notes of "Aida" into a thousand mutilated fragments, throws open her ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... several cast-off dresses of Jemima's and Jacqueline's, her pleasure in them was a rather piteous thing to see. As her strength rapidly returned, under the influence of care and good feeding, she became absorbed in the task of altering these treasures to fit herself. For this she showed such aptitude and taste that Jemima spoke ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... dozen men were fighting with revolvers; from without, down the open skylight, came the sing-song talk of the Chinamen and the wash and ripple of the two vessels, now side by side. The air, foul beyond expression, tasted of brass, their heads swam and ached to bursting, but absorbed in their work they had no thought of the lapse of time nor the discomfort of their surroundings. Twice during the examination of the bark's papers, Kitchell sent Wilbur out into the cabin for the whiskey decanter in the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... often trivial, and the passage-writing commonplace. The silkworm produces its smooth, regular ball of silk without effort, and in like manner Mozart could turn out Allegros, Rondos, sets of variations a discretion. The Sonata in C minor, to our thinking, is the only one in which he was entirely absorbed in his art; the only one in which the ideal is never marred by the real. The last movement is no mere Rondo, but one which stands in close relationship to the opening Allegro; they both have the same tragic spirit; both seem the outpouring ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... safely lodged in His arms. She looked forward to a speedy reunion with these beloved ones; and marked the progress of her disease as the prisoner watches the process by which his chains are riven. A few words or love and faith she now and then whispered to Vannozza; at other times she remained absorbed in divine contemplation. Overshadowed by an angel's wing, calm in the midst of severe suffering, she performed her habitual devotions in as far as her strength permitted, and only gave up painful penances by the express order of her director. She who had healed so many sick persons ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... she was about to pass him, by the sound of what was none the less like the Bible from the solemn crooning way in which Donal read it to the congregation of his listening thoughts, yet was certainly not the Bible, she was presently fascinated by the vague terror of what she heard, and stood absorbed: without much originative power, she had an imagination prompt and delicate and ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... answer. It is but a lying cant that would represent the merchant and the banker as people disinterestedly toiling for mankind, and then most useful when they are most absorbed in their transactions; for the man is more important than his services. And when my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an enthusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt whether he will be near so nice ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enjoy. In youth, we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... of the Passion Play has ever been real to me in another than a Catholic sense. It has been the perpetual re-incarnation of the divine story in the history of our own times that has absorbed my attention. These ancient figures on the stage of New Testament history were but of importance in so far as they lived again in our own life. Of their mystical theological significance I am, of course, not speaking. This is a thing apart. But the ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... district attorney noticed with satisfaction that they were very few. She was gowned in pure white, and her hair rippled back from her broad forehead, and with head proudly erect and with easy, natural pose, she faced the jury, which gave her instant and absorbed attention. She spoke slowly, deliberately, and her soft, musical voice was heard distinctly in every corner of ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... he replied, "are sorry for the world, but they know they cannot help it." His religion, I urged, denied all sense to the process of history. "There may be process in matter," he replied, "but there is none in God." I protested that I loved individual souls, and did not want them absorbed in Parabrahma. He laughed his good cheery laugh, out of his black beard, but it was clear that he held me to be a child, imprisoned in the Ego. I felt like that, and I hugged my Ego; so presently he ministered to it with sweetmeats. He even ate with us, and smoked a ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Isabey, the French portraitist, was as much run after as was Sir William Orpen in 1919. In some respects, however, there was a difference. "Isabey," said the Prince de Ligne, "is the Congress become painter. Come! His talk is as clever as his brush." But Sir William Orpen was so absorbed by his work that he never uttered a word during a sitting. The contemporaries of the Paris Conference were luckier than their forebears of the Vienna Congress—for they could behold the lifelike features of their benefactors in ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... an absorbed look, handed me my hat. I understood from her that the poor woman was possessed by the sombre and simple idea that her son must have perished because he did not want to be saved. It could not have been that he despaired of his country's future. That ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... know what the New Testament said upon this subject, and I immediately undertook a second perusal of it; in the same state of mind as before, that is to say, absorbed by one sole object, and having nothing in view but to find out whether St. Peter had really been set over all the other apostles, and placed at Rome as head of all ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous
... common was abundant and effective through long practice—a sort of licensed tavern-king, whose mere entrance into a room set the table in a roar. Shakespeare was attracted by the many-sided racy ruffian, delighted perhaps most by his easy mastery of life and men; he studied him with infinite zest, absorbed him wholly, and afterwards reproduced him with such richness of sympathy, such magic of enlarging invention that he has become, so to speak, the symbol of laughter throughout the world, for men of all ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... associations and the left going up the Canal; he had seen it in a particular light, to which, more and more, his mind and his hands adjusted it; but the interest the place now wore for him had risen at a bound, becoming a force that, on the spot, completely engaged and absorbed him, and relief from which—if relief was the name—he could find only by getting away and out of reach. What had come to pass within his walls lingered there as an obsession importunate to all his senses; it lived again, as a cluster of pleasant memories, at every hour and in every object; ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... prayer of rejoicing and possessing, devoid of all busy imaginations and forced reflections; it was a prayer of the will, and not of the head. The taste of God was so great, so pure, unblended and uninterrupted, that it drew and absorbed the power of my soul into a profound recollection without act or discourse. I had now no sight but of Jesus Christ alone. All else was excluded, in order to love with the greater extent, without any selfish motives ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... this kind of information in the Nights. But the latter could not see with his friend. He insisted on the enormous anthropological and historical importance of these notes—and that the world would be the loser were he to withold them; in fact, his whole mind was absorbed in the subject. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... to find Polly. Polly was feeling intensely happy, playing with and fondling her sweet little baby sister, when Flower, pale and excited, rushed into the room. Nurse, who had not yet forgiven Flower, turned her back upon the young lady, and hummed audibly. Flower, however, was far too much absorbed to ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... were as ill and coarsely done as possible. Nevertheless, with him it had not the disadvantage of comparison. He thought it a mine of science yet unexplored, and he suffered his whole soul to be absorbed by it. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... exile. He dragged into his music and the discussion of it, art, politics, literature, philosophy, and religion. It is a well-known fact that this humbugging comedian had written the Ring of the Nibelungs before he absorbed the Schopenhauerian doctrines, and then altered the entire scheme so as ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... was giving herself up wholly to the pleasure of the dance. Stephen saw, as her face turned towards him, that her eyes were half closed, and a little smile of deep satisfaction rested on her lips. The young fellow's face showed he was equally absorbed and lost to his surroundings, and there was something in its expression, coupled with the peculiar ease and sway of the two blent forms, which raised a savage and jealous anger in Stephen's breast. To an absolutely unprejudiced eye, and one that saw only the extreme grace ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... each of us, and only at the first, absorbed in details of all sorts, in trifles, in ourselves, we are not aware of her harsh hand. While one can be deceived and has no shame in lying, one can live and there is no shame in hoping. Truth, not the full truth, of that, indeed, we cannot speak, but even that little we can ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... I had left the tobacco factory to go into the General's office, and my days were spent now, absorbed and alert, beside the chair in which he sat, coolly playing his big game of chess, and controlling a railroad. He was in his day the strongest financier in the South, and he taught me my lesson. Tireless, sleepless, throbbing with a fever that was like the fever ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... reply; indeed, our attention was absorbed by the mournful procession passing through the square. My eyes were fixed ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... newly founded professorship of Slavic literature at the College de France. His lectures as holder of this chair are the only literary work of great importance that he produced during this last period of his life. Soon after the completion of Pan Tadeusz he had become absorbed by a religious mysticism that caused him to turn entirely aside from poetry. In 1841 he fell under the influence of Andrzej Towianski, a teacher who announced himself as the prophet of a new religion. ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... We have played all the afternoon, grown hungry. No meal has been prepared, where have you been? Toward sun's decline we see you down the path, And run to meet you, and perhaps you smile, Or take us in your arms. Perhaps again You look at us, say nothing, are absorbed, Or chide us for our dirty frocks or faces. Of running wild without our meals You do ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... to find his great friend, as he called Napoleon, when the latter was absorbed in the solution of a mathematical problem. He knew the importance the future artillery officer attached to this science, which so far had won him his greatest, or rather his ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Yet they associated with little friction, herding uniformly kind with kind, only rarely lending themselves to transient ructions. They played little jokes on each other; a fat and serious captive was sitting of an evening at his cell door, absorbed in the perusal of a wide-spread newspaper; a gnome-like passerby in the corridor lit an unsuspected match, and suddenly the newspaper ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... education he had come to seek that he might go back to his own world and better it, was not a garment one put on and exercised in so many times a day; it was not a cup from which one drank, nor an atmosphere that one absorbed. It was a strange, imperceptible thing got at in some mysterious way by a series of vague struggles followed by sudden and almost alarming perceptions. For a time it seemed to the boy, keen though his mind, and quick, that knowledge was a thing only granted to the few, and his was a mind ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... make such strange extremes! From different natures marvellously mixed, Connection exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguished link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! A beam ethereal, sullied and absorbed! Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! A frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! insect infinite! A worm! A god!—I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost. At home a stranger, Thought wanders up and down, surprised, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Displaying a genius for organization worthy of Rome, Loyola and his followers absorbed the best educational ideas of the time as to school organization and management and curriculum, and incorporated these into their educational plan. Too practical to make many changes, but with a keen eye for what was best, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... due to the genius of Sir William Siemens. His first attempt was a calorimetric pyrometer, in which a mass of copper at the temperature required to be known is thrown into the water of a calorimeter, and the heat it has absorbed thus determined. This method, however, is not very reliable, and was superseded by his well-known electric pyrometer. This rests on the principle that the electric resistance of metal conductors increases with the temperature. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... writings are imbued with learning; and all breathe that philanthropy and amiable disposition, which distinguished him as a man. [Footnote: This gentleman, though devoted to the study of grammar and dialecticks, was not so absorbed in it as to be without a sense of pleasantry, or to be offended at his favourite topicks being treated lightly. I one day met him in the street, as I was hastening to the House of Lords, and told him, I was sorry I could ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... the young female. The pulsations at this time, were nearly equal over the whole surface of the tumour; but rather more distinct over the orifice in the vessel. The surrounding blood was entirely absorbed. No pain was experienced, unless from the pressure of the swelling; from which cause also, resulted a troublesome and continued headach. Dr. SOUCHIER, not believing an operation adviseable, during the warm season of the year, and on a tumour, situated so much under the sternum, determined ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... she said, rising suddenly. "It's no claim at all, of course. I know that very well. Harry left me at Stockholm four years ago;" and suddenly Joan's face flushed scarlet. She had been absorbed in Stella's sorrows, she had admired that kind action of Harry Luttrell's which had brought so much trouble in its train. It needed that reminder that Harry had only left Stella Croyle at Stockholm to bring home the whole part which Harry had taken ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... sword?' but a' left him alane for this time." And so they started—John in front with the books, and the Doctor a pace behind, his box now in the left hand, with a handkerchief added, and the other holding up his gown, both dignitaries bare-headed, unself-conscious, absorbed in ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... not likely to bungle His plans and be driven to reconstruct them now and then, either by miraculous intervention, or by thrusting a brake between the cogs of the revolving wheels of everlasting law. If the baby boy absorbed the contents of his bottle too fast for his good, he had a wholly consequent stomach ache. If Reed Opdyke tried conclusions with black powder and with lumps of loosened rock, he was laid on his back, with uncompromising promptness. In neither case ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... old man sat musing, what it could be that imparted such a radiance to his ingenuous and winning face. They could not tell how a true affection may hallow the whole of life, investing it with a secret and mysterious charm. They were absorbed in other interests: some had their merchandise out upon the treacherous waters, and their souls were in their ships; and some had their traffic in a foreign land, and their hearts went after it; and some were only pursuing a passing pleasure, with no definite object ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... painters still mislaid their brushes every five minutes, and chiefly whistled in the intervals; and the carpenters (especially the Pantechnicon) continued to look sideways with one eye down pieces of wood, as if they were absorbed in the contemplation of the perspective of the Thames Tunnel, and had entirely relinquished the vanities of this transitory world; but still there was an improvement, and it is confirmed to-day. White lime is to be seen in kitchens, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... the key, but she let the opportunity slip by. Then the doctor gathered up his letters and papers and went to his study without a word or a look in her direction. In fact, he was quite unconscious of her presence for the time being; he was thinking deeply over a scientific problem which absorbed his ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... the General was absorbed in his correspondence. The boot-black drew a tin putty blower from his pocket, took unerring aim, and nailed in a single shot the minute hand to the dial. Going on with his blacking, yet stopping ever and anon to glance over the General's ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... over the warm pampas of the Plate before reaching us, the effect of which soon became apparent in the melting of the snow on the ground as rapidly as when a thaw takes place at home. Properly speaking, however, the snow rather may be said to have dried up than melted, for it was absorbed by the air, which was ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... straight to Arthur's room, knocked, and hardly waiting for an answer walked in. Arthur, who was absorbed in a book, looked up surprised ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... evening came on, and the market-place veiled itself in gloom. Then the people dispersed, for even curiosity and terror become fatigued. Zarathustra, however, still sat beside the dead man on the ground, absorbed in thought: so he forgot the time. But at last it became night, and a cold wind blew upon the lonely one. Then arose Zarathustra and said ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... this extraordinary man's allegations was, that "fat is an oily dropsy." To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. "Pass your hand down my side," said his Lordship to the writer; "can you count my ribs?" "Every one of them." "I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady -; 'Ah, Lord Byron,' said she, 'how ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... as though a rifle ball had struck me. Turning, I saw Ham Fishley standing at the head of the stairs, and I wondered how he had been able to come up the steps without my hearing him. I had been intensely absorbed in the contemplation of the bills, and was lost to everything around me. If I had heard any noise, I supposed it was Darky. I saw that Ham had taken off his boots, and put on a pair of old rubbers, which explained why I had not heard his step ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... rather piebald pageant with absorbed interest. The infantry marched wretchedly. The arms were as varied as the uniforms, and the artillery seemed a relic of Jackson's time. But the cavalry was superb. Never had he seen such splendid ranks, such noble horses. At sight of the tall, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... conversation; and after moving out and shifting the picket-pegs so as to give the horses a fresh range of grass to munch during the night, he returned to the fire, wrapped himself in his blankets and lay down, his "Good-night, Jerry," meeting with no response, his companion being evidently absorbed in his ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... ship's probable course clear to Hong Kong, for my benefit, and explained to me the problems of the passage. He did not speak like a man merely guessing, but with authority, like a man who had sailed his own ship over this course. I absorbed the information greedily, but did not venture to inquire how he was so positive about Yankee Swope's sailing plans. Somehow, I ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... these years another matter had been gradually forcing its way to the front, which, though at first it attracted but comparatively slight notice, when it came to a head, absorbed for several years the whole attention, not only of these kingdoms, but of foreign countries also. It was originally—in appearance, at least—merely a dispute between Great Britain and her Colonies in North America on the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... clause of his argument was not exactly in line with the impression he wished to produce; in fact, it was only a weak repetition of what he had begun the argument with, but somehow, like Elizabeth, that was the main fact in the case which absorbed his attention. He was dissatisfied with it, but could think of no way to state it better; so to turn the subject to something foreign to the hated topic, he remarked on a hayfield ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... should do it. I trembled with mingled exultation and anxiety, and was obliged to pause to recover my self-control. Finally, I placed my eye to the eye-piece, and directed my gaze upon the portion of the planet in which I was especially interested. My attention soon became fixed and absorbed much beyond my wont, when observing, and that itself implied no ordinary degree of abstraction. To all mental intents and purposes I was on Mars. Every faculty, every susceptibility of sense and intellect, seemed gradually to pass into the eye, and become concentrated in the act of gazing. ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... "Statesmen" and "Statecraft" and "Statutes" and the affairs of State in general (it was from the Encyclopedia Appendica—a presentation copy—that he got most of his information upon practical things); and in these articles he became so absorbed that he quite forgot how time flew, until his chief secretary came formally to announce to him that the hour for ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... exercise of sovereign rights belonging alike to all nations, and by many liberally exercised. Under such circumstances it could hardly have been expected that those among them which have within a comparatively recent period subdued and absorbed ancient kingdoms, planted their standards on every continent, and now possess or claim the control of the islands of every ocean as their appropriate domain would look with unfriendly sentiments upon the acquisitions of this country, in every ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... their accustomed corner by his chair. Up and down he searched, while the three servants took up the quest, stooping and peeping under book-cases and drawers. Ida had returned to her studies, and Clara to her blue-covered volume, sitting absorbed and disinterested amid the bustle and the racket. At last a general buzz of congratulation announced that the cook had discovered the boots hung up among the hats in the hall. The Doctor, very red and flustered, drew them on, and stamped off to join the Admiral ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lies a desolate, hideous Place of Skulls.—Nevertheless, Nature is at work; neither shall these Powder-Devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay her: but all that gore and carnage will be shrouded in, absorbed into manure; and next year the Marchfeld will be green, nay greener. Thrifty unwearied Nature, ever out of our great waste educing some little profit of thy own,—how dost thou, from the very carcass of the Killer, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... because of the sandy nature of the soil, and difficult to succour because of its distance from Malta. But Charles V. was at once reluctant to let go his grip of any parts of the African coast, and too much absorbed by his own troubles to be able to render much help, however much he might have desired to do so. It was obvious that the first determined attack of the Turks would mean the fall of Tripoli. In 1551, after putting in an appearance off ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... cent, at least," Dick heard Warner murmur, but he paid no more attention to his comrades because all his interest was absorbed in the thrilling spectacle that was about to ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tie between father and daughter grew very strong and tender indeed. Ellinor, it is true, divided her affection between her baby sister and her papa; but he, caring little for babies, had only a theoretic regard for his younger child, while the elder absorbed all his love. Every day that he dined at home Ellinor was placed opposite to him while he ate his late dinner; she sat where her mother had done during the meal, although she had dined and even supped some time before on the more primitive nursery fare. ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Ryder stirred. He liked birds but he wanted to be getting on to that fortieth door and this was slow progress. Not a sign of impatience marred the bright, absorbed content of the other listeners, intent now upon the wonders behind that the fourth chamber revealed, stores of "pearls and jacinths and beryls, and emeralds and corals and carbuncles and all manner of precious ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... had some subtle, and to the nineteenth century mind, inscrutable charm. Poets studied him and Anne Bradstreet did more than study; she absorbed them, till such originality as had been her portion perished under the weight. In later years she disclaimed the charge of having copied from him, but the infection was too thorough not to remain, and the assimilation had been so perfect that imitation was unconscious. There was everything in the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... that Turkey passed from being a nomadic tribe moving westwards from the confines of Persia, it has existed only and thrived on a process of absorption and of murder. When first the Turks came out of their Eastern fastnesses they absorbed; when they grew more or less settled, and by degrees the power of mere absorption, as by some failure of digestion, left them, they killed. They became a huge tumour, that nourished itself by killing ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... to witness the first stage of the second period. Lambert was cast into all the miseries of school-life—and that, perhaps, was his salvation—it absorbed the superabundance of his thoughts. After passing from concrete ideas to their purest expression, from words to their ideal import, and from that import to principles, after reducing everything to the abstract, to enable him to live he yearned for yet ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... to remember that if a room is decorated in dark colors the light will be more readily absorbed than in a light-colored room, and you should select and place your lighting-fixtures accordingly. Bead covers, fringes and silk shades all obscure the light and re-absorb it, and so require a great force of light to ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... surroundings, unused to such complete darkness, the sombre aspect of the scene filled her with nervous apprehension: every bit of jutting rock she stumbled against was a yawning precipice, and at each step she took she died some different death. The terrors of her mind entirely absorbed all her former indifference and ill-humor, and she would have gladly welcomed any accident which would have afforded her a decent pretext for breaking this horrible silence. But nothing occurred, and they reached the open piece of green and were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... 'which, in passing through some members of the medical profession, is totally absorbed, and reproduced in the shape ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the birds are, even when absorbed in building their nests! In an open space in the woods I see a pair of cedar-birds collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following the direction in which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the fork of a small soft maple, which stands amid a thick growth of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... to sing hoarsely a song of her own devising, in imitation of Dexter. It was nothing but the repetition, the endless mechanical repetition, of her demand for the story—"Tell us the story. Master! master! tell us the story!" Absorbed over his wine, the Master silently filled his goblet for the second time. Benjamin whispered to me while his eye was off us, "Take my advice, Valeria, for ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... ordinary roll-top desk and curl up and take a nap. If there was a sight that was still more funny, it was to see him turn over on his other side, all the time remaining in the desk. He would use several volumes of Watts's Dictionary of Chemistry for a pillow, and we fellows used to say that he absorbed the contents during his sleep, judging from the flow of new ideas he ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... English prose. As he reads it, no one can avoid being struck by the modernity of its language, an impression not to be obtained from a perusal of the plays. The explanation is simple enough. The plays were not read or absorbed by their author's contemporaries and successors; Euphues was. In the domain of style, Euphues was ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... authors. He was born in 1809 and lived to 1892. He spent his early years in one of the most beautiful parts of Lincolnshire. He enjoyed the personal training of his father, a very accomplished clergyman, and much of his boyhood and youth was spent in the open air. In this way he absorbed that knowledge of birds and animals, trees and flowers and all the aspects of nature which is reflected in his verse. As a youth he experimented in many styles of verse, and when only eighteen he issued, with his brother Charles, Poems by Two Brothers. The ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... animated was the scene around the Capitol, within one of the apartments of the palace sat the agent and prime cause of that excitement. In the company of his quiet scribes, Rienzi appeared absorbed in the patient details of his avocation. While the murmur and the hum, the shout and the tramp, of multitudes, rolled to his chamber, he seemed not to heed them, nor to rouse himself a moment from his task. With the unbroken regularity ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... looking about her, too much absorbed for words. The Iron Cupboard was a recess some ten feet deep and seven or eight wide, lined with shelves. These shelves were literally packed with silver, some in boxes, much in bags, glimmering in the half-light like dwarfish ghosts; but ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... still the opinion of these Free Soil gentlemen, as declared in the "whereas" at Buffalo, that the Whig and Democratic parties were both entirely dissolved and absorbed into their own body. Had the Vermont election given them any light? They had calculated on making as great an impression in that State as in any part of the Union, and there their attempts had been wholly ineffectual. Their failure was a greater success than they would find in any ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... compared with the weight of steel it spins into elastic springs for casing the skirts of two hundred millions of the fair Eugenie's sex and lieges in the two hemispheres. It is estimated that ten thousand tons of steel are annually absorbed into this use in Christendom; and Sheffield, doubtless, furnishes ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... that the opportunity of taking it had occurred while the money was embarked in her uncle's business, and that when it was free the farm and the family had soon absorbed it, for the land was not very good, and there had ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... diet, of sleep; often of climate, many coming from a distance, and, more than all, coming from quiet homes to dwell in such a large family, where there is enough of novelty and excitement to keep them constantly interested—perhaps I should say absorbed—in new directions. It is common for change to produce like results elsewhere, as well as in school life, especially during the early years of womanhood. Again, those thus affected are quite as likely to be the dull or inattentive ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... leisure from these flights Mr. Fargus was intensely absorbed in chess, in the game of Patience, and in the solution of acrostics. Sabre was also fond of chess and attracted by acrostics; and regular evenings of every week were spent by the two in unriddling the problems ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... on, once you were in England," she continued after a while, seeing that Desiree Candeille seemed absorbed ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... And absorbed in these thoughts, Monsieur de Vargnes unfortunately allowed several minutes to elapse, and then he thought ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of the Manor-house, she was startled at seeing her nephew Walter in front of her on foot, covered with mud, and leading his horse, which was limping along with difficulty, being evidently in pain. His companion was walking by his side, also leading his horse, and both were so absorbed with their present trouble that they were quite unconscious of her approach. Something plainly was much amiss. Walter had had a fall, and his horse was injured; of this there could be no doubt. Could she be of any service? She was just going to press forward, when she observed Mr Huntingdon's groom ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... truth to tell, had been looking forward to bitter personal denunciation, looked somewhat relieved, and laughed. However, his manner suggested little of hang-dog consciousness of guilt; it was far too absorbed and business-like for that. He dropped down into a chair by Varney and swabbed the back of his ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... subdivided trees into those that grow in moist places (hydrophytes), those that grow in medium soils (mesophytes), and those that grow in dry places (xerophytes). Water is taken up by the roots of the tree from the soil. The liquid absorbed by the roots carries in solution the mineral salts—the food of the tree—and no food can be taken up unless it is in solution. Much of the water is used by the tree and an enormous amount is given off in the ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... cross-legged on a plank running out into the river. He pours water over his feet every now and again out of a little copper bowl, and mutters something. He is so much absorbed in what he is doing that he never looks up or turns his head. Another, close by, has hung his gaily-coloured turban on a post and proceeds to unwind his garment and cast it from him before he steps into the water with hardly a rag upon him. This lady in an orange scarf, dripping ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... Gabe sat dreaming at his gate. The boy had lain quiet during the weeks of his getting well, absorbed in one aim—to keep hidden until he was strong enough to get to Rome. On the last night the miller had raised one of the old hearth-stones and had given him the hire of many years. At daybreak the lad drifted away. Now old Gabe was ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... the door. And now there came a firm knock. Vere turned round, rather startled. She had been very much absorbed by her colloquy. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... the modern world. If the Gauls had not been broken by the plain, they would perhaps have overwhelmed Italy and Rome; if Hannibal had found there enemies instead of friends, the Oriental would not so nearly have overthrown Europe. It broke the Gothic invasion, Attila never crossed it, it absorbed the worst of the appalling Lombard flood; Italy remains to ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton |
