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Listen in   /lˈɪsən ɪn/   Listen
Listen in

verb
1.
Listen quietly, without contributing to the conversation.
2.
Listen without the speaker's knowledge.  Synonym: eavesdrop.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Listen in" Quotes from Famous Books



... found himself thus treated, Amador drew from his bag a knife, and dexterously extricated himself. Then he began to listen in order to find out the ways of the place, and heard the master of the house laughing with his maid-servant. Suspecting their manoeuvres, he waited till the moment when the lady of the house should be alone in bed, and made his way into her ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... of the walls. Betty liked to slip away into Miss Stone's room—and stand very still, looking about her, hardly breathing. It was like a church—only clearer and sweeter and freer—perhaps it was the woods—with the wind whispering up there. She always held her breath to listen in Miss Stone's room; and when she came back, to her own, child's room—with its canopied bed and royal draperies and colour and charm, she held the stillness and whiteness of Miss Stone's room in her heart—it was like a bird nestling there. Betty ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... see through a mist of tears men as trees walking; it is only in the land which is very far off and yet very near that we shall have fulness of sight and see the King in His beauty; and I cannot think that any listening ears listen in vain. ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

... time they would listen in awed silence to anything Michael said, though the picture was perhaps one too many for most of them. Sam, however, heard with approval, and afterwards went up reverently and laid his finger on the crimson and the purple and the gold ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... strange, sensitive, oriental harp with a dozen strings, of which the musician touches but one. The other strings through sympathetic vibration furnish an undertone almost like an aeolian harmony. You must listen in a still place to catch the mystic accompaniment. So it was in Bedient's mind. Beth Truba played upon the single string, and the others glorified her with their shadings. And the plaint from all humanity was in that undertone, as if ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... Sibwright's chambers—luncheon from Dick's Coffee House—ices and dessert from Partington's in the Strand. Miss Rosey, Mr. Sibwright, our neighbour in Lamb Court, and the Reverend Charles Honeyman sang very delightfully after lunch; there was quite a crowd of porters, laundresses, and boys to listen in the court; Mr. Paley was disgusted with the noise we made—in fact, the party was perfectly successful. We all liked the widow, and if she did set her pretty ribbons at Clive, why should not she? We all liked the pretty, fresh, modest Rosey. Why, even the grave old benchers in the Temple church, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... attained by the use of tuning. It is possible that another station may discover the wave-length being used for a secret message and "listen in," but there are so many possible wave-lengths that this is difficult. Secrecy may also be secured by the use of ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers

... have been done, but I don't believe it is as easy as you think. It seems to me our hope is in Deerfoot's tact. He will not listen in silence to any attack upon his faith, and when the heathen inquire of him he will answer them truly, but he has enough respect for the rank of Taggarak not to offend him when there is no need of ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... beat cold on the shore, And the grey sea in sadness grows old; I listen in vain for Love's pleading once more, While my ship comes with spices and gold. The sea birds cry hoarsely, for this is their songing, On masthead and colours their white wings are thronging, But my soul throbs deep with love and with longing, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... declarations, in answer to arguments, and sometimes earnest entreaties made by his friends to induce him to renew his pledge, Mrs. Marshall would listen in silence, but with a sinking, sickening sensation of mind and body. All and more than she could say, was said to him, but he resisted every appeal—and what good could her weak persuasions and feeble ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... of the year 1836, they had not spoken or exchanged any letters. He never heard her beloved music, except at two concerts, or when at night he would stand outside of her house and listen in secret loneliness. In May he dedicated to her his Sonata in F Sharp Minor. It was, as he expressed it: "One long cry of my heart for you, in which a theme of yours appears in all possible forms." His Opus 6, dated the same ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... long enough to see and feel its virus. I met my old friends in Cincinnati with a glad heart, where I could draw a free breath. I could visit them but two days before I was on my way home, where were many glad hearts to listen in private circles to my experience in a slave State. More than ever they were convinced that the cannon and sword would, at no very distant day, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... then said St. Francis to him, 'you are great and often absorbed by great affairs; poor friars cannot come and talk with you as often as they need to do; you have given me many popes; give me a single one to whom I may address myself when need occurs, and who will listen in your stead, and discuss my affairs and those of the Order.' 'Whom do you wish I should give you, my son?' 'The Bishop of Ostia.' And he gave ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... Nye—sat for years at the right hand of Charles Sumner in the United States Senate, and used to delight in making comments on what transpired in language that was not agreeable to the fastidious Senator from Massachusetts, who would listen in a stately embarrassment which was delightful to Nye to witness, not wishing to show any offense, and yet thoroughly disgusted. Nye wasn't particularly witty in debate, and the speeches of Proctor Knott, McCreery, or Sam Cox were funnier ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... and led him straight into the living-room and her father's presence. Then, though consumed with curiosity, she retired—as far as the door of the dining-room, where she remained, ready to listen in a most reprehensible manner to ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... years ago, but we can do wonders nowadays. There's the little dictagraph. We could string one up for you and give you the usual stenographic report—or you could go and listen in yourself." ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... wet with dew, Cleis, did the muses nine Listen in a silent line While your mother ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale

... creatures of any sort, for since there are no woods there are few hiding places. Neither do we see any birds, and we listen in vain for a song or ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks

... blow thudded against Dalgetty's ribs. He didn't feel it—he had thrown up a nerve bloc—but it rattled his teeth together. And while he was insensitive he'd be unable to listen in on.... ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... different in all other respects, these men, if they once lift their steel beaver and unbuckle their rich armor, are wonderfully like ourselves. Let us read the poetry which they either wrote themselves, or to which they liked to listen in their castles on the Rhine or under their tents in Palestine, and we find it is poetry which a Tennyson or a Moore, a Goethe or Heine, might have written. Neither Julius Caesar nor Themistocles would know what was meant by such poetry. It is modern poetry,—poetry unknown ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... exceptions, harmony and peace; and yet, but for his hasty and impatient temper, Lewie might have been an unparalleled favorite among his schoolmates. In the still summer evenings, when he took his guitar, and sat upon the steps of the portico, the boys would crowd around him, and listen in breathless silence to his sweet music. As long as his own inclinations were not crossed or interfered with, a more agreeable companion could not be found. He had the frank, open manners, which are not seldom ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... as she spoke, and she rose slowly from it, and with a lingering look at it went out, leaving me to stand and stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Presently I heard her coming back along the passage, and she entered bearing a tray with wine and meat and bread. She set it down on the table, and with the same wan face, trembling always on the verge of tears, she began to lay out the things. The glasses ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... Hellas, gods of Hellas, Can ye listen in your silence? Can your mystic voices tell us Where ye hide? In floating islands, With a wind that evermore Keeps you out of sight of shore? Pan, Pan ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... clerk or shopkeeper, his head shaded with an old straw hat rather too large for him, and on his feet—one of which swung as he sat with legs crossed—a pair of still more ancient slippers, also too large. With head aside, and eyes looking upward, he seemed to listen in a mild ecstasy to the notes of his instrument. He had a round face of much simplicity and good-nature, semicircular eyebrows, pursed little mouth with abortive moustache, and short thin beard fringing the chinless ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... period is allowed between two particular portions of the mass, when the priest may address his congregation on any public matter: an approaching pattern, or fair, or the like; in which, exhortations to propriety of conduct, or warnings against faction fights, &c., are his themes. Then they only listen in reverence. But when a subscription for such an object as that already mentioned is under discussion, the flock consider themselves entitled to "put in a word" in ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... darkness they kept watch alternately, one of them lying down to rest while the other peered and listened. Nor did Benita always listen in vain, for twice at least she heard stealthy footsteps creeping about the hut, and felt that soft and dreadful influence flowing in upon her. Then she would wake her father, whispering, "He is there, I can feel ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... and clumsy man, a market-place demagogue, lifted on a honey-barrel by grocers and slave-merchants, with a dense crowd around him, who listen in rapture because his jargon is unintelligible. [94] Demosthenes, you know, was a Liverpool electioneering agent, so he knew all about Canning and his tricks, and his abstraction of L.14,000 sterling from the public treasury to defray ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf. Let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to states and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit. [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... of "the Profession"? Imagine some royal or noble personage telling HENRY IRVING how to play Cardinal Wolsey, or instructing Sir FREDERICK LEIGHTON in painting, or telling J.L. TOOLE how to "get his laughs"! Probably actor and artist would listen in courtier-like silence to the illustrious lecturer, just as SHAKSPEARE makes his players behave when Hamlet is favouring them with his views on the histrionic art. In Mr. GILBERT's skit the leading Player makes a neat retort, and completely shuts up Hamlet,—who, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various

... senate, was in the most painful position. The Catonian section had undertaken to push matters to a rupture and to carry the senate along with them, and now saw their vessel stranded after a most vexatious manner on the sandbanks of the indolent majority. Their leaders had to listen in their conferences to the bitterest reproaches from Pompeius; he pointed out emphatically and with entire justice the dangers of the seeming peace; and, though it depended on himself alone to cut the knot by ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... exclaimed Larry. "It's the first time I've ever had the chance to 'listen in,' but you can bet ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... some who seem to think that they have held the balance evenly, and finally stated the matter, if they admit that sexual love may be either beautiful or disgusting, and that either view is equally normal and legitimate. "Listen in turn," Tarde remarks, "to two men who, one cold, the other ardent, one chaste, the other in love, both equally educated and large-minded, are estimating the same thing: one judges as disgusting, odious, revolting, and bestial what the other judges ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... such counsels, the fault may be gradually cured. Still, at the time, it will make the children uncomfortable, by producing in their minds a certain degree of irritation. They will be very apt to listen in silence, and with a morose and sullen air; and if they do not call the admonition a scolding, on account of the kind and gentle tones in which it is delivered, they will be very apt to consider it much ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... of my cruise—on the contrary, she had only arrived three days before the Felicidad; and after I had told my story and received the compliments of the captain and the rest of the officers upon what they were pleased to term the boldness and judgment with which I had executed my mission, I had to listen in return to a story as gruesome as can well be imagined, although it was told in very few words. It appeared, then, that a day or two after my departure, the Barracouta again put to sea with the fixed but unexpressed determination to prosecute a further search for the Francesca, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... Mikhalovsky continued, "what was the danger? If Misha had not succeeded in having his own man listen in, and do it quietly, all of this detective work, your Maroossia would be gone by this time." "But,"—he continued, "now the case is closed, as far as your wife is concerned, and the only thing I wish to insist upon,—is to get Maroossia out of here right now. Furthermore, ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... They listen in silence. The Barin commences To write something down In the little black note-book When, all of a sudden, A small, tipsy peasant, Who up to that moment Has lain on his stomach And gazed at the speaker, Springs up straight before him 200 And snatches his pencil Right ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... felt more nervous than usual. I had expected a letter from America for some days past, and none had arrived. On this evening I knew the mail was due, and I waited anxiously for the last ring of the postman at ten o'clock; but I was doomed to listen in vain. There was the sharp, loud ring next door, but not at ours; and I went to my room earlier than the others, really to give way to a few tears that I could ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand

... maybe a young child with her. As he came to where the street turned somewhat, even such a carline was sitting on a clean white door-step on the sunny side, somewhat shaded by a tall rose-laurel tree in a great tub, and she sang as she sat spinning, and Ralph stayed to listen in his idle mood, and he heard how she sang in a dry, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... disdained to vindicate his name otherwise than by his word; he had smiled at the accusations of sorcery, when applied merely to himself; but when the sublime art, which had been the study and passion of his life, was assailed, he could no longer listen in silence. His head gradually rose from his bosom; a hectic colour came in faint streaks to his cheek; played about there, disappeared, returned, and at length kindled into a burning glow. The clammy dampness dried from his forehead; his eyes, which had nearly been extinguished, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... listen to him," she said to her son; to which Ralph replied that Isabel's listening was one thing and Isabel's answering quite another. He knew she had listened to several parties, as his father would have said, but had made them listen in return; and he found much entertainment in the idea that in these few months of his knowing her he should observe a fresh suitor at her gate. She had wanted to see life, and fortune was serving her to her taste; a succession of fine gentlemen going down on their knees to her would do ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... of absorbed interest with which Georgioa turned to listen to the music made Peggy forget her question, and listen in the same way. She wanted to do everything in the same way that Georgina did it, and from that moment that piece of music held special charm for her because ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... are not going to leave us, Miss Vernon, and so hush our heart-beats as we listen in vain for your footfall." ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... had declined accompanying the other ladies in their drive. Her heart required solitude and rest. For her it was a rare and great pleasure to listen in undisturbed quiet to the sweet voices which whispered in her heart, and suffused her whole ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... even Harmon smiled. The editor was happy and contented, and life seemed very pleasant just then. He was satisfied to listen in silence while Reynolds related the story of his experiences in the north, and his great triumph in winning the only daughter of the dreaded ruler ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... services begin. The priestess, a comely girl, chants the psalm of Adonis, the beautiful old pagan hymn, more beautiful and more sensuous than anything uttered by the later religious poets of the West; and all listen in delighted stillness. As the hymn ends, Gorgo bursts out in ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... could distract, for the sound of her step in the passage. When, at length, some short time after darkness had set in, he heard her at the door, he drew a long, sighing breath of relief, as if—though this was unavowed even to himself—he had been afraid he might listen in vain. And, as always, when the suspense was over, and she was under the same roof with him again, he was freed from so intolerable a weight that he was ready to endure whatever she might choose to put upon him, and for his part to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... what we're to do," said Henry, "but we're to help the wireless service. I think they want us to listen in and pick up low-length messages that the high-powered government stations don't get. The ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... bridge, retracing his steps, and climbed a railing that fenced the wood. In a moment he disappeared among the trees, and Billy was left to watch and listen in unaccountable suspense. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... taking his coat and hat. "I am going to connect up one of these things in Miss Dodge's library and arrange with the telephone company for a clear wire so that we can listen in here, where ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... the first sweep of the brush, to clear the hearth of the skepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before we can begin to tell and to listen in peace with ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... but reveille and guard-mounting were the only ones where this was practicable, and an odd thing had become noticeable. Apache Indians sometimes stopped their ears, and always looked impolite, when the brazen trumpets sounded close at hand; whereas they would squat on the sun-kissed sands and listen in stolid, unmurmuring bliss to every note of the fife and drum. Members of the guard were always sure of sympathetic spectators during the one regular ceremony—guard-mounting—held just after sunset, for the Apache prisoners at the guard-house ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... watched them through the open door to the hangar and then turned to his desk, to pick up the recently installed private audioceiver. He asked for a private number in a small city on Mars, and then admonished the operator, "This is a security call, miss. Disconnect your circuit and do not listen in. Failure to comply will result in your immediate dismissal and ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell

... of jolly mariners sitting over their pipes and grog in the snug parlor of some seashore tavern, spinning yarns of the service they had seen on the gun-decks of his Majesty's ships, or of shipwreck and adventure in the merchant service, would start up and listen in affright, as the measured tramp of a body of men came up the street. Then came the heavy blow on ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... treachery had extended. For all he knew there might be a brood of traitors about him in the very citadel of America. We can never know Washington's thoughts at that time, for he was ever silent, but as we listen in imagination to the sound of the even footfalls which the guard heard all through that September night, we can dimly guess the feelings of the strong and passionate nature, wounded and distressed almost ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... sit down under the gallery, face to face with the Speaker, looking across those profiles of world-makers in their seats; and I watch and listen in the House itself. There is a kind of pleasant, convenient, appropriate hush upon ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... he hath left the choice, who by some strange spell I wot not of will send an eerie call through all the kingdom. And only those will hear who wake at dawn to listen in high places. And only those will heed who keep the compass needles of their souls true to the north star of a great ambition. The time of testing will be long, the summons many. To duty and to sorrow, to disappointment ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... frequently indulged myself in sitting in an antichamber, to listen to her playing and singing. I have thought that she is most impassioned when alone, and perhaps all musicians are so. The next day, happening to listen in the manner I have mentioned, I heard her singing an air which was new to me, and remarked that she once or twice stopped, to consider and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... upon to part with much that is dear to us, and should be ready to yield the rest as it is called for. The time may come when even the cheap public print shall be a burden our means cannot support, and we can only listen in the square that was once the market-place to the voices of those who proclaim defeat or victory. Then there will be only our daily food left. When we have nothing to read and nothing to eat, it will be a favorable moment to offer a compromise. At present we have all that Nature absolutely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... little lately, and her letters have been so unlike herself, that I have been quite uneasy," said Hilary, turning the envelope round and round, and feeling its proportions with undisguised pleasure. "I'll give you each a cup of tea, and then I'll read it out, while you listen in comfort." ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Jonathan, what really would happen if the Carpenter-preacher of Gallilee could and did visit some of our American churches. Would he be able to stand the vulgar show? Would he be able to listen in silence to the miserable perversion of his teachings by hired apologists of social wrong? Would he want to drive out the moneychangers and the Masters of Bread, to hurl at them his terrible thunderbolts of wrath and scorn? Would he ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... that day there happened what had never happened in his experience before. Men used to listen in a tolerant way, and say little over their beer, for that is the English custom; and that would be all. But to-day a man rose up with flashing eyes and went over to Eliphaz and gripped him by the hand: "They're all damned,'' said ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany

... to her rarely used parlor, and sat down to listen in silent pallor to his exhortations. She made no explanations for not coming to his church regularly; she offered no excuse of filial tenderness for her indifference to her father's mistaken beliefs; she looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap, then out ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland

... fixed in the memory. No cunningly painted canvas is so retentive as the active brain. While we roll over the broad cactus plains, closing the eyes in thought, a panorama moves before us, depicting vivid tableaux from our two months' experience in Aztec Land. We listen in imagination at the sunset hour to distant vesper bells, floating softly over the hills, and see the bowed heads and folded hands of the peons. Once more we gaze delighted upon lovely valleys, dark shadowy gorges, far-reaching plains ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... to the gentlemen. They would not amuse themselves or play, but sat silently in the corners; the men smoked pipes, the women knitted; even the flies were asleep. The Seneschal, who had thrown aside his flapper, was bored by the silence and went to join the servants; he preferred to listen in the kitchen to the cries of the housekeeper, the threats and blows of the cook, the noise of the serving boys; at last the monotonous motion of the spits that turned the roast gradually caused him to fall ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... but I am not acquainted with it, as I do not read their language; but I know something of their popular tales, to which I used to listen in their izbushkas; a principal personage in these is a creation quite ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... warble from tree to tree, untrammelled by the forms of art, their sweetest melodies. How often do their lightsome, inspiriting carollings ring out upon the morning air, persuasively calling us from our couches to listen in delight to Nature's minstrelsy! "After man," says a writer, "the birds occupy the highest rank in Nature's concerts. They make the woods, the gardens, and the fields resound with their merry warbles. ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... partridges and pheasants will run rather than fly. In the case of partridges the poacher had first to ascertain the haunt of the covey, which he could do by looking for where they roost at night: the spot is often worn almost bare of grass and easily found. Or he could listen in the evening for the calling of the birds as they run together. The net being set, he walked very slowly down the wind towards the covey. It could not be done too quietly or gently, because if one got up all the rest would immediately ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... this little Polish lady, and her volubility, and her extravagant, subtle, honest flattery of her dear adopted daughter! It gave him liberty to steep himself in the rich consciousness of Natalie's presence; he could listen in silence for the sound of her voice—he could covertly watch the beauty of her shapely hands—without being considered preoccupied or morose. All he had to do was to say, "Yes, madame," or "Indeed, madame," the while he knew that Natalie Lind was breathing ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... price, without the consent of Wunpost. Lapham nodded and darted off—he was a man who dealt with facts and not with the moonshine of sentiment—and this time he fairly flew at Dusty Rhodes. He took him off to one side, where no one could listen in, and at the end of half an hour Mr. Rhodes had signed a paper giving a quit-claim to his interest in the mine. Old Whiskers was summoned from his attendance on the bottles, the lawyer presented his case; and, whatever ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... could hardly be comprehended or credited that Jamie was, indeed, lost. They ate their belated supper in silence, half expecting that he would, after all, come walking in upon them. Doctor Joe was grave and preoccupied. Several times, now he, now David, went out into the night to stand and listen in the storm, but all they heard was the wail of wind in ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... throat was choking; Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs, And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps. Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!' Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom, Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns, He peers around with boding, frantic eyes. An evil creature in the twilight looping Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off, He screeched in terror, and straightway something clambered Heavily from an ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... ear, but each time more faintly. Still he continued to listen for it with a feeling of horror, and once or twice fancied that he heard it rising above the turmoil of wind and waves. Long before he ceased to listen in expectancy, the murderer's dead body lay tossing in that great watery grave in which so many of the human race—innocent ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... listen. We will strive to listen in new ways—to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart—to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... head as if he, as well as Monty, understood human nature. Dorothy hugged her knees with a kind of shudder. Monty had fastened the hypnotic eyes upon her. Castleton ceased smoking, adjusted his eyeglass, and prepared to listen in ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... earth, they might hear a hodgepodge of tongues. The next step would be to select the most technically advanced nation, listen in, and try to learn its language, or record it ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... I think, is said to have kept a fool, who frequently sat at his feet in his study, and to whose mutterings he used to listen in the pauses of his own thought. The shining soul of the astronomer drew forth the rainbow of harmony from the misty spray of words ascending ever from the dark gulf into which the thoughts of the idiot were ever falling. He beheld curious concurrences of words ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... whose name was like a fable to me, associated as it was, from my earliest days, with his Ahnfrau. I approached him also with respect to the matter of my theatre reform. He seemed quite disposed to listen in a friendly manner to what I had to say to him; he did not, however, attempt to conceal his surprise at my direct appeals and the personal demands I made of him. He was the first playwright I had ever seen in ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... with her thoughts, and favourable wishes; or, as she was too severely inclined to term it, her passion and its folly; a witness that she did not credit all which malice could urge against him, nor listen in base silence when her perhaps too partial heart pleaded in his behalf; nay more, that man the protector of her aunt, by whom he had been so often and so bitterly reviled; that man travelling in obscurity; in familiar society with a carpenter, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... longing, the longing that is like a physical pain, that hunger of the heart for some one intolerably dear! The desire for a voice! The arrested habit of phrasing one's thoughts for a hearer who will listen in peace no more! From that lonely distress even rage, even the concoction of insult and conflict, was a refuge. From that pitiless travail of emptiness I was ready to turn desperately to any offer of ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... they went out of that door resolved, such as had possessions, to bequeath some portion of them, to operate in the same manner for themselves another day, in the highly probable case of similar need. Here they were convened to listen in reverence to some representative emissary from the Man of Sin, with new dictates of blasphemy or iniquity promulgated in the name of the Almighty: or to witness the trickery of some farce, devised to cheat or frighten them out of whatever remainder ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... regain his spirits sufficiently to feel able to say very much. He quieted down, but he was still down at heart and crushed in feeling, and could do little else but listen in a hopeless sort ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... keys in to us we were so excited we wanted to have "Whip the Devil" played again for our singing and dancing. But this might have once more awakened suspicion. Before, we had raised such a row as to have caused pedestrians to stop and listen in groups, wondering what made ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... well turned, sahib!" he whispered, as Alwa moved away. "Alwa will listen in future when ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... speech was devoted to suffrage. He urged. He exhorted. He apologized. He explained. He pleaded. He condemned. Often he was heckled. Often he saw huge "VOTE AGAINST WILSON! HE KEPT US OUT OF SUFFRAGE!" banners at the doors of his meetings. One woman in Arizona, who, unable longer to listen in patience to the glory of "a democracy where only were governed those who consented," interrupted him. He coldly answered, "Madam, you cannot pick cherries before they are ripe." By the time he got to. California, however, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... all the statements and illustrations of obedience and its opposite. Begin with the third of Genesis, where the first disastrous act of disobedience brought a ruin still going on. Run through the three wilderness books, where the new nation is grouped about the smoking mountain. Listen in Deuteronomy to the old man Moses talking during the thirty days' conference they had in Moab's plains before he was taken away. Then into Joshua's book of victory and the Judges' dark story of defeats, through the kingdom books, and the prophecies, ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon

... fifty meetings that night had she been going to that many, but his happiness was the more nearly perfect because the lady and Gaston were going to the only other Duggan meeting together, and he would be able to worship her, and listen in ecstasy to her singing, and afterwards hear one of Tony ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks

... again, With its memories and greetings, With its joy and with its pain? There's a minor in the carol, And a shadow in the light, And a spray of cypress twining With the holly wreath to-night. And the hush is never broken By laughter light and low, As we listen in the starlight To the ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... members of societies for the promotion of agriculture, of education, for the prevention of fires; who never sat up later than nine of the clock p.m., except on those nights when they went to the old Parliament Building to listen in awe to fiery Papineau or eloquent Bourdages thunder against the Bureaucracy; who subscribed and paid liberally towards every work of religion, of charity, of patriotism; who every Saturday glanced with trembling eye over the columns of the Official Gazette, to ascertain ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... he will let me. But he tells me that one thing is right and the other is wrong; that one is good art and the other is bad; and I listen in amazement, sometimes not without impatience, wondering why an estimable personal prejudice should be thus exalted into a dogma, and uttered in the name of art. For in art there can be no prejudices, only results. If we arc to save ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons

... with a black shoestring; she saw Rose close with white thread a great hole in the heel of a black silk stocking. Their crimped hair nauseated her, their rouge and powder and cologne. She could hardly listen in patience to their careless ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... things, and if Miss Ellis comes dis way where so many can't be listen in', I tella her ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... partially lulled. How drearily it was moaning down the street! It seemed, at that moment, to be wailing over me; to be wailing over him; to be wailing over all mortal things! The strange sensations I then felt, moved me to listen in silence; but I ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... Trevor filled the room with the roaring of his own laughter and the echoes of his own vociferous voice. He was telling a story—a funny story, about what Rosella, with her thoughts on "Patroclus," could not for the life of her have said, and she must needs listen in patience and with perfunctory merriment while the narrative was conducted to its close with all the accompaniment of stamped ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... the corridor again, listen in a tremor. . . . I have no dinner; I don't notice the approach of evening. At last about eleven I hear the familiar footstep, and at the turn near the stairs Zinaida ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... pretends to be highly indignant. He calls the cowgirls liars and accuses them of always making him do their work. If he is not having to hold a milk pail or a calf, he says, he is doing a household chore or even keeping watch for them while they neglect their work and gossip. The cowgirls listen in ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... what their looks invariably express. We read their thoughts by the light of their smiles. Not to see and hear these men is not to know them, and criticism without personal knowledge is in their case mutilation. Those who did know them listen in despair to the half-hearted praise and clumsy disparagement of critical strangers, and are apt to exclaim, as did the younger Pitt, when some extraneous person was expressing wonder at the enormous ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... the perfumed night like the voices of the wonder-birds,—of the Fung-hoang,—blending together in liquid sweetness. Yet a moment, and Ming-Y, overcome by the witchery of his companion's voice, could only listen in speechless ecstasy, while the lights of the chamber swam dim before his sight, and tears of pleasure trickled ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... snipping at the thread with her scissors: I see now he wasn't thinking about it, and was trying to recover what he considered a proper state of feeling, but I fancied he was very gentle and tender, though I couldn't hear what they said, and I never took the trouble to listen in my life. In about five minutes I was tired of this playing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... might, at least, have known how to sympathise with the haughty and unbending nature, that had been brought into such deadly collision with it. But in the dramatic representation, though it is far from being a flattering one, we listen in vain for any echo of this sentiment. In its rich and kindly humour there is no sneer, no satire. It is the loving eye of nature's own great pupil—it is the kindly human eye, that comes near enough to point those jests, and paint so truly; there is a great ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... his companions, "those moonlight nights at old Oglethorpe, when, after study hours, we would crash up the stairway and get out on the cupola, making the night merry with music, song, and laughter. Sid would play upon his flute like one inspired, while the rest of us would listen in ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... the most brilliant conversationalist I have ever known; and the best talk I have heard anywhere was that to which I used to listen in the home of Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne, in Auburn, New York, when Mrs. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Emily Howland, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Ida Husted Harper, Miss Mills, and I were gathered there for our occasional week-end visits. Mrs. Osborne ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... declined to give him absolution. The priest cut the dispute short by closing the wicket and addressing himself to the penitent at the other side. The man left his place and wandered disconsolately about the church, followed by many curious eyes, for not to listen in silent submission to the penance imposed by the priest is a rare scandal. After a while he seemed to have resolved on a compromise, but it was no longer possible to obtain his place in advance of the crowd, where each one waited his turn. He took a post, therefore, directly opposite the front ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... establishment was infinitely to be preferred to the public exchange in the terminal—less chance that the call could be traced back to its source, less chance, too, that some inquisitive operator, trying to kill time during a dull hour, might listen in on the wire, and so doing overhear things not meant for her ears. He crossed over and entered the ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... excellent method, and Kullak devotes part of a page to examples of how the right, then the left, and finally both hands, are to be treated. Kullak furthermore writes: "Or, if one will, he may also betake himself in fancy to a still, green, dusky forest, and listen in profound solitude to the mysterious rustling and whispering of the foliage. What, indeed, despite the algebraic character of the tone-language, may not a lively fancy conjure out of, or, rather, into, this etude! But one thing is to be held fast: it is to be played in that Chopin-like ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... said Mrs. Mountstuart. "You have got a sentimental tone. You talk of 'feelings crushed of old'. It is to a woman, not to a man that you speak, but that sort of talk is a way of making the ground slippery. I listen in vain for a natural tongue; and when I don't hear it, I suspect plotting in men. You show your under-teeth too at times when you draw in a breath, like a condemned high-caste Hindoo my husband took ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was used to seeing it padlocked, and to listen in vain for an answer to her call. Percy was evidently abroad, probably waiting for her up at Kennedy's lodge. So she hurried back. As soon as she had disappeared beyond the bridge, the two men put their pipes into ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... detective lay in wait for the returning steps of the lost husband, and Sonia's eyes devoured the shadows, her ears drank in every sound. He laughed, he grew warm with the feeling of triumph. She would watch and listen in vain. The judgment-seat of God was the appointment ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... around the person of their comfortless mistress, the valet of Denbigh engaged in arranging a dry coat for his master—all suspended their employments to listen in breathless silence to the mournful melody ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... for supper it was nearly 10 P.M., and the stars were coming out over Mount Sawyer. The meal was a quiet one, for all were tired, and well content to listen in silence to the music of the river, as softly the night-gloom gathered unto itself ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... him at breakfast? No doubt he would be very penitent and full of apologies. No matter what he might say, her mind was made up. She would listen in silence, and, breakfast over, begin to make her preparations for departure. Fanny, of course, must be told everything, but not yet. There was plenty of time to tell her. The rupture would interfere, no doubt, with Jimmie's ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... breathing nothing but the essence of the canals and the flavours of the Rialto, after the jingling of bells and brawls of the gondoliers, imagine how agreeable it was to scent the perfume of clover, to tread a springing herbage, and listen in silence to the showers pattering amongst the leaves. I staid so long amidst the vines, that it grew late before we rowed by the Mira, a village of palaces, whose courts and gardens, as magnificent as statues, terraces, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... made answer, "That you, gentlemen, may know how much reason I have to inquire for the duke, and whether I need be anxious for his safety, listen in your turn with attention, and I will relate what I know not yet if I must ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... train? How long shall I stand, With my watch in my hand, And listen in vain For the ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... pleasure when I survey the brown heath that Ossian wont to tread; and hear the wind whistle through the bending grass — When I enter our landlord's hall, I look for the suspended harp of that divine bard, and listen in hopes of hearing the aerial sound of his respected spirit — The poems of Ossian are in every mouth — A famous antiquarian of this country, the laird of Macfarlane, at whose house we dined a few days ago, can ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... I listen in the roads?" [care for gossip], I rejoined. "Household rule is a matter of the veil, and no one—not even your autocratic Prince—will ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... conversation enlivened the ball- room by their variety; at other times he played chess with the generals and admirals of the Republic; and frequently he forsook everything to gaze with delight on Rosabella's dancing, or listen in ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... to marry at once; as to me that is the holiest desire of woman— to marry and give men— children to the world; but it seems that the word "marry" has opened the door to floods of talk to which I can only listen in silent amazement. I never before had realised that I have had the honour of bearing children with such tongues of eloquence; and I fully understand that I belong to a past, a very ancient past— the Mings, from what I ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper

... chanced to be passing the tower and recognized the voice of his former favorite. He stopped to listen in spite of Charming's enemies, who tried to persuade him to have nothing more to do with the traitor. ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... themselves. That is like trying to mend the Slough of Despond with cartloads of texts. The thing is not to fall in, or, if you fall in, to get out." His three divisions of a subject were "what you say, what you wanted to say, what you ought to have wanted to say." Sometimes he would listen in silence, and then say: "I can't criticise that—it is all off the lines. You had better destroy it and begin again," Or he would say: "You had better revise that and polish it up. It won't be any good when it is done—these patched-up things never are; but it will be ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... hew the beams or cut the stones, he did not make the bricks, he did not carry them to the scaffolding. He did not lay them into the wall and fasten them together. He only drew the plan, and moreover he had assistants. But thou, prince, hadst the wish to do all things thyself, to listen in person and transact every business. That goes ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... half forgotten. Yet, were they free of this prophet, I think I might sway them, for I know their ways, and I am the son of their ancient kings. But for the present his magic holds them in thrall. They listen in fear to one who hath the ear ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan



Words linked to "Listen in" :   tap, bug, wiretap, listen, intercept



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