"Unread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... those representatives, the candid and patient consideration which, until I read your acknowledgment, that, in relation to these petitions, "there is no substantial difference between" yourself and those, who are in favor of thrusting them aside undebated, unconsidered, and even unread, I always supposed you were willing to have ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... again silent, and still she sat motionless, with the letter in her hand. "Mamma," she said at last, "if you tell me not to read it, I will give it back unread. If you bid me exercise my own judgment, I shall take it upstairs and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... of Moorish warfare. So studded were these arms with jewels of rare cost, that they might alone have sufficed to indicate the rank of the evident owner, even if his own gorgeous vestments had not betrayed it. An open manuscript, on a silver table, lay unread before the Moor: as, leaning his face upon his hand, he looked with abstracted eyes along the mountain summits dimly distinguished from ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while "Clarissa" lies upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of "Robinson" read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the room he was apparently, in every respect, his usual self-contained self. However, it was not until the following morning that he so much as thought of the sheaf of papers lying unread in the ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... "frank confidingness" which he notes as a trait of his own character, and which gave Herder frequent opportunities for scathing criticism. Herder gibed at his youthful tastes—at his collection of seals, at his elegantly-bound volumes which stood unread on his shelves, at his enthusiasms for Italian art, for the writings of the Cabbalists, for the poetry ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... witty a work, so strong in typical freehand character drawing of permanent validity and remembrance, should be unread and its author forgotten except by scholars, is too curious a fact not to have a deep cause in its own character. The cause is not hard to find: it is one of the books which try to turn the world's current backward, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of roses, one distilled drop from a million blossoms. Think how Spain and Portugal once divided the globe between them in a treaty, when England was a petty kingdom of illiterate tribes!—and now all Spain is condensed for us into Cervantes, and all Portugal into the fading fame of the unread Camoens. The long magnificence of Italian culture has left us only I Quattro Poeti, the Four Poets. The difference between Shakspeare and his contemporaries is not that he is read twice, ten times, a hundred times as much as they: it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... heart began to beat rapidly. His mind became equally active, and, although he had no experience to be guided by, he began to suspect the nature of this man's business with Bangs. He almost determined to discover himself, but the letters were yet unread. If that were only done, he would do anything his visitor might request. Recalling the old gentleman's last words, he said, at ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... Present Government. I estimate the whole roughly at 70,000 words. Should anybody ever dream of reading it, it would be found amusing. 70000/300 233 printed pages; a respectable little five-bob volume, to bloom unread in shop windows. After that, I'll have a spank at fiction. And rest? I shall rest in the grave, or when I come to Italy. If only the public will continue to support me! I lost my chance not dying; there seems blooming little fear of it now. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the secret of its source, even at the cost of opening it. During all the years which had elapsed since Slaughter first came upon the scene the struggle had gone on, and still the mystery was unsolved and the riddle unread. Never had an occasion offered itself when anything could be learned from an outside source, and Slaughter himself was too cold and isolated an individual ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... the folly and perversity of a public that will leave unread writings of the noblest and rarest of minds, of all times and all countries, for the sake of reading the writings of commonplace persons which appear daily, and breed every year in countless numbers like flies; merely because these writings have been printed to-day and are still wet from ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... him of the unread letter lying on her dressing-table upstairs, and not till long after he had gone did she pick up the envelope and turn it over and over in her fingers. Then, at last, she ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... my only relief consists in going over and over again in my mind the tale of my miseries. This time I will write it, writing only to tear up, to throw the manuscript unread into the fire. And yet, who knows? As the last charred pages shall crackle and slowly sink into the red embers, perhaps the spell may be broken, and I may possess once more my long-lost liberty, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Sleeping Beauty, and Toads and Pearls. These were first collected, written, and printed at Paris in 1697. The author was Monsieur Charles Perrault, a famous personage in a great perruque, who in his day wrote large volumes now unread. He never dreamed that he was to be remembered mainly by the shabby little volume with the tiny headpiece pictures—how unlike the fairy way of drawing by Mr. Ford, said to be known as 'Over-the-wall Ford' among authors who play cricket, ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... and saw under her pillows the edges of two more copybooks like the one I had. "Do not look at them—my poor dead children!" she said tenderly. "Let them depart with me—unread, as I have been." ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... this book to be the inspired revelation of God to mankind, is it not singular to say that this 'revelation' requires to be carefully concealed from mankind; that the Bible is invaluable, indeed, but only while it is unread; and that, in fact, the Church knows herself better than Jesus Christ himself did? for in that book we are supposed to have the words of Him and her founders, and yet it seems they could only mislead! 'Never man spake like this man,' may well be ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... tennis with Elsie Hathaway, his newest sweetheart, the Ancient History Prof's pretty daughter, Ted Holiday found awaiting him a letter from Madeline Taylor. He turned it over in his hands with a keen distaste for opening it, had indeed almost a mind to chuck it in the waste paper basket unread. Hang it all! Why had she written? He didn't want to hear from her, didn't want to be reminded of her existence. He wanted instead distinctly to forget there was a Madeline Taylor and that he had been fool enough to ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... animosity was deplorable, but not unnatural. A man imbued with the idea of a chosen people, and unread in any book save the one which cultivates this very idea, could not be expected to have learned the historical lessons of the advantages which a State reaps from a liberal policy. To him it was as if the Ammonites and Moabites ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... week after sending it out. The largest magazines usually require three months and sometimes longer to report on a MS. If you attempt to hurry the editorial decision you will probably receive your MS. by return mail, unread. ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... temperature accompanied this visible change in the sky, but the mercurial column remained uncommonly steady. Arrangements for a concentrated party engrossed my attention so fully this day, with the insertion also of our late work on the general map, that even the newspapers from the colony lay unread. Mr. Kennedy took a ride across the river in a S. S. E. direction, and found a fine grazing country with open forest, as far as he went, which was about twelve miles. On the banks of the Balonne, during my absence, they had found, besides a ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... some time watching her from behind his newspaper, while she, with an unread book upon her lap, had, in fact, been thinking deeply and putting ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... maturest wisdom, in relation to any capital wound inflicted on the happiness; "it is finished, and life is exhausted." How? Could it be exhausted so soon? Had I read Milton, had I seen Rome, had I heard Mozart? No. The "Paradise Lost" was yet unread, the Coliseum and St. Peter's were unseen, the melodies of Don Giovanni were yet silent for me. Raptures there might be in arrear. But raptures are modes of troubled pleasure; the peace, the rest, the lulls, the central ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... petition to the United States, praying for a law against the liquor trade in the Gilberts; and it was at this request that I added, under my own name, a brief testimony of what had passed;—useless pains; since the whole reposes, probably unread and possibly unopened, in a ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from those—and you, ... it was right for me to be melancholy, in the consciousness of passing blindfolded under all the world-stars, and of going out into another side of the creation, with a blank for the experience of this ... the last revelation, unread! How the thought of it used to ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... is a grand thing when a man has so lived and proved himself among those around him, that they all feel his religion to be sincere! What good may not such a man be capable of doing? He may be unschooled and unread, he may be poor, and hold but a humble position in the ranks of life, and yet withal, he may exert a power which neither rank nor learning can acquire, nor wealth purchase. He rules hearts; learning may rule heads, and wealth ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... masquerades as such, has a power equal to a hundred circulars. It claims attention at once, if it does not declare itself an advertisement on the outside, where a printed circular gets swept into the waste-paper basket unread. It's expensive—about three cents a letter if done properly, but when there are special ends to be accomplished, such as calling the attention of the clergy to a novel that would suggest sermons, or the members of an Audubon society to a book on birds, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... Mr. Cabot, bringing his palm down on a pile of unread letters awaiting him. "Go ahead. I don't promise anything, but I will say this. If you work on as you have done these two years since you came in here as errand boy, Ben, I'll make you a power in the house. Understand I don't expect you to do brilliant things; that isn't in your line. You will ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... of so young a man, and of a Spaniard, in one respect our student appeared passionless. He met the advances of his female admirers with the utmost coldness—seemed, indeed, to avoid the society of the fair sex, threw love-letters into the fire, unread and unanswered, neglected invitations, went to no rendezvous. Favours which other men would gladly have purchased with years of life, he disdainfully rejected. The wrinkled duennas, who under various pretexts brought him tender messages and tempting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... to the unthinking, and it is a fact that none but the unread in history will deny, that, in periods of popular tumult and innovation, the more abstract a notion is, the more readily has it been found to combine, the closer has appeared its affinity, with the feelings of a people, and ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... only a few minutes before the sacrifice, she had received her first letter from Egypt. It lay unread on her dressing-table, and came into her mind whenever she attempted to pray. She could not help wondering what news it might bring her. How were her parents? and how had Tachot borne the parting from herself, and from the prince she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... suffice. It should be written clearly and simply; for young minds will spend little time in difficult investigation. It should have a good moral. It should be interesting; or it will generally be left unread, and thus any other excellence that it may possess will be useless. Some writers seem to have a fourth rule,—that it should be instructive; but, really, it is no great matter, if a child should have some books without wisdom. Moreover, this maxim is eminently perilous in its practical application, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Madonna simply because other people had painted Madonnas before them. Some subjects, no doubt, were treated once for all; if Southey had written his history of the Peninsular war after Napier, he would have done a silly thing, and his book would have been damned unread. But what reason was there why we should not have half a dozen books on English thought in the eighteenth century? Would not Grote have inflicted a heavy loss upon us if he had been frightened out of his plan by Thirlwall? And ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... in the thick of the season, and Amber had just said good-bye to the Bishop, the last of her dinner-guests. "I always say grace when the church goes," she laughed, as she turned to her budget of unread correspondence and shuffled the letters, as in the old days, when she hoped to draw a letter of Walter's. But her method had become more scientific. Recognising the writers by their crests or mottoes, she would arrange the letters in order of precedence, alleging it was to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... of this class, for themselves or their work, are Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham; but their relative repute is one of the oddest paradoxes in literary history. Roughly speaking, the one is remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered. Sydney Smith's name is almost as familiar to the masses as Scott's, and few could tell a line that he wrote; Barham's writing is almost as familiar as Scott's, and few would recognize his name. Yet he is in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... morning, when Matthew appeared at his bedside with his cup of tea at nine o'clock, tidings were brought him. He took in the Buntingford Gazette, which came twice a week, and as Matthew laid it, opened and unread, in its accustomed place, he gave the information, which he had no doubt gotten from the paper. "You haven't heard it, sir, I ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... one which had been opened and read; but as he unfolded it, there appeared another—unopened, unread; its dainty seal unbroken, and on the back in fair tracery, the words, "Miss Faith Derrick." As Faith read them and saw the hand, her eye glanced first up at Mr. Linden with its mute burden of surprise, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the garden, an unread book on her knees, dreaming among red and yellow and orange gladioli. She looked with a fixed, bright, beatific stare at the flame-colored flowers and did not see them. She saw only Felix Morrison, she heard only his voice, she was brimming with the sense of him. In a few moments she would ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... another distance, the clew to the puzzle would be seized, and the words would stand forth clear and legible in your sight. But the clew never had been discovered, and the motto, if there was one, remained unread. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... his furrow, He leaves his books unread For a life of tented freedom By lure of danger led. He's first in the hour of peril, He's gayest in the dance, Like the guardsman of old England Or the ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... aside unread, and sat for a long time thinking. Presently he called for his stenographer, and dictated telegram after telegram, the import of which made that impassive person start and glance up in amazement several ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... her golden age of letters as well as her age of military glory. Her libraries and archives are filled with unread, musty manuscripts, comprising treatises on philosophy and metaphysics, histories, biographies, and poems, rich in the classic erudition of the Orient. In 1336, Sultan Orkan found leisure from war and conquest to establish, at Brusa, a literary institution, which became ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 'Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largest imaginable Glass bell,—what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but for the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds, impinge against thy Glass walls, but have to drop unread: neither from within comes there question or response into any Post-bag; thy Thoughts fall into no friendly ear or heart, thy Manufacture into no purchasing hand: thou art no longer a circulating venous-arterial Heart, that, taking ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... that day I have often smiled to think how foolishly do the wisest men deport themselves when they first begin to love. Their little starts of passion, their petty angers and their sweet repentances—all were unexplored by me, for Love to me was yet an unread book. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... There, if anywhere, was some deserted creature, author of the unread message that had sparked across the sea. There, and there only—and between Eric and that deck-house lay the stretch of red-hot deck, a glowing barrier ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... locked her door; and placing a bank-note and some sovereigns on the table, she sank into a low chair, and while a few large silent tears flowed down her cheeks, she at last found courage to open the three letters which had hitherto remained unread in her apron pocket. The first—the second, seemed to contain nothing to surprise her, however much there might be to annoy—but it was different with that last: here was a gross overcharge, and perhaps it was not with quite a disagreeable feeling that Lady Lucy found something of which ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... discovery began. Once before he had tried Spencer, and choosing the "Principles of Psychology" to begin with, he had failed as abjectly as he had failed with Madam Blavatsky. There had been no understanding the book, and he had returned it unread. But this night, after algebra and physics, and an attempt at a sonnet, he got into bed and opened "First Principles." Morning found him still reading. It was impossible for him to sleep. Nor did he write that day. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... on the porch sitting with Richard Hall's letter in my hand, still unread, Nell herself came down the front walk and sat down ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... recall the illusion, but in vain. He relighted the fire, and put on the kettle. Going then for a book to read till the water boiled, he remembered a letter which, in the excitement of the afternoon, he had put in his pocket unread, and forgotten. It was from the family lawyer in Glasgow, informing him that the bank in which his uncle had deposited the proceeds of his sale of the land, was in a state of absolute and irrecoverable collapse; there was ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... He was sleeping peacefully. It was too early to wake him, but I could not lay that letter down unread; was not my name on it? Tearing it open, I devoured its contents,—the exclamation I made on ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... letter in her hand—the rest unread—and sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great calm. But ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... full well one frequent consequence of the broad-mindedness which results. I realize how promptly the unread man, filled to the lips with the frothy spirit of his own infallibility, will condemn him whose knowledge of men and motives makes him pause and suspend his judgment. But what of that? Some one has said that thinking makes you wise but weak, while action makes you narrow but strong. A terse ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... the other," the boy's mother sighed, as she took up an unread letter—there were but two more. There was no harm in reading such letters as these, she thought with relief, and noticed as she drew the paper from the envelope that the postmark ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... actor were the untutored countryman of the hypotheses, is to me, for one, absolutely incredible. A "concealed poet" looking about for a "nom de plume" and a mask behind which he could be hidden, would not have selected the name, or the nearest possible approach to the name, of an ignorant unread actor. As he was never suspected of not being the author of the plays and poems, Will cannot have been a country ignoramus, manifestly incapable of poetry, wit, and such learning as the plays exhibit. Every one must judge for himself. ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... a favorite seems to us a safe prediction.... There is no part of it which, once begun, is likely to be left unread."—The Dial. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... are gracious and serene By gift of God, in human lore unread, May pluck these holy blooms and grasses green That now I wreathe for thine immortal head, I that may walk with thee, thyself unseen, And by ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... melodies which had gladdened the heart of young and old to hear. The visits to Dream-dell were less and less frequent, for now how each remembrance so fondly connected with that spot, came fraught with pain; the works of her favorite author's lay opened, but unread, upon her knee; and the fastly-falling tears half-blotted out the impassioned words she had once read with him with so ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... stranger to; unconversant[obs3]. uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened; Philistine; behind the age. shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate; unread, uninformed, uneducated, unlearned, unlettered, unbookish; empty- headed, dizzy, wooly-headed; pedantic; in the dark; benighted, belated; blinded, blindfolded; hoodwinked; misinformed; au bout de son latin, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... and worry. His health broke down under the strain, and when he was confined to his bed by illness things went worse from day to day. The usual publishing business was neglected; letters remained unanswered, manuscripts remained unread, and some correspondents became excessively angry at their ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... every part of the room. In one of them Sir Joseph reclined, fast asleep; in another, Miss Lavinia sat knitting; a third chair, apart from the rest, near a round table in one corner of the room, was occupied by Natalie. Her head was resting on her hand, an unread book lay open on her lap. She looked pale and harassed; anxiety and suspense had worn her down to the shadow of her former self. On entering the room, Turlington purposely closed the door with a bang. Natalie started. Miss Lavinia looked up reproachfully. The object ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... of a journal, do very little, in fact, as make-weights in negotiations. I have been told here, sub rosa, and I believe it that some of our laboured efforts, in this way to obtain redress in the protracted negotiation for indemnity, have actually lain months in the bureaux, unread by those who alone have power to settle the question. Some commis perhaps may have cursorily related their contents to his superior, but the superior himself is usually too much occupied in procuring and maintaining ministerial ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... could not say whether the mother and daughter had ever returned, or had ever been heard of afterwards. No further search, on Miss Halcombe's part, through the few letters of Mrs. Fairlie's writing which she had left unread, assisted in clearing up the uncertainties still left to perplex us. We had identified the unhappy woman whom I had met in the night-time with Anne Catherick—we had made some advance, at least, towards connecting the probably ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... himself on the divan and gave way to his feelings. When somewhat recovered, he recollected that a portion of the letter remained unread, and, taking it up, he resumed the reading. "Thou wilt remember," the missive ran, "what thou didst with the mother and sister of the malefactor; yet, if now I yield to a desire to learn if they be living or dead"—Ben-Hur ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... consequence is perhaps my translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its original metre of hexameters: hitherto I have failed to find a publisher kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable. Still, some day I don't despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical translation is almost what Carthusians used to call "a crib," and perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr. Joseph Hughes's Practical ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Mr. Horser said. "I'm talking facts, and you've got to know them. Will you give up that report? You can find out all there is in it for yourself. But I'm going to give it you straight. If I don't have that report back unread, you'll never leave ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on her return, she unstitched with trembling hands a linen-bound parcel always kept in her tall, cedar-lined wardrobe of curled walnut. On it was scratched in ink "To be burned unread after my death"; it contained, she had once told me, a record of no interest save to her who had written it and lacked the courage to re-read it; a narrative of days she had lived, of joys she had lost; of griefs accepted, of vain ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... chops, and coffee we went to the deck for a tramp. "Ten rounds of the promenade deck make a mile," said my room-mate consulting his pedometer. Then we strolled to the library for books, but the books lay unread in our laps when we were seated in our steamer chairs; for how could our minds be fixed on the story when the real life before us was more interesting? The Professor who was to lecture during the trip stepped by with rapid tread, nodding as he passed. The minister from Iowa who was to ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... not clothe them, what anguish Must be known in the world of the dead, If the future lies open before them, And fate has no secret unread. And yet, oh how rarely our vision May know the lost presence is nigh; How seldom its purpose be gathered, Be it comfort, or warning ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... romantic temperament rushed, as usual, into extremes. "I should no more think of losing sight of Francis Raven when his next birthday comes round," says my wife, "than I should think of laying down a good story with the last chapters unread. I am positively determined, Percy, to take him back with us when we return to France, in the capacity of groom. What does one man more or less among the horses matter to people as rich as we are?" In this strain the partner of my joys and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... acquainted with the song, and with her daughter's rare powers, gazed at her now with some surprise, as well as admiration, and kept a note Sarah had brought her, open, but unread, in her hand, unable to take her eyes from the inspired songstress. However, just before the song ended, she did just glance down, and saw it was signed Richard Hardie. On this her eye devoured ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of a military aristocracy; and the minnesingers had, for the most part, been absolutely ignorant of reading and writing (Wolfram says so of himself, and Ulrich von Liechtenstein relates how he carried about his lady's letter for days unread until the return of his secretary); the poets of Italy, from Brunetto Latini to Petrarch, were eminently scholars; men to whom, however much they might be politicians and ringleaders, like Cavalcanti, Donati, and Dante, whatever existed of antique learning was thoroughly well known. Such ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... literary criticism (contained in pages 1 to 4 and 189 and 191 of this volume) and you may have listened, not knowing yet that literary criticism is rarely admirable, nor suspecting that those are the pages which most people leave unread. But you are fortunate in having being born in a generation which is not afraid to say frankly what it likes, and you will, I imagine, say frankly that you have read Petronius, and intend to read him again because he tells a rattling good story, and, unlike certain contemporary ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... pages, some of them manuscript; I had sat by ancient shelves upon hard chairs, I had sneezed with the ancient dust, and I had not put my finger upon a trace of the right Fanning. I should have given it up, left unexplored the territory that remained staring at me through the backs of unread volumes, had it not been for my Aunt Carola. To her I owed constancy and diligence, and so I kept at it; and the hermit hours I spent at Court and Chancel streets grew worse as I knew better what rarely good company was ready to receive me. This Kings Port, this ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... shadows before him, his unread book in his hand, he recalled a later occasion when she appeared rather to shrink from him than to wish to be near him, speaking to him with downcast eyes and without the frank look in her face which was always his welcome. On this day she was more unstrung and more desolate ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... about Jenny's last letter and what happened after that. I was entirely unprepared, of course. I hadn't the faintest idea—Well, she was the one person about whom I had no doubts at all! I actually left the letter unread for a few minutes (the envelope was in your handwriting, you know)—because I had to think over what I had to do next. The police had got me turned away from ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... indelicate palms when one of your coward kind hurls a bomb amongst powerless and helpless women and children; you imbecile politicians with a plague of remedial legislation for the irremediable; you writers and thinkers unread in history, with as many "solutions to the labor problem" as there are dunces among you who can not coherently define it—do you really think yourself wiser than Jesus of Nazareth? Do you seriously suppose yourselves competent to amend his plan ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... written to the contrary, manuscripts sent to the magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more carefully read than the author imagines. Editors know that, from the standpoint of good business alone, it is unwise to return a manuscript unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances where ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... but the impression remains that the greater part of this volume has been passed over and left unread by at least two generations of readers. Old play-goers recall Macready as "Werner," and many persons have read Cain; but apart from students of literature, readers of Sardanapalus and of The Two Foscari are rare; of The Age of Bronze and The Island rarer still. A few of Byron's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... started afresh; I stood in great need of money, and had not the vaguest notion whither to go in search of it. I then examined very thoroughly the answer I had received during the preceding winter to my petition for a higher salary. I had left it unread, as the modifications made in it had already disgusted me. If I had till now believed that it was Herr von Luttichau who had brought about the increase of salary I had demanded, in the shape of a supplement which I was to ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... victims signified, Of its appearances which pleased the gods, How shaped, how streaked each part behoved to be, And the burnt offerings on the altar laid, Thighs wrapped in fat and chine. I read the signs Of sacrificial flames unread before. More yet I did; the wealth that lurks for man In earth's dark womb,—gold, silver, iron, brass,— Who was it brought all this to light but I? All others lie who would the honour claim. In one short sentence a long tale is told Alone Prometheus ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... 'nothing of hers (Jane Austen's) had yet been published; for although Bull, a publisher in Old Bond Street [sc. in Bath], had purchased in 1802 [sic] the manuscript of Northanger Abbey for the sum of ten pounds, it was lying untouched—and possibly unread—among his papers, at the epoch of ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... probably quite forgotten, even by the multitudes who visit the scenes it so glowingly describes, it is well to remember that it was, indeed, one of the first attempts to entice the city dweller "back to nature." Published in 1859, it followed Thoreau's at that time unread "Walden" by only five years, while it preceded Murray's "Adventures in the Wilderness," and the earliest of John Burroughs' delightful volumes, by a full generation. It was in every way a commendable, if not ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... suffer was destroyed as it appeared. Efforts at a thorough purge were dull, were libellous, were not of the "form" which the Universities and the public schools taught to be sacred. They were rejected as unreadable, or if printed, were unread. The results ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... calm trust and the nobility of an unworldly life. No wonder that he stood a little in awe of it, and days when he wandered down on the beach, with only the waves for company, or sat smoking in the arbor, with an unread book in his hand, his own career seemed petty and empty. Such moods, however, are not uncommon in any life, and are not of necessity fruitful. It need not be supposed that Jack took it too seriously, on the one hand, or, on the other, that a vision of such a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hooks on art that painters and critics should on no account leave unread this is surely ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... letter still unread. That might show some motive for her incognito and explain her ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... stress he would shake hands with people and turn away to hide his emotion. And it wasn't only in gestures, he became dramatic in conduct. When compromising letters came into his hands, he used to burn them unread and without any one looking on, which is manifestly absurd. I forget what happened to him in the end, but I expect he was charged with something he hadn't done to save the husband of the woman he wanted to marry—and whom he'd have ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... last to be said on the subject. I mention it only from the fear that enclosed may contain some allusion to the rubbish, a perusal of which might check the wholesome convalescence of your thoughts. If you take my advice, you will throw the packet into the fire unread. At least, if you do examine it, postpone the duty till you feel yourself absolutely impervious to any mental trickery, and—bear in mind that you are a worthy member of a particularly matter-of-fact and ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... W. Ballantyne of Edinburgh. He contributed an important paper on this subject to our first National Conference on Infantile Mortality held in 1906.[22] I only wish it were possible to reproduce in full here Dr. Ballantyne's paper on the Ante-Natal Causes of Infantile Mortality. The unread critic who is so ready with the word fanatic whenever alcohol is attacked might begin to derive from it some faint idea of the quality and massiveness of the evidence upon which our case is based. Here it must suffice merely to quote the verdict ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... it, and probably, on the very different mind of a very different person, who had no other connection whatever with the affair than what her heart gave him with every thing that passed, Elinor forgot the immediate distress of her sister, forgot that she had three letters on her lap yet unread, and so entirely forgot how long she had been in the room, that when on hearing a carriage drive up to the door, she went to the window to see who could be coming so unreasonably early, she was all astonishment to perceive Mrs. Jennings's chariot, which ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... arose from the multiplication of saints' offices (officia de sanctis), which after the canonization of saints gradually grew to such a huge number that very often the Dominical and Ferial Office remained unread, and hence not a few psalms were neglected, which yet are as the rest, as St. Ambrose says, "the benediction of the people, the praise of God, the praise offering of the multitude, the acclamation of all, the expression of the community, the voice ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... not only imaginary, but in absolute contradiction to his true ones. A more sober old gentleman does not exist: his demoniac possession is a mere fable. But there are two sufficient arguments for not reading him, so long as innumerable books of greater interest remain unread. First, he writes upon subjects that, to us, are mean and extinct—race-horses that have been defunct for twenty-five centuries, chariots that were crazy in his own day, and contests with which it is impossible for us to sympathise. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... instinct that this preliminary contact starts their knowledge. And therefore a favorite volume, even if unopened in the pocket, does nevertheless by its proximity color and enhance the enjoyment of the day. I have carried Howell, who wrote the "Familiar Letters," unread along the countryside. A small volume of Boswell has grown dingy in my pocket. I have gone about with a copy of Addison with long S's, but I read it chiefly at home when my feet ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... in violation of my wishes she had persisted in writing, and soon began to importune me for money. Then I made her understand that even at my death, she would receive no aid; and since that endorsement, I have returned or destroyed her letters unread. My Will is so strong—has been drawn so carefully—that no contest can touch it; and it will stand forever between ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... could now write only with the greatest difficulty. Then Mrs. Fullerton liked to have a chat, to hear what was in the papers, what was going on in the neighbourhood, and to discuss all sorts of dreary details, over and over again. Books that Hadria would sometimes bring were generally left unread, unless they were light novels of a rigidly conventional character. Mrs. Fullerton grew so excited in her condemnation of any other kind, that it was dangerous to put them before her. In the evenings, the old couple liked to have a rubber, and often Hubert and Hadria would make up the necessary ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... hammock with an unread book on her knees. It was a slumberous afternoon, making for drowsiness. The mountains were wrapped in a vague haze, and the whole world was very still. Very far overhead, the pines occasionally whispered to one another, but below there was ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... being possessed by that idea, yet none the less a human being with all the human impulses which make him akin and therefore interesting to us. Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, does not, like his unread imitators, attempt to personify Christianity and Valour: he dramatizes for you the life of the Christian and the Valiant Man. Just so, though I have shown that Wotan is Godhead and Kingship, and Loki Logic and ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... his inner pocket, and as he did so a whiff of violets came remindingly, but he paid no heed. Gila's letter lay in his pocket, still unread. The antiseptics were at work upon his senses and the violets ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... for himself. On the way we may look to criticism to guide us to those works which are meant for us. In art as in the complex details of living, there is need of selection; and criticism helps toward that. In literature alone, to name but a single art, there is so much to be left unread which the length of our life would not otherwise permit us to escape, that we are grateful to the critic who aids us to omit gracefully and with success. But the most serviceable criticism is positive and not destructive. The lesser ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... heartlessness In leaving me and this your home), You should find favour, too, at Rome. That is, they'll like you while you're young, When you are old, you'll pass among The Great Unwashed,—then thumbed and sped, Be fretted of slow moths, unread, Or to Ilerda you'll be sent, Or Utica, for banishment! And I, whose counsel you disdain, At that your lot shall laugh amain, Wryly, as he who, like a fool, Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule. Nay! there is worse behind. In age They e'en may take your babbling page In ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... God. The great and loving Father had not forgotten the children who had so long forgotten Him; this little island, so far from the eyes of human watchers was not unseen nor unregarded by Him. His messengers, the books which tell of Him, were still there, though forgotten and unread; but the time was now come when they were to speak again, and were to be heard ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... they were to part he could not trust himself to see her. He called a waiter, asked for pen and paper, and pushed aside a pile of unread newspapers on the corner of the table where his coffee had been served. As he did so, his eye lit on a Daily Mail of two days before. As a pretext for postponing his letter, he took up the paper and glanced down the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... me, Atkinson sat in our tent and read. The finder was to read the diary and then it was to be brought home—these were Scott's instructions written on the cover. But Atkinson said he was only going to read sufficient to know what had happened—and after that they were brought home unopened and unread. When he had the outline we all gathered together and he read to us the Message to the Public, and the account of Oates' death, which Scott had expressly wished to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... their point? Call to mind all the principles governing them by which your ancestors have held the presumption of women in check, and made them subject to their husbands. ... As soon as they have begun to be your equals they will be your superiors." It is an older story than the unread realize, this of the rights of women. The bulk of Germany's male population still hold to Cato's view. It is not so much that they are antagonistic, except in the case of the teachers, where the women ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... attorney and the doctor joined our society that their families of ten or twelve sons and daughters might keep under the sixpences and shillings of the circulating library; but they soon became jealous of new books, although they often returned them uncut and unread; and so far from knitting the bonds of acquaintance, we at last thought our plan served to estrange the members, by affording the little aristocracy frequent opportunities for venting their splenetic pride; the books were like disjunctive conjunctions, and when we ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... approach the outline demanded by fashion without appearing a caricature, which is another way of saying that each woman should learn to recognise her own type. The discussion of silhouette has become a popular theme. In fact it would be difficult to find a maker of women's costumes so remote and unread as not to have seized and imbedded deep in her vocabulary ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... already outstretched. With one quick movement he snatched it from the floor, and forced himself to hold it aloft and laugh a little. He might have spared himself all that finesse, for she ran to him, clinging to his arm, laughing, coaxing, pouting, begging him to give it to her—unread! ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... friends saw nothing of him. Evelyn Langham, whom he had known before she married his friend Marshall, was fortunately absent from town. Her letters to him remained unanswered; the last one he had burned unread. He was sick of the devious crooked paths he had trodden; he might not be just the stuff of which saints are made, but there was the hope in his heart of better things than he ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... to the end. She said, "My constant groan is that I must leave so much of the greatest writing which the centuries have sifted for me, unread ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... necessaries! Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud, bitter soul he conquered, you would have said, "This, which he thinks is degradation,—this is heroism." Oh, strange human heart! no epic ever written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread by human eye, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... remark that the proceedings at such institutions, when visited by them on their travels, are always rose colored. It is natural that the bright side should be shown to the visitor. It may be that many books are called for and returned unread; that many of those taken out are so taken by persons who ought to pay for their novels at circulating libraries; that the librarian and librarianesses get very tired of their long hours of attendance, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... letter; until, remembering how long she had been upstairs, and how all that time Emma's transparent disposition and love of talk might have laid her and her whole affairs open before the Iansons, she quickly put the epistle in her pocket unread, and went down into ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the book of life upon her knee, Fate sits! the unread page of love's delight By her firm hand is half concealed from me, And half revealed to sight. Ah Fate! be kind! so well I learned love's sorrow, Give me its full delight to ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... death, yet, by the standards of all other peoples, a coward in battle; capable of magnanimous actions which, when uncovered of all romance, are worthy of the best days of Roman virtue, yet more cunning, false, and cruel than the Bengalee,—this copper-colored sphinx, this riddle unread of men, equally ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... Department. Everybody may be seen there. It is the meeting-place of the true representatives of the country,—not such as are chosen blindly and amiss by electors who take a folded ballot from the hand of a local politician, and thrust it into the ballot-box unread, but men who gravitate or are attracted hither by real business, or a native impulse to breathe the intensest atmosphere of the nation's life, or a genuine anxiety to see how this life-and-death struggle is going to deal with us. ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... we accomplish all implied in that word "docere?" How embed conviction in the minds of our hearers? Fill your own head to repletion with the subject; be ambitious to leave, if possible, no book unread, books of even collateral bearing. The more thought stored up the more complete will be your mastery over the subject and the more abundant the materials from which to select. I was struck by a letter from Father ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... head doubtfully. He had been thinking it over since. He had thought of it a good deal after dinner that day, as he sat with the unread book in his lap. Sylvia's remarks about Rose diverted his attention, then he began thinking again. Sylvia watched him furtively as she sewed. "You ain't reading that book at all," she said. "I have been watching you, ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... letter which I tell you I did not wish my sister to write to you. If it is some mistaken sense of loyalty to Vava, I may as well tell you that she has told me what was in it, and knows that I am asking for it back unread,' ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... by no means dead In that hour, but surely When this book, unread, Rots to earth obscurely, And no more to any breast, Close against the clamorous swelling Of the thing there is no telling, Are these ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... letters which had come in with the other mail with eager fingers, anxious to devour their contents, had, after the two ladies had descended from the train, almost forgotten his anxiety to get the news from home, and stood there, now, with opened letters in his hands, unread. ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... on our table unread, our attention was specially called to it by noticing how savagely certain newspapers ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... of failure to-night," added Stuart, "or catastrophe, I authorise you to read this statement—and act upon it. If, however, I escape safely, I ask you to return it to me, unread." ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... said, shivering; "very cold, very faint, too. But I've made all right HERE," and he held out a document. "I wrote this paper in my room last night—in case of accident—confessing everything. I brought it down here, signed and witnessed, unread, intending to read it out if the verdict went against me—I mean, against Waring.... But I feel too weak now to read anything further.... I'm so cold, so cold. Take the paper, Forbes-Ewing. It's all in your line. You'll know what to do with it." He could ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... early next morning for his usual week of absence at lodgings; and it was with a sense of futility that he threw into his basket upon his tools and other necessaries the unread book he had ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... 1, 1895. Finished March 6, 1896. Copied out (three times) December, 1896. Submitted to Messrs. Kesteven, Sydney; but they say they are publishing very little at present, as times are depressed. To James & James, Melbourne; returned. And unread, I am sure; the package had hardly been touched. To Brown & McMahon, Melbourne. A most polite note, but they do not care to publish so long a story. Shortened it, and copied again (July, 1898). Sent again to Brown & McMahon. A printed refusal: 'Regret ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... am certain," he continued in the same calm, slow voice, "there is within this envelope some lie, some plot. I will not even know what it is. I will not ask you a single question, and I will throw these letters, unread, into the fire; but swear to me, that, whatever this Menko, or any other, may write to me, whatever any one may say, is an infamy and a calumny. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... touched it as if it were some foul thing. She was in two minds whether to open and read it, or merely return it unopened and addressed to Philip Slotman, Esq., Gracebury, London, E.C. But she was a woman. And it takes a considerable amount of strength of will to return unopened and unread a letter to its sender, especially if one ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... it would be clearly desirable. This I do not take to be the case of France, or of any other great country. Until now, we have seen no examples of considerable democracies. The ancients were better acquainted with them. Not being wholly unread in the authors who had seen the most of those constitutions, and who best understood them, I cannot help concurring with their opinion, that an absolute democracy no more than absolute monarchy is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. They think it rather ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... proud mistress now no more Of arts, but thundering against heathen lore; Her gray-hair'd synods damning books unread, And Bacon trembling for his brazen head. Padua, with sighs, beholds her Livy burn, And ev'n the Antipodes Virgilius mourn. See, the cirque falls, the unpillar'd temple nods, Streets paved with heroes, Tiber choked with gods: Till Peter's keys some christen'd ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... proclaim, in Caroline's strong and rather satirical language, across the breakfast table, that Mrs. Lyddell had discovered by accident that she and her pupil were in the habit of amusing themselves with novels which were far better unread. After reading quickly to the end of the letter, she answered, "O, she has been reading books with Clara that Mrs. Lyddell did ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... watching it and smiling, and picturing it as it was to be when she came. There would Mary be, sewing beneath the lamplight; there the fire burning, with old Captain and young Colonel, snuggling along the hearthstone; here I should be with my pipe and my book, unread, in my lap, for we should have many things to talk of, Mary and I. We should have Tim. As he played the great game, we should be watching his every move. And when he won, how she and I would smile over it and say "I told you ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... with Miss Jessup's wish in one particular. I have sent her the letter which I got from Hannah, unopened; unread; accompanied with a few ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... in such a way that I was to receive the entire income for twenty-five years, when the principal was to become mine. His further instructions related to this manuscript which I was to retain sealed and unread, just as I found it, for eleven years; nor was I to divulge its contents until twenty-one years after ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Bud," interrupted his sister, feeling in her sleeve for the unread letter. "I must run upstairs for just a moment. ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... to think of the poor fellow waiting and hoping for an answer to such a letter as this, and dying without one, while all the time it was lying unread in the Captain's desk, and no one even knew of the changed life and fresh hopes. Sir Jasper was much moved by it; but Sam said, "Ay, ay! poor Harry always was a plausible fellow!" and his wife was chiefly concerned to show that ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Failing to do this, why should a line of my books be read? Who reads a modern novel from sense of duty? There are classics which all must read and pretend to enjoy whether capable of doing so or not. No critic has ever been so daft as to call any of my books a classic. Better books are unread because the writer is not en rapport with the reader. The time has passed when either the theologian, the politician, or the critic can take the American citizen metaphorically by the shoulder and send him along the path in which ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... I could hardly get clothes for him to wear, but oh, Rosalie darling, I loved him very much! I wrote to my mother to tell her about it, and that baby was to be christened after my father; but she sent back my letter unread, and I never wrote to her again. And one day, when I took up a newspaper, I saw my mother's death in it; and I heard afterwards that she said on her dying bed that I was not to be told of her death till she was put under the ground, for I had been a disgrace ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... that the ghost walked, and those hidden things of life came back to mock him. He might forget, sometimes, bending above his desk, or struggling against the perplexing problems of his profession in the field, but not here; not in the glare of the footlights, amid the hum of the crowd. He crushed the unread programme within his hand, striving to converse carelessly with the lady sitting next to him, whom he was expected to entertain. But his thoughts were afar off, his eyes seeing a gray, misty, silent expanse of desert, growing constantly clearer in its hideous ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... out under the blossoming trees on the old Worden seat, her book lying, unread, in her lap, and her eyes having a dreamy, far-away look in them, when, from the balcony overhead, ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... doubtless carried an adroit explanation and excuse, ending up with numerous declarations of her affection and hypocritical assertions of her anxiety on his account. Disgust overwhelmed him. He was minded to cast the thing into the stove unread. At last, however, muttering to himself, he thrust a forefinger under the flap and ripped the envelope open. A newspaper clipping that had been enclosed in the letter dropped to ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... fell to an earnest council on frocks and petticoats, and other mysteries unread by man. Pete sat and watched and listened. "People will be crying shame on her if they see the Grannie doing everything," ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... these, to add a new joy to the crowded miracles of childhood, were no less worth doing than to leave a Sistine Chapel to astound a somewhat bored procession of tourists, or to have written a classic that sells by thousands and is possessed unread by all save an infinitesimal percentage of ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... and I may add, that his greatest stretch of invention was finding out that "the clergy" {13} were the means of his modest request being unnoticed. I mention this letter because it affords occasion to note a very common error, namely, that men unread in their subjects have, by natural wisdom, been great benefactors of mankind. My critic says, "Shakspeare, whom the Pro^r (sic) may admit to be a wisish man, though an object of contempt as to learning ..." Shakespeare ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... travestied and changed as to produce alone a degrading superstition. They believed that the Bible had the power of exorcising spirits of evil. So it has; but it is not the closed Bible, which they in their ignorance employed—not the mere printed paper bound into a volume—unread, or if read, misunderstood, at which the devil and his angels tremble. No; it is the open Bible—the Bible in many tongues—read and understood through God's gracious teaching, sought for by prayer earnestly. It is the blessed gospel of peace which ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston |
