"Yawning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ocean, and burst open in innumerable places. The trees of the old forest swayed back and forwards like reeds in a hurricane, and were uprooted by hundreds. Entire forests were in some instances swallowed by the yawning abyss, so that only the tops of a few trees could be seen. Mountains were torn from their beds; rocks were rent, and enormous blocks of stone rolled into the valleys, crushing all before them. The houses were ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... not having missed her Talks, tears, laughter In absence, or sought To recall for so long Her gamut of song; Or ever to waft her Signal of aught That she, fancy-fanned, Would well understand, I should have kissed her Picture when scanned Yawning years after! ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... way up the coast we literally hugged the shore; only during the hours when we were crossing the yawning mouth of the Gulf of California were we for a single moment out of sight of land. I know not if this was a saving in time and distance, and therefore a saving in fuel and provender; or if our ship, ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... that. Yawning is not a very attractive kind of relaxation, is it? And as for study of life, eight years of reporting gave me more of that than I could assimilate. And it was study of realities, not of pretenses. As I remember them, 'respectable' people are all about the ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... young infants are reflex acts, that is, the cerebrum, the part of the brain with which thinking is done, is not concerned with their performance. Of these reflexes the most notable are sucking and swallowing, but sneezing, coughing, choking, and hiccoughing may also be observed; stretching and yawning have been recorded in several instances, even during the first days of infant life. None of these movements, we must remember, are produced consciously; the baby cannot reason and does not recognize anyone, even ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... stage with its half-spent lamps still burning dimly against the morning light swept round the curve and rolled heavily up to the rude shanty which served as coach-office, he became watchful. A single yawning individual in its doorway received a few letters and parcels, but Clarence was evidently the ONLY waiting passenger. Any hope that he might have entertained that his mysterious predecessor would emerge from some seclusion at that moment was disappointed. ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... laughter among this good- humoured auditory of cut-throats, pickpockets, and policemen. The only symptom of a prison about the place was a door, across which a couple of sentinels were stretched, yawning; while within lay three freshly-caught pirates—chained by the leg. They had committed some murders of a very late date, and were awaiting sentence; but their wives were allowed to communicate freely with them: and it seemed to me that if half-a-dozen friends would ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... corners of Mexico that afternoon, and at an unheard-of place, with an unpronounceable name, it found Cornelius McVeigh, the centre of a group of gentlemen. The party had just emerged from the yawning mouth of a mine, and were resting in the sunshine and expelling the foul air from their lungs, whilst the young promoter of the western metropolis was explaining, from a sheet of paper covered with figures, the cost of base metal ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... one ugly thing in the whole palace, which was a little, drowsy, gray dwarf, left there by the fairy Prosperity. He kept yawning all day, and very often set the Prince yawning, too, only to look at him. This dwarf they called Satiety, and he followed the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... point of entering his stateroom, paused long enough to confirm this surmise. "Beastly trip—most tiresome," he added, frankly yawning. "Don't know how I should have stood it if it hadn't been for Miss Landis. You know her, I ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... made the steep descent a bristly wall. Insensibly affected by external surroundings, unused to such complete darkness, the sombre aspect of the scene filled her with nervous apprehension: every bit of jutting rock she stumbled against was a yawning precipice, and at each step she took she died some different death. The terrors of her mind entirely absorbed all her former indifference and ill-humor, and she would have gladly welcomed any accident which would have afforded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... horizon. But years of bush travel, of watching restless cattle, and of sleeping under the threat of danger from prowling blacks had made the man respond immediately to any noise or unusual sight. There was no period of stretching or yawning. Mick was asleep one instant, and fully awake the next and shouting "Daylight". The black boys were also light sleepers, trained out of their native laziness by association with alert whites. There was Yarloo, who had ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... but he only took it up one nostril. I kept my eye on the pinch of snuff, and saw that Lord Eldon, the moment he had taken it from the box, threw it away. I was sorry at the time, and was astonished at the deception practised by so great a man, with the grave yawning before him." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Here dulness seems her drowsy court to keep, And we are scarce awake, whilst you are fast asleep. Thalia, once so ill-behaved and rude, Reform'd, is now become an arrant prude; Retailing nightly to the yawning pit The purest morals, undefiled by wit! Our author offers, in these motley scenes, A slight remonstrance to the drama's queens: Nor let the goddesses be over nice; Free-spoken subjects give the best advice. Although not quite a novice in his trade, His cause to-night requires ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... steamer was settling. The hissing swash of the waves beating into the breach, the prayers, the imprecations, the hysterical sobs, the agonized cries of the struggling passengers, the darkness, the terror, the yawning abyss of death beneath them,—combined to sweep away all human feelings save the instinct of self-preservation. The brute side of human nature revealed itself with a hideousness more horrible than the terror of the night and the sea. Unprotected ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... said the neighbor, yawning. "Boredom is an ultimate. There's nothing beyond it; consequently, you can't be more ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... down the accommodation ladder that led to the well-deck, side-stepped a yawning hatch, dodged a swinging cargo net stuffed with trunks, and entered the second-class smoking-room. From there he elbowed his way to the second-class promenade deck. A stream of tearful and hilarious ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... could she, with the grim doors of the home for the county paupers yawning blackly to receive her? All through the night was the horror upon her, and to this day she remembers the sickening thrill that swept over her while playing with a little friend, when ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... There, between sunburnt russet slopes, the exhausted Viorne was almost running dry beneath the span of an old dust-bepowdered bridge, without a bit of green, nothing save a few bushes, dying for want of moisture. Farther on, the mountain gorge of the Infernets showed its yawning chasm amidst tumbled rocks, struck down by lightning, a huge chaos, a wild desert, rolling stony billows as far as the eye could reach. Then came all sorts of well remembered nooks: the valley of Repentance, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... could scarcely hold together. The gaping chinks admitted every blast; the leaning chimneys had lost half their original height; the rotten rafters were evidently misplaced; while in many instances the thatch, yawning in some parts to admit the wind and wet, and in all utterly unfit for its original purpose of giving protection from the weather, looked more like the top of a dunghill than a cottage. Before the doors of these dwellings, and often surrounding ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... huge sigh of relief I turned away. As I climbed the fence once more I gave a parting glance toward the yawning doorway of the barn on the marsh. There, as plain as before I had pierced the bubble, swung the body of my neighbor. And all the way home, though I would not turn my head, I felt it ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad to see me: and then ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... whistle that he had bought that evening in the town, and heads appeared almost immediately at the entrances of the other tents, and in half a minute all were out, some alert and ready for business, others yawning and stretching ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... have liked very well, under these influences, to have listened to Tom Wyndsour's story; but after supper I grew too sleepy to attempt to lead him to the subject; and after yawning for a time, I found there was no use in contending against my drowsiness, so I betook myself to my bedroom, and by ten o'clock ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... finding me still absorbed in the manuscript, and disinclined to converse, lighted his candle, and telling me to replace the manuscript in the desk when I had done with it, and be sure to lock the desk and take charge of the key, which he took off the bunch and gave me, went upstairs, yawning. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of surprised stillness. Then the forecastle floor disappeared under men whose bare feet flopped on the planks as they sprang clear out of their berths. Caps were rooted for amongst tumbled blankets. Some, yawning, buttoned waistbands. Half-smoked pipes were knocked hurriedly against woodwork and stuffed under pillows. Voices growled:—"What's up?... Is there no rest for us?" Donkin yelped:—"If that's the way of this ship, we'll 'ave ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... athletic visitor had bent the chairs like this as a feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings and the cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning holes that were hard to account for (one might have fancied they were made by the heel of the same athlete), and it seemed as though the room would still have been dark if a dozen lamps had hung in it. There was nothing approaching ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... noon, after the cool shade of the veranda, was terrific. I arrived out of breath, my brow richly embroidered with crystal beads, just in time to find Bailey squeezing his bath sponge preparatory to packing it, in a yawning kitbag already full. At such a moment he could squeeze a sponge! I hated him for this, as though the sponge ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... cares of common life, that only the few among men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have come up to our very gates, and are already within striking distance. The yawning seam and corroded bolt conceal their defects from the mariner until the storm calls all hands to the pumps. Prophets, indeed, were abundant before the war; but who cares for prophets while their predictions remain unfulfilled, and the calamities ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... noticed in the sons of ministers and other eminently worthy people, by many ascribed to that intense congenital hatred for goodness which distinguishes human nature from that of the brute, but perhaps as readily accounted for by considering it as the yawning and stretching of a young soul cramped too long ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the love of Christ restrain To seek the wand'ring souls of men, With cries, entreaties, tears to save, And snatch them from the yawning grave. ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... beheld stupendous rocks hanging ruinous over my head; the next, I was enveloped in a drizzling cloud, which arose from a vast cascade that, dashing, thundered against the rocks below my feet. On one side a perpetual torrent opened to my view a yawning abyss, which my eyes could hardly fathom with safety; sometimes I was lost in the obscurity of a hanging wood, and then was greatly astonished with the sudden opening of a ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... but instead of yawning, speak while your throat is open. Make this open-feeling habitual when speaking—we say make because it is a matter of resolution and of practise, if your vocal organs are healthy. Your tone passages may be partly closed by enlarged tonsils, adenoids, or enlarged turbinate bones ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... my tripod, I started off down the hill into Biaches. Then the signs of the German retreat began to fully reveal themselves. The ground was absolutely littered with the horrible wastage of war; roads were torn open, leaving great yawning gaps that looked for all the world like huge jagged wounds. On my right lay the Chateau of La Maisonnette. The ground there was a shambles, for numerous bodies in various stages of putrefaction lay about as they ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... volleys of millions each. Beneath the earth, thunders and crashings went on at the same time. Then, in every direction, the earth fissured and gaped and yawned wider than ever, and with blood-curdling roarings and crashings, a whole tenth part of the city tottered and fell into the yawning gulfs, with ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... all this heavy labour had begun to tell, was taking advantage of the absence of his taskmaster, Jacob, to sleep awhile in the hut which they had now built for themselves beneath the shadow of the baobab-tree. As she reached it he came out yawning, and asked her where she ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... out of Gresset or Crebillon, and fancies I believe them to be original. Bah! they are no more her own than her hair is!' It was in this way that the wretched lad was dancing over the ruin that was yawning under him. I do believe that his chief pleasure in making love to the Princess was, that he might write about his victories to his friends of the PETITES MAISONS at Paris, where he longed to be considered as a wit and a ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... linen, and writing-tablets, and all things needful. I have seen Brennus also, and told him that a Syrian merchant would pass the guard an hour before the dawn. And though he made pretence of sleep, I think he understood, for he answered, yawning, that if they but had the pass-word, 'Antony,' fifty Syrian merchants might go through about their lawful business. And here is the letter to the captain—thou canst not mistake the galley, for she is moored along to the right—a small galley, painted black, as thou dost enter on the great quay, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... one of the other two, piercing him in the navel, and then falling on the ground, and lying stretched before him. The wounded man, fascinated and mute, stood looking at the adder's eyes, and endeavouring to stand steady on his legs, yawning the while as if smitten with lethargy or fever; the adder, on his part, looked up at the eyes of the man, and both of them breathed hard, and sent forth a smoke ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... I ever saw. If a lady dropped her fan, her shawl, her handkerchief, nay even a pin, he was the first to spring to her aid and pick it up; and this he would do in less time than one of our modern yawning, lounging, dandies would take to drawl out "pray Maam shall I have the honour, &c." He would take a cheerful bottle, and make one of the merriest of the gayest party, but never to excess; for he was arrived at that ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... woods. He was then hungry and longing for human flesh. Shaking his dry and grizzly locks and scratching them with his fingers pointed upwards, the large-mouthed cannibal repeatedly looked at the sleeping sons of Pandu yawning wistfully at times. Of huge body and great strength, of complexion like the colour of a mass of clouds, of teeth long and sharp-pointed and face emitting a sort of lustre, he was ever pleased with human flesh. And scenting the odour of man, he addressed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... from the entrance of Saint Faith's. On seeing the porter, Leonard shouted to him, and the poor fellow hurried towards him. At this juncture, a strange hissing sound was heard, as if a heavy shower of rain were descending upon the roof, and through the yawning gap over the choir there poured a stream of molten lead of silvery brightness. Nothing can be conceived more beautiful than this shining yet terrible cascade, which descended with momentarily increasing fury, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... eyelids almost imperceptibly, said it was all very well for people who never made money to talk. He himself intended to live as long as he could. This was a hit at George, who was notoriously hard up. Bosinney muttered abstractedly "Hear, hear!" and, George yawning, the conversation dropped. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... balls had crashed into the facade. Yawning fissures, gigantic holes, marked the path of the ugly messengers from Marlanx. Nearly all of the windows had been wrecked by riflemen who shot from the roofs of palaces in and about the avenue. Two of the smaller minarets were in ruins; a huge pillar in the lower ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of absolutely unconscious animalism, chasing the leeriness of the contented man's conceit, turned her to softness if not to cheerfulness. She adored Fritz like that. His open-mouthed, gaping yawn moved something in her to tenderness. She would have liked to kiss him while he was yawning and to pass her hands over his short hair, which was like a mat and grew as strongly as the hair which he shaved every morning from his ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... prevailed in the University of Paris the heyday of scholastic philosophy and theology. From the disputations which he heard in the Sorbonne he brought back nothing but the habit of scoffing at doctors of theology, or as he always ironically calls them by their title of honour: Magistri nostri. Yawning, he sat among 'those holy Scotists' with their wrinkled brows, staring eyes, and puzzled faces, and on his return home he writes a disrespectful fantasy to his young friend Thomas Grey, telling ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the story below, and uttered a simultaneous exclamation of alarm. A yawning hole some eight feet ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... suppose any of you want to get the single tent out and sleep ashore to-night?" said Frank finally, as he saw his comrades yawning, as if ready ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... with the air of a Lovelace; only more stupid; yawning and stretching, instead of humming a tune as thou ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... scarcely felt in the iron-clad, but in the 'Cumberland' it was terrific. The ship heeled over to port and trembled as if she had struck a rock under full sail, while the iron prow of the 'Merrimac' crushed through her side and left a yawning chasm. In backing out of the 'Cumberland,' the 'Merrimac' left her iron prow inside the doomed ship. Following up the blow by the discharge of her bow gun, she backed clear of the wreck. In response to a demand for surrender, Lieutenant Morris defiantly ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... the man with the large chin, yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... wild beast, it had a certain defined track which I followed astutely, eventually coming to a full stop in front of a wall of rock. I then perceived by the aid of a few fitful rays of suppressed light, which at intervals struggled successfully through a black bank of clouds, the yawning mouth of a big cavern, from the roof of which hung innumerable stalactites. I now suddenly realized that I was in a very lonely, isolated spot, and became immeasurably perturbed. The Unknown Something in the atmosphere which had inspired me with so much fear was here conglomerated—it ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... He entered the yawning cavern, followed by Sir John. They traversed the same path that Morgan took when he returned to give an account of his expedition. At the end of the passage they came upon an iron gate opening into the mortuary vaults. Roland shook ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... he was reckless of his life, he could not bring himself to be guilty of suicide. Death was wooing him in many forms, day by day, to seek refuge with him. When his feet slipped among the yawning crevasses of the glaciers, the smallest wilful negligence would have buried him in their blue depths. The common impulse to cast himself down the precipices along whose margin he crept had only to be yielded to, and all his earthly woe would be over. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... himself stationed on a car made of silver, both the Kurus and the Pandavas beheld that hero looking like the moon encircled by white clouds. The great bowmen amongst the Srinjayas headed by Dhrishtadyumna, (beholding Bhishma) looked like little animals when they would behold a mighty yawning lion. Indeed, all the combatants headed by Dhrishtadyumna repeatedly trembled in fear. These, O king, were the eleven splendid divisions of thy army. So also the seven divisions belonging to the Pandavas were protected by foremost of men. Indeed, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... probably made off with her, or cut her head off!" remarked Fred by way of offering comfort, yawning with the conscious luxury of having slept. "I don't see Rustum Khan. Let's hope it's true! That 'ud give the American lady a better chance for her life in case we ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... of the larger muscles of our bodies, that are most frequently connected with volition, were originally excited into action by internal irritations: as appears from the stretching or yawning of all animals after long sleep. In the beginning of some fevers this irritation of the muscles produces perpetual stretching and yawning; in other periods of fever an universal restlessness arises from the same cause, the patient changing the attitude of his ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... listening to the grating noise of that key. A stray puff of wind wandering down the empty street woke a momentary rustling in the trees behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key was the only sound audible; and at last it turned in the lock and the heavy door swung open and revealed a yawning ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... he was still sleepy and he did a large amount of yawning before he could get himself wide-awake. He sat up in the bow of the launch, the others resting on the cushions on the sides and stern. All was as silent as a tomb, and the mist was now so thick that he could not see a distance of six yards ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... the mountain only, not a step further, for they say it is impossible for a horse to climb the heaped-up and yawning rocks." ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... no longer. He aimed at the yawning hippopotamus and fired, hitting it on the skull, but at such an angle that the ball glanced off. If there was noise before, the riot and confusion now was indescribable! Water-fowl that had not moved at the first alarm now sprang in myriads from ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... unaccustomed to: the husband had been a soldier in India; the legislation forced upon that country by the prudery of the English public had given a free run to the most distressing of all diseases; the innocent suffered. Yawning, Philip undressed and took a bath, then shook his clothes over the water and watched the animals that fell out wriggling. He was just going to get into bed when there was a knock at the door, and the hospital ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... suddenly slackened in its speed and then hung poised in mid-air. The rays of the search-light were directed downward and slowly shifted from point to point. Looking down, the American caught glimpses of rugged rocks, sharp cliffs and yawning chasms. ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... ice, having to cut steps with an axe that we had brought along, before reaching the top. The latter stage of this proceeding was like scrambling over the dome of the Washington Capitol with a great yawning cliff below, and was well calculated to try the nerve of any one except a competent mountaineer or a sailor accustomed to a doddering mast. A ravine was next reached, through which tumbled with loud noise and wild confusion, ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... dizzy, bewildered, and speechless, upon the brink of a yawning chasm. Then appears a light beyond, beckoning me to try ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... and before the dump boss could speak again Hogan had started down and around the dump to the powder house, near the saloon. He went into the powder house, and then came out, carrying a heavy box. At the sidewalk edge, Hogan, who was yawning, stumbled—they saw him stumble, two men standing in the door of the Hot Dog saloon a block away, and they told the people at the inquest that that was the last they saw. A great explosion followed. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Banner, yawning, "ever since you took that micro-course in culturology you have insights into the situation denied to the rest of ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco
... or so later the covered wagon drove along Fourteenth street. Near the curb, not far from the corner of Broadway, it separated itself from the concourse of vehicles and stopped. Close by, nickel palaces of amusement exhibited their yawning entrances, and into these gilded maws floated, from the human current on the sidewalk, a stream of men, women and children. Encamped at the edge of this eddy, Mr. Mackintosh sounded on the nomadic piano, now ensconced within the coach of concord, ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... yawning gap, where one arch of the railway bridge used to be, with a solitary bent rail still lying across it. And, among the wreckage of the bridge below, lying on its side and more than half beneath the water, is the smashed and splintered ruin ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... roaring wind! And when the moon shone forth, and tinged the black clouds with silver, and the impetuous torrent at my feet foamed and resounded with awful and grand impetuosity, I was overcome by a mingled sensation of apprehension and delight. With extended arms I looked down into the yawning abyss, and cried, "Plunge!'" For a moment my senses forsook me, in the intense delight of ending my sorrows and my sufferings by a plunge into that gulf! And then I felt as if I were rooted to the earth, and incapable of seeking an end to my woes! But my hour is not yet come: I feel ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... an immense cavern known only to two of our chamois hunters, who made use of it as a hiding-place when their unconquerable passion for heroic adventures tempted them to disregard the cantonal regulations. Joyous shouts broke forth when the yawning mouth of the grotto opened wide under thick layers of snow. Our songs recommenced, and, as night was coming on, we pressed forward rapidly. For some hours I had been unconscious of fatigue, and I could have marched ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... of a heart pulsing with dread, perhaps! Chet had no mind for explanations. Before him were a score of yawning clefts in a rocky floor; one was larger than the rest; there were figures whose white bodies glowed red in its reflected light as they floated on black wings high above; the light of those hidden fires blazed and ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... that both man and beast must slide down to where the slope ended in a yawning precipice. Chub was snorting or screaming in terror. Our mustangs were frightened and rearing. It was not a place ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... a coiffeur, all the false woman is there, scattered about in open sight. Disjecta membra poetae, the artificial poesy, so much admired by those for whom it is conceived and elaborated, the fragments of a pretty woman, litter every corner of the room. To the love of a yawning husband, the actual presents herself, also yawning, in a dishabille without elegance, and a tumbled night-cap, that of last night and that of to-morrow night also,—"For really, monsieur, if you want a pretty cap to rumple ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... she had caught her tram at Kew Bridge in the morning and her tram again at Hammersmith at night. Only her Sundays and her Saturday afternoons were free, except for those two wonderful weeks in the summer and the yawning gaps in the side of the year which are ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... 'promising young American sopranos' to sing on off-nights and fill in and make myself generally useful, I simply won't have a chance. They wouldn't get excited about me whatever happened. They'd go on patronizing me and yawning in my face no matter how good I was. I'd do just as well, he says, so far as my career is concerned, to stay right here in Chicago and get Campanini to give me two or three appearances a season;—make a sort of amateur night of it for the gold coast to buzz about. I'd have a lot easier time ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... man with a yawning hole in his abdomen. He lay unmurmuring. When the doctor pressed, the muscles twitched. I asked some one to hold the lamp. I went into the courtyard, and fainted. Hard ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... the endless ascent; sometimes great chasms were at one side, stretching further and further, and crowding the narrow path—the herder's trail—against the sheer ascent, till it seemed that the treacherous mountains were yawning to engulf them. The air was growing colder, but was exquisitely clear and exhilarating; the great dewy ferns flung silvery fronds athwart the way; vines in stupendous lengths swung from the tops of gigantic trees to the roots. Hark! among them birds chirp; a matutinal impulse ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... eight o'clock; but the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in comparison with the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth, and shrouded everything from view. He darted forward for a few paces, as if into the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern; then, thinking he had gone wrong, changed the direction of his steps; then stood still, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... to the pelts, indeed, until after Mrs. Twig and Violet had retired that evening to the inner room and to bed. Then for nearly an hour he sat smoking and telling the boys stories of adventures up and down the coast, until Charley, yawning, suggested that he was sleepy, and saying good night retired to the bunk ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... in the sound of gigantic hammers, wielded by steam, the Englishman's slave. After passing Tipton, at which place one leaves the great working district behind; I became for a considerable time a yawning, listless Englishman, without pride, enthusiasm, or feeling of any kind, from which state I was suddenly roused by the sight of ruined edifices on the tops of hills. They were remains of castles built by Norman Barons. Here, perhaps, the reader will expect from me a burst ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... in, yawning. As he had told me before, he said he felt that he could do a great story, and as before I hunted him to his room and saw him open his inkstand. At one o'clock the sheets of ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... and if age, magnitude, and the general air of good preservation, count for anything, it must be one of the most impressive monuments of its class still to be seen. Originally its wall, now minus battlements, fronted close upon the river. It is surrounded by a dry yawning fosse, formerly a moat, and possesses no less than seventeen enormous and perfectly formed towers, each perhaps eighty feet in height, banded near the top in white and black stripes. Hardly more than a circling wall to-day, it has stood well the test ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... of the office-building for a word with Nelson, who was already yawning at his post. Without any suggestion other than the promptings of good-nature, he had turned out long before daybreak ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... woods, wherein we found him, and the pretty village which we had constituted our head quarters, a distance of at least three miles; and now a very difficult and awkward obstacle presented itself to our farther progress, in the shape of a wide yawning brook between sheer banks of several feet in height, broken, with rough and pointed stones, the whole being at least five yards across. The gallant hounds dashed over it; and, when we reached it, were half way across the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... foot, did the monster exclaim, "Now I brave, cruel Fairy, thy scorn!" When lo! from a chasm wide-yawning there came A light tiny chariot of rose-colour'd flame, By a ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... later Miss Connie Brown, aged sixteen, who was yawning over a novel on the chaise-lounge of her bedroom, was electrified into action by the announcement that two gentlemen callers were waiting for her in the parlor. Miss Connie was in excellent health, weighing one hundred and sixty pounds, rather freckled, and quite ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... green vase filled with great branches of some sort of blossoms. Not a picture hung upon the walls, nor was there any hall stand, chest, closet for coats or hats, or any of the usual furbishings of such a place. There were three rugs upon the polished floor and nothing else except a yawning stairway and closed doors. Whatever servants might be in attendance were evidently in a distant part of the building. Not a sound was to be heard. Still without any lack of courage, but oppressed with that curious sense of unreality, she turned almost automatically towards the door ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to three children near Manchester for worms. Yawning and listlessness came on, and the eldest vomited a little, but neither of them complained of any pain. They all died within a ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... The city stood near a stagnant lake, and a deep cavern; where was supposed to be the most compendious passage to the shades below: [577][Greek: ten eis hadou katabasin suntomon.] The lake was called the pool of Acherusia; near to which and the yawning cavern the Cyclopians chose to take up their habitation. They are said to have built [578]Tiryns; the walls of which were esteemed no less a wonder than the [579]pyramids of Egypt. They must have resided ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... down his Electress to dinner one day in this Schloss of Grimnitz; broad stair climbs round a grand Hall, hung with stag-trophies, groups of weapons, and the like hall-furniture. An unlucky timber yielded; yawning chasm in the staircase; Joachim and his good Princess sank by gravitation; Joachim to the floor with little hurt; his poor Princess (horrible to think of), being next the wall, came upon the stag-horns and boar-spears ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... and gravel from the roadway above were dashed into our faces by the outer circle of the tornado. Grasping Miss Harding by the arm I dragged or carried her, I know not which, to the yawning but welcome opening of the old ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... beset with terrors. When he was caught in the branches of the oak-tree, he was about to sever his hair with a sword stroke, but suddenly he saw hell yawning beneath him, and he preferred to hang in the tree to throwing himself into the abyss alive. (104) Absalom's crime was, indeed, of a nature to deserve the supreme torture, for which reason he is one of the few Jews ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... shelter of a friendly hill and plunges boldly across the open plain. Our Batteries were firing constantly from every available angle of the hills, and the enemy's spirited reply made very heavy the din of gun fire. In all directions, on roadside, field and hill, geysers were rising, and yawning yellow craters forming from the ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... with me now," said Jose, rising and stretching his arms and yawning. "But tell me first why was your daughter sad when she first ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... the lobbies looking at his watch, or repairing to a neighboring concert hall to pass the weary hours. At a ball it is even worse. One wonders why card-rooms are not provided at large balls (as is the custom abroad), where the bored husbands might find a little solace over “bridge,” instead of yawning in the coat-room or making desperate signs to their wives from the doorway,—signals of distress, by the bye, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... belied in advance by the previsions of M. Turgot himself. He had espied the danger and sounded some of the chasms just yawning beneath the feet of the nation as well as of the king; he committed the noble error of believing in the instant and supreme influence of justice and reason. "Sir," said he to Louis XVI., "you ought to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... where, by the simple expedient of neutralizing the cut, mere child's play for one so skilled in conjuring, he was able to turn the scale in his favor, winning back in a single game all that he had already lost. He had hesitated for a moment, feeling the abyss yawning beneath him; then he had falsed, made the pass, and won the game. That night he swore to himself that he would never cheat again, never again be tempted to dishonor his birth; and he kept his oath till his next run of bad luck, when he once more neutralized ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... Or thither,[49] where, beneath the showery west, The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid; Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest, No slaves revere them, and no wars invade: Yet frequent now, at midnight's solemn hour, 150 The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power, In pageant robes, and wreath'd with sheeny gold, And on their twilight ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... and later occasion, when the Governor-General's camp was peculiarly dull and stagnant, every one yawning and grumbling, Yule effected a temporary diversion by pretending to tap the telegraph wires, and circulating through camp, what purported to be, the usual telegraphic abstract of news brought to Bombay by the latest English mail. The news was of the most astounding ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... went on, for Aziel had listened in silence to the tale of this devilish device. "Well, learn that it depends upon the lady Elissa yonder whether or not this fate shall be yours. Send now and pray her to save you. Think what it will be to hang as at this moment your servant hangs over that yawning gulf of space, waiting through the long hours till at last you see the little wreaths of smoke begin to curl from the tinder of the cord. Why! before the end found them I have known men go mad, and, like wolves, tear with their teeth ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... shook his stiffened limbs, and stretching and yawning as most people do when roused from sleep, followed Glenarvan to ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Ned Crashington dashed up the blazing staircase. For a moment he was lost to view, but quickly reappeared, attempting to cross a half-charred beam which overhung a yawning gulf of fire where the first and second floors had just fallen in. Suddenly a dense mass of smoke surrounded him. He staggered, threw up his arms, and was seen to fall headlong into the flames. A deep groan, or cry of ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... "And tra-la-la, and castanets, and my Cid! my Cid! and the Alhambra, the Sierra Nevada, and ay di me, Alhama; and Boabdil el Chico and el Zagal and Fray Antonio Agapida!" She flung out the rattle, yawning, with her arms up and her head back, in the posture of a woman wounded. One of her aunt's chance shots had traversed her breast, flashing at her the time, the scene, the husband, intensest sunniness on sword-edges of shade,—and now the wedded riddle; illusion dropping mask, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no society in our sense of the word; of course they must live shut up in their own dismal houses, with their own stupid families, the faithful husband and wife sitting opposite to each other in their own chimney corners, yawning models of constancy. And this they call virtue! How the meanest vices usurp the name of virtue! Leonora's is a jealousy of the most illiberal and degrading species; a jealousy of the temper, not of the heart. She is too cold to feel the passion of love.—She never ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... moment he was mad, and the next he was ready to laugh, was even merry after a fashion. By the morning he grew calm through exhaustion, and went into a wretched tavern in the outskirts, asked for a room and sat down on a chair before the window. He was overtaken by a fit of convulsive yawning. He could scarcely stand upright, his whole body was worn out, and he did not even feel fatigue, though fatigue began to do its work; he sat and gazed and comprehended nothing; he did not understand what had happened ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... figure glittering with stars dropped from the nest, suspended by a tattered flag. Down, down it fell. Frantically he clutched at the frail colors. They lengthened more, and more, till the starry, shimmering form was swaying above a yawning abyss. Could he save her? Her—his young love with the appealing eyes? With one mighty effort he nerved himself for the desperate descent, when lo! from yon black depth appears the vindictive face of Isabella Drury. Older, careworn, faded—but still Isabella, and wearing ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... which he had at first remarked on their faces, as envious bile drew their skin together and dyed it yellow, disappeared here while they enjoyed the treat of an amiable lie. Two fat ladies, open-mouthed, were yawning with satisfaction. Some old gentlemen opened their eyes wide with a knowing air. A husband explained the subject to his young wife, who jogged her chin with a pretty motion of the neck. There was every kind of marvelling, beatifical, astonished, profound, gay, austere, amidst unconscious ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... truth is that nobody can work harder than a pair of robins, for example, with four or five hungry mouths to fill, and every mouthful to be hunted up as it is wanted. No one would guess what an ever-yawning cavern a baby robin's mouth is, till he has tried to bring up a nestling himself. I once kept two small boys busy several days at high wages, digging worms for one young bird, and then I believe he starved ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... easily from taking charge of the school into taking charge of our municipal affairs—for a consideration—and their younger brothers, their cousins, their uncles and their aunts, found jobs yawning for them as soon as they had pushed past the gates ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... bottom of which lay numerous toothsome raisins—a rare tidbit in those days—and one of these, pierced with a gold button, was known as the "lucky raisin." Then, as the flaming brandy flickered and darted from the yawning bowl, even as did the flaming poison tongues of the cruel dragon that St. George of England conquered so valiantly, each one of the revellers sought to snatch a raisin from the burning bowl without singe or scar. And he who drew out the lucky raisin was winner and champion, and could claim a boon ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... crown was bare and Hale knew that up there was a mountain farm, the refuge of a man who had been involved in that terrible feud beyond Black Mountain behind him. Five minutes later he was at the yawning mouth of the gap and there lay before him a beautiful valley shut in tightly, for all the eye could see, with mighty hills. It was the heaven-born site for the unborn city of his dreams, and his eyes swept every curve of the valley lovingly. The two forks of the river ran around it—he could follow ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... for consent, bore her swiftly onward and upward,—with an "Excelsior" spirit that would have thrown the Alpine youth with the banner and the strange device considerably into the shade,—until he placed her at the yawning black mouth of the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... bibi, my friend," said the pacha, yawning, "your story gets very dry already. We'll suppose the cypress waist, the stag's eyes, and full moon of her face. We Musselmen don't talk so much about women; but I suppose as you were a Frenchman, and very young then, you knew ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... Here I cast away All human passions, all revenge, all pride; I think, speak, act no ill; I do but hide Under these words, like embers, every spark Of that which has consumed me—quick and dark 505 The grave is yawning...as its roof shall cover My limbs with dust and worms under and over So let Oblivion hide this grief...the air Closes upon my accents, as despair Upon my heart—let ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... yawning trunks, a litter of feminine apparel and of personal effects—the accumulation of a long term of years, for she was an inveterate hoarder—encumbering every available surface, the carpet included, Theresa ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... soul you're madder than I thought. Couldn't you trust me to see that my future brother-in-law comes to no harm without ramming your own head down the lion's throat? Faith, I think Craven has the right of it: the hempen noose is yawning for ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... how they scream and shiver, While devils push them to the pit wide-yawning Hideous and gloomy, to receive them ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... ghastly story, indeed,' Herbert Le Breton said, yawning; 'and now I think we'd better be getting under way ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... of Phoebus now {121} Lived to behold th' ethereal light! Then might she leave the seats below, Where Pluto reigns in cheerless night! The Sage's potent art, Till thund'ring Jove's avenging pow'r Hurl'd his red Thunders at his breast, Could, from the yawning gulf releast, To the sweet light of life the dead restore. Who now shall aid impart? To ev'ry god, at ev'ry shrine, The king hath paid the rites divine: But vain his vows, his pious care; And ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... little of her own sex, had a great effect towards calming and soothing her mind. But, at night, her dreams brought before her the dark and menacing countenance of her father. Sometimes he seemed to pluck her from the gates of heaven, and to sink with her into the yawning abyss below. Sometimes she saw him with her beside the altar, but imploring her to forswear the Saviour, before whose crucifix she knelt. Occasionally her visions were haunted, also, with Muza—but in less terrible guise She saw his calm and melancholy eyes fixed ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... conscious only of release from pain. She was no longer walking on blades; she was no longer attempting the impossible. Between her and the life which Barbara Walbrook understood the few steps she had taken had already marked the gulf. The gulf had always been there, yawning, unbridgeable, only that she, Letty Gravely, had tried to shut her eyes to it. She had tried to shut her eyes to it in the hope that the man she loved might come to do the same. She knew now how utterly foolish any such hope ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... listened with seeming comprehension and then shook his head, saying: 'But that is not an experience; that is an idea.' Goethe was disappointed, perplexed. All his labor had gone for naught, and the awful chasm was still yawning. He replied that he was glad if he had ideas without knowing it and could actually see them with his eyes, Schiller defended himself suavely as a good Kantian, and the men separated, each in a docile mood with respect ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... gods is not for us to say. The Romans believed the latter; those who prefer may believe the former. But, so we are told, it seemed bottomless. Throw what they would in it, it stood unfilled, and the feeling grew that no power of man could ever fill its yawning depths. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... were two places, only a few yards in, where the arch was broken into a yawning crack, from which the water dripped in ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... it is weird business to be swimming in strange water—the throne of mystery, of a thousand terrors. It is as if one's grave, full of the blackness of the undiscovered country, were pursuing him and ever yawning beneath his body. And that big river is the very tiger of waters, now stealing on pussy-footed, now rushing with cat-like swiftness, hissing and striking with currents that have in them mighty sinews. I was now companion of those cold-mouthed monsters of the river bottom, many ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... want to hear the rest of the carols," murmured Cherry, yawning so widely that she nearly swallowed the rest of the ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... smouldering remains of a camp-fire alone bespoke primitive living. Yet every where along that upper terrace, where in places the seductive gold streak lay half uncovered to the sun, were those same yawning holes leading far down beneath the surface; about them grouped the puny figures of men performing the labors of Hercules under the galling spur ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... the fifty-sixth chapter of the first Essay of Montaigne will show with what great reverence he treated ceremonial customs and hollow formulas; for instance, the sign of the cross, of which he 'continually made use, even if he be but yawning' (sic). It is not a mere coincidence, but a well-calculated trait in the character of Hamlet, that in his speech he goes through a scale of exclamations and asseverations such as Shakspere employs in no other of his poetical ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... tasks. Brother Nathan read his weekly FARMER; Brother William turned over the leaves of a hymn-book and appeared to count them with noiseless, moving lips; Brother George cut pictures out of the back of a magazine, yawning sometimes, and looking often at his watch. Into this quietness Eldress ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... mere jumble of facts and figures a giant structure, the shaping of glowing metal to exact measurements, the delving in the slime under water for firm foundations, or the throwing of webs of steel across yawning chasms or over roaring streams, is never monotonous, is often adventurous, and in many, many instances is ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... therefore, to no habit of suspicion, and constitutionally cheerful, went to bed with her young son, thinking no evil. Midnight came, one, two o'clock; mother and child had long been asleep; nor did either of them dream of that danger which even now was yawning under their feet. The barrister had spent the hours from ten to two in drawing up his will, and in writing such letters as might have the best chance, in case of fatal issue to himself, for obtaining ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... clothes men dropping a few feet behind and rejoining her only when they reached the steps between the two green lamps. In this way they avoided collecting a crowd at their heels. As she advanced to the desk, the sergeant yawning over the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... urbanity, conciliatory tendencies, nor dignified, solid physical properties of the Governor. He was pleased to refer to himself as a tribune of the people, and his thin, nervous figure, clad in a long frock-coat, with a yawning collar and black whisp tie, his fiery utterance and relentless zeal, bore out the character. He looked hungry, and his words suggested that he was in earnest, carrying conviction to some of his colleagues in the Legislature. The election at ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... night for five and twenty years in an absolutely empty theatre, and if she did not go mad under the ordeal, she would perhaps turn out very like the Lady of Greifenstein. The stage was always set; the scenery was always of the best and newest; the vacant boxes and the yawning pit were brilliantly lighted; the costumes were by the best makers; the stage manager was punctual and in his place; the curtain went up every day for the performance; but Frau von Greifenstein's theatre was silent and untenanted, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... became hopelessly lost among them, and at times thought that I should never break clear of them again. Day after day I wandered about this vast and apparently level plain, finding every short distance a huge yawning gulf at my feet, forced to try new routes, and constantly being pulled up by similar obstacles. And all this time I saw no sign of life, not even a spoor in the sand to show that mankind had ever trod there. There was no animal life even; ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... would be doing something or other all day long; and not neglect half hours and quarters of hours, which, at the year's end, amount to a great sum. For instance, there are many short intervals during the day, between studies and pleasures: instead of sitting idle and yawning, in those intervals, take up any book, though ever so trifling a one, even down to a jest-book; it is still ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... A few graves that had been robbed were open, forming pitfalls for the unwary; other yawning holes had discovered ancient tombs by the soakage of a recent heavy shower, which had washed in the roof and exposed the cavity. We passed a small mosque where there is the tomb of a saint many feet below the level of ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... its reputation of a century, during which time it had always been kept by one of the family. Considering these facts, the state of the entrance and kitchen, through which, as is usual in France, visitors must pass to arrive at the salon, somewhat surprised us. The wide, yawning, black gulf, down which we had dived from the street, reminded us strongly of the entrance of the Arenes, at Poitiers, which gave passage to the beasts about to combat: it was a low, vaulted passage, encumbered with waggons and diligences and wheelbarrows, with no light ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the house, but stopped abruptly as Violet suddenly sauntered forth. She was yawning as ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Truly is a sight to see. Rumpled, crumpled, soiled, and frayed— Will the quilt be ever made? See the stitches yawning wide— Can it be that ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... see how clumsy they will appear when I get on the eyepiece and magnify their imperfections. They look parallel now to the eye, but with a magnifying power a very little crook will seem a billowy wave, and a faint star will hide itself in one of the yawning abysses. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... in a hurry, for time was passing and the best hours for fishing had really gone by; to-morrow he would be up at daylight, and while other boys might be yawning at being called to breakfast Dick would be found hovering over his favorite hole, tempting the finny tribe with the fattest of worms ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... appeals to us. Whenever a man or woman gives up self for the good of others, we intuitively admire and honor the deed. The story of Thermopylae, the leap of Curtius into the yawning chasm, the charge of ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... were fairly amongst the mountains, the roads became horrible, and it was a matter of wonder that the springs of the carts were not broken. Toiling up hills, and dashing down on the other side,—crashing over fallen rocks, and shaving the edge of yawning gulfs and precipices,—thus they advanced till evening, through a country which was the picture ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... seconds exchanged the customary bows; the doctor alone did not move as much as an eyelash; he sat down yawning on the grass, as much as to say, 'I'm not here for expressions of chivalrous courtesy.' Herr von Richter proposed to Herr 'Tshibadola' that he should select the place; Herr 'Tshibadola' responded, moving his tongue with difficulty—'the wall' within him had completely given way ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... descendants of the former domestic herd, which had now become wild. It was possible to go on horseback as far as the Vaqueria, though the road was somewhat hazardous in places. Sometimes it was very narrow with a yawning precipice on one side, hundreds of feet down to a roaring mountain torrent below, and almost perpendicular walls on the other side. At one of these places one of our mules loaded with two sacks of barley, one on each side, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Scodrus, the yawning valet, ushering in a black and bearded sailor, who crouched eastern fashion at the feet ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... everything in a cool, analytic style. The knife of the Socialist is sheathed in vain; no rhapsody can overturn its impassioned teachings. Rhetoric is not needed to embellish the truths he has to portray, for the wild flowers of genius but too frequently hide the yawning chasms in the garden of Logic. It is not to be expected that this book will be read now with the interest with which it was perused two centuries ago; then every statement was impugned, every argument denied, and the very tone of the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... while the rags of the gossoons[1] fluttered in the race. Attracted by this evidence of "something going on," a horseman, who was approaching the town, urged his horse to speed, and turning his head towards a yawning double ditch that divided the road from the field, he gracefully rode the noble ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... matter not, For England only your wrath is hot; But little Belgium is so small You never mentioned her at all— Or did her graveyards, yawning deep, Whisper that silence ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... four telegrams which were awaiting its arrival at Britstown. As the majority conveyed contradictory instructions, the piecing together of the real meaning partook of the nature of one of those drawing-room after-dinner games with which yawning guests at winter house-parties are beguiled. The first cover that was opened deprived the brigadier of his chief of the staff. That officer was ordered to proceed without delay to take up the command of a mobile column to be formed at Volksrust, the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... spectators evincing the slightest interest. The poor little darlings were pulling serious faces; some of the tinier mites fell fast asleep, sucking their thumbs. The older children turned their heads and smiled towards their parents, who were themselves yawning behind their hands. There was thus a general feeling of relief when the great Morizot decided ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... continual but gradual, rounding the almost precipitous face of the hill, the path was stony, often loose and frequently not above a foot wide, with a precipice lowering above and yawning beneath. The vegetation had, with the exception of the Pines, Oaks, and Rhododendrons, all been burnt, so that the ascent was uninteresting. As we neared the summit it became bitterly cold, a strong biting wind nearly cutting us in two: we reached Bailfa, which is on the summit ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... and M—s and K—g. Thou, to the maudlin muse of Rydal dear; Thou more than Neptune, Lowther, lend thine ear. At Neptune's voice the horse, with flowing mane And pawing hoof, sprung from the obedient plain; But at thy word the yawning earth, in fright, Engulf'd the victor steed from mortal sight. Haste from thy woods, mine Arbuthnot, with speed, Rich woods, where lean Scotch cattle love to feed: Let Gaffer Gooch and Boodle's patriot band, Fat from the leanness ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... mattress, I believe," said Crandall, yawning. "Same old everything. Oh, but I'm lame! I'd no notion you chaps could play like this." He caressed a battered shin. "You've given us all something ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... had flung itself across the waters hit us in earnest now. We went down into the yawning troughs before us with drunken plunges and climbed the glassy hills beyond to ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... that day and the next, when the country was aroused and his neighbors joined in a quest that proved useless. Neither he nor his innocent burden was ever seen again of men. Whether he had been engulfed by mischance in some unsuspected yawning chasm in that brief moment, or had fulfilled his own prophecy by deliberately erasing himself for some purpose known only to himself, no one ever knew. His country-people shook their heads and said "it was ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... stealthily entered a dim court" (Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, not, as is popularly supposed, named for Doctor Johnson, though inhabited by him in 1766, from whence he removed in the same year to Bolt Court, still keeping to his beloved Fleet Street), and through an oaken doorway, with a yawning letter-box, there fell the MS. of a sketch entitled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," afterward renamed "Mr. Minns and His Cousin," These were the offices of the old Monthly Magazine now defunct. Here the article duly appeared as one of the "Sketches by Boz." ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... yawning): Ah, it's all very well for the Princess! Nothing to do but eat and sleep all day. I wish I ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... thither; and even now I see the Vale before me as in a picture; a marvellous place, well grassed, treeless, narrow, betwixt great cliff-walls of black stone, with a green river running through it towards a yawning gap and a huge force. Amidst that Vale was a doom- ring of black stones, and nigh thereto a feast-hall well builded of the like stones, over whose door was carven the image of a wolf with red gaping jaws, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... than this, the ancient wall has been broken through, and the ancient city itself cleft in twain. By an amount of labour which reminds one of Trajan cutting through the Quirinal, la Cite has been cut into two halves with a yawning gulf between them; the Roman wall is broken through, and the very best of the twelfth-century houses has been ruthlessly swept away. The excuse for this brutal havoc is to make a road or street of some kind direct from the modern town to the river. If ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman |
