"Intentness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... self-forgetful intentness of his look, arrested her attention, and she returned his gaze for an instant, and then turned away and took the arm of an elderly gentleman who stood beside her. She moved slowly, as an invalid walks when for the first time she is permitted a short walk in the outdoor ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... determined what to do as I sat waiting him; and now that he had bidden me to speak, I told him the whole story from start to finish, beginning with Gilverthwaite and ending with Crone, and sparing no detail or explanation of my own conduct. He listened in silence, and with more intentness and watchfulness than I had ever seen a man show in my life, and now and then he nodded and sometimes smiled; and when I had made an end ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... unfortunate lover entered Williamsburg, his hands hanging down, his eyes dreamy and fixed with hostile intentness on vacancy, his shoulders drooping and swaying from side to side like those of a drunken man,—he saw pass before him, rattling and joyous, a brilliant equipage, which, like a sleigh covered with bells, seemed to leave in its wake a long jocund ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... hesitated, and looked at the woman with secret intentness. She was conscious of a great and pardonable curiosity, of a frank out-reaching for fuller knowledge. This creature, so like, so different; old as the oldest race, and young as the last rose-tinted babe; flung far as the farthermost fires of men, and eternal ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... short, he was joking. But nothing of the sort could be discerned. On the contrary, Chichikov's face looked graver than usual. Next, Manilov wondered whether, for some unknown reason, his guest had lost his wits; wherefore he spent some time in gazing at him with anxious intentness. But the guest's eyes seemed clear—they contained no spark of the wild, restless fire which is apt to wander in the eyes of madmen. All was as it should be. Consequently, in spite of Manilov's cogitations, he could think of nothing better to do than to sit letting a stream of tobacco smoke escape ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... interpret to others my inner and outer being, as this one, of such nobleness in her way of thinking, such great intellectual capacity, and so free from the theological perplexities that enveloped me?" Let any one peruse, with all intentness, the lineaments of this portrait, and he will be impressed with the fact, that it is possible for woman to fulfil her mission, and become a true helpmeet. This woman was not a copy. She was not a cipher. She was an original; and while she loved and honored ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... but there he turned, and for the first time since Cunningham had taken the yacht Cleigh looked directly, with grim intentness, into his ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... d'O seemed to recover, and sat up. The first shock of deadly terror had passed, but she was still pale. She still trembled, and shrank from meeting our eyes, though I saw her, when our attention was apparently directed elsewhere, glance at one and another of us with a strange intentness, a shuddering curiosity. No wonder, I thought. She must have had a terrible fright—one that might have ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... towards acquiring that personality which is the power of story-telling, is to have a power of life gained through the experience of having lived; to have a power of emotion acquired through the exercise of daily affairs; a power of imagination won from having dwelt upon the things of life with intentness, a power of sympathy obtained from seeing the things of others as you meet them day by day; and a first-hand knowledge of the sights and sounds and beauties of Nature, a knowledge of bird and flower, tree and rock, their names and some of their secrets—knowledge accumulated from actual ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... see without a candle. Upon the attic floor a map was roughly drawn in chalks of different colours, with mountains, rivers, towns, bridges, and roads of two classes. Here we would play by the hour, with tingling fingers and stiffening knees, and an intentness, zest, and excitement that I shall never forget. The mimic battalions marched and counter-marched, changed by measured evolutions from column formation into line, with cavalry screens in front and massed supports behind, in the most approved military fashion ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or pleasure. Not a day passed without her showing in many ways that he made a large part of her life, was really a central interest in it. Even to us who knew the sad truth, and who looked on with intentness and anxiety hardly less than those with which we had watched her sick-bed weeks before—even to us it seemed many times as if all must be right. No stranger but would believe them lovers; not a servant in the house dreamed but that Miss Annie was still looking forward to her wedding. ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... made that breathless, mile-deep descent, he was instantly spotted as being a new man, and a team of car-pushers, slaking their thirst at a water-barrel in one corner of the plat, gazed at him with scowling intentness, that they might minutely describe his appearance to their fellows. As he knew nothing of the circumstances through which a place had been made for him, he paid no attention to these men, other than to note their savage appearance as a feature of ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... a time, listening with painful intentness. Not another murmur came from the cabin. Sloan wiped his wet forehead and whispered shakily: "I wouldn't mind it so much if he'd curse and rave. But to sit like that, not making a sound—it ain't ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... blood flashed from brow to throat. Her lover saw it, and for the moment a strange intentness was in his gaze. But immediately he smiled, as a man would at some horrible phantom of his own creating, and continued with ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... closer to the table, and his keen old eyes snapped with the intentness of his thought. The hands he clasped on the table were those of age, and it was pathetically evident that he folded them to hide ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... below. From that, too, the color vanished, and those other lights began to shine which to some are the only lights of day. The skies dropped close upon the mountains and the silver seas like a vast face brooding with intentness. There was enchantment, mystery, and a living motion in its depths, the presence of all-pervading Zeus enfolding his starry children with the dark radiance ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... "that there must be some mistake. It was, indeed, impossible that it should be true; but as I heard it from two quarters at once—and it was said to be something in the nature of a trust—— But," he added, looking with a nervous intentness at the unresponsive face which he could with difficulty see, "it must be, since your ladyship does not recognise my name, a—mistake. I felt it was so from the beginning. A lady of whom I know nothing!—to bestow what is really a fortune—upon a man ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... eyes glowed upon him with a sombre intentness. "You know the old proverb which says, 'It's a long lane ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... extraordinarily conscious of her presence, observant of all she said and did, glad that her eyes should rest upon his familiar setting; and when they sat afterwards in his study and smoked, he saw that her eyes travelled with a curious intentness over everything—his books, his papers, his furniture. He had no private talk with her; but he was glad just to meet her glance and hear her low replies—glad too to find that, as the evening wore on, she ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the general, eying him with some intentness. "Well, we may be able to show you something more curious than you anticipate.—And now, Senor de Mendoza, there is only you left. May we count on ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... conversational impasse we were rescued by the interposition of the gentleman opposite, whose small twinkling eyes had been taking me in with intentness. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... went with increased eagerness and intentness to the one resource she had—her Bible. The cry for happiness is so natural to the human heart, that it takes long oppression to stifle it. The cry was strong in Esther's young nature—strong and imperative; and in all the world around her she ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... the team and Dave's lariat the car was soon righted, and was found to be none the worse for its deflection from the beaten track. Irene presided at the steering wheel, watching the road with great intentness, and turning the wheel too far on each occasion, which gave to her course a somewhat wavy or undulating order, such as is found in bread knives, or perhaps a better figure would be to compare it to that rolling motion affected by fancy skaters. However, ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... listened with strange intentness. His playfulness was extinguished, and his face looked all at ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... to the other and found herself looking into his eyes. This was because he had been staring at Sally with the utmost intentness ever since his arrival. His mouth had opened slightly. He had the air of a man who, after many disappointments, has at last found ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... t'other side of Trent!" exclaimed Wogan; and looking up he saw that Clementina was watching him with a strange intentness. Her eyes were on him again while they sat at supper; and when he led her to the door of her room and she gave him her hand, she stood for a little while looking deep into his eyes. And though she had much need of sleep, when ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... As she had no groom nor footman, he sat in the phaeton to hold the ponies, where, although he was not a particularly acute observer, he saw much to entertain him—especially the ladies just mentioned, who wandered up and down with the appearance of a kind of aimless intentness, as if they were looking for something to buy, and who, tripping in and out of their vehicles, displayed remarkably pretty feet. It all seemed to Lord Lambeth very odd, and bright, and gay. Of course, before they got back to the villa, he had had a great deal of desultory conversation ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... retreat with slow, short steps. Leff, gasping with fear, moved with her, his speed accelerating with each moment. David a few paces in advance followed them. The Indians watched in a tranced intentness of observation. At the top of the slope the three squaws sat as motionless as carven ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... her face with such strained intentness that he could no longer see it distinctly. Everything round him was rather misty. He forgot the overturned stool, caught his foot against it, and lurched forward slightly, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... front door of the house, which the stranger had watched with scrutinising intentness, was thrown wide open, showing a large, luminous square in the ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... nothing." I laughed. I was not going to have her think I knew about Collins, much more all the stuff Marcia had said. But she turned her head and looked at me with a curious intentness. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... head to the task before him, hoping against hope that it WAS his ears and not his tardiness. And, when he looked up again many minutes afterward, other officials of the bank were looking at him from various points of vantage, and all of them were staring with the most amazing intentness, quite as if they had never seen anything so strange as the man who had sat unnoticed in this very spot for fifteen years and more. Messengers took a peep at him as they circled from window to window; patrons of ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... spokes, upon which the Janequeo turned gradually to starboard until she came abreast of the harbour entrance, which was only about two hundred feet in width. He then stopped his engines altogether, and, when the torpedo-boat had come to a standstill, he proceeded to listen with all intentness for suspicious sounds. But everything was as still as the grave, and Douglas began to hug to himself the conviction that events seemed to be turning out fortunately. He could hear no sounds aboard the Peruvian warships; and there was no sign of any patrol launches being about. Having, therefore, ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... known; but notwithstanding all its beauty, there is not, I think, any thing in the action of the disappointed suitors so perfectly true or touching as that of the youth breaking his rod in this composition of Giotto's; nor is there among any of the figures the expression of solemn earnestness and intentness on the event which is marked among the attendants here, and in the countenances of the ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... up if you interrupt like this! How do you suppose I can learn with you chattering away all the time?" cried Clara, the irascible. She glared at Pixie, and Pixie glared at her, and went on glaring long after the other had settled to work, with an intentness which seemed mysteriously connected with the movement of a stubbly lead pencil. Presently she touched Kate softly, and there on the margin of the clean new book was exhibited the drawing of a dismembered head, glaring horribly over rule-of-three problems, and labelled ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not play again immediately. He watched the wheel with a quiet intentness, as if he were establishing some subtle, occult influence over it. Then the white hand was quietly extended, and a gold piece glittered where it had touched. Again the ball declared itself in favor ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... came back the second time, she appeared unwontedly subdued, perplexed; and her usually merry eyes were gravely fixed with curious intentness upon the face ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Intentness relaxed once more. Twelve pairs of eyes expressed at least half as many sentiments. Mrs. Vane gazed at Mary Ogden, whose insolence she had never forgotten, with indignant hostility; Mrs. Poole, who always dressed as if she had a tumor, but whose remnant of a once lovely complexion indicated ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... with the intentness of her single eye, his every motion, her head swaying in unconscious sympathy. Although her body sat so stiff and awkward in the chimney-seat, her spirit, inspired with the grace of love, was dancing with Manetho's. But ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... and yet who are not true betting-men: they do not wish to be seen in betting-shops, yet cannot keep away. They are not loungers, for they may be observed passing along the thoroughfare seemingly with all desirable intentness upon their daily business; but they suddenly disappear as they arrive at the door of the betting-shop. These are your respectable men; worthy, solid, family men. But it is not easy to enter a betting-shop, and avoid rubbing against some clinging matter. Betting-men generally are not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... regarded us all, not so did the maiden of the rosy wall. Her eyes were fastened upon Larry, drinking him in with extraordinary intentness. She was tall, far over the average of women, almost as tall, indeed, as O'Keefe himself; not more than twenty years old, if that, I thought. Abruptly she leaned forward, the golden eyes softened and grew tender; the red lips moved as though ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... clothes, and a white shirt with a fine diamond in the front of it, while there was a keen intentness behind the half-ironical smile in his somewhat colorless face. The whiteness of his long nervous fingers and the quickness of his gestures would also have stamped his as a being of different order from the slowly-spoken prairie farmers, while the slenderness ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... proceedings must have been carried to Case as soon as church was over, and the same afternoon he made an occasion to meet me in the midst of the village. He came up with so much intentness and animosity that I felt it would be damaging to ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... jest," I answered soberly. "I should never have remarked this friar but that he gazed upon me with so great an intentness—so great that I ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and fall into ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... like one listening. After a while she lifted the book, glanced at it again, and then put it down, got up and went to the fireplace. She turned on the lights there, leaned forward and looked into the glass. Her face became stern with intentness when she did that. She put up a hand to her hair, turned her head a little to one side, smiled faintly, then a little more, and looked grave, then earnest. Finally she put both her hands on the mantelpiece, grasped it and stared ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... altogether submissive, perhaps, when the slow-built hope of life was destroyed by some chance, as you called it, no more controllable than this paltry burning of a mill. Yet, now that the great hope was gone on which his brain had worked with rigid, fierce intentness, now that his hands were powerless to redeem a perishing class, he had time to fall into careless, kindly habit: he thought it wasted time, remorsefully, of course. He was seized with a curiosity to know what plan in living these people ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... him with a keen, set, impersonal intentness in her gaze which he could not understand. "Then you are sure she does not care enough for you to marry you? She threw you over because she wanted ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... caused her to halt on the brink of making her presence known. She saw Lady Clifford straighten up and come towards her with a cautious step to the foot of the bed. She saw her lean forward, without touching the foot-board, and gaze with frowning intentness at the ill man's face. His eyes were still closed, he had perhaps fallen asleep; but if he had suddenly chanced to look up Esther thought that his wife's expression would have given him rather a shock. For the moment ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... down at her. There was only a man's inquiry, and consideration for a woman's bare shoulders, in the look; but to Nell, whose eyes were fixed upon him with an agonized intentness, it seemed that the look was ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... a strange being, and I could not resist observing him with curiosity, especially as it struck me that he regarded me at times with a curious intentness. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... this speech, so moderate yet so cruel, so well-reasoned and yet so false, because of its glosses and omissions, the huddled Ayesha seemed to listen with a fierce intentness. Yet she made no answer, not a single word, not a sign even; she who had said her say and ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... with the tea-tray. Dyce lay back in his chair, gazing vacantly, until his hostess offered him a cup of tea. As he bent forward to take it, his eyes for a moment dwelt with unusual intentness on the face and figure of Iris Woolstan. Then, as he sipped, he again grew absent-minded. Iris, too, was absorbed ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... straight ahead, seeing nothing, a rather ferocious frown causing many people to stare at her in surprise. She wore a delicately hued French frock and a mauve hat covered with blue convolvuli, but in her extraordinary self-absorption and intentness of thought there was something uncivilised about her. Her clothes were unsuited to her, and she walked as if quite alone in a ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... were wandering on Austin's gravely cheerful face. A keen intentness suddenly fixed them, and he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... opposite bank, staring down into the rapids with a terrible intentness, stood a man, or something that resembled a man. In one awful, breath-taking minute they realized that here ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... immortalised. I could imagine her sedately busy among her pots and pans, making a ritual of her household duties, so that they acquired a moral significance; I did not suppose that she was clever or could ever be amusing, but there was something in her grave intentness which excited my interest. Her reserve was not without mystery. I wondered why she had married Dirk Stroeve. Though she was English, I could not exactly place her, and it was not obvious from what rank in society she sprang, what had been her upbringing, ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... confessed, watching Yuara with unswerving intentness. "Never saw this done, but it's worth a try—and I honestly believe it will work. I saved an Indian over in Guiana once by cutting off his arm as soon as he was hit, but I want to keep this fellow's arm for him if possible. Feed him some ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... off his rug, but her imperious gesture kept him seated. She was looking at him with an intentness which ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... believe that reflexion concerned in her having sunk again to her seat with her long lean but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic manner on her knees and her mournful eyes addressing me a message of intentness which foreshadowed what I was subsequently to suffer. She was a singular fatuous artificial creature, and I was never more than half to penetrate her motives and mysteries. Of one thing I'm sure ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... jealousy was less a sentiment than an occupation; she existed in it, it made her heart beat, she felt emotions hitherto completely unknown to her; the slightest sound or movement kept her on the qui vive; she watched Pierrette with gloomy intentness. ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... as a model of social correctness by Aunt Jamsiah stood upon the doorstep looking eagerly up into Pee-wee's face and wagging his tail with vigorous and lightning rapidity. Wiggle's tail was easily the fastest thing in Everdoze. His head vibrated in unison with it and his look of intentness carried with it all sorts of friendly expectations. He fairly shook with excitement and cordiality. He followed the sedan car a few yards upon its homeward journey and then, by a sudden impulse, deserted it and returned to a position directly in front ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the wraith, or phantom, however, in the broad-shouldered figure in a wide-brimmed Stetson sitting in the office watching Sprudell's approach with ominous intentness. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... with such intentness that he did not hear the sweep of an aeroplane behind him, but he did see Lannes run to General Vaugirard's car and ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fascinated and curious, hardly breathed in her intentness, watching his face and waiting for ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... to her improvised shack and wrapped herself in her blanket. Brent gazed with a sort of hypnotized intentness on the wildness of the picture before him—an orgy of fire, wind and water. Through the wet mountains the wind shrieked and buffetted until ancient trees, made brittle by long freezing, went down. At his back, beyond the boom, sounded the dirge of the swollen ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... a half-laugh, and looked at his friends. Then he changed the subject. But Hester got up impatiently from her seat, and would not play any more. Rose caught the sudden intentness with which Alice Puttenham's eyes ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to deliver the rounded periods sonorously. General Waymouth leaned slightly over the table, propping himself on the knuckles of his one hand. The light flowed down upon his silvery hair, his features were set in the intentness ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... astronomers of the world. At half past ten of the evening of October First, 1847, she made the discovery which first brought her name before the public. She was gazing through her glass with her usual quiet intentness when she was suddenly startled to perceive "an unknown comet, nearly vertical above Polaris, about five degrees." At first she could not believe her eyes; then hoping and doubting, scarcely daring to think that she had really made a discovery, ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... his dinner, standing beside the table while he ate it, watching him with an intentness that ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... his fire, the Cave-man saw pass before his mental vision all the circumstances of the chase, ending with the crash when the mammoth crushed into the pit, at which he would start and partially awake. Intentness of mind upon a pursuit causes an equivalent intentness of dream, and thus wild races believe their dreams to be real and substantial things, and not mere shadows of the night. To those who do not read or write ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Lady Ruth said nothing. She was leaning back in the farthest corner of her chair, her head resting slightly upon her fingers, her eyes studying with a curious intentness the outline of Wingrave's pale, hard face. He himself, either unconscious of, or indifferent to her close scrutiny, had simply the air of a man possessed of an inexhaustible ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him swiftly, then laced his fat little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just get in, Duncan?" ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... on watch at the extreme end of the hall, she muttered some assurances as to this woman's faithfulness, and turned away with a cordial good night. Georgian watched her go with a strange and lingering intentness, or so it seemed to Ransom; then slowly entered her ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... that, his head bent and his eyes fixed upon the ground, people often wondered whether he was thinking of anything at all, or whether such intentness did betoken a grave preoccupation. Sometimes they tested him. "What you thinkin' about, Jim?" one would ask him, when they met upon the road; but Jim never replied in any illuminating way. If he answered at all, it was only ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... estates; and the one brother being dead, my old lord soon set his heart upon her marrying the other. Day in, day out, he would work upon her, sitting by the chimney-side with his finger in his Latin book, and his eyes set upon her face with a kind of pleasant intentness that became the old gentleman very well. If she wept, he would condole with her like an ancient man that has seen worse times and begins to think lightly even of sorrow; if she raged, he would fall to reading again in his Latin book, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... opened the garden gate, and came in. When he came up near the seat where Henry and Rollo stood, he found the boys standing a step or two back from the flower-pot, both watching the hole with the utmost intentness. ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... lightness, there was a certain gravity among the four, and as the night became more threatening they felt a growing suspense. The men's restlessness communicated itself to the girls, who found themselves listening with almost painful intentness to the voice of the wind and the rumble of the surf, which grew louder with every hour. By bed-time a torrent of rain was sweeping past, the roof strained, the windows were sheeted with water. Now and then the clamor ceased, only to begin with redoubled force. Trevor's guests ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... appearances had not recognized him, her absorption preventing her from differentiating the human species beyond the broad classification of those likely to be run over and those in no such danger. Her color was high, and her face despite a grim intentness indicated keen satisfaction. A handsome boy sat beside her, and Justin had a confused impression of a number of other children in charge of a buxom girl on the back seat. He stood motionless gazing after the flying car and oblivious ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... place where the dead woman lay. Seeing this movement, his anxious father wiped the moisture from his forehead. Silas Van Burnam had been silent up to this moment and seemed inclined to continue so, but he watched his younger son with painful intentness. ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... for the young to learn in Africa," remarked Professor Wiseman coldly and gazing at Billy with squashing intentness; "the young do not believe many things merely because they are ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the maiden. Her mind, on the contrary, seemed to take something of its hue from the cold sad tones of the forest. The serious depth of expression in her dark eyes seemed to deepen yet more, and become yet more concentrated—their glance acquired a yet keener intentness—an inflexibility of direction—which suffered them seldom to turn aside from those moody contemplations, which had made her, for a long time, infinitely prefer to gaze upon the rocks, and woods, and waters, than upon the warm and ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... Rhymes of Ironquill', and had declared his work to rank with the very greatest of American poetry—I think he called it the most truly American in flavor. I remember that at the luncheon he noted Ware's big, splendid physique and his Western liberties of syntax with a curious intentness. I believe he regarded him as being nearer his own type in mind and expression than any ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... he stood silent, considering, while Yussuf looked up with glistening-eyed intentness like an eager dog ready for ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... curtly. "Just be yourself, natural. I like you that way." He looked at the other openly, with frank intentness that heralded the unexpected. ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... young man who knew nothing of the subject, was checked by the success of Bill Kirby's cast ahead. Half way across the big field, the hounds, who had been industriously spreading themselves, and examining blades of grass and fronds of bracken with the intentness of botanists, came, with a sudden rush, to a deep note from old Bellman, and, as suddenly, broke into full-cry, with the unanimity of an orchestra when the baton comes down. They headed for "Carmody's bounds," and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... was peering with equal intentness at the same point, but the minutes passed and nothing presented itself. Jack joined in the scrutiny, but he could not ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... moping and fell to frisking about me and to going through all the tricks which I had taught him of his own accord; and thence onward he spent most of his time on the roof of the cabin—looking about him with a curious intentness, for all the world as though I had stationed him there to watch out for a ship bearing down on us, or for land. Even when I found that day that only a dozen bags of coal were left to me—for I had fed my furnace while my heaviness was upon me without ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... to keep the office shut, sir?" inquired the clerk, respectfully, but still with a troubled air, and with serious eyes with the unswerving intentness of a ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... propped him up; he looked round rather wildly from one to the other. His face cleared. His eye fell upon Pringle, where it rested with a steady intentness. When he spoke, at last, he ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... intentness as the hag singsonged on and on. Then a look of satisfaction came into his eyes and he smiled happily. Next his look changed to a nasty look of determination, and he abruptly got up, tossing a bank-note on the table which Old Meg grabbed with avidity, calling down ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... "I do not know who took it. If I did, I should not be here. That is, I do not know the exact person. Only——" Here he again eyed me with his former singular intentness, and, observing that I was nettled, made a fresh beginning. "When I came here I brought with me a case of rarities chosen from my various collections. In looking over them preparatory to making a present to Gilbertine, I came ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... counted out the money in silver, I happened to glance at the window. In a moment my eyes seemed to be riveted by those of the tramp, whose existence I had quite forgotten. He stood outside the shop, watching me with the greatest intentness, and suddenly I felt afraid, and wished he had gone on his way, and left me to go mine. I spent as long a time as possible counting the money and putting it in my knickerbockers' pocket, but when I at last left the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... hair and beard, and a torn fustian coat and immense nailed shoes. He was muttering prayers, kissing his rosary or medal at intervals, and slightly prostrating himself. But what struck me, and apparently others (for people approached and stared), was his extraordinary intentness and fervour. He was certainly conscious of no one and nothing save whatever his eyes were fixed upon—either the sacrament or the altar behind that railing, or merely some vision of his own. And he ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... far when I was brought up short by a tremendous oath behind me. At the same instant a match flared. I turned to face a stranger holding the little light above his head, and peering with fiery intentness over the group sprawled ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... in an extraordinary degree. He united vast strength with perfect flexibility. His momentum was that of a river, which combines weight and directness with the ability to yield to the flexures of its bed. The intentness of his vision in any direction did not apparently diminish his power of perception in other directions; and when he attacked a subject, expecting results, he had the faculty of keeping his mind alert, so that results different from those which he expected ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... at him (not at his work, for the child had made him promise not to do so) and began to marvel at his absorption, his intentness, the evident facility with which he worked: the little figure leaning over the great dish on the bare board of the table, with the oval opening of the window and the blue sky beyond it, began to grow sacred to him with more than the sanctity of childhood. Raffaelle's face grew very serious, ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... the effect must be observed, and, with an anxiety in seeming contrast to his nature, he pulled one of the massive velvet chairs to the fireplace and, mounting upon it, surveyed himself at every angle with deep intentness. At last, satisfied, he jumped to the ground, and taking the brown-paper packet from the hiding-place where it had reposed all night, bestowed it again in the pocket of his overcoat and, picking up the felt hat, ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... She had stopped staring at the wall, and had taken to watching the open window opposite with strange intentness. Only when the Nurse gave a final pat ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... vespers were over and a server, taper in hand, was gradually transforming the gloom of the high altar into a blaze of light. With a strange sense of completion I took my place next to the chair by which Lorimer, with bowed head, was kneeling, his eyes fixed with a strange intentness on the screen which separated the outer worshippers from the chapel or gallery which was set apart for the nuns. His lips moved from time to time spasmodically, in prayer or ejaculation: then as the jubilant organ burst out, and the officiating ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... moment that such soft, fine abundance ever framed a man's forehead. I talked to her freely; talked of winds and tides and Indians, and was not deterred when she answered me but sparingly. I could not see her face distinctly, because of the light, but there was something in the gentleness and intentness of her listening poise that made me feel that she welcomed the safeguard of my aimless speech, but that for the moment she had no similar weapons of ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... pause, while Sir Beverley's eyes returned to the wide oak staircase, watching it ceaselessly, with vulture-like intentness. Then after the passage of minutes, there came the sound of feet that literally scampered along the corridor above, and in a moment, with meteor-like suddenness, ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... one a base viall, on which he that played, played well some lyra lessons, but both together made the worst musique that ever I heard. We had a fine collacion, but I took little pleasure in that, for the illness of the musique and for the intentness of my mind upon Mrs. Rebecca Allen. After we had done eating, the ladies went to dance, and among the men we had, I was forced to dance too; and did make an ugly shift. Mrs. R. Allen danced very well, and seems the best humoured woman that ever I saw. About 9 o'clock ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... gentleness, sparing her what pain he could; and she acknowledged as much, when he had done, by the words:—"Thank you, Doctor, and good- night," very gratefully pronounced as she uttered them, however, it was with a repetition of the serious, direct gaze, I thought, peculiar in its gravity and intentness. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... eating-house, or to even approach the "snack-stand" on the edge of the circus lot. For a long time he stood afar off in the darkness, his legs trembling, his mouth twitching, his eyes bent with pathetic intentness upon the single pie and hot sandwich stand that remained near the sideshow tent, presided over by a kind-faced, sleepy ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... to be wound up to an extreme tension of excitement—she forgot all her troubles in listening with painful intentness to the rush and roar of the train through the darkness. The lights of passing stations and signal-posts gleamed like scattered and flying stars—there was the frequent shriek of the engine-whistle,—the serpent-hiss of escaping steam. She peered ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... engaged in something, and who trembled in the same manner. Both women appeared to be afflicted with St. Vitus' dance. I stepped nearer to them, and looked to see what they were doing. They raised their eyes to me, but went on with their work with the same intentness. In front of them lay scattered tobacco and paper cases. They were making cigarettes. The woman rubbed the tobacco between her hands, pushed it into the machine, slipped on the cover, thrust the tobacco through, then tossed it to the girl. The girl twisted the ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... up her other hand and thus stood beside him with slender neck stretched slightly forward, her lips parted, a look of intentness expressed in the whole ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... strength and endurance. A powerful neck supported a great head surmounted by a crop of hair like a lion's mane. His complexion was as delicate as a woman's, but his pale blue eyes were bent close to the table as he wagered his money with an almost painful intentness, and Prescott saw that the gaming madness ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... ship as an evident destination; and the brig had barely swung to the current when the hoarse voice of the mate was heard ordering the ladder over the side. The preparation to receive the boat drew the attention of the crowd, and they stared at its occupants with an intentness which implied some deeper interest than mere curiosity; low words were exchanged, and some of the poor frightened creatures seemed to take on ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... they had thoroughly grasped the fact that nothing but good was intended by their fresh captors, eagerly devoting themselves to the task of distributing the rations amongst their unfortunate fellow-country folk, and watching Mark and his men with the greatest intentness as they ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... scraps of song and rude witticisms made the huge wagon a bouquet of smiling faces. Everybody laughed, except Bradley, who sat with intent eyes and steady lips, his sinewy brown hand holding the excited horses in place. This intentness and self-mastery lent a sort of majesty to his ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... her flushed face. And all the time the water glimmered and sparkled about her feet. With her was Andra Kissock, a bare-legged, bonnetless squire of dames. Sometimes he pursued the wily burn trout with relentless ferocity and the silent intentness of a sleuthhound. Often, however, he would pause and with his finger indicate some favourite stone to Winsome. Then the young lady, utterly forgetful of all else and with tremulous eagerness, delicately ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... her earnest expression and the intentness of her voice and pose, and he decided at once that this was not mere curiosity. He paused a moment, looking thoughtful. His keen, brilliant eyes were bent on ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... he looked around upon the scene which now met his eye, a doubt arose in his mind. He picked up his bag with a sigh, and approached a man who had been standing apart from the rest of the loungers and regarding him with indolent intentness. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... comes from the heart of man, and sheds brightness on all around him... I long to talk with thee of the time when in my heart too that light burned bright with blessing... Listen... and I will fancy thee sitting before me, gazing up at me with those eyes—so fond yet stern almost in their intentness. O eyes, never to be forgotten! On whom are they fastened now? Who folds in his heart thy glance—that glance that seems to flow from depths unknown even as mysterious springs—like ye, both clear and dark—that gush ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the storekeeper in some doubt. Bill was watching them with a curious intentness. And before Sunny could challenge the two scoffers, his harsh voice filled the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... too narrow to afford a vent. Unconscious of the sudden enemy he had left behind, and forgetting not only his taunts but his very existence, Glaucus passed through the gay streets, repeating to himself, in the wantonness of joy, the music of the soft air to which Ione had listened with such intentness; and now he entered the Street of Fortune, with its raised footpath—its houses painted without, and the open doors admitting the view of the glowing frescoes within. Each end of the street was adorned with a triumphal ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... the presence of military genius in such a man as he. The agent spent his days in following what seemed to many observers to be only a dull routine, but all his steadiness of purpose, all his simple intentness, all his gifts of strategy and powers of foresight, and of turning an interruption into an opportunity, were brought to bear upon this dull routine with a keen pleasure. A man in his place must know not only how to lead men, but how to make the combination of their force with the machinery take ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of that, fumbling while watching Ekstrom with unremitting intentness, hoping against hope that his enemy might make one false move, one only, by some infatuate endeavour to turn the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... to the soul and the creature (as to the earthly lovers), that in separation and farness they should seek no other, but continue to dwell with great intentness upon the absent ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... scalloped nightcap. She had a pan of corn in her hand, and was attended by a retinue that would have rejoiced an epicure's heart. Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and Guinea fowls thronged around and after her with an intentness on the grain and a disregard of one another's rights and feelings that reminded one unpleasantly of political aspirants just after a Presidential election. Johnny made a dive for an old gobbler, and the great red-wattled bird dropped his wings and seemed ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... over the clasp. M. Etienne, with a "Permit me, madame," took it boldly from her hand and hooked it himself about mademoiselle's neck. He delayed longer than he need over the fastening of it, looking with burning intentness straight into her face. She lifted her eyes to his with a quick frown of displeasure, drawing herself back; then all at once the colour waved across her face like the dawn flush over a gray sky. She blushed to her very hair, to her very ruff. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... however much the "product of a long evolution," yet, if it does not mould men into fine and vigorous forms, it has to be destroyed. We "save the state" for the sake of our children, that, at least, is the New Republican view of the matter, and if in our intentness to save the state we injure or sacrifice our children, we destroy our ultimate ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... hills of water. I remember thinking quite stupidly to myself that the moon was a dead world, and that I envied her for being dead. All this happened to me," he said, frowning across the table with sudden intentness, "the week before last." ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... his face, took a step forward, and the master made a movement as if to send him back; but the doctor laid his hand upon his arm, while the boy gazed into his eyes for some moments with wonderfully searching intentness. ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... a little tumbled by the weight of her jacket, he would like her even better, feel her nearer, dearer, more desirable, than in all the splendours she might put on for him. In the light of this discovery she studied her face with a new intentness, seeing its defects as she had never seen them, yet seeing them through a kind of radiance, as though love were a luminous medium into which she ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... either side of A'tim and one behind, they glided along his back trail till they came to the scene of his caustic farewell to Shag. Suddenly the Pack Leader stopped, buried his nose in a hoof hole and sniffed with discriminating intentness. ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... surmounted by a cross, made of the oak plank from our sledge runners. It faces north, and at the intersection of the upright and the crosspiece there is a large "R" cut in the wood. When I went up to see it, soon after our arrival this last time, the cross was leaning toward the north, as if from the intentness of its ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... the remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden-gate. I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance. He surveyed the carved front and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry-bushes and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head: his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode. But he had sense to postpone complaining: there might be compensation within. Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door. It was half-past six; the ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... viewed the spectacle with a mind undisturbed, with a gentle philosophy inspired by an experience which he alone could appreciate. It was a wonderful sight. The effort, the haste, the almost insane intentness of these people seeking the yellow metal, the discovery of which was the whole bounds of their horizon. He felt that it was good to see them. Good that these untamed passions should be allowed full sway. He felt that such as these were the advance guard of all human enterprise. Theirs ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... two ladies gave him a preoccupied nod, a plain little woman whom he had talked with about books at a recent dinner smiled upon him encouragingly. But what specially impressed him at the moment was the seriousness of the function, the intentness upon the presentation, and the look of worry on the faces of the women in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... something still more to wonder at if he could have looked into Josey Letterbarrow's cottage that evening and seen Maryllia there, sitting on a low stool at the old man's knee and patting his wrinkled hand tenderly, while she talked to him in a soft undertone and he listened with grave intentness and sagacity, though, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... who I am; I don't mean you no harm, but my name's Matthews, and—" he drew back the flap of his vest enough to show the glitter of his badge of office. All the time his little beady eyes watched Barry with bird-like intentness. The rider made not a move. And now Matthews noted more in detail the feminine slenderness of the man and the large, placid eyes. He stepped closer and dropped a confidential hand on the pommel ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... paused in his work, unbent his back, stood up, and regarded his thumb with as much intentness as if he were an Indian fakir pledged to look at nothing else for a stated number of years. He pinched the nail, shook his hand, and then, abandoning it as an object of interest, was about to inflate the mended tyre ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... approached him he spoke. Baroni dropped into his former position, Fakredeen fell upon his knees, Eva alone was visible when the eyes of Tancred met hers. His vision was not unconscious of her presence; he stared at her with intentness. The change in her dress, however, would, in all probability, have prevented his recognising her even under indifferent circumstances. She was habited as a Bedouin girl; a leathern girdle encircled her blue robe, a few gold coins were braided in her hair, and her ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... was again silent, and Odo was aware of the renewed intentness of his scrutiny. "If the lady—" broke from him once; but he checked himself and took a ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... interest the standing of the little three-legged affair upon the ground and the mounting of the small black box upon it. She pointed her ears at it; tilted her head to one side and moved her nose up and down. I moved away from her several feet to take the picture. She eyed the kodak with such intentness that I invited her to come over and have a look at it. She came at once, turning her head and neck to one side to prevent the bridle-reins, which I had thrown upon the ground, from entangling her feet. Once by me, she looked the kodak and tripod over with ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... enemy repeated, with vigor and conviction. "But suppose we shift our conversation to matters a shade more pleasant. Take you, for instance. You see—" He stopped abruptly, turning his head and listening with keen intentness. "What's ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... the mother, but when his eye fell on the face and person of Mildred, it was riveted, for an instant, with an earnestness and intentness of surprise and admiration that all noted, though no one saw fit to ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that's all," announced Ripley, with deadly intentness. "I don't know what it means. There is no explanation. The whole thing is inconceivable. Sit down and I will tell you ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... no doubt upon the matter, for she recalled the curious intentness of Weston's face as he sat in the firelight listening to Kinnaird's description of the house in question. Still, she was not prepared ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... din of the gold-seekers was lost to their ears. Then slowly they strolled on, silence enwrapping them, Helen's eyes wandering away to the glory of the stars, Howard's contented with the girl's face. After a while Helen, feeling the intentness of his look, turned toward him with a strange little smile which came and went fleetingly. She stopped a moment, ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... his racing heart. He watched every motion of the buccaneer with a fierce intentness that missed no detail. Daggs had been quiet for a full two minutes, a crafty gloating smile playing over his thin lips. Now once more he touched a place upon the sheet before him. "Right there, she'll be," he muttered. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... girl when he was born; his father was already a man grave beyond his years, full of affairs and constantly occupied. But his melancholy moods, and they were many, had drawn him to value with a pathetic intentness the quiet family life. Hugh could trace in old diaries the days his father and mother had spent, the walks they had taken, the books they had read together. There seemed for him to brood over those days, in imagination, a sort of singular brightness. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... listened with the greatest intentness to the doctor's story, and now he roused himself, remembering that the errand he had come upon had not yet been mentioned. 'Thank you, Dr. Morrison,' he said, 'for telling me this; but I cannot help thinking still that my father has been very cruel to us, although ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... slightly forward, with a darting, eager movement, yet with a fine, lithe grace. The keen, bright eyes glance a little askance, with a want of free confidence. There are a slim smoothness, a silent alertness, in the general impression—a nervous, susceptible intentness, united with undeniable beauty, that recall the deadly nightshade among flowers and Keats's "Lamia" among poems. The portrait would fully interpret the poem, She looked the lovely Lamia upon the verge of flight, at the instant when she felt the calm, inexorable ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis |
