"Inquisitive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... borders the beach-hammock and spreads a sea of silvery green before the mansion is not barren of attractions. Inquisitive and faint-hearted fiddler-crabs are darting in and out of their holes in the mud: an alligator now and then shows a hint of a head above the water of the creek, along whose banks walk daintily and proudly egrets and herons ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... instantly snubbed for asking questions which the driver might easily overhear, and took the repulse just a little to heart. I could make neither head nor tail of Raffles's dealings with the man from Regent Street, and was naturally inquisitive as to the meaning of it all. But I held my tongue until we had regained the flat in the cautious manner of our exit, and even there until Raffles rallied me with a hand on either shoulder and an old smile upon ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... returned to the blacksmith-shop the horses were gone to the stable, and all the preacher's family and all their bundles were out of the carriage. What plump-legged, healthy, inquisitive youngsters those three small girls appeared as they stood there in ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... for the rude seat which was all I could offer them. They courteously accepted the seat, and, at the older lady's request, I sat down beside them. The talking was confined to one of the ladies, who seemed, I thought at the time, of a very inquisitive nature. In the first place she expressed her wish to know something about the British soldier—how he was fed, whether he was well-clothed, what kind of rations he was provided with, &c. I gave her ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... meant but well and kindly by the poor survivor. But the survivor could not forget that his name was still in the newspapers, nor blink the fact that he was an unworthy hero of the passing hour. And he suffered enough from brazenly meddlesome and self-seeking folk, from impudent and inquisitive intruders, to justify some suspicion of old acquaintances suddenly styling themselves old friends, and of distant connections newly and unduly eager to claim relationship. Many I misjudged, and have long known it. On the whole, however, I wonder at that attitude ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... idolizing public opinion, no man could be more attentive to the means of ascertaining it. In comparing the candidates for office, he was particularly inquisitive as to their standing with the public, and the opinion entertained of them by men of public weight. On the important questions to be decided by him, he spared no pains to gain information from all quarters; ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... mushroom huts, and cultivating manioc, sweet potato, and maize, and various vegetables. The people dress in monkey-skins, the animals' heads hanging in front and the tails depending below. They are very inquisitive, and, by their jabberings and pointings, incessantly, want Speke to ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... conduct, that he had had it in his power to oblige you, and, if you behave civilly, may oblige you again? I, who think I have a right to break every man's head I pass by, if I like not his looks, to bear this!—No more could I do it, then I could borrow of an insolent uncle, or inquisitive aunt, who would thence think themselves entitled to have an account of all my life and actions laid before them for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... sunlight Dan's spirits rose, and as I investigated various byways he asked "where the sense came in tying-up a dog that was doing no harm running loose." "It weren't as though she'd taken to chivying cattle," he added, as, a mob of inquisitive steers trotting after us, I hurried Roper in among the riders; and then he wondered "how she'll shape at her ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... progress since the year 1494, before which 'it had only arrived at the solution of problems of the second degree, inclusive.' A scrap of paper tells us that Casanova 'did not like regular towns.' 'I like,' he says, 'Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan, Constantinople, Genoa.' Then he becomes abstract and inquisitive again, and writes two pages, full of curious, out-of-the-way learning, on the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to you on this subject are circumstances such as they have been reported in our best informed societies by our most inquisitive companions. Truth is certainly the foundation of these anecdotes; but their parts may be extenuated, diminished, altered, or exaggerated. Defective or incomplete as they are, I hope you will not judge them unworthy of a page in a letter, considering the grand personage ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... staircases, its torture-chamber, funnel-shaped to drown and suffocate—so runs tradition—the shrieks of wretches on the rack, is now a barrack, filled with lively little French soldiers, whose politeness, though sorely taxed, is never ruffled by the introduction of inquisitive visitors into their dormitories, eating-places, and drill-grounds. And strange, indeed, it is to see the lines of neat narrow barrack beds, between which the red-legged little men are shaving, polishing their guns, or mending their trousers, in those vaulted halls of popes and cardinals, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... family of his mother, Mary Aspall, he derived the quick, impressible temperament of genius, and the love of humour which so conspicuously marks the Lancashire character. He was the youngest child. His thirst for knowledge was early and strongly manifested. Being once told in childhood not to be so inquisitive, his appeal ever after was, "Inquisitive wants to know." As he grew up into boyhood, surrounded by objects to which tradition had assigned her marvellous stories, they sank silently but indelibly into his mind. In his immediate vicinity were Haigh Hall and Mab's Cross, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... came to Mr. Smith by marriage. This is the same Humphrey Dyson that assisted Howes in his continuation of Stowe's Survey of London, ed. folio;' and in his preface to Peter Langtoft's Chronicle (vol. i. p. xiii.) Hearne describes Dyson as 'a person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius in the matter of books, as may appear from many Libraries; there being Books (chiefly in old English) almost in every Library, that have belong'd to him, with his name upon them.' Some of his books are preserved in the ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has been determined, and following ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... that some of the most inquisitive and critical of the Christian fathers entertained doubts about these apocryphal books; Melito of Sardis traveled to Palestine on purpose to inquire into the matter, and came back, of course, with the Palestinian ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... order that breathed an understanding fear of the inquisitive eyes of enemy aerial observers. But if the G.S.O. who issued the ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... No, no—of course not. Don't think me presumptuous and inquisitive. I should never have mentioned it, if I had not a reason—a good reason. Have I ever seemed to pry ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... snuff is still extensively consumed in this country (Great Britain), the mode of its manufacture is very little known to those who use it; and there are very few persons of even the most inquisitive turn of mind who can say they have ever penetrated into the mysterious precincts of a snuff-mill. Even those who have been privileged, and have had the courage to inspect the interior of such an establishment, have come away with very vague notions of ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... said, "The Commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumblers' Arms." That, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... or not they had a country, these soldiers did not know. Home to many, when they reached it, was graves and ashes. At any rate, there must be, somewhere on earth, a better place than a muddy, smoky camp in a piece of scrubby pines; better company than gloomy, hungry comrades and inquisitive enemies, and something in the future more exciting, if not more hopeful, than nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. The disposition to start was apparent, and the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... attempted to explain the use of the instrument, the inquisitive man was almost irresistibly led to put some leading questions as to the nature of Time; but whenever he observed this tendency, the sailor, thinking that he had given him quite enough of philosophy for one evening, adroitly turned him off the ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... were all of them struck into their dumps, and could not tell what to say. Fear also possessed them in a marvelous manner; and death seemed to sit upon some of their eyebrows.[196] Now, there was in the company a notable sharp-witted fellow, a mean man of estate, and his name was old Inquisitive. This man asked the petitioners if they had told out every whit of what Emmanuel said. And they answered, Verily, no. Then said Inquisitive, I thought so, indeed. Pray, what was it more that he said unto you? Then they paused awhile; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... social standing, it's odds if we will recognize any of him but his head and shoulders. I have seen him served up in country inns with a pickled walnut in the socket of each eye; and in life, and at home, he has the attentive, inquisitive, watchful, humorous eyes ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... in the face. Thus, when a pert skeptic asked Martin Luther where God was before He created heaven, Martin stunned his querist with the retort,—"He was building hell for such idle, presumptuous, fluttering, and inquisitive spirits as you." And everybody will recollect the story of the self-complacent cardinal who went to confess to a holy monk, and thought by self-accusation to get the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Bonaparte's desire for the eastern expedition; but this seems to have been aroused earlier by Volney, who saw a good deal of Bonaparte in 1791. In truth, the desire to wrest the secrets of learning from the mysterious East seems always to have spurred on his keenly inquisitive nature. During the winter months of 1797-8 he attended the chemical lectures of the renowned Berthollet; and it was no perfunctory choice which selected him for the place in the famous institute left vacant by the exile of Carnot. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... merchant, settled in Calcutta, who had been dead for above two years. I now gave up all hopes of any further intelligence, and was more convinced than ever that I had acted rightly in withholding from poor John my correspondence with his father. The lad had been curious and inquisitive naturally; but when I told him that I thought it my duty to his father to be so reserved, he forebore to press me. I have only to add, first, that by all the inquiries I could make of the surviving members of Walter Ardworth's family, it seemed their ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Winter. Agnes never knew, when preparing for one of those abhorred periodical interviews with the Cordelier, what he might say to her, or rather, what he might not say. She shrank with horror from his inquisitive questioning, and not much less from his petty humiliating penances. Father Dan's remedy for angry words was to fast for a week on bread and water; for pride, to lick a cross in the dust of the church floor; for envy and covetousness, the administration of a cat-o'-nine-tails ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... tread on the carpet behind me, so that when I turned round abruptly, I was startled to find myself face to face with old Giacomo, who held out a note to me on a silver salver, and who meanwhile peered at me with his eager eyes in so inquisitive a manner that I felt ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... became so inquisitive that they asked why he had done so, and he laughingly answered that it was merely in order to supply them with ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... the German artillery was posted. Both up and down stream the Chasseurs d'Afrique lined the river banks, making use of every scrap of cover. Peeping out over trunks of fallen trees, banks, and ditches inquisitive heads could be seen wearing the khaki taconnet. But my troubles were not yet over. Just as I was going to step ashore from the bridge, Captain D. brought me the Colonel's orders to recross the river with my whole squadron and occupy a clump of houses to the left of the bridge. It was ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... warning. Of course it is only surmise on my part, but for days there has been a woman hovering about the castle, trying to get information from my servants. My maid came directly to me and told me what she knew. The woman detective had spoken to her. This inquisitive person, who had come from Paris, wished particularly to know whether I had been seen about the castle during the week in which the Duchess of Chiselhurst's ball took place; and so this leads me to suppose that some one is making inquiries for you. It must be either Lord Donal ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... neighbourhood, takes him round to the houses of his friends, accompanies him to any feast which may be celebrated at the time of his visit, and lends him his sporting-gun, if he has one. The whole time he treats him with the deference due to the superiority which he recognizes. He is remarkably inquisitive, and will ask all sorts of questions about one's private affairs, but that is of no consequence—he is not intrusive, and if he be invited to return the visit in the capital, or wherever one may reside, he accepts the invitation reluctantly, but seldom ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... who had never, till this journey, experienced the pleasures of travelling by any inland navigation, was anxious to behold, and inquisitive to know, every thing. When night came on, his lordship and Sir William Hamilton often amused themselves, by playing together their favourite game of cribbage: and, not unfrequently, while passing down this river, was the hero's busy mind actively employed in forming new plans ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... never entered my head. And my kodak, which I had been so prompt to use to commemorate various events, seemed a vulgar, inquisitive instrument, and was left unheeded in the bottom of the cart. Each step brought us face to face with the horrors of warfare. Towards Villeroy a number of battered Parisian taxicabs gave us the first hint of General Gallieni's clever maneuver ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... possessed by Edward. He was a younger son, and had to earn, in a way, his own fortune, and he felt that his inclinations were more for peace than strife. Moreover, Humphrey had talents which Edward had not—a natural talent for mechanics, and an inquisitive research into science, as far as his limited education would permit him. He was more fitted for an engineer or an agriculturist than for a soldier, although there is no doubt that he would have made a very brave soldier, if such was to have become ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... intercourse. They do not save themselves up for their speeches or their books; but they give their best energies to them, and have little current coin of high thought left for ordinary life. The mischief is that these interviews are generally conducted by inquisitive and rhetorical strangers, not distinguished for social tact or overburdened with good taste; and so the whole occasion tends to wear a melodramatic air, which is fatal both to artistic effect as ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Alured was, and thence gathered hopes of the succession for her boy, for she asked her sharp questions about his health all the way up, and knew that he had had fits. I could not put her down as one generally can inquisitive people. I suppose it was because she was more sensible of the difference in our real positions than I ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... peculiarly remarkable as to places in the now City of Salem. The reminiscences floating about are vague, contradictory, and few in number. In a community of uncommon intelligence, composed, to a greater degree perhaps than almost any other, of families that have been here from the first, very inquisitive for knowledge, and always imbued with the historical spirit, it is truly surprising how little has been borne down, by speech and memory, in the form of anecdote, personal traits, or local incidents, of this most extraordinary and wonderful occurrence of such world-wide celebrity. Almost all that ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... to the nature of Man, to be inquisitive into the Causes of the Events they see, some more, some lesse; but all men so much, as to be curious in the search of the causes of their ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... that enlighten your inquisitive intellect? And I don't ask what your name may be. I don't want to know. I've no use for it, sir. An individual who calmly tells me to my face that he is not sure if he has seen me before, either means to ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... divined the torso and the powerful back, you will know the sweet tempered face, somewhat pale, the blue ecstatic eyes and the inquisitive nose of that good old man, when you learn that, in the morning, wearing a silk head kerchief and tightened in a dressing-gown, the illustrious professor—he is a professor—resembled an old woman so much that a young man who ...
— A Street Of Paris And Its Inhabitant • Honore De Balzac
... you are my husband," she said, "and then you may be as inquisitive as you please." Her amiable sweetheart's guess had actually hit the mark. During the year that had passed, she too had tried her luck among the Experts, and had failed. Having recently heard of a foreign interpreter of ciphers, she had written to ask his terms. ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... on board this boat, with a light fresh-coloured face, and a pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, who was the most inquisitive fellow that can possibly be imagined. He never spoke otherwise than interrogatively. He was an embodied inquiry. Sitting down or standing up, still or moving, walking the deck or taking his meals, there he was, with a great ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the wrist, then part of the arm.... A head appeared in the opening, curiously suggesting the head of a bird, thinly thatched with hair of a faded yellow; out of its face, small eyes watched her, steadfastly inquisitive. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... pride at heart for this woman, I equipped her with the broken oar and took another for myself. It was with nervous trepidation that we made the first few rods of the journey. Once Maud screamed in terror as a cow thrust an inquisitive nose toward her foot, and several times I quickened my pace for the same reason. But, beyond warning coughs from either side, there were no signs of hostility. It was a rookery which had never been raided by the hunters, and ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... would not be alarmed, since the place we had arrived at was nothing more than the celebrated locofoco 'nest number three,' the members of which had their head quarters at Tammany Hall and the Irving House, and were very respectable men, and good working politicians. A less inquisitive man than a citizen of Cape Cod is acknowledged to be, could not have failed to discover the artifice. But my enthusiasm carried away my discretion; and, after descending six slippery steps, we came to a door upon which my companion gave two loud knocks, and placed his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... son. Allan had been sitting with her all the morning, and had talked of nothing but his new friend. The man with the horrible name (as poor Mrs. Armadale described him) had questioned Allan, in a singularly inquisitive manner, on the subject of himself and his family, but had kept his own personal history entirely in the dark. At some former period of his life he had been accustomed to the sea and to sailing. Allan had, unfortunately, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... herself, for her lips were bloody, and round them, like a beard, were sticking small black threads, which were indeed from the black silk hose of the poor corpse. And when they looked at her horrible mouth they trembled, but were silent from fear; all except the inquisitive Anna Apenborg, who asked, "Dear sister, what makes you here at midnight in ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... seemed glad of any pretext for detaching himself from his elderly flame, rescued Mirandolina's lute from the inquisitive fingering of the monkey, and striking a few melancholy chords, sang the following words, which he said he had learned from ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... wondrous far and wide, had a long beard, deep eyes, frightful eyebrows, and a strange garment with many folds, and inwoven with curious figures. He seated himself before the house of Hyacinth's parents. Hyacinth at once became very inquisitive, and sat down beside him, and brought him bread and wine. Then parted he his white beard, and told stories deep into the night; and Hyacinth never stirred or tired of listening. This much they learned afterward, that he talked a great ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... stratagem; but in general it is so badly managed, that it is more easily seen through than a cobweb. Lastly, there are a select few, who evince their tender regard by perpetual bickerings and quarrels. This method will frequently mislead inquisitive aunts and guardians; but it should only be attempted by a man who has full confidence in his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... ground the prisoner seemed morbidly sensitive, and averse to detailed discussion. His narration, however, such as it was, threw much light upon certain matters on which Madeline and Lester were before anxious and inquisitive. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and walked across to the window, pulling the curtains aside and looking out at the deep purple dusk that stained the air like wine. The clock behind him struck a quarter past nine. Two tiny stars, like inquisitive mocking eyes, winked at him above the high Western tower. Moved by an impulse that was too immediate and peremptory to be investigated, he went into the hall, found his hat and stick, opened softly the door as though he were afraid that ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... friendly and inquisitive chap, and will come stalking down to the wires to inspect you. If you like to walk up and down outside his inclosure he will take a turn with you, walking at your side and turning when you do. He is justly proud of his height and his ruff, but there is ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to apologize, which I did more concisely than politely. No man likes to be dogged, and in the very irritable mood in which I then was the sight of Mdlle. Reuter thoroughly incensed me. At the moment I turned her countenance looked hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes were bent upon me with an expression of almost hungry curiosity. I had scarcely caught this phase of physiognomy ere it had vanished; a bland smile played on her features; my harsh apology was received ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... very inquisitive lady," she said, with a forced smile; "but you must forgive me. What you said this morning about your master teaching you philosophy interested me greatly. One thing I should like to know," and she dug at the gravel with the point of her parasol, "and ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... inquisitive eyes Alice watched Oswald's troubled face while these thoughts were passing through his mind. She could not mistake his embarrassment. With dawning presentiment of his unspoken decision, this despairing girl, standing erect, gave one glance at ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... steam whistle called us together to finish our memorable trip. There was no trace of decay in the sky; a glorious sunset gilded the water and cleared away the shadows of our meditations among the ruins. We landed at the Wrangell wharf at dusk, pushed our way through a group of inquisitive Indians, across the two crooked streets, and up to our homes in the fort. We had been away only three days, but they were so full of novel scenes and impressions the time seemed indefinitely long, and our broken Chilcat excursion, far from being a failure as ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... after he took a single look at young Frank who sat up nimbly, his color normal for the first time in weeks. The suppressed excitement in the atmosphere Doctor Parris could hardly be expected to understand until the boy drew back the covers to show the inquisitive black nose and beady ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... and conversed with her all night long, and, in parting from her, would appoint a day on which he would return; and this appointment, unless for some weighty reason, he never failed to keep. The Duke, who was the most inquisitive man alive, and who had made love in no small degree in his day, wished both to satisfy his suspicions and to fully understand so strange a business; and he therefore begged the gentleman to take him, not as a master ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... the premisses, which I was very inquisitive in all places where I came to take very particular information of by all the Sauages that dwelt towardes these parts, and especially of Menatonon himselfe, who in euery thing did very particularly informe mee, and promised me guides of his owne men, who should ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... to understand that we won't put up with their importunities, they worry us no more. "Oh, that I could get rid of them thus readily always!" I mentally exclaim; for I feel instinctively that the farther east I get, the more wretchedly worrying and inquisitive I shall find the people. We arrive hungry and thirsty, and in condition to do ample justice to the provisions at hand. After satisfying the pressing needs of hunger, we drink several appropriate toasts from the contents of the mysterious black bottles—toasts for the success ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... late, and would not be banished. Once she had made a pet of a magpie, but the bird's habits had forced her to dispose of it. She remembered the way it forever pried into things; how nothing was safe from that sharp beak and inquisitive eye. Its waking hours had been busied in a tireless, furtive search for forbidden objects. Now she could not help likening her mother to the bird, although the thought shocked her. There was the same sly angle of countenance, a similar furtiveness of purpose; the very ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... present wish to mix the City and Banbridge, that he wished to preserve mysteries concerning himself in the regard of both. It is certain that nobody in his office, where he roused considerable speculation even among a more engrossed and less inquisitive class, knew where he lived. The office had not heard of Banbridge; Banbridge had heard of the office, but knew nothing about it. The office, in a way, was not nearly as wise as Banbridge, for it knew nothing whatever of his family affairs. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Ger. I'me not inquisitive, nor never was, There may be secrets fit for no Mans hearing. And 'tis an Act of Friendship full as great To tell a Friend I hide a secret from him, As to Relate it, since they both ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... and alighting on the arm of Tu's chair, whispered in his ear that it might be well if he ran his eye over Colonel Wen's petition to see if there was any argument in it which he had omitted in his statement to the Board of War. At first, Tu, whose nature was the reverse of inquisitive, declined to listen to these promptings, but so persistent did they become that he at last put down his book—"The Spring and Autumn Annals"—and, seating himself, at the sitting-room table, opened the writing-case so innocently left by Jasmine. On the top were a number of red visiting-cards ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... broached, and is of a vintage that does not usually bear transportation. Dr. Moses—he received his diploma not from the College of Physicians, but from the circumstance of his having once drugged his private demijohn of rum, and so nailed an inquisitive negro named Sambo—Dr. Moses, as he was always called, had been handed down to us by tradition as a fellow of infinite jest and of most excellent fancy; but I must confess that I find his high spirits very much evaporated. His humor expended itself, for the greater part, ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... "For, since we have this telegram, there must have been another message sent from Adele Rossignol to Aix saying that Marthe Gobin, that busybody, that inquisitive neighbour, who had no doubt seen M. Ricardo's advertisement, was on her way hither. Oh it will not be put as crudely as that, but that is what the message will mean. We shall have him." And suddenly his face grew very stern. "I MUST catch ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... the automobiles the next Monday morning, when at nine-thirty the train discharged upon her a dozen very alert, very up-to-date, very inquisitive southerners, male and female, most of whom seemed to have left their "r's" in the gulf region. It was eleven when the party parked their machines before the ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... at odd moments sit for the production of what they call "phenomena," with no other object than the gratification of an inquisitive vanity, I would drive them with whips from the field of psychical research. They are people whose presence in this area of serious enquiry does no good either to the cause of truth or the service of the race, and this loose traffic of sorts ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... It seems that one of these statues is that which, after being taken to Constantinople, was destroyed in a fire in 476 A.D. Fragments of the corselet still existed in the first century of our era, but inquisitive persons used to tear off pieces to see for themselves whether, as Herodotus assures us, each thread was composed of three hundred and sixty-five strands, every one visible ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Name, Sir, before she marry'd the Counsellor? (ask'd Gracelove) That I know not, (reply'd t'other) for the old Steward dy'd presently after the old Lady, which is not a Year and a Half since; in whose Place I succeed; and I have never been so curious or inquisitive, as to pry into former Passages of the Family. Do you know, Sir, (said Gracelove) whereabouts in Town they liv'd before? Yes, Sir, (return'd the Steward, who was taught how to answer) in Great Lincolns-Inn-Fields, I think, Alas! (cry'd Gracelove) 'twas the same Gentleman ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... house; indeed, to keep him much in the house seems to affect his intelligence. He fights readily, but a strong master can alter that. In sharpness and brightness and hardiness he is not to be beaten, and no dog is more inquisitive and full of spirits. Perhaps of little dogs he ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... gone till a hundred years 'as rolled away, an' even then I shouldn't wonder if one or two was still left on the tramp a-pipin' his little 'arf-a-league onard tale o' woe to the first softy as forgits the date o' the battle." Here he gave an inquisitive side-glance at his companion. "But you aint quite o' the Balaclava make an' colour. Yer shoulders is millingterry, but yer 'ead is business. Ye might be a gentleman if 'twornt ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... for water, the maids put the tents to rights, the boys lighted the fire. Schillie and I sat looking on, acting company. I with admiring eyes, on the lovely scenery and pretty figures, she with inquisitive looks, scanning each unknown plant, moss, bird, or stone, and conjecturing their names and qualities. A little clamouring below, as to who was to blow a great shell that Benjie had taught them how to ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... The inquisitive passengers had followed me to the state-room, and I was obliged to go in and shut the door in order to avoid them. I saw by the looks of Kate's eyes that she had been crying. Our sudden and unexpected separation had been even a greater ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... to encounter was full as inquisitive as the other. He desired to know whether I came from the army in Piedmont; and having told him I was going thither, he asked me, whether I had a mind to buy any horses; that he had about two hundred to dispose of, and that he would ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... evident he had ridden long and far. The roan with hanging head tripped eagerly, yet wearily, to his accustomed stall, and a swarthy Mexican unloosed at once the cincha and removed the horsehair bridle. Thus Sancho and the engineer were left by themselves, though inquisitive ranch folk sauntered to the gateway and peered after them into the corral. Over at the little clump of willows Blake's men were throwing their carbines across their shoulders and dismounting as they reached the old familiar spot, and Loring cast one ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... ago a representative of this class visited the old town. He was from the North, and, being much interested in what he saw, was duly inquisitive. Among other things that attracted his attention was a little one-armed man who seemed to be the life of the place. He was here, there, and everywhere; and wherever he went the atmosphere seemed to lighten and brighten. Sometimes ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... symbol, and all his features became in quick succession types of thought and exponents of hidden feelings, while his inquisitive nose stood forth in the midst of their ceaseless play like a perpetual interrogation point that would have electrified the Sphinx into life, and set its stone lips gabbling answers ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... a little chattering stream, was narrow for the most part, and Farmer Hosking, with an apology, strode on ahead to beat aside the brambles. But whenever its width allowed us to walk side by side I caught him from time to time stealing a shy inquisitive glance under his rough eyebrows. Courteously though he bore himself, it was clear that he could not sum me up to his satisfaction or bring me square with his notion of a tenant for ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... did not relish being called, by the remotest implication, an Athenian. As inquisitive as the most prying Yankee is said to be, he stoutly repelled the imputation of inquisitiveness, as applied to himself or to his countrymen. "It was," he was in the habit of saying, "a slander invented ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... never heard such music in a human voice— "you think me inquisitive, presuming, ungentlemanly, persistent, perhaps. But I have a great wish to know the truth about this matter, if only to secure myself from forming false impressions and wrongfully influencing others by them. Bear with me, then, strangers though we are, and if you feel you can trust me"—here ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... of your assertion," replied Bob; "and pray may I be allowed, without appearing romantic or unnecessarily inquisitive, to ask what are the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... casual notice, on my part, of some very unpromising object has smoothed the way for the relation of a long and interesting narrative. I first heard one of the most dramatic of the stories that will be presented in this book, merely through being carelessly inquisitive to know the history of a ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... calling.... There are lots of them here too. One often comes upon a string of cranes or swans.... Snipe and woodcock flutter about in the birch copses. The hares which are not eaten or shot here, stand on their hindlegs, and, pricking up their ears, watch the passer-by with an inquisitive stare without the slightest misgiving. They are so often running across the road that to see them doing so is not considered a ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... "are, as a rule, muscular, rather shorter than the Egyptians, having little beard or moustache, usually merely a pointed beard under the chin. They have a pleasant expression, are superior to the Egyptians in courage and intelligence, and naturally inquisitive. They are not thieves. They occasionally pick up a fortune by dint of hard work, but they have little enterprise. Women share the same physical advantages, are pretty as a rule, and well made; their appearance is gentle ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Pendleton sat down, Ashton-Kirk looked at the persons referred to. The first was a thin, wiry little woman, unmistakably Irish, cleanly dressed and with sharp, inquisitive eyes. Engaged in a low-pitched conversation with her was a thick-necked German, heavy of paunch and with a fat, red face. The third was a spectacled young Jew, poring over a huge volume which he seemed to have brought with him. He had a tremendous ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... a fraud," pronounced the girl in the velveteen robe. "You are smothering some mystery and I must have stepped on the spring," guessed the inquisitive caller. "Was it the tack hammer or the spindle chair or the fat girl? Not she, you have had no chance to do uplift work yet. Land knows that farmer will need your greatest skill, but dear, don't waste ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... you to say so, but you know what an inquisitive boy he is, and how he likes to wander among steam-engines. No, I won't let you sleep. What ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... rather lonely stretch of road. The temptation to turn aside and investigate is strong until, the wind rubbing one tree trunk against another, a long groan is heard that sends a cold shiver down the inquisitive's back and damps his ardor for discovery. After all it's best out in the bright open road where the birds sing and the sun ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... As the inquisitive instinct makes the child an intolerable nuisance to his ignorant and indolent elders, it is but natural that in the unenlightened school, as in the unenlightened home, it should be forcibly exterminated. ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... was out of their reach. It might have been said that the alteration effected in Baisemeaux had extended itself even to the prisoners. The turnkey, the same who on Aramis' first arrival had shown himself so inquisitive and curious, had now become not only silent, but even impassible. He held his head down, and seemed afraid to keep his ears open. In this wise they reached the basement of the Bertaudiere, the two first stories of which were mounted silently and somewhat slowly; ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... whole influence not to have your boy sent away at too early an age. Do you really think that the exclusive society of little boys, with their childish chatter, their foolish little codes, their crude and often ridiculously false notions of life, and their small curiosities, naturally inquisitive, but not always clean in the researches they inspire, and always false in their results, is morally better for your child than, in ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... each inquisitive newcomer she babbled forth her story of a wounded grandson whom she was on her way to visit. The curate and another man of her village had seen to her expenses. They had purchased her ticket and handed it to her ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... noticed a difference in Dotty's attitude. She walked as quickly as before but she was not quite so alert. Also, she kept turning her head suddenly from side to side with a gesture of an inquisitive bird, a little uncertain which way ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... depend on it, your honour, that I will keep an eye on our friend here," said Tim, glancing at Jose. "If it had not been for the big serpent, he would have been after getting those 'Inquisitive' gentlemen down upon us. I will make my shillelagh and his head wonderfully well acquainted, however, if I catch him ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... old landlord invited his visitors into the bar parlour, where at his own table he set before them that delightful concoction of chicory and sifted earth which certain provincial Frenchmen call cafe. And being a gregarious and inquisitive old man, and withal proud of his tolerable stock of English, he took the liberty of ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... a fool if I wasn't," said Duckford, selecting a cigar from his case. "What's your story about—I see you have one to tell. I am not inquisitive as a rule; but, somehow your manner has warned me that you have something ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... in the little house, while the London that knew them in St. James's Square looked on, and made the comments—half amused, half inquisitive—that the act seemed to invite. There was of course no surprise. Nothing surprises the London of to-day. Or if there were any, it was all Marcella's. In spite of her passionate sympathy with the multitude who live in disagreeable ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... over, Baxter admitted ruefully that M'Leod was better than most firms in the business: We buyers were coy, argumentative, shocked at the price of Holmescroft, inquisitive, and cold by turns, but Mr. M'Leod the seller easily met and surpassed us; and Mr. Baxter entered every letter, telegram, and consultation at the proper rates in a cinematograph-film of a bill. At the end of a month he said it looked as though M'Leod, thanks to him, were really going to listen ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... tall, short, small, strong, weak, deft, agile, clumsy, beautiful, ugly, deformed, birthmarked, keen and precocious, defective in sense, mind, and speech, nervous, clean, dainty, dirty, orderly, obedient, disobedient, disorderly, teasing, buoyant, buffoon, cruel, selfish, generous, sympathetic, inquisitive, lying, ill-tempered, silent, dignified, frank, loquacious, courageous, timid, whining, spoiled, gluttonous and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... as he spoke that this explanation was correct. The dull rabbits, the sleepy Persian cats, and the silly sheep had died outright of lethodyne; the cunning, inquisitive raccoon, the quick hawk, and the active, intense-natured weasels, all most eager, wary, and alert animals, full of keenness and passion, had ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... his companion, "and do not consider me inquisitive, since I may have something to suggest to your advantage if your reply is satisfactory. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... my office with my two disreputable brown-paper parcels, one of which made itself so noticeable in the close official air that Carter attentively asked if I would like to have it sent to my chambers, and K—was inquisitive to bluntness about it and my movements. But I did not care to enlighten K—, whose comments I knew would be provokingly envious or wounding to my pride in ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... wounded, recovered, but lost his life in another battle. One day, while riding with him in Missouri, he told me a very good story. He said he was once riding in the cars, and that a very inquisitive man sat by his side. A few rods from every road-crossing the railroad company had put up boards with the letters ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... came in to breakfast; he seemed happy and greeted Valeria cheerfully. She answered him in confusion—stole a glance at him—and felt frightened at the sight of that serene happy face, those piercing and inquisitive eyes. Muzzio was beginning again to tell some story ... but Fabio interrupted him ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... William," he pleaded. "Give me time to send off my telegram before the Count sees what I'm doing. He's such an inquisitive person," he went on, noticing his host's look of blank surprise. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him to feel a sense of shame when he presently learned that his assumption of their indifference was unjustified. As he let himself in with his key, a slippered step shuffled from the rear to greet him. It was Bates, sleepy but inquisitive. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... led the willing captain (for he was as inquisitive as a monkey) on a round of visits to the houses of the Moquis. She poked smiling through their kitchens and bedrooms, and gained more information than might have been expected concerning their spinning and weaving, cheerfully spending ten minutes in signs ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... presumes him his countryman, shows a curiosity to know who he is, which is very foreign to his usual indifference. As far as I can analyze it, it is the independent, self-possessed bearing of a man unused to look up to any one as his superior in rank, united to the inquisitive, sensitive, communicative expression which is the index to our national character. The first is seldom possessed in England but by a man of decided rank, and the latter is never possessed by an Englishman at all. The two are united ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... over his shoulder, and to the command the inquisitive nose of the white horse receded in the darkness. The man shut the door, behind which, immediately, a philosophical munching of bit began to sound. He walked across the room with a low bow which caused the wide brim of his hat to sweep the floor; ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... been there was plain, from the toilet-cover on the floor, the scattered pots and bottles, the wandering brushes and combs, all involved in the tangle of ribbons and laces which an open drawer had yielded to the baby's inquisitive fingers. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... payable four times a year, have their weight; nay, often convert weekly into quarterly lodgings. Be sure there are no children in your house. They are vociferous when you would enjoy domestic retirement, and inquisitive when you take the air. Once (horresco referens!) on returning from my peripatetics, I was accosted with brutally open-mouthed clamour, by my landlady, who, dragging me in a state of bewilderment ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... times sight of blood, or a fight, or a plunging horse, or a broken leg—and these sights are common—affects me little until I am quickened and think about the meaning of it all. At such moments I have a revulsion of feeling. With memory comes a revolt, and so on, until I am the distressed, inquisitive, and morbid person I am now. I shudder at what war will make me. Actual contact with earth, exploding guns, fighting comrades, striking foes, will make brutes of us all. It is wrong to shed another man's blood. If life was meant for that why do we have progress? I cannot reconcile a God with all ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... the curious eyes of the throng. While his life was in the balance, he saw and heard everything hostile, nothing more—now, he perceived the crowd to be disgustingly inquisitive. Their winks, and grins, and muttered ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... hurries on from clue to clue till finally and literally the murder is out. Books which keep a reader on the tenter-hooks of conjecture must always suffer from this undue concentration of the interest; and in spite of cheery, inquisitive Dr. Toole, and the remarkable sketch of Black Dillon, the ruffianly genius with a reputation only recognised in the hospitals and the police-courts (a character admirably invented and admirably used in the plot) one can hardly class Le Fanu among those novelists ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... author of the "Bobbsey Twins" Books are eagerly welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age. Their eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of inquisitive little Bunny Brown and ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... to the stories of the towers, as if to remind the prisoners that the liberty of earth was a luxury beyond their reach. It might have been said that the alteration effected in Baisemeaux extended even to the prisoners. The turnkey, the same who, on Aramis's first arrival had shown himself so inquisitive and curious, was now not only silent, but impassible. He held his head down, and seemed afraid to keep his ears open. In this wise they reached the basement of the Bertaudiere, the two first stories ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... commencement of the scene, desires his servant to draw the screen before the window, because "his opposite neighbor is a maiden lady of so anxious a temper;" yet, afterwards, by placing Lady Teazle between the screen and the window, he enables this inquisitive lady to indulge her curiosity at leisure. It might be said, indeed, that Joseph, with the alternative of exposure to either the husband or neighbor, chooses the lesser evil;—but the oversight hardly requires ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... it,—broke an axle. So I had to walk in. That is what I was seeing about to-day,—sending a man out for the car and arranging about the repairs." He smiled again. "What in the world did you think I would walk from Des Moines for?" he asked Prudence, more inquisitive than grammatical. ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... to his feet. He flung himself across the bed. With both of his own hands he grasped the slender, inquisitive fingers which wavered above the stained pillow, and once more his throat tightened. He couldn't ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... of an immense stable, from which was partitioned a kind of kitchen and a place where the family slept. The master, a robust young man, lolled on a large solid stone bench, which stood within the door. He was very inquisitive respecting news, but I could afford him none; whereupon he became communicative, and gave me the history of his life, the sum of which was, that he had been a courier in the Basque provinces, but about a year since had been dispatched ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... "Don't think me inquisitive, Arthur; I was surprised to find you knew these girls, with whom I am myself ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... published in the small towns of Germany, never read, perhaps, except by the author and his friends, then buried on the shelves of a library, properly labeled and catalogued, and never opened again, except by an inquisitive inmate of these literary mausoleums. The number of those forgotten books is great, and as in former times few authors wrote more than one or two works during the whole of their lives, the information which they contain is generally of a much more substantial ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... certainty; but from the answer to that one we infer the answers to all the others. As it is only the wise who learn, so it is only the good who improve. When we see a man gaining upon his faults as he advances in life, when we find him more self-contained and cheerful, more learned and inquisitive, more just and considerate, more single-eyed and noble in his aims, at fifty than he was at forty, and at seventy than he was at fifty, we have the best reason perceptible by human eyes for concluding that he has been governed by right principles and good feelings. We have a right ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... more in his mental dialect than the English do. They are independent and wide awake, curious and full of personal interest. The wayside mind in Inverness or Perth runs more to muscle and less to fat, has more active vanity and less passive pride, is more inquisitive and excitable and sympathetic—in short, to use a symbolist's description, it is more apt to be red-headed—than in Surrey or Somerset. Scotchmen ask more questions about America, but fewer foolish ones. You will never hear them inquiring whether there is any good bear-hunting ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... Chicago now. That is a photograph of the children." She pointed to a group picture on the fireplace mantel, and the girls clustered about it with inquisitive eyes. ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... on their left the American minister, with other distinguished guests. I sat by a most agreeable and interesting young lady, who seemed to take pleasure in enlightening me on all those matters about which a stranger would naturally be inquisitive. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the science declare that there are times when even they cannot be acted upon; the presence of one scorner or unbeliever may weaken the potency of the fluid and destroy its efficacy. In M. Deleuze's instructions to a magnetiser, he expressly says, "Never magnetise before inquisitive persons!"[76] ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... for waiting and for striking a blow, to attain or even barely to tolerate any organization, any sort of fixed military or political discipline. It is, and remains, at all times and all places the same indolent and poetical, irresolute and fervid, inquisitive, credulous, amiable, clever, but—in a political point of view— thoroughly useless nation; and therefore its fate has been always ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... anything from your craft,", answered the stranger, laughingly. "I won't be inquisitive, either, or go poking into forbidden corners. Who's ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... fly-traps? Whether the Mandarin passenger, He Sing, who had never been ten miles from home in his life before, lying sick on a bamboo couch in a private china closet of his own (where he is now perpetually writing autographs for inquisitive barbarians), ever began to doubt the potency of the Goddess of the Sea, whose counterfeit presentment, like a flowery monthly nurse, occupies the sailors' joss-house in the second gallery? Whether it is possible that the said Mandarin, or the artist of the ship, Sam Sing, Esquire, R.A. of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Francis was quite occupied with his own thoughts and calculations and curiosity. For he was very curious, not to say inquisitive. And at the present moment he had ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... disgustingly occupied in seeking for vermin on the heads or skins of the men, and actually eating them when found; the great utensil for the service of the whole family, which is also the only vessel capable of containing water to wash with; all this soon drives the most inquisitive European out ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... plate of seed-cakes on the arm of Reuben's chair, winged back for a minute before he alighted suspiciously on the railing. Then, being an old and a wise bird, he advanced again, holding his head slightly sideways and regarding the sleeping man with a pair of bright, inquisitive eyes. Reassured at last by the silence, he uttered a soft, throaty note, and flew straight to the arm of the chair in which Reuben was sitting. With his glance roving from the quiet man to the quiet dog, he made a few tentative flutters ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... right understanding of that remarkable personage. Much of all this sensitiveness is clearly due to the hasty fashion of publishing private correspondence within a few years of the writer's decease, but more to the fitful and somewhat feminine temper of an inquisitive yet ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... astonished at the introduction of all these new ideas; but what he was particularly inquisitive about was, to know the reason of this extraordinary change in the appearance of objects, only by looking through a hollow tube with a bit of glass fixed into it. "All this," replied Mr Barlow, "I will, if you desire ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... active and inquisitive mind, he never, except in his paroxysms of intemperance, was wholly negligent of study: he read what is considered as polite learning so much, that he is mentioned by Wood as the greatest scholar of all the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... sheltered from the tempest which raged without, and we were thus enabled to go ashore to procure wood and water, of which we stood much in need. For two days we saw no signs of inhabitants, and thus we incautiously strolled about without arms in our hands to stretch our legs. I was always of an inquisitive turn, fond of exploring strange countries; so one day, having parted from my companions, I walked on into the interior. I was thinking of turning back, for the day was far advanced, when my attention was attracted by a ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... You may treat it as a jest, as cowardice, or what you like. I cannot control your treatment of the best thing an honest man has to give a woman." It left the girl standing on the tips of her toes in sheer surprise. She was at no time a dignified queen, but she was an inquisitive one. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... returned Hester, fearing she had presumed. "I did not mean to be inquisitive. I ought not to have asked such a question; for these things have to do with the most ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... with a far-away look on her face, and little Donald Marsh gazed with round eyes of awe at the great man who had been so very generous; while over in an obscure corner of the hall a pale little woman stealthily rearranged the folds of her gown, that she might hide from inquisitive eyes the great darn on the front breadth ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... the police. You, my poor fellow, are an anarchist deprived of the help of that law and organisation which is so essential to anarchy. The one solitary difference is in your favour. You are not surrounded by inquisitive policemen; I am surrounded by inquisitive anarchists. I cannot betray you, but I might betray myself. Come, come! wait and see me betray myself. I shall ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... concerns or county politics, of parish grievances or neighbouring railroads, with which in every-day life we are beset, to the conversation of a person of intelligence who has visited foreign lands, and can give to the inquisitive at home a portion of the new ideas, images, and recollections with which his mind is stored. How, then, has it happened, that the same acquaintance with foreign and distant countries, which is universally felt to be such an advantage in conversation, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... monastery, from St. Sylvester," the monk answered humbly, whilst his keen and inquisitive, but rather frightened little eyes ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... home. If you have them against a background of banana-stems, or low palms, or feathery canes, nothing could be more acceptably characteristic of the air and sky; nor are they out of place on the box of the little victorias, where visitors of the more inquisitive sex put them to constant question. Such visitors spare no islander of any color. Once, in the pretty Public Garden which the multiple had claimed for its private property, three unmerciful American women suddenly descended from the heavens and began to question ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... before the dyryth, and then he had been seized by a number of the ape-creatures and borne through the tree tops to their village. His captors had been as inquisitive as to his strange clothing as had mine, with the same result. As we looked at each other we could ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he is never the same two days in succession. At once shy and bold, solitary and gregarious; restless as a cloud, yet clinging to his feeding grounds, spite of wolves and hunters, till he leaves them of his own free will; wild as Kakagos the raven, but inquisitive as a blue jay,—he is the most fascinating and the least ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... of you the doctor?' I asked in German, and a tall lean one with a mighty mean face turned his head to squint at me: but he didn't take his feet off the rail. He looked inquisitive, that's all. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... he exclaimed, 'how rude he'll think me!' And he rubbed something out of his eyes. He gave one long, yearning glance at the spangled sky where an inquisitive bat darted zigzag several times between himself and the Pleiades, that bunch of star-babies as yet unborn, as the blue-eyed guard used to ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... gives for the production of the homunculus are found in a work (De natura rerum) whose authorship is not settled. And supposing that Paracelsus was the writer, it must be considered whether he does not lay before the inquisitive friend to whom the work is dedicated merely a medley of oddities from the variegated store that he had collected from all sources on his travels among vagrant folk. We must accept the facts as we find them; the question ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... not come from Halifax, I presume, sir, did you?" in a dialect too rich to be mistaken as genuine Yankee. "And which way may you be travelling?" asked my inquisitive companion. ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... understood our appreciation and ministered specially to our admiration. Placed behind the fair songstress, it illuminated her so perfectly that the garment with the long folds resembled those thin vapors which veil the horizon without hiding it, and in a word, the most inquisitive imagination, disarmed by so much courtesy, was ready to exclaim, "That ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... was staring hungrily at a twelve foot skeleton of a giant bird. And a restoration of a tiny little equus was looking up like an inquisitive mouse at a huge ruined painting by ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... I wou'd fain know as much as you, which makes me so inquisitive; nor is't enough to know you're a Lover, unless you tell me too, who 'tis ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... home manufacture, covered with netting, kept inquisitive moths from entering, at the same time allowing a flood of light to make its way out into the door-yard, where it lay upon the grass and added glory to the marigolds ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... "Of William," he wrote to Stanhope, in 1808, "everything I have to say is good—and such as must give you and Mrs Stanhope much satisfaction. He is the best-tempered boy that can be—has a superior understanding, which makes everything easy to him. He is very inquisitive in what relates to his duty, and comprehends it with a facility which few boys do, at this time I believe he has more knowledge than many twice his standing. He is never engaged in disputes, and this not from a milkiness and yielding to others, but he seems superior to contention, and leaves a blockhead ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler) |
