"Engrossing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable. ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not of engrossing interest, but the tables of Diocletian furnish us a picture of material conditions throughout the Empire in his time which cannot be had from any other source, and for that reason deserve some attention. This consideration emboldens me to set down some extracts in the ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... is this to-day, when every problem of business is so engrossing, demanding a man's full time and thought. It is the rare man who can devote himself to business and be fresh for the service of others afterward. No man can, with efficiency, serve two masters so exacting as are these. Besides, if his business has seemed important enough to demand his ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... of negligently stranding Her Majesty's Ship "Iron Duke." Much interest naturally centred around this trial; the reporters from the local papers exerting themselves to the utmost for information on such an engrossing topic. On the third day the sentence of the court was announced:—the captain and Mr. Clarke to be reprimanded, and the ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... her daughter and indulgent towards her, as one would expect, but stern, carping and exacting beyond all her wont. She drove household matters with a tighter rein than ever, and gave Diana as little time for private thought or musing as the constant and engrossing occupation of her hands could leave free. But, however, thoughts are not chained to fingers. Alas! what troubled calculations Diana worked into her butter, those weeks; and how many heavy possibilities she shook down from her fingers along with the drops of water she scattered upon ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... working against time, that there was a limit to his period of action, for he seemed obsessed by an ever- growing passion to accomplish some end within a given time, and had no thought for anything beyond the engrossing issue into which he had plunged. She was dumfounded by his sudden transformation, and delighted at first, but later, when she saw that he regarded her only as a means to an end, his cool assumption of leadership piqued her ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... certain influence causes me to let it go in the revised and improved form here presented, and may it prove as valuable and engrossing to the general public as it has to 20,000 subscribers to former ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... thousand pounds to the party. On some soap-boilers, who had not complied with the requisitions of the newly incorporated company, mulcts were imposed of one thousand five hundred pounds and one thousand pounds. One man was fined and set in the pillory for engrossing corn, though he only kept what grew on his own land, asking more in a season of dearth than the overseers of the poor thought proper to give. Some arbitrary regulations with respect to prices may be excused by a well-intentioned though mistaken policy. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... had gone through many trials since we last met. When I left him in Khartoum ill with guinea-worm in the leg, he was on his way to Cairo; but after my departure he had been tempted by the slave-traders to re-engage in the infamous but engrossing career, and he too had become a slave-hunter. He had never received any pay, as the custom of the slavers was to pay their men in slaves. Mohammed had never been fortunate in his domestic affairs; he was not a favourite of the ladies; thus his female slaves had all run away; his ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Having written a few lines to his aunt, he made his way quietly out of the house to the stable, and, mounting his own faithful pony, sallied forth. He had, however, dropped his sister's note by his own room door without being aware of it, and did not miss it, for his mind was full of engrossing thoughts. It was a bright and sparkling morning; the snow had been falling more or less for the last few days, and had in some places formed deep drifts, as a strong wind had been blowing from the north for some hours. ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... is a declining industry, other things are not less engrossing. The land must be tilled, and is tilled. Hay is the greatest crop, and the mere round of the seasons brings for a community used to agriculture a discipline and a course of labor, which make life ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... And more especially when, in the brain or soul that lay behind, no spiritual trait answered to the physical.—Well, that was for others to puzzle over, not for him. The strong man tore himself away while there was still time, or saved himself in an engrossing pursuit. He, having had neither strength nor saving occupation, had bartered all he had, and knowingly, for the beauty of this face. And as long as it existed for him, his home was ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... and engrossing tale of the Southwest the Louisville Courier-Journal says: "Arizona was never more truthfully ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... naturally infer, they are no longer, as formerly, a peculiarly docile class, nor have they any more toleration for authority, whether in religion, politics, or economics, than their brethren. In every pursuit of life they join with men on equal terms, including the most important and engrossing of all our pursuits—the search after knowledge concerning the nature and destiny of man and his relation to the spiritual and material infinity of ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... is the most remarkable race in Europe; from leading forlorn hopes to playing Chopin the Poles are unequalled. Mr. Conrad has returned to his old habitat in fiction. An ingenious map shows the reader precisely where his tragic tale is enacted. It may not be his most artistic, but it is an engrossing story. Compared with Chance, it seems a cast-back to primitive souls; but as no man after writing such an extraordinary book as Chance will ever escape its influence (after his Golden Bowl, Mr. James was quite another James), so Joseph Conrad's firmer ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... (and that soon) whether there be published, in English, French, German, or Spanish (though it is most desired in English), a manual giving a standard alphabet for the various kinds of writing now in use, viz. English hand, engrossing, Italian, German text, &c., with directions for teaching the same; in fact, a sort of writing-master's key: and if so, what is its title, and where ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... regenerate Rishi of Vasishtha's race, why are Vedic sounds silent now? Why art thou sitting silent and alone engaged in meditation like one taken up with an engrossing thought? Alas, shorn of Vedic echoes, this mountain hath lost its beauty, even as the Moon shorn of splendour when assailed by Rahu or enveloped in dust.[1751] Though inhabited by the celestial Rishis, yet shorn of Vedic ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to deny Dr. Vereker, evidently, or else there really was something very engrossing about her G string. Sally went on, while she dog's-eared her music, which was new, to get good turning-over advantages when it came ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... gentlemen, being lords of seven tithings in Blackmoore, whose grounds were best stored with this minerall, grewe desirous to renew this benefit," etc. To judge from several indications, this is really the passage which Dr. Borlase had before him when writing of the Jews as engrossing and managing the tin that was raised, and in that case neither is Carew a contemporary witness, nor would it follow from what he says that one single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil, or that any Jews ever tasted the actual bitterness ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... higher powers and justifying, as it were, the independent career of a resident, it is astonishing how the crust of selfishness gathers over the heart in Paris; the habit of living with an exclusive view to personal enjoyment, where the arrangements of life are so favorable, becomes at last engrossing; and a soulless machine, with no instincts but those of self-gratification, is often the result, especially if no ties of kindred ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and kind, he was thoroughly acquainted with the physical woman, and he took that first and very engrossing volume of the great Book of Mulier for all the history. A powerful wing of imagination, strong as the flappers of the great Roc of Arabian story, is needed to lift the known physical woman even a very little way up into azure heavens. It is far easier to take a snap-shot at the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... than sacrament, but communion may exist without the eating of the bread, &c. Sacrament means the performance of a certain act, which is an outward and visible sign of spiritual grace. You need not fear my leaving off this subject, it is far too engrossing to me, and is ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... interest to the Jesuits, and above all to the Jesuits of France. A letter from Jogues, written during his captivity, had already reached France, as had also the Jesuit Relation of 1643, which contained a long account of his capture; and he had no doubt been an engrossing theme of conversation in every house of the French Jesuits. The Father Rector was putting on his vestments to say mass; but when he heard that a poor man from Canada had asked for him at the door, he postponed ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... had been the engrossing mystery of the spring hat; this, followed by the still more exciting problem of the summer hat; and now she was planning for the fall hat—she had seen the cutest feathery toque, that came low down about her face, pushing to all sides little wisps ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... selection of gifts—since selected they all are by some one—is for the most part a mystery. I never but once heard any reasonable solution, and that was volunteered by an old lady who had been listening in silence to a conversation on the engrossing subject of Christmas presents. It was a conversation at once animated and depressing. The time was at hand when none of us could hope to escape these tokens of regard, and the elaborate and ingenious character of their unfitness was ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... She dreamed of wonderful tellings, dreamed of the engrossing joys of the written word. But in what form—poetry, essay, history, novel?—The extreme limitation of her own knowledge, or rather the immensity of her own ignorance, confronted her. And that partly through her own fault, for she had been exclusive, fastidious, disposed to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... significant tone, one that jarred on Vanderlyn's sensitive nerves. The disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter had become an engrossing, a delightful drama, not only to the members of the Pargeter household, but also to Poulain and his worthy wife; and it had been one of the smaller ironical agonies of Vanderlyn's position that he did not feel himself able to check ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Lahiri Mahasaya through Abinash Babu, {FN1-8} an employee in the Gorakhpur office of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Abinash instructed my young ears with engrossing tales of many Indian saints. He invariably concluded with a tribute to the superior glories of ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... remind you that our guest, amid his engrossing duties of State, has not neglected the Muses. Not less facile with the pen than the tongue, he has written on many topics, and this afternoon it will be our privilege to listen to him ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... forgot for a time his personal animosities, in feelings and purposes of a more general and absorbing nature. The powerful sympathy of thousands, lending all their united energies towards one point, and laying aside their individual pursuits, in order to contribute to the advancement of that all-engrossing aim, laid its influence upon his soul, and he joined the company, and aided in the general plans of those whom he would have joyed to have met in deadly combat. Those against whom his hostility had been less violent, he had learned to meet almost on terms ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... to study German, and in three months was reading with ease Goethe's Faust, Tasso and Iphigenia, Koerner, Richter, and Schiller. She greatly admired Goethe, desiring, like him, "always to have some engrossing object of pursuit." Besides all this study she was teaching six little children, to help bear the ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... Roman Court society,' I said. 'I don't know much of the world, Miss Rayner; perhaps that is why I feel, if I went right into every sort of gaiety I should not be able to stop myself. I know I should become so fascinated and engrossed that I should think of nothing else. Don't you think it very engrossing? When you went out yourself, didn't you ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... one sees very clearly the increased maturity (though it be only by a year or two) of the lad, since the engrossing of his records at Raymond. We get in these his entire mood, catch gleams of a steady fire of ambition under the light, self-possessed air of assumed indifference, and see how easily already his humor began to play, with that ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... fresh and original story of incident and adventure in the mysterious Florida swamps. An excellent and engrossing ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... years. In 1812, he was advanced to a higher place in the staff of the library; and in 1815, on the death of the chief librarian, Pozetti, he was appointed to fill his place. When it is considered how peculiarly engrossing the study of languages is known to be, and especially how attractive for an enthusiastic scholar like Mezzofanti, it might be supposed that for him the office of librarian could have been little more than a nominal ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man pants to perform when he first steps upon the stage. The same Bottom, who seems bred in a tiring-room, has another histrionical passion. He is for engrossing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all possibility of distinction. He is therefore desirous to play Pyramus, Thisbe, and the Lyon ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... all most admirable, most eloquent, most true! but the critic subsequently declares, that "there is nothing in Ophelia which could make her the object of an engrossing passion to so ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... became fixed; there was a peculiar light—almost a glitter—in his eyes; he talked on as if voicing some engrossing thought. "Of course, I'm vindictive—that's a part of the swashbuckling character; it goes with the ruffles, the jack boots, and the swagger. It is a luxury of which I am extremely jealous." Bringing his attention back to the girl, he smiled and his manner changed abruptly. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Their grief, I fear, will be lasting as it is violent. They have no resource but to plunge into affairs and drive away memory by some active and engrossing occupation. Yet they cannot always live abroad; they must at times return to themselves and join the company of their own thoughts. And then, memory is not to be put off; at such moments this faculty seems to constitute the mind more than any other. It becomes the mind itself. The past ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... watched her when Sam- uel was from home, prevented her from suffering, and when the cold weather pinched the warmly clad, a kind friend took them in, and thus pre- served them. At last Samuel's business became very engrossing, and after long desertion, news reached his family that he had become a victim of yellow ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... men are feverishly pursuing similar studies. In due course some of these will no doubt take practical shape. Meanwhile it has seemed desirable for a Punch man to make a few inquiries among our leading philosophers and readers of the future with regard to the same engrossing topic. For England will ever be the wonder and despair of other nations in its capacity, no matter with what seriousness its hands are filled, for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... times that he would have been glad if she had kept her troth less well, had only availed herself of that freedom which he gave her, to disregard her promise. And this was the more strange in that I never doubted the strength of his attachment; it remained engrossing and unchanged, the largest part of his life. No alien shadow had ever come between him and the memory of the little girl with the violet eyes, to whom he at least was bound. But a shadow was there; fantastic it seemed to me at first, too ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... one appearing to think of aught but the great man within. These things are permitted here, where the mind gets accustomed to weigh in the balance all the different claims to distinction; but it would scarcely do in a country, in which the pursuit of money is the sole and engrossing concern of life; a show of expenditure ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... walked twice in a circle within the confines of a thick swamp about two miles square. On the other hand, many exhibit almost marvelous skill in striking a bee-line for their objective point, and can always tell you, even after an engrossing and wandering hunt, exactly where camp lies. And I know nothing more discouraging than to look up after a long hard day to find your landmarks changed in appearance, your choice widened to at least five diverging ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... got from her, as well as he could, the story of the year, and presently had her telling him eagerly of the people she had met, and the progress she had made in the study of human beings. It was really an engrossing tale, quietly as she told it, and many as were the details he saw ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... are concealed in every chapter of this completely engrossing detective story. The horrible fascination of the tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it runs the thread of a ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... thanked his supposed father for his evening blessing, and the visitors withdrew without farther speech at the time, leaving the young lady to those engrossing fears, which, the novelty of her situation, and the native delicacy of her sex being considered, naturally thronged ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... following day, he was first interviewed by what Janice would have called the attorney for the prosecution, who took him to his office and insisted, much to the lover's disgust, in hearing what he had done politically. Finally, however, this all-engrossing subject to the office-seeker was, along with Philemon's patience, exhausted, and the squire told his fellow-candidate that the object of his ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... guest at Bourhill? She made some little alteration in her dress, and went down, perfectly calm, and outwardly at ease, to a tete-a-tete dinner with her son. When they were left alone at the table she suddenly changed the subject from the commonplace to the engrossing theme occupying both their minds, and, leaning towards him, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... is beginning to answer, "No." It is becoming more and more visible, in this deeper, higher demand for race improvement, that we might provide better educational conditions for the young of the human species. For the all-engrossing importance of the first years of childhood, it is time that we prepared a place. This is as real a need as the need of a college or school. We need A PLACE FOR BABIES—and our homes arranged in relation to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... whether our Government could survive the strain of a continuance of this system, which upon every change of Administration inspires an immense army of claimants for office to lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... retirement lies not in misanthropy, of which he had no tincture, but part in his engrossing design of self-improvement and part in the real deficiencies of social intercourse. He was not so much difficult about his fellow human beings as he could not tolerate the terms of their association. ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... longer any smoking in the kitchen. The subjects which occupied their minds were of too engrossing a nature to be treated with levity; and they drew their chairs closer, with a sort of irresistible and instinctive attraction. While these things were going on, the bandy-legged ostler entered, in manifest alarm. He came to inform his master that the stranger's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... expressed a hope that they would have the sense to stay at home henceforth, she gleamed with admiration when they disappointed her. In later days I had a friend who was an African explorer, and she was in two minds about him; he was one of the most engrossing of mortals to her, she admired him prodigiously, pictured him at the head of his caravan, now attacked by savages, now by wild beasts, and adored him for the uneasy hours he gave her, but she was also afraid that he wanted to take me with him, and then she ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... the Warricombes intimacy was soon established. Sidwell saw much of her, and liked her. To this meditative English girl the young American offered an engrossing problem, for she avowed her indifference to all religious dogmas, yet was singularly tolerant and displayed a moral fervour which Sidwell had believed inseparable from Christian faith. At the Gales' house assembled a great ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Roslin out of the question for that day, as it might keep you late. On Sunday I hope you will join our family-party at five, and on Monday I have asked one or two of the Northern Lights on purpose to meet you. I should be engrossing at any time, but we shall be more disposed to be so just now, because on the 12th I am under the necessity of going to a different kingdom (only the kingdom of Fife) for a day or two. To-morrow, if it is quite agreeable, I will wait on you about twelve, and hope you will permit ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... in the matter—the theatre appears to be peculiarly engrossing to those connected with it. Persons entitled to speak have often said that to most of the people attached to the stage the theatre is a little world apart, in which they are content to live almost oblivious of the greater world ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... the Dutch debt. He was also engaged in a correspondence with his fellow-commissioner, Mr. Jefferson, then at Paris, on the subject of the Barbary powers and the return of the Americans held captive by them. But his most engrossing occupation at this time was the preparation of his "Defence of the American Constitution," the object of which was the justification of balanced governments and a division of powers, especially the legislative, against the idea of a single assembly and a pure ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... to fight the frost that bit into them, they were forced to build a fire long before dawn. As they sat huddled together over it, Lawrence finally broached the subject that had been engrossing both ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... which England had so long luxuriated crumbled beneath her feet, and left her face to face with stern realities. Nothing was the same, or ever would be the same, again. Issues, causes, topics, which scarcely a week before had seemed of such vital and engrossing importance, shrivelled into insignificance or extinction under the ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... not sure, however, that Mr. Huntingdon would have taken me, if he had been at liberty to make his own selection. It is quite possible he might have chosen Miss Wilmot; for she seemed bent upon engrossing his attention to herself, and he seemed nothing loth to pay the homage she demanded. I thought so, at least, when I saw how they talked and laughed, and glanced across the table, to the neglect and evident umbrage of their ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... to notice her presence, he continued the conversation with his partner, and so engrossing did it become on both sides that neither seemed aware of the rapid flight of the hours. And it was only when Miss Innis perceived that the rooms were becoming thinned that she started up with an exclamation of surprise that it ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Set it down to his own deceiving fancy and go back to his handbook? Return to the wholesome realities of stalking and trailing which filled those engrossing pages? Poor Peter Piper felt that he had made a sort of bold excursion from Piper's Crossroads into the realm of miracles and that he had better not let that weird apparition over beyond the graveyard dupe and ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... natures who love applause must be, to share in the spoils of the Philistines. There are, I know, craftsmen who care nothing at all for these things, but work in silence and even in obscurity at what seems to them engrossing and beautiful; but they are rare; and when there is so much experience and pleasure and comfort abroad, and when security and deference so much depend upon wealth, the artist desires wealth, more for the sake of experience and pleasure than for ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the time and place were put first; then, the names of those who were present at the engrossing of it; after that, the motion with the name of the magistrate who proposed it; to all which was subjoined what ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... obligingly take up with an occasional order. It sometimes gives one a melancholy but mixed sensation to see one of the better sort of this class of politicians, not without talents or learning, absorbed for fifty years together in the all-engrossing topic of the day: mounting on it for exercise and recreation of his faculties, like the great horse at a riding-school, and after his short, improgressive, untired career, dismounting just where he got up; flying ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... and enjoy the peaceful country life which he had planned for himself, and in making these arrangements he took care to find his son abundant and varied employment. But all his well-meant efforts were in vain. Luis could not detach his thoughts from one all-engrossing subject; and at last, although Count Villabuena had expressly forbidden any correspondence between his daughter and young Herrera, the latter, after some weeks' absence, unable to resist any longer his desire to hear from Rita, ventured ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... life. She is pretty, she has married a well-known man, received everywhere; why should she not wish to show herself a little on his arm? Is it not quite natural? The husband, on the contrary, growing intolerant of society as his talent progresses, finding time short, and art engrossing, refuses to be exhibited. Behold them both miserable, and whether the man gives in or resists, his life is henceforward turned from its course, and from its tranquillity. Ah! how many of these ill-matched couples have I known, where the wife was sometimes executioner, sometimes victim, ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... my dear fellow—sit down," he begged. "We have not finished our discussion. The whole subject is most engrossing. We cannot have you hurrying away. Mr. Bunsome's suggestion is, of course, hideously Philistine, but, after all, we want the ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... formal declaration. I have seen it, known it, even before yourselves were conscious of its existence—this all engrossing passion. Before my son's return I foresaw it, with the prescience of maternal love. I knew your young, imaginative heart would find its ideal in him, and that his fastidious taste and sensitive, reserved nature would be charmed by your simplicity, freshness, and genius. I knew it, and ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... a story, charming in its New England village setting, endearing in its characters, engrossing in its plot, and diverting in its style. The PAGE imprint has been given to many books about beautiful characters in fiction,—Pollyanna, Anne Shirley, Rose Webb of "SMILES," and Lloyd Sherman of the "LITTLE COLONEL" ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... papa would take dear Miss Jenny because Gibbie loved her the best of all, and always put her to sleep on his knees. At last matters were compromised by Sophy, who roused herself to do one of the few things for which she had strength, engrossing them by cutting out in paper an interminable hunt with horses and dogs adhering together by the noses and tails, which, when brilliantly painted according to their united taste, they might safely imagine giving pleasure to Gilbert, while, at any rate, it would do no harm ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in vain to catch the drift of conversation between Vaura and her neighbour, but no, Mrs. Marchmont, though inwardly afraid of this squire of dames; and of his intellect, determined to appear at ease, and so talked on the one engrossing idea of her life; the last conundrum in fancy work, the last fashionable incongruity in the blending of colours. And poor, victimized Lionel longed to breathe in Vaura's refreshing breadth of thought; on his tormentor pausing to recover breath, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... and into the field at the back, but scarcely a bit of old wall repaid our trouble; and finding that the subject of washing became all engrossing to our hostess, who seemed to have forgotten that the hotel of the Three Candlesticks and its dinner-hour had existence, we rose and left the party, directing our ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... most engrossing question claiming our attention was that of the behaviour of our little ship, and we had not been under way a quarter of an hour before we were all agreed that she far exceeded our most sanguine expectations; she was a magnificent little sea boat, riding ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... concealment, and sketched, and fired occasionally to be sociable, as a duck came within say eighty yards. See sketch and the futility of concealment. I thought it very delightful—the shooting was not too engrossing, the landscape was charming, and the village life interesting, and the simplicity of the whole proceeding distinctly amusing. F., one of our party, on the other side from me kept potting away regularly. He was surrounded with natives; his ideas as ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Griswold's uncle will find it 'so engrossing.'" Eulalie's voice was sourly satirical, and her ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... question whether we are not frequently too exacting with children,—too much given to fault-finding? Were it not that the business of play is so engrossing to them, and life so fascinating a matter on the whole,—were it not for these qualifying circumstances, we should harass many of them into dark cynicism and misanthropy at a very early age. I marvel at the scrupulous exactness in regard to truth, the fine sense of distinction between right ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... equipped at a period when the problem of steam marine navigation was yet to be solved, is it any wonder that the little steamer which was destined to traverse two oceans—one of them scarcely known outside of books of travel—was an object of deep and engrossing interest from the day that her keel was first laid until the morning when she passed out of sight amidst the encouraging cheers of thousands gathered on either shore, and the answering salvoes of her own guns, on a long voyage to ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... was astonished. Could it mean that she had not understood him? It could not be that she did not appreciate his offer! Her devotion to the child was indeed absurdly engrossing, but that would soon come right! He could have no fear of such a rivalry, however unpleasant at the moment! That little vagrant to come between him and the girl ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... here Daylight spent a number of weekends, seeing a fineness and kindness of home life of which he had never dreamed. Holdsworthy was an enthusiast over flowers, and a half lunatic over raising prize poultry; and these engrossing madnesses were a source of perpetual joy to Daylight, who looked on in tolerant good humor. Such amiable weaknesses tokened the healthfulness of the man, and drew Daylight closer to him. A prosperous, successful business ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... absorbed by one engrossing passion, had no leisure to mark the progress of this growing discontent; and his frequent absence from the vessel, which gave an appearance of alienation from their interest and concerns, increased the dissatisfaction of his people. It was, therefore, with equal surprise and displeasure, that ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... was civil and proper about the pleasure of unexpectedly seeing me again so soon. There was something rather preoccupied, I thought, in those brightly resolute eyes of his; but I naturally attributed it to the engrossing influence of his scientific inquiries. He was evidently not at all taken in by my story about coming to Barkingham to fish; but he saw, as well as I did, that it would do to keep up appearances, and contrived to look highly interested ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... miserly temperament of the old man, by persuading him that a sealer could not work to any advantage, unless he had the means of occasionally warming himself. The miserly propensities of the deacon were not so engrossing that he did not comprehend the wisdom of making sufficient outlay to secure the execution of his main object; and among other things of this nature, the schooner had sailed with a very large supply of wood, as has just been stated. Wood and onions, indeed, were more abundant ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the sick-room—most of us know what that is; how the whole world narrows itself within four walls, and every fanciful grief and morbid imagining slips off, pressed down into nothingness by the weight of daily, hourly cares, and commonplace, yet all-engrossing realities. ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of social position,—as you see by the circumstances that the core of all the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... unusually full for that time of night; some topic of engrossing interest seemed to engage all minds until Willock's figure was recognized; then, indeed, he held the center of attention. Men gathered eagerly, curiously, but without the hostility they would have displayed had not a message regarding Red Feather ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... renowned of modern French composers, and an acute critic and skilful conductor as well, was born, Dec. 11, 1803, at La Cote St. Andre, in France. His father was a physician, and intended him for the same profession. He reluctantly went to Paris and began the study of medicine; but music became his engrossing passion, and medicine was abandoned. He entered the Conservatory as a pupil of Lesueur, and soon showed himself superior to all his masters, except Cherubini,—which aroused a strong opposition to him and his compositions. It was only after repeated trials ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... following morning, and early informed the rest of the household that the weather was satisfactory. She flew into Ruth's room with the hot water, to wake her and set her mind at rest on a subject of such engrossing interest; she imparted it repeatedly to Charles through his key-hole, until a low incoherent muttering convinced her that he also was rejoicing in the good news. She took all the dolls out of the baskets in which Ruth's careful hands had packed them the evening before, in the recognized ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... meantime, while Boone had been thus courting solitude, and absorbed by the engrossing excitement of hunting, the restless spirit of immigration, and of civil and physical improvement, had not been idle. After the peace the tide of population poured into the country in a continual stream and the busy spirit of civilization was every where making inroads into the ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... staying some days, had the pleasure of meeting many noted men—among them Mr. Josiah Quincy, whose reminiscences were to me very interesting, his accounts of conversations with John Adams perhaps more so than anything else. At various clubs I met most charming people, the most engrossing of these being Arthur Gilman, the architect: then, and at other times, I sat up with him late into the night,—once, indeed, the entire night,—listening to his flow of quaint wit and humor. The range of his powers was perhaps best shown in a repetition of what he claimed to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... the heart of either. Both were influenced by a pure and ardent desire to serve the woman they loved, and it would be true to say, that scarce a thought of any but Eve was uppermost in their minds. Indeed so engrossing was their common care in her behalf, so much more terrible than that of any other person did her fate appear on being captured, that they forgot, for the moment, there were others in the ship, and others, too, who might be serviceable in arresting ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... was the climax in the examination. Even McNamara, the Governor, was breathless with interest in his chair; Forest had the rapt look of a scientist in some engrossing experiment. He opened the box, taking therefrom a roll of white cotton. This he slowly unrolled, revealing two small, ribboned ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... in such a mournful and monotonous voice that the condemned man himself would have fallen asleep while listening to it. The judge, no doubt, would have been the first to do so had he not entered into an engrossing conversation while it ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... few days everything succeeded so well that it began to bud, and throw out small leaves, which we hourly measured convinced (tho' now scarce a foot from the ground) it would soon afford us a refreshing shade. This unfortunate willow, by engrossing our whole time, rendered us incapable of application to any other study, and the cause of our inattention not being known, we were kept closer than before. The fatal moment approached when water must fail, and we were already afflicted with the idea that ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... for gouter. In the midst the Miss Hackets were announced, and there were exclamations of great joy at the sight of Miss Mohun; as she and Miss Hacket flew upon each other, and to the very last moment, discussed the all-engrossing ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... place of alcohol is clear; it is an agreeable temporary shroud. The savage, with the mansions of his soul unfurnished, buries his restless energy under its shadow. The civilized man overburdened with mental labor, or with engrossing care, seeks the same shade; but it is shade, after all, in which, in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker retires from perfect natural life. To search for force in alcohol is, to my mind, equivalent to the act ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... in order to take his thoughts off the one engrossing subject, he sat down at the table and proceeded to read over certain sententious ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... not to know or did not remember George Colman's celebrity as a wit, and inquired of Mrs. Jones who that Mr. Colman was? Mr. Harris joined them at this moment, and apologised for his friend Colman engrossing so much of the conversation to himself, adding, that he was the spoiled child of society, and that even the Prince Regent listened with attention when George Colman talked. "Ay," said Curran, with a melancholy smile, "I now ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... had an interest for the whole civilized world, which, we will venture to say, was unparalleled. It is within the writer's recollection, how, in the obscure mountain-town where she spent her early days, Lord Byron's separation from his wife was, for a season, the all-engrossing topic. ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sighed again at the small success of his efforts and returned to the papers that lay before him on the counting house table. His business had become engrossing of late, and ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... that we don't talk about to another man, even when we know each other as well as I know you. Why should we, when that which is most engrossing to us consists in those gradual shades of advance from friendship to intimacy, and from intimacy to something more sacred still, which can scarcely be written at all, far less made interesting to another? The time came at last when they were ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... interrupting, you know, of all things. The Hedleys have been flitting backwards and forwards, staying, some of them, for a month at a time in London, and then going, and then coming again; and I have had other visitors, few but engrossing 'after their kind.' And I have been getting well—which is a process—going out into the carriage two or three times a week, abdicating my sofa for my armchair, moving from one room to another now and then, and walking about mine quite as well as, and with considerably more ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... not the oeconomy of the French that I am censuring, but their vanity, which, engrossing all their means of expence, prefers show to accommodation, and the parade of a sumptuous repast three or four times a year to a plainer but more frequent hospitality.—I am far from being the advocate of extravagance, or the enemy of domestic ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... all this to heart,' she said, as soon as Crauford had left the room; 'he is very feeling, and then he is so fond of Audrey.' And as Mrs. Ross sighed in assent, she went on with the topic that was engrossing them at that moment—how Audrey was to be induced to leave home ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "So general and engrossing was the interest felt in this event, that a public calamity had well-nigh followed. The attendants on the princes and princesses (usually most vigilant and faithful), in the excitement of the occasion, forgot their charge, and the young folks instantly seized the opportunity ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... several speakers of the evening. It was, like the audience, a well- balanced programme, which showed the tactfulness and political acumen of Miss Ashton. I shall pass over the speeches, however, as they had no direct bearing on the mystery which Kennedy and I found so engrossing. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... side of the room was suddenly opened, and Hamar Lessingham and Helen entered together. Lessingham was entirely at his ease,—their conversation, indeed, seemed almost engrossing. He came at once across the room on realising Sir ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... miles of their spring; aye, and rapidly add to it. At every turn they gather aid, from ash-clad dingle and aldered meadow, mossy rock and ferny wall, hedge-trough roofed with bramble netting, where the baby water lurks, and lanes that coming down to ford bring suicidal tribute. Arrogant, all-engrossing river, now it has claimed a great valley of its own; and whatever falls within the hill scoop, sooner or later belongs to itself. Even the crystal "shutt" that crosses the farmyard by the woodrick, and glides down an aqueduct of last year's bark for Mary to fill the kettle ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... a most engrossing conversation, for mother looked flushed and a little excited, as she always did when anything happened out of the common, and Miss Ruth had the amused expression I knew ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of things passed away for ever, and possessed in his ministerial capacity of merely a statutory right, which, though it exists to-day, may be justly swept away to-morrow, we recognise the heritor as possessed of a real right; and what we challenge is merely its engrossing extent, not its nature. We regard it as just in kind, but exorbitant in degree; and on the simple principle that the money of the State is the money of the people, and that the people have a right to determine that it be not misapplied ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... eyes or blue? Was he like his father or his mother? Was he little or big? Did he weigh eight pounds or ten? Did he live to be a man? None of these things are recorded, and we shall never know. After this supreme event few entries appear in the diary through the years. Life has become engrossing, important. Let us hope it was sufficing and not full of failure and trouble; let us enjoy the pleasure of believing so, as we well may. The clock, the cyder, the thermometer, the little Bille: what more important matters had he or have we to record? ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... reason why that mob, gathering weight at every moment, howled with rage when, seeing Jules and Henri so distinctly British in appearance, they recalled to their minds the engrossing fact that all Britons ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... The preparations for the Coronation are going on with infinite energy, but I should think with equal confusion. A grand quarrel between the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal, the latter engrossing all the Abbey, and the other all the Hall, and not allowing the smallest interference or even suggestion from each other. The King perfectly absorbed in all these petty arrangements of dress, seats, &c. A private box prepared ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... in a fruitless exchange of argumentation.[200] In April, 1808, Rose quitted the country, and redress for the "Chesapeake" injury remained in abeyance for three years longer. Interest in it had waned under more engrossing events which had already taken place, and it was relegated by both Governments to the background of diplomacy. Admiral Berkeley had been recalled, as a mark of his Majesty's disapproval. He arrived in England in the beginning of 1808, some six months after the outrage, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... it be possible that the hour can ever arrive when the former votaries of a mutual passion so exquisite and engrossing can meet each other with indifference, almost with unconsciousness, and recall with an effort their vanished scenes of felicity, that quick yet profound sympathy, that ready yet boundless confidence, all that charming abandonment of self, and that vigilant and prescient ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... statue of Pope Julius; and there was the majestic figure stretching out the hand of benediction over them, and bending down upon this guilty and repentant pair its visage of grand benignity. There is a singular effect oftentimes when, out of the midst of engrossing thought and deep absorption, we suddenly look up, and catch a glimpse of external objects. We seem at such moments to look farther and deeper into them, than by any premeditated observation; it is as if they met our eyes alive, and ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... carries its victim away. The Chaldaeans had not such clear ideas as to what awaited them in the other world as the Egyptians possessed: whilst the tomb, the mummy, the perpetuity of the funeral revenues, and the safety of the double, were the engrossing subjects in Egypt, the Chaldaean texts are almost entirely silent as to the condition of the soul, and the living seem to have had no further concern about the dead than to get rid of them as quickly and as completely as possible. They did not believe ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... with anything that is low or vindictive or clandestine. And, even if he had not loved Katherine, he would now have been determined to marry her. Never before in all his life had he found an object so engrossing. Pride and revenge were added to love, as motives; but who will say that love was purer or stronger or ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... difficult to find any man of ability who would undertake the office. And for some years things went on with very little change, great lords of different ranks having equally no object but that of controlling the Castle and engrossing the patronage of the government, and in not a few instances of also procuring large grants or pensions for themselves, each seeking to build up an individual influence which no Viceroy could ever have withstood, had they been united instead ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... sprang from it a marine plant. I have never seen earth taken from so great a depth that it would not before the end of the season be clothed with a crop of weeds. Weeds are so full of expedients, and the one engrossing purpose with them is to multiply. The wild onion multiplies at both ends,—at the top by seed, and at the bottom by offshoots. Toad-flax travels under ground and above ground. Never allow a seed to ripen, and yet it will cover your field. Cut off the head of the ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... else troubled me little. I fell victim to an engrossing selfishness. The quarrels and woes of my kindred went unnoticed, except when they served for a moment's amusement. To the fortunes of those with whom I had lately been so much concerned, of Wetter and of Coralie, I was almost indifferent. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... encouragement should be given to agriculture; and a stop put to that pernicious practice of graziers; engrossing vast quantities of land, sometimes at great distance; whereby ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... hear the volcanic explosions; I could see the sordid flood of wrath and hunger pouring through these halls; cataracts of misery bursting through every door and window, and sweeping away all this splendor into never-ending blackness and ruin. I stood still, lost in these engrossing reflections, when Rudolph touched me on the arm, and led the way through a great hall, covered with ancestral portraits, into a magnificent chamber. In the center stood a large table, and around it about two score chairs, all made of dark tropical ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... worried, but it is not the fault of the affairs, I wish you had not lost your walk," added he abruptly, beginning to stride on so fast that she could scarcely keep up with him, and apparently forgetting her presence entirely in his own engrossing thoughts. She watched him intently as she toiled to keep by his side, longing, but not daring, to inquire what was the matter. At last he broke out into a muttered exclamation, "destitute of all principle! ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of specific varieties of living things which occupy the humid portions of the surface of our planet, as far back as can be traced, there does not appear, with the exception of man, to have been any particular engrossing race, but a pretty fair balance of power of occupancy—or rather most wonderful variation of circumstance parallel to the nature of every species, as if circumstance and species had grown up together. There are, indeed, several races which have threatened ascendancy in ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... new to Fairchild, engrossing, exciting. Close above them were the ragged rocks of the tunnel roof, seeming to reach down as if to seize them as they roared and clattered beneath. Seepage dripped at intervals, flying into their faces like spray as they dashed ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper |
