"Lap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blood shall be No bar to thy preferment. Hast thou brothers? I'll send for them. An aged sire, perchance? Here's gold for him. Count it thyself. Contrive All means of self-enjoyment. To the full They shall lap up fruition. Thou hast, all have, Some master wish which still eludes thy grasp, And still's the secret idol of thy soul; 'Tis gained. And only if thou dost, good Oran, ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... springs flaming from the heart of man. Woman is slow to burn. And it was the delicate phantom of passion that Eve gazed upon, there in her unpainted chamber, her sun-tanned fingers linking listlessly in her lap, her little feet like bruised white flowers drooping above ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... her, and Cicely's nervousness made her jump forward with a violent start. With that sudden movement the sharp needle she held was thrust deep into her hand and two great drops of blood spurted out. With that sudden movement, also, the silk skirt slipped from her lap, and she clutched it to save it from touching the floor. Before she was aware of anything but the sharp pain, before she saw the blood that the needle had brought to the surface, two great stains blotted the front ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... with the theory of Christian Science or mental healing, or with any of the empiric practices. He acknowledged good in all of them, and he welcomed most of them in preference to materia medica. It is true that his animosity for the founder of the Christian Science cult sometimes seems to lap over and fringe the religion itself; but this is apparent rather than real. Furthermore, he frequently expressed a deep obligation which humanity owed to the founder of the faith, in that she had organized a healing element ignorantly and indifferently employed hitherto. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a watch, and a score or so of guineas into Harry's lap. The sight of which strangely agitated and immensely touched ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Nile valley but has its complement of Arab figures grouped in picturesque attitudes. Here a fire is being lit at the base of a column, and the black smoke curls upwards to destroy the paintings thereon; here a group of children sport upon the lap of a colossal statue; and here an Arab tethers his camel at the steps of the high altar. It is felt, thus, that the objects exhibited in European museums have been rescued from Egypt and recovered from a distant land. This is not ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... For a moment I expected man and bucket to disappear, overwhelmed by the rush of eagerness; I thought they would pull him down with their teeth. There was a rush, but holding the bucket on his lap he repulsed the assault of those wretches by the mere swinging of his feet. They flew backwards at every kick, yelling with pain; and the soldiers laughed, gazing at ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... said Susie, with the tears dropping down her cheeks, as she hid her face in her mother's lap, "Ned Graham said such a cruel thing about me," and here the sobs choked her voice so that she could hardly speak; "He said that I wasn't anybody, and that ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... long a chap remains On sentry-go, to chase monotony He exercises of his brains, That is, assuming that he's got any. Though never nurtured in the lap Of luxury, yet I admonish you, I am an intellectual chap, And think of things that would astonish you. I often think it's comical How Nature always does contrive That every boy and every gal, That's born into the world alive, Is either a little Liberal, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... in his weak, half-starved state the poor boy could make them understand, for he had completely broken down: and it was not until he had swallowed a little biscuit soaked in wine, as he lay with his head in Mrs Beane's lap, that he at last told hysterically of how he had managed to crawl by the French outposts ...
— Our Soldier Boy • George Manville Fenn
... solace him, prosperous events to all his honest undertakings, and a candid interpretation to his most hasty words and actions. The other sort (and he hopes many of them will purchase his book too) he greets with the curt invitation of Timon, "Uncover, dogs, and lap:" or he dismisses them with the confident security of the philosopher, "you beat but on ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the ancient days were men of a shrewd eye and much wisdom. If anywhere the traveller in the north country sees a house of moderate size peeping from among a clump of trees in the lap of a hill where the north-easter cannot come and the sun shines full and warm, then let him be sure that is the manse, with the kirk and God's acre close beside, and that the fertile little fields around are the glebe, which the farmers ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... danger in paddling peacefully along a quiet little backwater. Of course, prudent people would say—Aunt Maria would say— But then if you waited until all the prudent people on earth approved of all that you did, you might sit with your hands crossed in your lap for the ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... her lap. She began to tremble. Suvaroff saw her hands greedily close over the coins, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... conjectured, when he had shunned her presence. Years had indeed wrought a change in his figure and face; acquaintance, servant, friend, relation,—the remembrance of his features had passed from all: but she who had nursed him as an infant on her lap and fed him from her breast, she who had joined the devotion of clanship to the fondness of a mother, knew him at a glance. "Yes," cried he, as he threw himself into her withered and aged arms, "it is I, the ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lamartine's verses. Let us fix our attention on a cytisus with its yellow clusters hanging down, and the goat bending its pliant branches as it browses on the foliage. Here is a very small detail in the ample lap of nature. Let us come closer, and to help our ignorance, let us provide ourselves with a naturalist who will answer for us the questions suggested by this simple spectacle. And what have we now before us? The various relations of the animal's organization to the vegetables on which ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the barge,' said the King. And when Sir Bedivere had laid him there, King Arthur rested his head on the lap of the fairest Queen. And ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... served with delicacies which they declined to put in their mouths; all except Fetch, the beautiful liver-colored water-spaniel, which sat with its forepaws firmly planted and its expressive brown face turned upward, watching Grandcourt with unshaken constancy. He held in his lap a tiny Maltese dog with a tiny silver collar and bell, and when he had a hand unused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested on this small parcel of animal warmth. I fear that Fetch was jealous, and wounded that her master gave her no word or look; ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... beheld a new order of things! Soup that was dipped into plates and passed until each member at table had a dish before him. Large white napkins that were not tied about the neck but spread over the lap! How funny it seemed that the small red-flowered squares Sary had been accustomed to when company came were ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... through which Marius was gazing, a colored engraving in a black frame was suspended to a nail on the wall, and at its bottom, in large letters, was the inscription: THE DREAM. This represented a sleeping woman, and a child, also asleep, the child on the woman's lap, an eagle in a cloud, with a crown in his beak, and the woman thrusting the crown away from the child's head, without awaking the latter; in the background, Napoleon in a glory, leaning on a very blue column with a yellow capital ornamented with ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... "Just keep going, Sweetheart, as fast as you can." And she patted the oversized pocketbook that lay in her lap. ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson
... stood there a while, watching the happy group. Then, the children becoming tired of the game, Daphne sat down in a rocking-chair under a tree, and they grouped themselves around her feet. She took one of the tiniest into her lap and, cuddling it against her breast, began to rock slowly backward and forward. The words of the ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... thinking, should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. 'I no sooner,' saith he, 'come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. In the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit, and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones and rich men, that know not this happiness.'" Such is the incense of a votary ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... laughs. "Why, that is getting too dreadful!" She plucks a spray of roses from the open window behind her, as she sits on the great oak dresser, and shreds the delicate red petals all over the lap of her gown. ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... want to see Warfield," Swan assented rather eagerly and called Jack, who had nosed around the spot where Al had waited so long and was now trotting along the ridge on the next lap of Al's journey. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... dressed for the afternoon, in the parlour with Mrs. Tadman, it was easy to see how utterly hopeless and miserable this young wife was. The pale fixed face, the listless hands clasped loosely in her lap, every attitude of the drooping figure, betrayed the joyless spirit, the broken heart. At these times, when they were alone together, waiting Stephen Whitelaw's coming home to tea, Mrs. Tadman's heart, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... I reply; "I should think you had," and I draw her down gently into my lap and kiss her again and again for the sake of the conviction it will carry. She says I am smothering her, which means she ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... message had come to her out of the West? Carley Burch laid the letter in her lap and ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... to their Egypt plan, and were cheered by making the acquaintance of an English party. At the table d'hote Elizabeth Eliza by chance dropped her fork into her neighbor's lap. She apologized in French; her neighbor answered in the same language, which Elizabeth Eliza understood so well that she concluded she had at last met with a true Parisian, and ventured on more conversation, ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... you make that out," says her companion in an injured tone. "For the last three minutes you have sat with your hands in your lap arguing about what you don't understand in the least, while I have been conscientiously slaving; and before that you ate two for every one you put ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... and his thought reflected a tinge of his old amused curiosity. It was only a reflection, and yet it distinctly embodied the idea that he might be on the brink of a further discovery. He glanced at Janet again: her hands were clasped in her lap, and she was looking straight before her with smilingly grave lips and lowered lids, which nevertheless gave him a glimpse of retrospection. He felt the beginnings of indignation, yet he looked back at the letter acquisitively; its ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... low-lying tract bordering the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean on the east. The plateaux are deeply intersected by valleys and ravines, giving birth to streams which feed the head waters of the Blue Nile (Bahr el Arak) and the Atbara. Several fine lakes lie in the lap of the mountains, of which the Zana, or Dembia, is the largest, and next Ashangi, visited by the British army on its march to Magdala in 1868, and which, from its form and the volcanic nature of the surrounding hills, appears to occupy the hollow of ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... his head upon the lap of Earth, A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Fair Science[19] frowned not on his humble birth, And Melancholy marked him for her ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... and breathless by the time we reached the nook where Flurry was, and then we crept into the corner, the children clasping each other across me, and Flossy on my lap licking our faces alternately. Saved from a horrible death! For a little while I could do nothing but weep helplessly over the children and thank God for ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... child, my dear; he is crying," said Mr. Morton, more authoritatively than usual. "Come here, my man!" and the worthy uncle took him in his lap and held his glass of brandy-and-water to his lips; Sidney, too frightened to refuse, sipped hurriedly, keeping his large eyes fixed on his aunt, as children do when they ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... country assumed in her eyes an absorbing importance. She sent to London for all the books that could be obtained respecting Poland; ordered all the journals that interested themselves in that interesting though apparently hopeless cause; turned liberal,—she who had been reared in the lap of conservatism, and whom my father used laughingly to call the little Tory;—turned Radical, turned Republican,—for she far out-soared the moderate doctrines of whiggism in her political flights; denounced the Emperor Nicholas as a tyrant; spoke of the Russians as ...
— Country Lodgings • Mary Russell Mitford
... folded into the napkin. He was so surprised that he dropped everything he was doing to unfold and read it. With an exclamation and a smile, his blue, delighted eyes splashed over her; but she was looking down into her lap with her forehead wrinkled, so he put the note away in his ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... to again I was lying with my head in Dallisa's lap, and the reddish color of sunset was in the room. Her thighs were soft under my head, and for an instant I wondered if, in delirium, I had conceded to her. I muttered, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... alluringly invites those who are far away. For as the moon by the majesty of its more brilliant mirror overwhelms the rays of the stars, not otherwise does said city raise its imperial head with its diadem of royal dignity above the rest of the cities. It is situated in the lap of a delightful valley, surrounded by a coronet of mountains which Ceres and Bacchus adorn with fervent zeal. The Seine, no humble stream amid the army of rivers, superb in its channel, throwing its two ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... ocean track by the way of Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or even taking the shorter route of the Isthmus of Darien or the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will enter the Golden Gate of California and deposit its riches in the lap of our city.... New York will then become what London now is—the great central point of exchange, the heart of trade, the force of whose contraction and expansion will be felt throughout every artery of the commercial world; and San Francisco will ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... take care of that,' he said coolly, and took from his pocket two strong black bootlaces which he proceeded to criss-cross over the instep and round the ankles. She sat quite still watching him, her eyes very bright, her hands twisted together on her lap. When he had finished she put out her feet and stared at them—they did look boats!—then she looked down at him. He was still kneeling, and there was not a sound to be heard in that kitchen but the tick of the ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... sound of some swift approach. He beheld an entirely strange woman bearing down upon him. Her face was white, frantic, terrible; her arms were outstretched; she gave utterance to a peculiar, distressing cry. Snatching the baby from his lap without so much as "by your leave," she clutched it ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... it did not take her more than a moment to make an opening and thrust her hand into it. What she found there she drew out and laid in Leslie's lap, while the two girls gasped simultaneously at the singular object they ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... the excited boy thrust one hand into his pocket and triumphantly pulled out the small buckskin bag; and, swiftly turning the bag bottom side up, dumped its contents into his mother's lap; and the next moment, the two women and the two girls were as excitedly examining the big nugget and the rude skin map as ever they had been ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... simply shook her head, snorted, and swished her tail, as though protesting that the blow was unnecessary. She could not do the impossible, and that he was asking of her. But his forcible request was the nervous result of his knowledge that the last lap of the race had been entered upon and the home stretch was not far off. It must be now ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... little room which had been once assigned to me for a studio, when I was employed on Mr. Fairlie's drawings. On the very chair which I used to occupy when I was at work Marian was sitting now, with the child industriously sucking his coral upon her lap—while Laura was standing by the well-remembered drawing-table which I had so often used, with the little album that I had filled for her in past times open under ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... the skin from the waist upwards, and having fastened him to the whipping-post, so that he can neither resist nor shun the strokes, to lash the naked body with long but slender twigs of holly, which will bend almost like thongs, and lap round the body; and these having little knots upon them, tear the skin and flesh, and give ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... tender warrior was asleep, with his feet in the lap of one of the two men and his head in the lap of the other. Then he awoke out of his sleep, and arose, and chanted ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... yes. But do you remember how it was while the storm swept over us? Then you lay there like an infant in arms and just cried. Then you had to sit on my lap, and I had to kiss your eyes to sleep. Then I had to be your nurse; had to see that you fixed your hair before going out; had to send your shoes to the cobbler, and see that there was food in the house. I had to sit by your side, holding your hand for hours at a time: you were afraid, afraid ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... Kent's forehead. It was another shock. It was not a professional touch, but a soft, cool little pressure that sent a comforting thrill through him. The hand was there for only a moment, and she withdrew it to entwine the slim fingers with those of the others in her lap. ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... burden too oppressive for her courage. She is dressed in blouse and dark skirt. She goes to the armchair, left forward, and sinks down on it. She is evidently in a state of nervous depression; she twists her fingers together in her lap; her eyes stare sadly before her; she clenches her upper lip with her teeth to prevent its trembling. She has hardly regained control over herself when Stephen Murray comes in hurriedly from the dining-room and, seeing her at his first glance, walks ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... man came, with the low-bodied sledge, set on runners of solid wood, and deeply bedded with bearskins for the lap and back. The day was still and sunny, like the day before, and the air which drove keenly against his face, with the rush of the carriole, sparkled with particles of frost that sometimes filled it like a ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Norbury capered before us. "Ah, madame," cried M. d'Arblay, "la jolie petite maison que vous avez, et les jolis petits htes!"(35) looking at the children, the drawings, etc. He took Norbury on his lap and played with -him. I asked him if he was not proud of being so kindly noticed by the adjutant-general of M. Lafayette? "Est-ce qu'il sait le nom de M. Lafayette?"(36) said he, smiling. I said he ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... gazing fixedly into the depths of the clear sky, as if she sought to penetrate that azure veil, and find some hope realized among the mysteries of the space beyond. The neglected volume had fallen from her lap, and lay among the bluebells at her feet. Arthur's feeble steps were unheard upon the sward, and he had taken his seat beside her, before, conscious of an intruder, she started from ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... to him without any trouble or being responsible in any way," said Tredgold, impressively. "I should like to think there was somebody working to put a fortune like that into my lap. We shall ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... just finished, and sealed it up, when in came Mrs Trotter. "Oh my dear Mr Simple! I'm so sorry, and I have come to console you. There's nothing like women when men are in affliction, as poor Trotter used to say, as he laid his head in my lap. When ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... the good missionary of humanity had helped too many in distress, to be able to recollect her without more precise information. With a tremulous voice, she bade her son go into the next room for a few minutes; then dropping on her knees, she hid her face in his lap, and sobbed out, "I am the girl who stole the silk. Oh, where should I now be, if it had not ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... of these two theories concerning man are you ready to accept? One is the mortal testimony, changing, 494:27 dying, unreal. The other is the eternal and real evidence, bearing Truth's signet, its lap piled high with ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... mechanical removing of burs a machine called the bur picker is employed. In this machine the wool is first spread out into a thin lap or sheet; then light wooden blades, rotating rapidly, beat upon every part of the sheet and break the burs into pieces. The pieces fall down into the dust box or upon a grating beneath the machine, and ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... Saint Peter's, formerly, according to some, a temple of Mars; this church was destroyed by Bramante for the sake of his design for the new Saint Peter's. The Madonna is seated on the stone upon which the Cross was erected, with her dead son on her lap. He is of so great and so rare a beauty, that no one beholds it but is moved to pity. A figure truly worthy of the Humanity which belonged to the Son of God, and to such a Mother; nevertheless, some there be who complain that the Mother ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... often has my mother said, While on her lap I laid my head, She feared for time I was not ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... her luxurious way of living, and endure comparative poverty for his sake, was proof enough of her sincerity. He had hoped she would not have to make a sacrifice long. One day he thought he would make a lucky "strike" and go back laden with gold, which he would pour into her lap. How delighted and surprised she would have been. He would have given her a fine house, automobiles, beautiful gowns, precious jewels, everything money can buy. Nothing would have been too good to reward her weary months of ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... support Paul's head in his lap. The Frenchmen did not understand this demand, and might have proceeded to force Tom up the side had not ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... one—and it's marked 'dress for Mrs. Jones.' Mother, you did get it, after all!" he cried, tumbling the package into his mother's lap. ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... mute. Thereupon Mrs. Travis opened the little sealskin-bag that lay on her lap, and took out a newspaper. She held it to Cecily, pointing to a certain report. It was a long account of lively proceedings at a police-court. Cecily read. When she had come to the end, her eyes remained on the paper. She did not move until Mrs. Travis put out a hand and touched ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... the Lily, even this thou holdest may its influence be unwithering!—and desired to see it. So she led me from the palace to the shore of the sea, and flung a cockleshell on the waters, and seated herself in it with me in her lap; and we scudded over the waters, and entered this Enchanted Sea, and stood by the Lily. Then, I that loved flowers undertook the custody of this one, knowing not the consequences and the depth of her wiles. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... because of this? Honest heart! He hath a supply of thy defects14 in himself, and knoweth what thou wantest, and where the shoe pinches, though thou art not able distinctly to open matters to him. The child is pricked with a pin, and lies crying in the mother's lap, but cannot show its mother where the pin is; but there is pity enough in the mother to supply this defect of the child; wherefore she undresses it, opens it, searches every clout from head to the foot of the child, and so finds where the pin is. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of stopping at home where the labour markets are overstocked. Emigration is one of the best openings for a young fellow if he makes up his mind to work, and does not expect a fortune to fall into his lap because he has gone to a new country ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Doering. She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German newspaper, but subscribed for Le Figaro), and as she knew Gisela to be a member of her own class, the new connection ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... to Grace. She has lost none of the girlish delicacy of expression which was so marked a characteristic of her youthful beauty a year before, still she has rounded somewhat, and both mentally and physically has developed. The slender white hand that rests upon the volume of Carlyle in her lap looks less fragile than it did that day at old Camp Sandy when, in Tanner's library searching for the children's books among the shelves, it showed itself to Truscott's eyes without a certain ring. Mrs. Jack does not fancy Carlyle. He is too crabbed by far, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... kept, for hours, the most awkward postures, that he might not disturb it. Frequently there was a second cat sitting by him on the table, watching how the work went on; sometimes a kitten or two lay in his lap under the table. Frogs (in bottle) floated beside his easel; and with all these creatures he kept up a most playful, loving style of conversation; though, often enough, any human beings about him, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... to her lap and she looked up at him with wide, blazing eyes. Bud had approached and stood on the other side ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... strangle me; huge soft hands grasped me by the body, and tugged and dragged at me, to tear me from my hold; and then, two arms that were not imaginary, but solid and real, went round me, and grasped the thwart on which I sat, holding me down, while I felt a head resting on my lap. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... arranged between them in a diminuendo passage. These three dishes he vigorously attacked, not only on his own account, but also on behalf of his neighbours, more especially Miss Fanny Green, who reclined by his side in an oriental posture, and made a table of her lap. The disposition of ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... that he could not restrain himself. He felt as he had felt when the socialist orator talked on the streets of Coal Creek. With an oath he arose and kicked out his foot to push his chair away. The pad of paper fell out of the large girl's lap and scattered its leaves about the floor. A light burned in McGregor's blue eyes. As he stood in the classroom before the startled class his head, big and red, had something of nobility about it like the head of a fine beast. His voice rumbled out of ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... saw Lady Drummond, except at dinner, surrounded by a large party. She passed, as she still passes her time, in the duties of an elaborate toilette, paying or receiving visits, giving or going to fetes, and playing with her lap-dog. A strange wife for one of the most intellectual men of his day! And yet this total dissimilarity produced no discord between them; for she was proud of his acquirements, and he was indulgent to her less ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... her chair, folded her hands in her lap and fell into meditation. The faintest of flushes crept into ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... birds arose with welcoming cries; and there, in a little cave, imprisoned by a huge stone that had fallen from the rock above across its mouth, the trees and shrubs around her black with watching birds, sat Birdie, her little hands patiently folded in her lap, a smile on her pale lips, and faith shining from her heaven-blue eyes. And for once—her heart being full to overflowing with love for her wee daughter, and gratitude to the good God and them—the mother too understood the language of the birds as ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the table in the crushed plush rocker sat Mrs. Brackett. Her spectacles were pushed high up on her forehead. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was slightly open. From the corners of her eyes red marks ran down her cheeks. Her thin gray hair was in disarray. In her lap, open, lay her huge family Bible; a spray of pressed maidenhair fern ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... her eyes upward pleadingly, caught her breath, threw the back of her hand against her temple, and dashed it again to her lap, shaking ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... together and managed to appear as normal as she could, but her one desire was to get away by herself to gloat over the riches that had been flung in her lap. ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... de Sand Hills to see bout grandmammy cause she been took down wid de fever en was bad off. Pa Cudjo tell her de river been mighty high, but dat he would risk to take us. Say, Ma, she get in de boat wid Pa Cudjo en take me in her lap en dey start cross de river. De wind, it begin gettin higher en higher en de boat, it go dis way en den it go de other way. Cose I never recollect nothin bout dat day cause I won' nothin, so to speak, but a ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... beginning to smile thoughtfully. The ball was not as cold now as it had been and I was holding it in my lap. ...
— The Big Bounce • Walter S. Tevis
... when he had gone; she sat there some moments in a visible tension of thought, her hands clasped in her lap and her dropped eyes fixed and unperceiving; but she sprang up as Hugh Crimble, in search of her, again stood before her. He presented himself ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... now, as he flung that piece of information at her, have recalled to herself all those things that he had told her. He felt rather than perceived, the agitation that seized her at those last words of his. Her hand slowly withdrew from his, it fell back on to her lap and he felt her whole body draw, as it were, into itself, as though it had come into contact with some terror, some ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... eggs again. John Rabbit's death was thus revenged anew. The second mourning for her murder'd brood Was such, that through the giant mountain wood, For six long months, the sleepless echo flew. The bird, once Ganymede, now made Her prayer to Jupiter for aid; And, laying them within his godship's lap, She thought her eggs now safe from all mishap; The god his own could not but make them— No wretch, would venture there to break them. And no one did. Their enemy, this time, Upsoaring to a place ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... and how vividly! It appeared to her that she could not go on fast enough; her emotion gained upon her until she became quite hysterical; in turning feverishly over some papers a withered pansy floated into her lap. Tears started to her eyes, and she pressed the poor little flower, forgotten so long, to her lips. She could not remember when she gathered it, but it had come to her. Her lips quivered, the light seemed to be growing dark, and a sudden sense of misery eclipsed her ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... filling her capacious pockets, she sighed for coronets—and got them in showers. Four Irish Peerages, from Baroness of Dundalk to Duchess of Munster, were flung into her lap. And yet she was not happy. She must have English coronets, and the best of them. So George made her Baroness of Glastonbury, Countess of Feversham, and Duchess of Kendal. And, to crown her ambition for such baubles, he induced the pliant German Emperor ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... ache for one hour's freedom. No, no, you're to escape all that, William; joy is on the way to meet you with sweets in its outstretched hands and laughter on its lips. [WILLIAM takes the last swallow of a piece of cake, exclaims "Hm!" in a satisfied way, brushes the crumbs off his lap, and sits back in his chair.] Have you had enough? Good! William, I want you to try to understand that you're to help me, will you? Will you tell Miss ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... herself to the smallest fry, played assiduously for three quarters of an hour with a fat, grave boy of three, who stood about a yard-and-a-half from her, solemnly throwing a ball into her lap, and never catching it again, took charge of many caps and bonnets, and walked about with Louisa Harper, a companion whom ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there, waiting, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes growing larger in her face. The dish of stew took on a thin coating of grease and the beer died in the glass. The waiter snickered. After a while she paid for the meal out of her newly opened wage envelope and walked out into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and the South, and love and life; a world which his late experiences had set so far away from him, his memory of it seemed a dream. Now, as he drank in its stillness and its fragrance, as he felt its safety and its luxury lap him round once more, he sighed. And with that breath he rid himself ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... went down on her knees and pressed her face against the soft silken folds. It had been her mother's wedding-dress. It was still full of a sweet, faint, haunting perfume, like lingering love. Una always felt very close to her mother there—as if she were kneeling at her feet with head in her lap. She went there once in a long while when ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... madam," he said to Mrs. Leighton, who made a deprecatory motion to let him pass to the chair beyond her; "I can find my way." He bowed a bulk that did not lend itself readily to the devotion, and picked up the ball of yarn she had let drop out of her lap in half rising. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to the drawing-room, Ashe found his mother alone. It was growing dark, and she was sitting idle, her hands in her lap, waiting for him. ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was the instant reply. Her fingers twined and untwined in her lap with a nervousness shown by neither face nor body. Her face was almost apathetic in its despair, but her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it has a being in the soul, is like the child that has a being in the mother's lap; it must have something to feed upon; not something at a distance, afar off, to be purchased (I speak now as to justification from the curse), but something by promise made over of grace to the soul; something to feed upon to support from the ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... meal the Captain kept up his good-natured mood; chatting with the widow who sat on his right, the baby in her lap; making a pig of a lemon and some tooth-picks for the boy, who had crawled up into his arms; exchanging nods and smiles down the length of the table with several new arrivals, or congratulating those nearest to him on their recovery after the storm, ending by carrying both boy and ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Luttrel's 296 votes had been held to be a greater number than Wilkes's 1143! This, he said, was flying in the face of all law and freedom: a robbery of the liberty of freeholders; and making the birthrights of Englishmen a mere farce. He then represented Colonel Luttrell as sitting in the lap of John Wilkes, and the majority of the house as being turned into a state engine. He added, in conclusion, "I am afraid this measure originated too near the throne. I am sorry for it; but I hope his majesty will soon open his eyes, and see it in all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... alcohol at which I would get the best results in heating the irons, but at last we found it. A cradle-shaped support made from biscuit-can wire was hung over the flame about an inch above it, and while the boys heated the irons, I squatted on my knees with a case of alcohol across my lap and got to work. I had watched Mr. Wardwell aboard the ship solder up the cases and I found that watching a man work, and doing the same thing yourself, were two different matters. I tried to work with mittens on; I tried to work with them off. As soon as my bare fingers would touch the cold ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... head was in Vedia's lap, for I saw above me her dripping breasts and, higher, her anxious face looking ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... law, And for the many sins of Israel. Hark! I can hear within the sound of scourges! I feel them more than ye do, O my sons! But cannot come to you. I, who was wont To wake at night at the least cry ye made, To whom ye ran at every slightest hurt, I cannot take you now into my lap And soothe your pain, but God will take you all Into his pitying arms, and comfort ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... shrilly piping. So, when she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was received into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the farm. It still lay deserted except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to be scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having come to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through the morass, and came to the farther end of it, where a sluggish burn discharges, and the path for Hermiston accompanies it on the beginning ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I am speaking. You might find something to do, my dear, instead of sitting with your hands in your lap trying to pick a quarrel. Upon my word, women are beyond my comprehension! Beyond my comprehension! How can they waste whole days doing nothing? A man works like an ox, like a b-beast, while his wife, the partner of his life, ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... thought stood to her here. She saw that her aunt was distressed, and as she did not wish to pain her unduly, was willing to divert the immediate channel of her fear. She took the hand which lay in her lap and held it firmly whilst she smiled in ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... mistress where he had left her in the embrasure of the window, looking over the fields towards Chelsey. She laughed, wiping away at the same time the tears which were in her kind eyes; he flung himself down on his knees, and buried his head in her lap. She had in her hand the stalk of one of the flowers, a pink, that he had torn to pieces. "Oh, pardon me, pardon me, my dearest and kindest," he said; "I am in hell, and you are the angel that brings me a ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... and Madge endeavored to relieve the strain of the situation by talking, but the very sound of their voices dismayed them and they became silent. Finally Eleanor, who had been leaning against Madge's shoulder, laid her head in her cousin's lap and went to sleep. A little later Lillian, after receiving Madge's assurance that she and Phil intended to keep watch, went ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... of a Roman peasant; heavy gilt beads were clasped round her throat and fell over her white pleated chemisette, a gay-coloured scarf was arranged picturesquely on her head and gave warmth and colour to the small brown face. On her lap lay Babs, open-eyed and rebellious, kicking up her bare little feet and humming baby fashion ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... pristine sires repair To umbrageous grot or vale; but when the sun Faintly from western skies his rays oblique Darts sloping, and to Thetis' wat'ry lap Hastens in prone career, with friends select Swiftly we hie to Devil,* young or old, *[Footnote: The Devil's Tavern, Temple Bar.] Jocund and boon; where at the entrance stands A stripling, who with scrapes and humil cringe Greets us in winning speech, and accent bland: With ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton |
