"Listener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pearlie made an excellent listener. He was so boyish, and so much in love, and so pathetically eager to make good with the firm, and so happy to have some one in whom ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... proceed neither from birds nor men, and the effect is either pleasing or awful, according to the mood of the listener. Some, in such circumstances, instead of receiving impressions of awe, like the Hindoo convict, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... accomplishment of a great and noble enterprise—none other than the sacrificing of her landed estates to the uplifting of the down-trodden negro and the turning of his erring feet into the way of light and righteousness. Harry observed that as soon as one listener had absorbed the story, he turned about and delivered it to his next neighbor and the latter individual straightway passed it on. And thus he saw it travel the round of the gentlemen and overflow rearward ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... listener, with broad brow and locks of snow, "Patriot, faithful to thy country and her welfare, say not so, For the long years thou hast served her thou hast only honor won." But, from side to side still tossing, ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... capacity for passionate outbursts and inspired invective, Swinburne was a most attentive listener, provided there were things being said to which it was worth listening. At meal times when his attention became engaged he would forget everything but the conversation. Indifferent as to what stage of the meal he was at, he would ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... conversational powers. I knew only three words: "good," "bad," and "yes:" and with these I answered all his remarks, without of course having understood one word he said. This, however, was quite sufficient: I was a good listener, an agreeable person, and he never ceased ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... girl of nineteen or twenty, with the brightest face, the most sparkling eyes, and the merriest voice which ever adorned woman entering her prime. Her laughter was contagious, and the listener must perforce laugh in unison. Her face drove away gloom, as the sun does; her smile was pure merriment, routing all cares; and Mowbray's sad countenance became ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... pleasure. In fact Mr. Emerson himself, besides being a poet and a philosopher, was also a plain Concord citizen. His son tells me that he was a faithful attendant upon town meetings, and, though he never spoke, was an interested and careful listener to the debates on town matters. That respect for "mother-wit" and for all the wholesome human qualities which reveals itself all through his writings was bred from this kind of intercourse with men of sense who had no pretensions to learning, and in whom, for that very reason, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... young Russian colonel had withdrawn himself to a remote part of the room, and taken the most lively interest in the scene acted before him. A word from him would have brought the whole affair to an end, for, as an involuntary listener, he had heard all that had transpired concerning the cannoneer. Consequently he knew exactly the hiding-place in which the latter had been concealed. But it had never come into his mind to play the informer and traitor. He was only intensely interested in the issue of the scene, ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... expressed my sense of the delicacy and kindness which had prompted my companion's warning, but I begged him, at the same time, to keep me no longer in suspense and to tell me the stern truth, no matter how painfully it might affect me as a listener. ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Emma McChesney's listener, suddenly. "How a woman like you can waste her time on the road is more than I can see. And—I want to thank you. I'm ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... depressing influences of the Academical Crypt, we forget all but our admiration of JANAUSCHEK'S superb acting, and the exceptional command which she has gained over a language so vexatious in its villanous consonants as our own. And we express to every available listener the earnest hope that SKEBACH and FECHTER will profit by her success, and at once begin the study of English, with the view of devoting their efforts hereafter ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... listener to this dialogue. He saw Harry's sober expression, and he noticed the tone in which he repeated "eighteen dollars," and he guessed the truth. He lingered after ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... sah?" exclaimed Solon, who had been an interested listener. "Yo' callin' dat ar plantashun ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... their arms, or with knees huddled up and eyes fixed in a stare. They talked to each other in the hoarse, tearful staccato of Spain, which, beginning low, seems to gather force and volume as it runs, until, like a beck in flood, it carries speaker and listener over the bar and into tossing waves of ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... about that, for you were generous and good as I have always found you. Only I pray you, if hereafter it strikes you that any doing of mine should be altered or amended, tell me yourself and privately, and I promise you a very patient listener, and what is more a ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... be true, my lord?" The minister said this in a tone that made the listener start. He bit his lips. But the feeling had subsided, as, with a sharp and hurried accent, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... sorrows, Elsie went on to give a lively description of Ion, and a slight sketch of the character and appearance of each member of the family, doing full justice to every good trait and touching but lightly upon faults and failings. Evelyn proving an interested listener. Fairview and then Viamede came under a similar review, and Elsie told the story of her mother's birth and her infant years passed in that lovely spot. After that of her honeymoon and of the visits paid by the ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... flowers, and blessings on humanity;—and having thus brought his noble poem to a noble termination, the poet, modestly smiling, and ready for applause, rolled up his manuscript, and raised his eyes to the countenance of his silent and admiring listener—that listener who had been so rapt in the glowing images and sonorous couplets, that he had not uttered so much ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... honor in a gang of boys to thus express their derision. The members of a Protective Association of Jewish Peddlers organized at Hull-House related daily experiences in which old age had been treated with such irreverence, cherished dignity with such disrespect, that a listener caught the passion of Lear in the old texts, as a platitude enunciated by a man who discovers in it his own experience thrills us as no unfamiliar phrases can possibly do. The Greeks are filled with amazed rage when their very name is flung at them as an opprobrious ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... is wholly silenced, and the man lives in this world, a stranger to its real life, deluded like the maniac who fancies he has attained his throne, while in reality he is on a bed of musty straw. Yet, if the voice finds a listener and servant the first time of speaking, it is encouraged to more and more clearness. Thus it was with me,—from no merit of mine, but because I had the good fortune to be free enough to yield to my impressions. Common ties had not bound me; there were no traditionary notions in ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the Bharata, O king, when recited, O thou of Bharatas race, by a reader of this kind, the listener, observant of vows all the while and cleansed by purificatory rites, acquires valuable fruits. When the first Parana is reached, the hearer should gratify Brahmanas with presents of all desirable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... little the voice of the gale itself would come burbling down into the momentary stillness, then with a gasp at the awesomeness of the tale the pines would take up the story again. In it there was none of the dainty romance the boughs will weave for the listener who cares to know their language of a sunny summer afternoon, little stories of tropic seas, of nodding sails and of flying fish that spring from the foam beneath the forefoot and skim the purple waves. This song was an epic of the age-long ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... more darkly, that if you could only speak the devil fair enough, he might save you the cost of the doctor. Such strange lingering echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now be caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry; for the rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the minds ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... who, socially, have long lived very lonely lives, are not generally able to lose themselves in sympathy for others. As Bosio was not exactly an object for Don Teodoro's charity, he was in some danger of being made a listener for the outpouring of the priest's tremendous intellectual enthusiasm. But the latter checked himself. The things he had heard were indeed of a nature not so easily forgotten. He went ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Stocks caught the unwilling Arthur and treated him to a disquisition on the characteristics of the people whose votes he was soon to solicit. As his acquaintance with the subject was not phenomenal, the profit to the aggrieved listener was small. George, Lady Manorwater, and the two Miss Afflints sought diligently for a camping-ground, which they finally found by a clear spring of water on the skirts of a great grey rock. Meanwhile, Alice Wishart and Lewis, having an inordinate love of high places, set out for the ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Sir Tedbury Delvine, the finest litterateur of his time, that there must have come moments during Keats' latter years when he must have felt as his own "Prometheus Unbound"! But, seeing her mistake immediately by her listener's blank face, she regained her ground with a skill and a flow of words which made Sir Tedbury Delvine doubt whether his ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... for his astounding advice to connect with his listener's now keenly sensitive nerve centres; then deep and clear rang out, "Barry Conant." The wiry form of Bob's old antagonist leaped ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... that, for his part, he would refuse to inhabit a planet on which there was no hope of war, the peaceful listener shudderingly charges the inventor of Territorials with promoting a bloodthirsty mind. After all the prayers for peace in our time—prayers in which even Territorials are expected to join on church parade—it appears an impious folly to appraise war as a necessity for human happiness. Or ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... them, condescended to explain. Colonel Josiah had also joined the group, and was an eager listener to the recital. ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... old Hiddigeigei, Standing far down by the river There was still another listener To these first attempts at blowing, Who felt ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... procession of laity, gravely escorted by Hubert, began to file into the now barren-looking room, while the monks stood with hands folded, and sang loudly what sounded to the uninstructed ears of each listener like a Latin hymn. ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... frail cables of lanterns looping her to her moorings. A side door of the theatre opened suddenly and a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst of music issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the side door closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of the music. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supple movement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had been the cause of all his day's unrest and of his impatient movement of a moment before. His unrest ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... up Mrs. Morton on the telephone and asked her to talk to him on the wireless. A moment later their invisible messages were speeding back and forth over the miles of billowing pine tops that intervened between the two little forest homes, and no listener in on the department telephone system could either know that they were talking or tell what they said. Charley was overjoyed when Mrs. Morton told him that her husband was about ready to come back to work. His arm was still painful and he could ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... delivered with the full force and brilliance of her magnificent voice, and was prolonged until the thrill produced in the listener became almost painful in its intensity. Again I ask, why did this world-famous singer perform this passage always in the same way? Unreflecting people may reply vaguely that it was because the artist ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... told the red man's story; far and wide He searched the unwritten annals of his race; He sat a listener at the Sachem's side, He tracked the hunter through ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... to do with the higher diplomacy is aware that diplomatic language stands in a class by itself. It is a language specially designed to deceive the chance listener. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... had finished her story, Dorothy Canfield concluded something like this: "That's what they all come back to, after their fit of utter horror at their life is over. It does them good, apparently, to talk it all out to a patient listener. They always, always end by saying that even what they are living through is better than a world commanded by the Germans...what a perfectly amazing distrust that ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... but after the first lines the listener's brain was too troubled to attend. It was agitated with whirling memories of those earlier outcries throbbing with the passion of life, flaming records of the days when every instant held not an ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... showed you the amber glories of preparation, thrilled you with the throb of suspense; then, behold! coursing vapours and gathering clouds blot out the miracle—and you end in the clash of thunderstorms and dissonances. Something of this the listener had to urge. Senhouse admitted it, but he said, "You know that the splendour is enacting behind. You guess the opening of the rose. One stalks this earth agog for miracles. It is full of hints—you catch a moment—for flashed instants you are God. Then the mist wraps you, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the worst soil we have," lectured Claire. evidently keenly interested in the theme of agriculture and glad of an attentive listener. "It is more coral rock than anything else. That is why Milo planted it in grapefruit. Grapefruit will grow where almost nothing else will, you know. Why, last year wasn't by any means a banner season. But he made $16,000 in gross profits off ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... Kitty answered with a little color, "about heroes and heroines; but, I'd like to live here, myself. Yes," she continued, rather to herself than to her listener, "I do believe this is what I was made for. I've always wanted to live amongst old things, in a stone house with dormer-windows. Why, there isn't a single dormer-window in Eriecreek, nor even a brick house, let alone a stone one. O yes, indeed! I was ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... reward his untiring efforts in the cause of good by a crushing load of worry. His was a temperament generally summed up by the world in the simple phrase, good-natured. He was soft-hearted, and weaker of spirit than he knew. Those in trouble always found in him a sympathetic listener; and the distress and poverty among his people often pained him more acutely than it did the actual sufferers born in, and ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... one eager listener. If he could have picked out her earnest, wistful eyes among that crowd of upturned faces he would have let old Socrates go, and given himself heart and soul to the leading of this groping soul into the light. As ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... in Italian, and he uttered these words in a voice carefully guarded from every listener but the one before his face. "Do you know what it is when such a moment as this comes, and you would fling away the whole fabric of falsehood that has clothed your life—do you know what it is to keep still so much of it as will help you to unmask silently ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... thee To singing doors Out of the coiling dark; Teaching thee hark Earth's virgin candours, blossomed wonderings, And sanctities inaudible till strings Of lyric gentleness Wooed Heaven to confess Her world, and I was near, The earliest listener, Who of my bosom then made Arcady, And drew thy ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... with my answer and told me that he had a great affection for old Satanta and that he was one of the nobles of his race, and also one of the best men he had ever known regardless of race. Young Leavenworth delighted in telling his exploits among the Indians and I was no poor listener, for it always entertained me to hear some one give praise to my Indian friends. Mr. Leavenworth told me that a great many of the different tribes of Indians came to Fort Leavenworth to see his father and that he had never had any trouble with them, however remote. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... it troubles me more than anything else he said during his visit," replied Mrs. Gray, glancing nervously around the room, as if she feared that there might be a listener concealed behind some of the chairs or under the sofa. "In spite of my utmost care, that matter, which I hoped to keep from the knowledge of even the most faithful among the servants, has become known. I cannot account for it. It fairly unnerves ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... chair, but it was not noticed. David Spafford looked his man through and through, and knew him for exactly what he was. At last he spoke, quietly, in a tone that was too courteous to be contemptuous, but it humiliated the listener more even than contempt: ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... gave the conversation a turn, and Mademoiselle Le Breton took the hint at once. She called others to the front—it was like a change of dancers in the ballet—while she rested, no less charming as a listener than as a talker, her black eyes turning from one to another and radiant ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Tzar was giving this order to his servant, the Listener, the first of the Fool's companions, was listening, and heard the words of the Tzar and repeated ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... felt for her literary friends stimulated as well as gratified them. She drew them out, and, dazzled by their own brilliancy, they gave her credit for thoughts which were in reality their own. To this faculty of intelligent appreciation was joined another still more captivating. She was a good listener. "Bien ecouter c'est presque repondre," quotes Jean Paul from Marivaux, and Sainte-Beuve said of Madame Recamier that she listened "avec seduction." She was also an extremely indulgent and charitable person, and was severe neither on the faults nor on the foibles of others. "No one knew so well ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... said Jasmine. Then feeling that she had a sympathetic listener, she continued—"It ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... certain to encounter a foolish person and a sensible person (according to Mr. Dexter's idea of sense) discussing some important social topic,—such as, Whether dancing is criminal, or, Whether people should wear stove-pipe hats. At the end of the discussion, the reverend listener appears in a paragraph as the deus ex machina of the drama, pats the victorious sensible boy on the head, and treats the foolish boy with silent contempt. It does not take much to win Mr. Dexter's approval. He goes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... mend, and herself so young as not to have looked unmoved on those famous sleigh-rides, nor without envy on Almira's blooming cheek), and from her side sped the chaplain's wife to hunt up Captain Devers. In him she found a listener indeed in whom there was no ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... cried Mona, and then in low, rapid tones she briefly told her story to the listener on the ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... is so prosperous, poor boy!" exclaimed the aunt, who had been an attentive listener to the preceding discourse. "But your grand vizier, signor, must be very powerful to have a great army ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... group listening to the aged monk recount his adventures; with knitted eyebrows he hears him moralizing on the awful destiny of the future. He is a silent listener; the conversation is carried on by the garrulous and interested youths and the happy, virtuous old monk. A forced sobriety, or the atmosphere of virtue which he dreads, has cast a gloom over him. His thoughts are still reeking with the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... the air, the listener could not help showing himself more boldly than he had yet done, in a rash attempt to see more than he had yet been able to discover. The music instantly ceased—the casement was closed, and a dark curtain, dropped on the inside, put a stop to all farther ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... comrade's mild sneer, "Why not?... I'd take anything from these devils. There was a big brute this morning: I had a good mind to take his false teeth—they had so much gold in 'em." Which rather suggested that he was "telling the tale" to his unsympathetic listener. ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... to be urged to talk on this subject, and she had a sympathetic listener as she explained the Forest secret, and told how it had helped her in the loneliness of those first ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... power of analysing the phenomena of muscular and nervous activity which they have conferred, but they have furnished new methods of measuring the rate of movement of projectiles to the artillerist. Again, the microphone, which renders the minutest movements audible, and which enables a listener to hear the footfall of a fly, has equipped the sense of hearing with the means of entering almost as deeply into the penetralia of nature, as does the sense ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... the back of his left hand, forming in his own mind opinions on all matters, from which he never receded. He reflected long before making any business agreement. When his opponent, after careful conversation, avowed the secret of his own purposes, confident that he had secured his listener's assent, Grandet answered: "I can decide nothing without consulting my wife." His wife, whom he had reduced to a state of helpless slavery, was a useful screen to him in business. He went nowhere among friends; ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... the movements that once took place among these men in real life. Music is inspired by the soul, and likewise has a direct influence upon it. No Sageman was considered an eminent composer if his work lacked the force to convey the soul of the listener to the actual scene from whence the inspiration was derived. No doubt your inferior brain was incapable of grasping the magnificent conception of the author, but the selection being so enrapturous your soul awakened and brought your senses ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... beauty had something to do with his falling in love with her," suggested a listener. The ladies present tried to look as if this ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... Chambrun, my mother's only brother, standing at the door. He was the minister of a small town near Avignon, and did not care to go to the Fair; nevertheless he was very glad to hear all about it from those who had been there. We were well pleased to have so ready a listener; and when we had said our say, he fell into grave talk with my father and mother of the signs of the times, which ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... paused an instant from work, Morning and evening, was this the voice I heard? Now in my exile the oriole sings again In the dreary stillness of Hsuun-yang town ... The bird's note cannot really have changed; All the difference lies in the listener's heart. If he could but forget that he lives at the World's end, The bird would sing as it sang in ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... this work I alluded to the bow as being "tongue-like"; it is something more, for it is also the breath of the violin. As breathing is to a vocalist so is bowing to a violinist. It governs the phrasing, or, rather, is governed by it in the first instance and then controls its delivery to the listener. Thus it will be seen that too much attention cannot be paid to the real Art of Bowing. By which I do not mean the brilliant technical feats of arpeggio, staccato, tremolo, etc., but the pure legato bowing of cantabile passages. ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... his family all well and glad to see us. It was late in the afternoon when we got there, and we spent the remainder of the day and evening in recounting our summer's experience for Uncle Kit's benefit, who was a very interested listener to all that had befallen us since we parted from ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... double click. A bar of wood automatically slid down into position behind the door, blocking a possible opening from the front of the cellar. The lights suddenly were darkened. The sound of shuffling feet would have indicated to a listener that the owner of the nervous hand was retreating to the rear of the darkened den. A noise resembling that of the turn of a rusty hinge might have then been heard: there was a metallic clang, the rattle of a sliding chain and the rear room was as empty ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... spurs clanked as the big men heaved themselves up and drank the Queen upon whose pay they were falsely supposed to settle their mess-bills. That Sacrament of the Mess never grows old, and never ceases to bring a lump into the throat of the listener wherever he be by sea or by land. Dirkovitch rose with his 'brothers glorious,' but he could not understand. No one but an officer can tell what the toast means; and the bulk have more sentiment than comprehension. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Harry, his impulsive manner in strange contrast to that of his listener, "that if I had been behaving myself all this time, I might have seen dear old ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... listener spoke; the tears were in our throats. She bent her head slightly over the keys, and said, "I like to sing you anusser." We accepted eagerly, and she sang again. There was nothing of personal application in either song, yet now, near the end, where there was a purposed silence ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... voice just behind them, and the quartette jumped nervously at the unexpected sound, for not one of them was aware of the hidden listener. ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Mary a willing listener when talking of the time in years past when her grandfather kept a small "Country Store" on the Ridge Road in Bucks County. She also remembered, when a child of ten, accompanying her grandfather on one of his trips when he drove to Philadelphia to ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... and had whispered and crooned consolingly outside her window. Since then, she had learned that the voice of the pines, like the voice of the sea, is always pitched in a key that responds to the mood of the listener. If you chance to be glad, then the pines will whisper of sunshine and summer, little love idylls that one tree tells to another, but if your heart is heavy within you, you will hear only a dirge in the hush of their ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... commenced when a boy in the droll character of Mr. Punch's man. It occurred in this way: One of the puppet-shows known as "Punch and Judy," arrived at Newmarket, to the great gratification of the neighborhood. Young Curran was an attentive listener at every exhibition of the show. At length, Mr. Punch's man fell ill, and immediately ruin threatened the establishment. Curran, who had devoured all the man's eloquence, offered himself to the manager as Mr. Punch's man. His services were gladly ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... prompt not, if it doth not flow Fresh from the spirit's depths, with strong control Swaying to rapture every listener's soul, Idle your toil; the chase you may forego! Brood o'er your task! Together glue, Cook from another's feast your own ragout, Still prosecute your paltry game, And fan your ash-heaps into flame! 'Thus children's wonder you'll excite, And apes', ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Bid her steal into that pleasant arbour, where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, like ungrateful minions, forbid the sun to enter." This arbour, into which Hero desired Margaret to entice Beatrice, was the very same pleasant arbour where Benedick had so lately been an attentive listener. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... soon made way with the one viand then in visible presence. Just as its last vestige disappeared, the President of the College arose and, with a solemnity eminently befitting the occasion, called upon Doctor Bullock to offer thanks. Deeply chagrined, Mr. Lamar was an attentive listener to the impressive invocation which immediately followed. At its conclusion, with troubled countenance, he turned to Knott and said, "I am humiliated at my conduct. I should have remembered that Presbyterians always say grace before meals, but I was ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... broke sharply. From the panel there came a thin call, a quivering that was more a trembling than a sound; it reached out to touch raspingly the nerves of every listener. Then the whole board burst forth in a flash of fire where a flaming crystal leaped to life—and none could see that pulsing flame without thrilling to the knowledge that it was calling a whole world with ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... show before us and tend daily to become no more than the moving wall-paper of life. Talk is the last link, the last relation. But with the end of the conversation, when the voice stops and the bright face of the listener is turned away, solitude falls again on the bruised heart. Kirstie had lost her "cannie hour at e'en"; she could no more wander with Archie, a ghost if you will, but a happy ghost, in fields Elysian. And to her it was ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suddenly close and crowded; and in taking refuge there from the glare of the young girl's candor, the older woman found herself stumbling in an unwonted obscurity. Her uneasiness resolved itself into a sense of irritation against her listener. Mrs. Quentin knew that the momentary value of any argument lies in the capacity of the mind to which it is addressed, and as her shafts of persuasion spent themselves against Miss Fenno's obduracy, she said to herself that, since ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... consist mainly in the dread of breaking strange ground, for once the first plunge over he showed none of the expected embarrassment or distress. If he could not be called talkative, he was at least an appreciative listener; not a single point of her conversation missed its due share of interest; while his deep, quiet laugh proved an incentive to fresh flights of fancy. For a whole ten days had Margot been waiting for her opportunity, and now that ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the choir, and hear the echoes rolling from pier to pier; listen to the Hallelujah Chorus sung on some great festival service in the nave, or some simple well-known hymn sung by close upon 3000 people, and the listener will have some idea of the effect that mere sound, taken as such, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... himself. He must unceasingly groan to be relieved of them, and must permit the Holy Spirit to operate in him. There is in believers continual groaning after holiness—groaning too deep for expression, as Paul says in Romans 8, 26. But Christians have a blessed listener—the Holy Spirit himself. He readily perceives sincere longing after purity, and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... gets out of his control, and the dog cannot understand him or refuses to obey when everything depends on his instant action. The subject was so much to him, so important above all others, that he would not spare the listener even the minutest details of the shepherd's life and work. His "hints on the construction of sheep-folds" would have filled a volume; and if any farmer had purchased the book he would not have found the title a misleading one and that he had been defrauded of his money. But ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... ally, and by means of recent confidence, now a friend. All this the Indian explained to his companion, in his usual clipped English, but with a clearness sufficient to make it perfectly intelligible to his listener. The bee-hunter listened with the most profound attention, for he was fully aware of the importance of comprehending all the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the Incarnation and Passion was told, there crept over the listener feelings of mingled sadness and thanksgiving: sadness at the life of suffering and pain endured "For us men and for our salvation," and thanksgiving for the Gift so freely bestowed. And then Heaven and Earth combined to tell the story of the Resurrection morning, and the strains of thankfulness ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... suspected his project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have got a foot-hold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession against him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and the court he had paid her. These were the only persons ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... story of his youthful hopes and ambitions, and before the boy knew it he was telling the President and his wife all about his precious Encyclopedia, his evening with General Grant, and his efforts to become something more than an office boy. No boy had ever so gracious a listener before; no mother could have been more tenderly motherly than the woman who sat opposite him and seemed so honestly interested in all that he told. Not for a moment during all those two hours was he allowed to remember that ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... Perry is, I must admit, complicated by the fact that he does add greatly to the happiness of any circle of which he is a member; he is an admirable listener and a sympathetic talker. But if Egeria desires to make a Numa of him, and to inspire him with her own gentle wisdom, let her convince him quietly that he does owe a duty to society, and not censure him before his friends. If Egeria, in her own inimitable way, would say to him that ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... turned a grave face toward Lord Bulchester again he had risen. "No, No," she cried. "Don't go, sit down, I would rather have you here, for a time at least. It's Elizabeth,—Mistress Royal." Her tones threw the listener from dreariness into despair. A moment since he thought he had her assurance that his own claims were seriously considered. And, now, what could give her manner this nervousness, but the fact that her attachment to Archdale was still in force? For Bulchester had learned ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... outrun my judgment, and yet I can hardly say that such was the case, for I thought you all a woman should be. Let me warn and entreat you, on all future occasions, as you wish to be happy, to deal fairly and truly with him who may seek to win your affection. I was an unwilling listener to your conversation with Miss Fortescue, the other day, and there, from your own lips, learnt that while engaged to another, you scrupled not to receive and encourage my attentions; and more than that, you declared your resolution, of holding out hopes you never meant to ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... and was now soaring along through some brilliant expectations born of late promising experiments upon the lacking ingredient of the eye-water. And at such a time Washington ought to have been a rapt and enthusiastic listener, but he was not, for two matters disturbed his mind and distracted his attention. One was, that he discovered, to his confusion and shame, that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to the turnips, he had robbed those hungry children. He had not needed the dreadful ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... expression of praise or of thanks from his listener, it appeared from his way of telling the story of this episode in his administrative career, that he had been moved by an unconscious desire to pour out the thoughts that filled his mind, after the manner of folk that live ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... whole party. Alec was placed in one, under charge of the chief, and Donald took his seat in the other. At night they camped on shore, when Donald read the Bible to his redskin friends, Alec being apparently an attentive listener. ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... be mourning over the fate of whoever takes your place," the engineer murmured, with a sarcasm entirely lost on his listener. "Hell, Dale," he now let his feeling explode. "I've seen lots of fellows from the mountains, but any one of 'em would lose a hand before letting another man take his medicine! You've got to let me do it, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... was thoroughly ready to amuse and instruct, or to be amused and instructed, as an eager and earnest speaker or listener on most matters of interest. I do not remember that he had any great turn for beauty of colour; he had none, I think, or next to none, for music—nor do I remember in him any great love of humour—but for beauty of physical form, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... of language, both when his passionate regret for his dead son came uppermost, and also when he had discovered some extraordinary charm in that son's child; and again when he was oppressed with the uncertainty of Aimee's long-continued illness. Molly was not so good or so bewitching a listener to ordinary conversation as Cynthia; but where her heart was interested her sympathy was deep and unfailing. In this case she only wished that the squire could really feel that Aimee was not the encumbrance which he evidently considered her to be. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the blunt inquisitiveness, the girl responded cordially with her little story—glad, apparently, to have a listener. ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... to listen. Far away a mournful howl rose on the still air and died away, only to be taken up by another and another. At the sound the hair bristled upon the back of the listener. It was the cry of ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... tale of guilt and gloom, That cast upon each listener's face Its shadow, and for some brief space Unbroken silence filled the room. The Jew was thoughtful and distressed; Upon his memory thronged and pressed The persecution of his race, Their wrongs and sufferings and disgrace; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the listener was caused by the awakening of hope for his nephew. He was certainly some way from the cabin, for had he stayed near the door, discovery was inevitable by the two warriors now standing there. Indeed, they must almost have stumbled ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... small sense, And a tune's soon told, And Earth is old, And my poor wits are dense; Yet have I secrets,—dark, my dear, To breathe you all: Come near. And lest some hideous listener tells, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... phonograph is that it seems to leave out of account that essential part of every true musical performance, the creative listener. A great many phonograph records sound as though the recorder had been performing to an audience no more spiritually resonant than the four walls of a factory. I think that the makers of another kind of mechanical instrument must have realized ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... all details, he will take heed to remember his always present Lord and Friend, and to live and talk as knowing that "HE is the unseen Listener to every conversation"; a recollection which ought to banish from our talk, whether we talk with man or woman, alike frivolity, unkindness, untruthfulness, and dulness. Then, to come to a few details ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... she should be a pillow." Then, noting the inquiry thus suggested, he went on to say: "What a man most needs is that he should find in his wife a pillow whereon to rest his heart. He longs to find a moment's rest from the outer whirl of life, to win a ready listener that sympathizes where others wound." And she whose eyes are flattering mirrors, whose lips console and soothe, will find that she has secured a hold upon the heart of her husband, that the embodiment ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... been ill, that he had ever suffered, that he had ever despaired. For the love of books was in his blood, and his tongue was loosened. For the first time in his life he knew the full delight of a sympathetic listener. They entered upon a new ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... contradiction, to which, at the same time, it was impossible to give utterance; for there was something very solemn in the account he was giving of himself, as he stood with his face half turned to the anxious listener, leaning on the window, looking into the cedar. Gerald did not leave any room for argument or remonstrance; he told his brother how he had been led from one step to another, without any lingering touch of possibility in the narrative that he might be induced ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... most popular of American humorists has elicited from a member of an English audience, who did not quite hear him lecture, a remark of an amusing sort. The aggrieved listener proclaimed that he "had a right to hear." This was one of the turbulent people who should read Mazzini, and learn that man has no rights worth mentioning—only duties, one of which is to hold his tongue in season. If Mr. Bret Harte's words did not reach all his audience, his writings at least have ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... richly figured expressions, which is so characteristic of the style of Shakespeare's plays. In this prodigality he was remote indeed from the style of the Greeks; "panting Time toils after him in vain," and even the reader, much more the listener, might say, sufflaminandus est; "he needs to have ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... myriads of the whole declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many afloat to-night could have such power to impress a listener with thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of those combined multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets was seized on, entered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as thoroughly as if it were as vast as ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... and colour. Only whiffs of heavy scent passed like wandering, fragrant souls of that departed multitude of blossoms. I talked volubly, jocularly, persuasively, tenderly; I talked in a subdued tone. To a listener it would have sounded like the murmur of a pleading lover. Whenever I paused expectantly there was only a deep silence. It was like offering food ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... now powerful well—powerful well. I seldom forget a face, and if a man shows that he is listening close, as you did that day, it helps me along. Do you know, I put you down as about the best listener I ever had. I saw it in your face and eyes. You got up and left before I was through, or I'd have spoken to you. It seemed to me that you was bothered powerful over something. Being in prison as long as I was gave me what you might ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... for three wasting years, thus and no other, He has lived for thee—a spirit for thy spirit! My child, we must not give religious faith To every voice which makes the heart a listener 35 To ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sentences with unrestrained frenzy. He seemed hardly to know what he was saying, or that he had a listener. Claudet stood contemplating him in sullen silence: "Aha!" thought he, with bitter resignation; "I have sounded you at last. I know what is in the bottom of ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... former interesting acquaintance, such was the fame of Lord Cadurcis then in the metropolis, that he also formed the topic of conversation at another part of the table, to which the daughter was an attentive listener. The tone in which he was spoken of, however, was of a very different character. While no one disputed his genius, his principles, temper, and habits of life were submitted to the severest scrutiny; and it was with blended feelings of interest and astonishment that Venetia listened to the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... who had come home with his mind aglitter with cinematograph impressions, found his father a patient but inattentive listener. For indeed Mr. Brumley was not listening at all; he was thinking and thinking. He made noises like "Ah!" and "Um," at George Edmund and patted the boy's shoulder kindly and repeated words unintelligently, such ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Sir Launcelot went by themselves to the chamber of the former to make merry. And there, Sir Dolphus who counted the other's sympathy as beyond doubt, told more of his knavish plots. Until the listener sick with listening turned to him in the quiet and secrecy of the great chamber and ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... head of Tantor, the elephant. He scratched beneath the great ears with the point of a sharp stick, and he talked to the huge pachyderm of everything which filled his black-thatched head. Little, or nothing, of what he said did Tantor understand; but Tantor is a good listener. Swaying from side to side he stood there enjoying the companionship of his friend, the friend he loved, and absorbing the delicious ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... devil choke them with it," said Growling, "for their want of taste; but never mind that: one judicious listener is worth a crowd of such fools, you'll admit; so sit down again and sing ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... work of the story, but was quite satisfied with the sensation it produced; for his listener was startled, relieved, excited and charmed, in such rapid succession, that he was obliged to sit upon the meal chest and get his breath before he could exclaim, with an emphatic demonstration of his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... a pilgrim's progress, a probation, beleaguered round with doleful histories of Adam's fall and curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial and penal fires before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... suppers at the hospitable home of Simms in Charleston none perhaps enjoyed them as vividly as Timrod. He chooses the word that well applies to Timrod's life in all its variations. He was vivid in all that he did. Being little of a talker, he was always a vivid listener, and when he spoke, his words ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... in front of the speaker, holding a babe in her arms, while a little fellow sprawls out on the ground beside her, drawing on the sand with his finger. Though we cannot see her face, we know that she is an absorbed listener, and Jesus seems to speak directly ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... care to the accenting of words.[50] This has been done so that the signs that have been placed correctly over the accented letter will allow the listener to understand the meaning of the words and the sentences of the speaker. For instance, qixi has the accent on both ; fbicxi has it on the first i and on the a.[51] This same {110} arrangement will be respected in the ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... of it, exchanged glance after glance with Plank. Siward, alternately the leader in it all, then the enchanted listener, bewitched, enthralled, felt care slipping from his shoulders like a mantle, and sadness exhaling from a heart that was beating strongly, steadily, fearlessly—as a heart should beat in the breast of ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... soon as Minima had passed safely through the most dangerous stages of the fever, I was at leisure to listen to and sympathize with each one of them. Possibly there was something in the difficulty I still experienced in expressing myself fluently which made me a better listener, and so won them to pour out their troubles into my attentive ear. Jean and Pierre especially were devoted to me, since the child that had belonged to them had ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... the lark in the skies of May. The round moon laughed, but a lone, red star,[30] As she turned to the teepee and entered in, Fell flashing and swift in the sky afar, Like the polished point of a javelin. Nor chief nor daughter the shadow saw Of the crouching listener, Harpstina. ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... inclined to rave, John, now that we are under the stars, remember I am a close confidant, and a sympathetic listener. I should like to hear you rave, just to learn how an exasperatingly sensible man acts ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... Castlereagh made as strong a contrast with the policy of Canning as even the contrast which was brought under the notice of every listener by the Parliamentary speeches of the two men. Canning was master of a polished eloquence which, at the time, had no rival in either House of Parliament. Castlereagh was one of the most singular and striking illustrations ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... moment. He lived in the present. But Neale was different. He had to be anticipating events; he lived in the future, his mind was centered on future work, achievement, and what he might go through in attaining his end. Slingerland was his appreciative listener. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... wanted to talk about it to some one. There was no one in Penny Green from whom he could expect helpful suggestions; but it was not helpful suggestions he wanted. He wanted merely to talk about it to a sympathetic listener. And not only about the book,—about all sorts of things that interested him. And indirectly they all helped the book. To talk with one who responded sympathetically was in some curious way a source of enormous inspiration to him. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Japanese good taste or sentiment; and few—perhaps, none—among untravelled Japanese can maintain a brief conversation in any European tongue without making some startling impression upon the foreign listener. Sympathethic understanding, between minds so differently constructed, is next to impossible. But the foreign professor who looks for the impossible—who expects from Japanese students the same quality of intelligent comprehension that he might reasonably expect from ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... he failed as an instrumentalist he took delight in hearing music, and was always an appreciative yet critical listener to what was good and tuneful. His favourite composers were Mendelssohn—whose Lieder he was specially fond of[1]—Chopin, and Mozart. He heard Gounod's Faust whilst he was in Paris, and confesses to having been quite overcome with the beauty of the music. 'I couldn't ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Kusik's son the gift they gave That honored guest should greet— Water they brought his feet to lave, And showed him honor meet. Rama and Lakshman next obtained In due degree their share— Then with sweet talk the guests remained, And charmed each listener there. The evening prayers were duly said With voices calm and low:— Then on the ground each laid his head And ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... understood or attached much importance to the contrivance. For that matter, he hadn't the time to listen to an exposition of its advantages, and Graham, recognising this, was content to abide his time, serene in the conviction that he would presently find in his assistant a willing and sympathetic listener. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... in a monologue. Whoever sets man or woman talking for us does us a service. To be a good listener is to be astute. When anybody talks in our hearing, we become readers of pages in his soul. He thinks himself talking about things; while we, if wise, know he is giving glimpses of individual memorabilia. ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... feathers from the parakeet, while other bits of grass were fashioned into imitations of arm and leg ornaments of metal. Geeka was a perfect little savage; but at heart she was unchanged, being the same omnivorous listener as of yore. An excellent trait in Geeka was that she never interrupted in order to talk about herself. Today was no exception. She had been listening attentively to Meriem for an hour, propped against the bole of a tree while her lithe, young mistress stretched catlike and ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stood motionless, still holding the paper aloft, Old man Hare, Lacy's father, who had stood a most interested listener during the lecture, looked up into the lecturer's face and, in a querulous tone asked: "What fer animal did ye ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... abruptly. His heavy brows depressed, and, to the listener, it was as though she could hear his teeth grit over each word he spoke. But even so she could not restrain her passionate joy at the defeat the man's ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... generalities,—as for M. Decorde, my intentions are for open warfare;—but enough of that! I spent yesterday, a fine day, with Tourgueneff to whom I read the hundred and fifteen pages of Saint- Antoine that are finished. After which, I read to him almost half of the Dernieres Chansons. What a listener! What a critic! He dazzled me by the depth and the clearness of his judgment. Ah! if all those who attempt to judge books had been able to hear, what a lesson! Nothing escapes him. At the end of a passage ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... her what no one else knew but his sister Aileen, his epic in twenty-four books on Brian Boromhe and the Battle of Clontarf; and she was mother enough not to predict its inevitable fate, nor audibly to detect the unconscious plagiarisms, but to be a better listener than even Aileen, who never could be withheld from unfeeling laughter at the touching fate of the wounded warriors who were tied to stakes that ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... good listener; it was his great quality. He kept his eyes fixed on his father's face, putting a question now ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Highness wills," said Ahmed Ismail humbly, and he went into the station and bought tickets for Delhi. It was on a Thursday morning that the pair reached that town; and that day Ahmed Ismail had an unreceptive listener for his sermons. The monument before the Post Office, the tablets on the arch of the arsenal, even the barracks in the gardens of the Moghul Palace fired no antagonism in the Prince, who so short a time ago had been a boy at Eton. The memories evoked by the little ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... bequeath one shilling. As soon as the titter occasioned by the observation had subsided, a little smirking man with red whiskers, sitting at the bottom of the table, who during the whole of dinner had been endeavouring to obtain a listener to some stories about Sheridan, called, out, with a very patronising air, 'Alick, what part of speech ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... surgeons as to the technique of the extraction of an appendix. A good workman loves his tools. He is indeed inseparable from them, as our law acknowledges by forbidding a bankrupt's tools to be sold up. Give a good workman, in town or country, a sympathetic listener and he is only too ready to expatiate on his daily work. This sense of kinship between men and their tools and material is so little understood by some of our modern expert organizers of industry that it is worth while ...
— Progress and History • Various
... "but the veil and the bow together's got a meaning that I think is real sweet." She waited a moment, almost pathetically anxious for Pearl to see the symbolism of her two incongruous adornments, but her listener was too genuinely bored and also too self-absorbed to make the attempt. "It's this," said Mrs. Thomas, determined to explain. "The pink bow kind o' shows that I'm in the world again and," bridling coquettishly, "open ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... was a ready listener now, and was unusually quick to grasp a situation, although he could not learn the ethics of the white man. The Professor had him present at one of the trials for theft of a petty nature, which occurred a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... seem, when they talk, to be two persons: one the talker, and the other the listener charmed by the quality of his discourse. There is nothing detrimental in such duplicity. Indeed, I think I have a very real envy of it. But one of the defects of the listening habit is perhaps to make them too rhetorical, too verbose. It is odd that the nation that has given us so much epigrammatic ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... The latter had understood but vaguely the nature of the catastrophe which overhung his return to France, and now that it was indeed concrete and definite, the guardian was forced into fuller disclosures, every word making the anguish of the listener more intolerable. It was the horizonless despair of a child; and that profound protest I had so often seen smouldering in his eyes culminated, at its crisis, in a wild flame of revolt. The shame of the revelation passed over him; there was nothing of the disastrous drunkard, sober, ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... a quality uncommon To early risers after a long chase, Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon December's drowsy day to his dull race,— A quality agreeable to woman, When her soft, liquid words run on apace, Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner,— He did not fall asleep ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... And quite suddenly the domes disappeared. Don Francisco de Mogente rose and went towards the boat. He did not trouble to walk gently or to loosen the chains noiselessly. The wind was roaring so loudly that a listener twenty yards away could have heard nothing. He cast off and then hastened to the stern of the boat. The way in which he handled the helm showed that he knew the tricks of the old ferryman by wind and calm, by high and low river. He had probably learnt ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... either of our lips which could possibly give cause of offence. In fact, we required no further instructions to be cautious. Two prisoners desirous of communication are skilful enough to invent a language of their own, without the least danger of its being interpreted by any listener. ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... to bring the scene more dramatically before his amiable listener, he recalled the most striking of his impressions for her special benefit. Once, in broad daylight, he had seen a flock of sheep in the boulevard near the Madeleine. Their tread had resounded through the deserted streets ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... availed the count his self-deceit; For there was one who spake of it unsought; The sheperd-swain, who to allay the heat, With which he saw his guest so troubled, thought: The tale which he was wonted to repeat — Of the two lovers — to each listener taught, A history which many loved to hear, He now, without reserve, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... no pride in his conversational power. He was always modest, but never diffident. I have seen him sit, a respectful listener, absolutely silent, while some ordinary chatterer held the company's attention for an hour. Many good talkers are unhappy unless they have the privilege of exercising their gifts. Not so he. Sometimes he had almost to be compelled ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... had to go without him. But I wish you would see Armstrong and tell him about Gray, so that I may know the whole situation as soon as I return. Canker evidently intended not to let us know his proofs. He probably believes that he will find a more credulous and complaisant listener in Drayton; but his insinuations pointed to Gray as at least an abettor in the theft, and he went so far as to say that if Armstrong could be brought before the court some very interesting testimony could be dragged from him, and, finally, that both Armstrong ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... One of them, "Uncle John," lived just below the home hill in a wee cot of four walls, each of a different color—red, yellow, brown, and white. He frequently came up the Angevine-home hill to tell, between his apples, nuts, and glasses of cider, tales of what he, too, knew, to a good listener,—the master of the house. Then there was "Major Brom B., a hero of the great war, with his twenty-seven martial spirits, all uniformed in silver gray, his negro Bonny and his gun, 'the Bucanneer,' had not its fellow on the continent." These were all aids, and sources of unfailing ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... air of dreary triumph, a dreadful exultation that chilled her listener's blood. This was not the woman he had loved, upon whom he had poured out all his long-guarded stores of devotion and passion—this terrible, beautiful, avenging Medusa! His utter confusion and bewilderment were patent ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford |
