"Poring over" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... portieres before the windows, but a blaze of light within from cellar to roof. I spent whole hours gloating over the treasures of that Monte-Cristan treasure-house, and all day Sunday and Monday I spent poring over the books in the library, a marvellous collection, though for the most ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... to visit Susan Montgomery's sins on Gordon's head. I shall come home early, and make you go to bed at nine o'clock, to punish you for your obstinacy. By the by, Edna, Hagar tells me that you frequently sit up till three or four o'clock, poring over those heathenish documents in my son's cabinet. This is absurd, and will ruin your health; and beside, I doubt if what you learn is worth your trouble. You must not sit up longer than ten o'clock. Give ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... and in accordance with his promise a little room adjoining his own private office was allotted to me, and every Monday morning I drove down-town and spent the day in poring over the ledgers and deeds and reports, and in taking a general scrutiny of my affairs. At first it was all very confusing, but by degrees order was reduced out of chaos to my understanding, and I learned to take a keen interest ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... herself irritably. She was supposed to have finished her education, and though she was dimly aware that she was shamefully ignorant, there seemed no especial object in her getting out her lesson-books and poring over them by herself. ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... she had seen blazoning her lover's passionate, poetic homage to her in words of love and promises of fidelity. The Erbprinz stood silent with bowed head. What would she say, what would she do, this forceful woman? At length, he raised his head and looked at her. She was still poring over the Duke's letter as though its contents puzzled her. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... but little. The hardest part of the experience for her was to see how eager her uncles were to please each caller and how anxiously each watched the other's efforts and the result. To see Zoeth at the desk poring over the ledger, his lips moving and the pencil trembling in his fingers, was as bad as, but no worse than, to see Captain Shadrach, a frown on his face and his hands in his pockets, pace the floor from the back door to the front window, stop, look up ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and stealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the extreme restlessness of the Youth of England, who were perpetually wandering about, some few steady persons in black cassocks, who had knelt down with their faces to the wall, and were poring over their missals, became, unintentionally, a sort of humane man-traps, and with their own devout legs, tripped up ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... not?" asked Lord Bidborough. "I enjoy Huckleberry Finn as much now as I did when I was twelve; and I often yearn after the books I had as a boy and never see now. I used to lie on my face poring over them. The Clipper of the Clouds, and Sir Ludar, and a fairy story called Rigmarole in Search of a Soul, which, I remember, was quite beautiful, but can't lay ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... and what wonderful little gothic cottages did I build on the strength of the "and Son" that would shortly be added to it! The long nights with my cousin became less wearisome. I could hear the dull creaking of the letter-press, and see him sit poring over his writing, quite patiently. When the organ-grinder stopped on the corner and played "Make me no gaudy chaplet," I did not long to rush into the streets, for I had her to think about. When the clock struck eleven, and my cousin, with his peculiar "phew!" commenced ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... There is something ludicrous in the idea of a beauty, or a gallant, of that gay and licentious court poring over a work of five or six folio volumes by way of amusement; but such was the taste of the age, that Fynes Morison, in his precepts to travellers, can "think no book better for his pupils' discourse than Amadis of Gaule; for the knights errant and the ladies ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... assaults of bold questions and proud objections, that he had no leisure to teach him the alphabet; and at the end of ten years of studies, broken off and taken up at the bidding of a whim or on compulsion, Patience could not even read. It was only with great difficulty, after poring over a book for some two hours, that he deciphered a single page, and even then he did not grasp the meaning of most of the words expressing abstract ideas. Yet these abstract ideas were undoubtedly in him; you felt their presence while watching and listening to him; and the ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... made our bow to Mr. Cambridge, in his library, than Johnson ran eagerly to one side of the room, intent on poring over the backs of the books[1091]. Sir Joshua observed, (aside,) 'He runs to the books, as I do to the pictures: but I have the advantage. I can see much more of the pictures than he can of the books.' Mr. Cambridge, upon this, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... along the boulevard looked curiously through the railing at the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the edge of the courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where an officer and two enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names and piles of palely tinted banknotes and silver francs that glittered white. Above the men's heads a thin haze of cigarette smoke rose into the sunlight. There was a sound of voices and of feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had been paid ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Cruden's Concordance. That and the Bible—Mrs. Bunting had soon discovered that there was a relation between the two books—seemed to be the lodger's only reading. He spent hours each day, generally after he had eaten the breakfast which also served for luncheon, poring over the Old Testament and over that strange kind ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... long ago arrived at by his friends, that he was unfitted for work. He burgeoned with delight when a servant announced that two young people wanting to get married were waiting in the vestibule; he hobbled out of the library, where he was poring over an essay on the Sixtine text of the Septuagint, and ushered them into a parlor. The room was not well-lighted, because of some defect in the electric installation, but the old gentleman—"Rev. Thomas J. Hughes" was the legend on the door-plate—bustled ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... of the mediaeval clerk in his little house nigh the church surrounded by his wife and children, or as a bachelor intent upon preferment poring over his Missal, if he did not sometimes emulate the frivolous feats of ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... my old comrade Dirk Hartog. I found him, as I expected, at a tavern which he frequented. He was seated at a table with Bantum and Janstins, poring over a chart in which all three ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... after all, it gave him some satisfaction to be a martyr for the cause of free speech. He went to London with his friend Hogg, and took lodgings there. He read omnivorously—Hogg says as much as sixteen hours a day. He would walk through the most crowded streets poring over a volume, while ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... ridiculous. Yet we may point out that it was done unconsciously—that it was a gradual and instinctive process of becoming. The reason, in a word, was not awake; the mind of man was ignorant of its own treasures and its own capacities. It is pathetic to think of the mediaeval students poring over a single ill-translated sentence of Porphyry, endeavoring to extract from its clauses whole systems of logical science, and torturing their brains about puzzles more idle than the dilemma of Buridan's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to the right, entering a wide room with tables, books, heavy chairs, discreetly shaded lamps. At one table, drawn close to the light and poring over a printed page, sat a gentleman whose personality was not without distinction. The gray hair brushed back from a heightening forehead might have proclaimed him even beyond middle age, and his stature, of about medium height, acknowledged ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Elsie and the paper-dolls, and to feel Katy's arms round her once more. Her letters showed the growing home-sickness. Dr. Carr felt that the experiment had lasted long enough. So he discovered that he had business in Boston, and one fine September day, as Johnnie was forlornly poring over her lesson in moral philosophy, the door opened and in came Papa. Such a shriek as she gave! Miss Inches happened to be out, and they had the house ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with a magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of smock-frocks poring over him through the glass of his shop-window, seemed to be about the only person in the High Street ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... fair man, with a broad and lofty forehead, wrinkled with study, and eyes weakened by long poring over ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Burle, just making up his mind to examine the next accounts closely. On the following week he detected a fresh error of nineteen francs, and then, suddenly becoming alarmed, he shut himself up with the books and spent a wretched morning poring over them, perspiring, swearing and feeling as if his very skull were bursting with the figures. At every page he discovered thefts of a few francs—the most miserable petty thefts—ten, eight, eleven francs, latterly, three and four; and, indeed, there was one column showing that ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... often attributes German shortsightedness to the Gothic character of German print. It is more probable that the long hours of study spent poring over books without fresh-air exercise, judiciously interposed, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... silence of night lay over the great prison. Here and there in the grim corridors a guard dozed in the glare of an electric light; and in the office, too, a desk light glimmered where the warden sat at his desk, poring over a report. Once he glanced up at the clock—it was five minutes of eleven—and then he went ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... Winford was poring over the maps of New Chicago six hours later in the chart room when one of the navigation officers touched him on ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... Morris, some friends of mine propose to go into a little speculation, which will involve a large correspondence; and for reasons that I need not specify to a man like you, they do not wish to have every ragtag, bobtail post-office clerk poring over their letters, and asking impertinent questions at the delivery- window. If they can find a shrewd, square man, who knows how to keep his mouth shut, and who can't be fooled, that for a handsome consideration will put the letters away in a safe place till called ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... casque; and thereafter, upon the mossy sward, would make trial of their strength and valour, whereby he both took and gave right lusty knocks; or again, when work failed, he would lie upon the grass, chin on fist, poring over some ancient legend, or sit with brush and colours, illuminating on vellum, wherein right cunning was he. Now it chanced that as he sat thus, brush in hand, upon a certain fair afternoon, he suddenly espied one who stood watching him from the shade of ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... this hill, up that steep; through this thicket, over that hedge—I have laboured to fatigue myself: to reconcile me to repose; to lolling on a sofa; to poring over a book, to any thing that might win for my heart a respite from these throbs; to deceive me into a few ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... tradition survives. The country folk in my own neighbourhood can read as well as I can; but they prefer to talk among themselves when they are at leisure, or, at the most, to seize in a few moments the main items of news about the war; they prefer this, I say, as a habit of mind, to the poring over square yards of printed matter which (especially in the Sunday papers) are now food for their fellows in the town. That is because in the country a man has true neighbours, whereas the towns are a dust of isolated beings, ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... seriously my condition, and the circumstances I was reduced to; and I drew up the state of my affairs in writing, not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me - for I was likely to have but few heirs - as to deliver my thoughts from daily poring over them, and afflicting my mind; and as my reason began now to master my despondency, I began to comfort myself as well as I could, and to set the good against the evil, that I might have something to distinguish my case from worse; ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... There was the whole collection, abandoned to my eager gaze and eager hands! How long I stood, taking down weapon after weapon, examining each like an old book, speculating upon modes of use, and intention of varieties in form, poring over adornment and mounting, I cannot tell. Historically the whole was a sealed book; individually I made a thorough acquaintance with not a few, noting the differences and resemblances between them and ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... I called at Captain Yerger's house and found him with General Gist and another officer lying flat on their stomachs poring over a map. Captain Yerger then introduced me to the ladies of his family, who were extremely pretty, ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... gone; he had disappeared when the Silver Maple was putting forth its buds, and had gone "a kiltin' owre the brae," as he musically expressed it to Scotty; but everyone knew that he would come back in the autumn as surely as the wild ducks went south. Indoors, close to the candle, sat Hamish poring over "Waverley," and Callum could be heard tramping about in the loft, preparing to go off for the evening. Callum took great pains with his toilette these evenings, Scotty noticed, though the boys did not tease him any more about going to see Mary Lauchie; indeed, there were no more good-natured ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... said. "Let's go to bed now. I'll bet you my share of the ivory they're poring over the map with a magnifying-glass! D'you remember the various places we underscored? They'll think it's a cryptogram and fret ever it all night! Come ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... support to it—the alliance of the Empress Elizabeth with a man of immeasurably lower rank than Catherine's favourite; but it was important that this precedent should be established beyond dispute. Thus it was that one day, when Count Alexis was poring over his Bible by his country fireside, Chancellor Vorontsov made his appearance with ingratiating words and promises. Her Majesty, he informed the Count, was willing to confer Imperial rank on him in return for one small favour—the possession of the documents which ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... all humbug. If you begin to lay everything to the credit of books, I'll quite lose my opinion of you," cried Peterkin, with a look of contempt. "I've seen a lot o' fellows that were always poring over books, and when they came to try to do anything, they were no better ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the question of full suffrage. The work of running down each of the 18,000 names consumed days of arduous labor. It was also found that page after page of the names were written by the same hand. Experts in handwriting from the various banks in Lincoln spent night after night poring over the original petitions in the office of the Secretary of State, picking out and listing the forgeries, which were found to have been ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... I'm not so bad as that. I am what is called 'intelligent,' don't you know, but I shall never make a scholar, and it is waste of time and money to send me to college. It is not in me. I am not fond of staying in the house and poring over books and papers. I couldn't be a doctor and spend my life in sick-rooms; the law would drive me crazy, and I could as soon jump over a mountain as write two new sermons a week. I want to go abroad—to India or Ceylon, or one of those places— and get into a ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... her easy chair by the window, poring over a mass of type-written sheets. "Studying my part for a little play we're giving next Saturday night," she announced gaily, as Betty came in. "So remember, you're not to ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... her poring over the picture, but presently, as he paced the deck, he felt her light touch on his arm, and turned to see her glowing little face looking ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... garland; and yet I have been three days in the country-and the consequence was, that I was glad to come back to town. I do not wonder that you feel differently; any thing is warmth and verdure when compared to poring over memorials. In truth, I think you will be much happier for being out of Parliament. You could do no good there; you have no views of ambition to satisfy: and when neither duty. nor ambition calls, (I do not condescend to name avarice, which never ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... this wholesale and feminine way of leaping directly to a despotically desired ideal result, Bob took the trail to his own camp. Here he found Jack Pollock poring over an old illustrated paper. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... rubbing his wiry head with irritation, and poring over his letters for some clew, like a dunce going back through his pot-hooks, suddenly a great knock sounded through the house—one, two, three—like the thumping of a mallet on a cask, to learn whether any beer may still be ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... painful effect upon our feelings, and upon our nervous system, of separations from departed friends, is involuntary and natural; but to cherish our griefs, to spend much time in melancholy moods, or in poring over the memorials of the departed, so as to excite and indulge morbid feelings, is not ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... When, after poring over the half-dozen illustrations, he was forced to the conclusion that nothing could surpass the knights of King Arthur, he opened The Last of the Mohicans and found himself captured, heart and soul, by the even more enticing ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... certain aspects, change is impossible. There are certain limitations of natural disposition which I never can overcome. For instance, if I have no musical ear I cannot turn myself into a musician. If I have no mathematical faculty it is no good poring over Euclid, for, with the best intentions in the world, I shall make nothing of it. We must work within the limits of our natural disposition, and cut our coat according to our cloth. In that respect to-morrow will be as yesterday, and there ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... ocular demonstration.' I consider it was superior to ocular demonstration, as the action of the mind is above that of the senses. Adams, in his study at Cambridge, England, and Leverrier in his closet at Paris, poring over their logarithms, knew better the locus of that outside planet than all the practical astronomers of the world ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the "Contrack." "Be sure to come down to the Serai ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... say, that I was the only thing in it which she loved; and, when she thought I was quitting it, she grieved over me with mother's tears. A partiality quite so exclusive my reason cannot altogether approve. She was from morning till night poring over good books, and devotional exercises. Her favourite volumes were Thomas a Kempis, in Stanhope's Translation; and a Roman Catholic Prayer Book, with the matins and complines regularly set down,—terms which I was at that time ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... at all, let him mention "Autobiography of Ben Franklin," or "Pushing to the Front," or something we all know. Red Shirt has been seen once in a while bringing a magazine with a red cover entitled Imperial Literature to the school and poring over it with reverence. I heard it from Porcupine that Red Shirt gets his supply of all foreign names from that ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... a little quicker about following her, and had not wasted time looking for Higgs! She had had time to get clear away; and he, bungler that he was, had thought it of little consequence, and had afterwards stood poring over a catalogue in the hall, having decided that her morals were no business of his. Ass that ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... books at Birmingham, I should like to get out of that restriction, and have a swim in the broader waters of one of my long books. I have been poring over "Copperfield" (which is my favourite), with the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called by some such name as "Young Housekeeping and Little Emily." But there is still the huge difficulty that I constructed the whole with immense pains, and have so woven it up and blended it together, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... the store was running its downward course from bad to worse, he devoted a large part of his too abundant leisure to reading and study of various kinds. People who knew him then have told how he would lie for hours under a great oak-tree that grew just outside the store door, poring over his book, and "grinding around with the shade" as it ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... Gabriel now,—I dare not. But there he sat opposite me, poring over his book. Jane was bent over her sewing. I forgot her, and I forgot my work too; it slipped from my fingers and fell into my lap. Suddenly he raised his head,—it seemed as if all the blood in my body rushed to my face; he had ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... left to go her ways; if she appeared at meal-time, no questions were asked, Miss Herbert, indeed, shook her head at such liberty. A girl of Rosalind's age should be learning something useful, instead of running about the village or poring over story books. She could not know that with a certain old play for a textbook the children she thought so harum-scarum were learning brave lessons ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... confusion, Aymer became very prosaic and practical over the details, and Mr. Aston was the only one of the trio who gave any more thought to the boy's dream on its sentimental side. He used to sit in the evenings watching the two poring over maps, letters and guidebooks, thinking far thoughts for them ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... study. Reynolds was poring over the note written to Braxton and comparing it with one he held in his hand,—an old one, and one that told an old, old story. "I know you'll say I have no right to ask this," it read, "but you're a gentleman, and I'm a friendless woman deserted by a worthless husband. My own ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... a changeling, was allowed to try his hand at disposing of it, he made a large fire on the hearth and held a black hen over it till she struggled, and finally escaped from his grasp, flying out by the "lum." More minute directions are given by the cunning man in a Glamorganshire tale. After poring over his big book, he told his distracted client to find a black hen without a single feather of any other colour. This she was to bake (not living, but dead, as appears by the sequel) before a fire of wood (not, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... wise,—dozing away the day, much like the rest of the people, only that they looked wiser than any others. Their hooked beaks looked like hooked noses. A dull scene this. A stranger, here and there, poring over a newspaper. Many of the stage-folk sitting in chairs on the pavement, in front of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for full three hours, when at length the play came to an end. Nell's little purse lay empty, and still the old man sat poring over the cards until the child laid her arm upon his shoulder, telling him that it was ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... was twelve years older than St. Francis. He studied theology for ten years at the University of Palencia, and before the twelfth century closed he was an Augustinian Canon. In 1203, while St. Francis was still poring over his father's ledgers, Dominic was associated with the Bishop of Osma in negotiating a marriage for Alphonso the Eighth, king of Castille. For the next ten years he was more or less concerned with the hideous atrocities of the Albigensian war. During that dark period ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... his Friend.—We found him in his study alone, poring over the national accounts, with two claret bottles empty before him, and a third bottle on the wane; it was about eight o'clock in the evening, and the butler, according to general orders when gentlemen came in, brought a bottle of claret to each of us. "Why," said Parnell, "Sir Heck, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... in his little study, clad in his dark camblet robe of knowledge, with his black velvet cap, after the manner of Boorhaave, Van Helmont, and other medical sages: a pair of green spectacles set in black horn upon his clubbed nose, and poring over a German folio that seemed to reflect back the darkness of his physiognomy. The doctor listened to their statement of the symptoms of Wolfert's malady with profound attention; but when they came to mention his raving about buried money, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... girl, with no introductions except to some cousins of Mrs. Thomas who lived there, and she was already making clothes for the women of "the young married set." She evidently had great natural aptitude for her work. She knew, as she said, "what people looked well in." She never tired of poring over fashion books. Sometimes in the evening I would find her alone in her work-room, draping folds of satin on a wire figure, with a quite blissful expression of countenance. I could n't help thinking that the years when Lena ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... onwards in silence and unchanged formation. The swift Light Cruisers had overtaken the advancing Battle-fleet, and vanished like wraiths into the haze ahead. The Captain and the Navigator had joined Thorogood on the bridge, and were poring over the chart and talking in low voices. The Midshipman of the Watch stood with eyes glued to the range-finder, turning his head at intervals to report the distance of the next ahead to the ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... what I was speaking. I had not yet heard the last of Herr von Rosenau's entanglement, nor was I destined to escape from playing my part in it. The very next morning, after breakfast, as I was poring over a map of Switzerland, "Murray" on my right hand and "Bradshaw" on my left, his card was brought to me, together with an urgent request that I would see him immediately and alone; and before I had had time ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... in the house containing a few books that had been his father's. Kolya was fond of reading, and had read several of them by himself. His mother did not mind that and only wondered sometimes at seeing the boy stand for hours by the bookcase poring over a book instead of going to play. And in that way Kolya read some things unsuitable ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... found Dinkie poring over the pictures in my Knight edition of Shakespeare. He seemed especially impressed, as I stopped and looked over his shoulder, by a steel engraving of Gerome's Death of Caesar, where the murdered emperor ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the Dragon court, and when Stephen went in quest of him to the Temple, Perronel had not seen him since the early morning, but she said he seemed so much bitten with the little old man's scholarship that she had small doubt that he would be found poring over a ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... grip the floor with his feet and sat heavily at his desk, opening one of his books at random and poring over it. Every word for him. It was true. God was almighty. God could call him now, call him as he sat at his desk, before he had time to be conscious of the summons. God had called him. Yes? What? Yes? His flesh shrank together as it felt ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... me into an absurd fit of internal laughter. Hale brought it in while I was poring over some new photographs of Boche emplacements, or dug-outs, or something—poring with a magnifying glass.... And then came your drawings of the rooms ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... a busy aspect. At one end were two or three girls industriously thumping typewriters; McNeil, the producer, was sorting manuscript on Goldstein's own desk; a young man who served as the manager's private secretary was poring over a voluminous record-book, wherein were listed all the films ever made by the manufacturers of the world. On a sofa in a far corner reclined the injured "star" of the company, Maud Stanton, who—being half asleep ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... poring over a Pentateuch in his Friday night duty of reading the Portion twice in Hebrew and ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... childless, with nothing but the ghost of their former passion, the ghost of their former ideal, to keep them company, was on the whole very bleak and cheerless. Alfieri, working off his over-excitement in a system of tremendous self-education, sitting for the greater part of the day poring over Latin and Greek and Hebrew grammars, and exercises and annotated editions, till he was so exhausted that he could scarcely digest his dinner; the Countess killing the endless days reading new books of philosophy, of poetry, of fiction, anything and everything that came to hand, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... hand is the shelter for the rank and file. Here several gaunt, hollow-eyed, and hairy troopers are sitting on rough benches at a trestle-table, playing dominoes and draughts, or poring over tattered books by the light of the flickering oil-lamps, with tin reflectors, that hang against the earth walls. None of them are smoking, though several are sucking vigorously at empty pipes; and the rapacious light that glares in every ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... him explain to her once more the legal points which she did not at first understand. It was certainly a novel sight to see this pair of lovers poring over the Code, which Emmanuel had brought with him to show his mistress the laws which protected the property of minors; she quickly caught the meaning of them, thanks to the natural penetration of women, which in this case ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... was the unforgivable sin. Had my mother discovered me poring over the half intelligible but wholly fascinating story of Adam and Eve and the Devil, she would have beaten me with the first implement to her hand. I had a moment's terror lest the possession of a work of literature should be so horrible a crime that ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... unnatural suavity of speech and manner in her company, against which my very soul revolted. And after all, nothing came up. The labour of digging and watering, the anxious zeal with which I pounced on weeds, the poring over gardening books, the plans made as I sat on the little seat in the middle gazing admiringly and with the eye of faith on the trim surface so soon to be gemmed with a thousand flowers, the reckless expenditure of pfennings, the humiliation of my position in regard to Fraulein ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... pleased with the prospect of publicly displaying his new accomplishment. The lawyer gave him a printed good-bye, shook him by the hand warmly, and left him poring over his ponderous book, his dumb lips moving as his fingers spelled ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... be registered mentally in the effacement of the portraits of Leonidas and Paoli by those of Caesar and Alexander. Later on, during his sojourn at Ajaccio in 1790, when the first shadows were flitting across his hitherto unclouded love for Paoli, we hear that he spent whole nights poring over Caesar's history, committing many passages to memory in his passionate admiration of those wondrous exploits. Eagerly he took Caesar's side as against Pompey, and no less warmly defended him from the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Irishman. Oliver Cromwell's porter, yclept Daniel, was a giant. This fellow, through poring over mystical divinity, lost his wits: he preached, prophesied, and raved until finally he was incarcerated in Bedlam, where, after a while, his liberty was allowed him. A famous item amongst his books was a large Bible presented by Neil ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... of this?" the Judge demanded, coming upon Neil late one afternoon, poring over the uninspired pages of Mr. Thayer by the fading light. "What do you ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... lay my hands on was devoured except novels. Scientific works and books of travels were my especial delight; though my father, believing, with many of his time who ought to have known better, that the former were inimical to religion, would have preferred to have seen me poring over the "Cloud of Witnesses", or Boston's "Fourfold State". Our difference of opinion reached the point of open rebellion on my part, and his last application of the rod was on my refusal to peruse Wilberforce's "Practical Christianity". This dislike to ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and weeding and raking and planting in the garden all the morning, and bothering your brains over them distracting 'count books all the afternoon, what's the good of your going and poring over them ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... ready to meet it with him. If he succeeded she would be all the better able to appreciate his success; and if he failed she would never blame him from ignorance. You must understand that his advance was no meteoric thing. He somehow, by dint of sitting up nights poring over blueprints and text-books and by day using his wits and his eyes and his native shrewdness, managed to pull off with fair success his first job as superintendent; was given other contracts to oversee; and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... own. Such study of course soon exhausts the energies. It cannot be long protracted, nor need it be protracted. Take rest in the season of rest; but, when you study, study with all your might. Throw your whole soul into it. One hour of such study accomplishes more than whole days of listless poring over books. And, remember, you cannot study in this manner by merely willing to do it. It is an art, requiring training and practice, and thorough mental discipline. You might as well, on seeing the Writing-Master executing those marvels of penmanship, or the Drawing-Teacher with deft fingers ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... hour Mr. Sparling and Phil were deeply engaged in poring over the books, the contracts and the innumerable details appertaining to the work of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... a child he had refused to do anything useful, and roamed about the city all day long in search of adventures. The only kind of learning to which he paid any heed was magic, and when he was in the house he would spend hours poring over great books ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... changes, or reforms, from which I reap benefit are, 1st. Totally renouncing for the evenings all revision or indulgence in poring over those letters and papers whose contents come nearest to my heart, and work upon its bleeding regrets. Next, transferring-to the evening, as far as is in my power, all of sociality, with Alex, or my few remaining friends, or the few he will present ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Negroes in the race for existence depends upon their retaining possession of the few bread-winning occupations now open to them. But instead of better qualifying themselves for these occupations they have been poring over dead languages and working problems in mathematics. In the meantime the Chinaman and the steam-laundry have abolished the Negro's wash-tub, trained white "tonsorial artists" have taken away his barber's chair, and skilled painters and plasterers and mechanics have taken away his paint-brushes ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... capital, partly in those of the Touraine. In this last town a complete collection is contained of the records of the old 'Intendance,' under which several provinces were governed. Nothing short of a continuous and laborious poring over the details of Government furnished by these invaluable paperasses could possibly enable a student of the past century to frame to himself any clear conception of the working of the social relations and authorities in old France. There exists no such tableau. The manners of the higher ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... son of his own; but he taught him all he knew, and at his dead Gilguerillo entered an office, where he worked for many hours daily. In his spare time, instead of playing with the other boys, he passed hours poring over books, and because he was timid and liked to be alone he was held by everyone to be a little mad. Therefore, when it became known that he had promised to cure the king's foot, and had ridden away—no one knew where—a roar of laughter and mockery rang through ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... will presently see, from specimens to be shown to him, are by no means full. They are hints rather than descriptions—indications and outlines chiefly: it may be, that the present writer has mistaken the forms, and filled in the colour wrongly: but, poring over the documents, I have tried to imagine the situation of the writer, where he was, and by what persons surrounded. I have drawn the figures as I fancied they were; set down conversations as I think I might have heard them; and so, to the best of my ability, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the spot where the gold was cached. We were, as I thought, alone in Fox-Foot's log house. That is, alone in speaking English, for his people don't understand a single word that is not Chippewa. We were poring over the map I had made, when something made me look behind me. Against the small hole in the logs that served as a window was a man's head and shoulders—a white man—and he wore a grey mackinaw. Foxy and I were on our feet at once, but the man crashed ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... Chinese language, but worked out in exquisite colors, which might themselves have had a meaning. The rolls were kept in proper receptacles under the charge of librarians, and we saw many grave persons at desks poring over them. Absolute silence reigned, and as I gazed at the scene I found admiration for this extraordinary people taking the place of the prejudice which I had recently been led ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... stopped many times, and at Hamman's Kraal took aboard some companies of infantry. At intervals down the line we passed little posts of a few men, sentries moving up and down, and a figure or two poring over a pot on a fire. About midnight, after a rather uneasy slumber, I woke in Pretoria. Raining. With the patient, sheep-like passivity that the private soldier learns, we dragged ourselves and our kit from place to ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... Socrates, why will you scare your friends with these hobgoblin terrors, (43) bidding us all beware of handsome faces, whilst you yourself—yes, by Apollo, I will swear I saw you at the schoolmaster's (44) that time when both of you were poring over one book, in which you searched for something, you and Critobulus, head to head, shoulder to shoulder bare, as if ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... university, and were supposed to possess all the erudition which mankind has hoarded up from age to age. Greek and Latin were as familiar to them as the babble of their childhood. Hebrew was like their mother tongue. They had grown gray in study; their eyes were bleared with poring over print and manuscript by the ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bearded men; to find them, in the midst of this wild new nature, so utterly absorbed by the fictitious weal and woe of some poor creature of the author's brain, that they neglect even what they call their "meals ;" allow their "teas" to cool, and strain their eyesight poring over page after page in the dim light of a rusty lantern. Thus also the Egyptian, after sitting in his cafe with all his ears and eyes opened their widest, whilst the story-teller drones out the old tale of Abu Zayd, will dispute till midnight, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... thinking about him, two days after, as he sat in his friend Judge Brown's law office, poring over a volume of law. He saw that Bacon's treatment had been heroic; he couldn't get the pitiful confusion of the preacher's face out of his mind. But, after all, Bacon's seizing of just that instant was ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... with the bent farmer who goes to and fro driving the cows. He wears patched overalls, and has sciatica in winter; but I have seen the gleam of youth awakened, though remotely, in his eyes. I do not believe he ever quite forgets; there are moments, now and then, at dusk or midnight, all his for poring over those ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... old-fashioned collective family conscience. But at a quarter to four, when it was already too late to catch the local train at Turnhill, the men had not emerged from the inner room; nor had Hilda come to any decision. As the departure of her mother and Miss Gailey had involved much solemn poring over time-tables, it happened that she knew the times of all the trains to London; to catch the next and last she would have to leave Turnhill at 5.55. She said that she would wait and see. Her work for the first number of the paper was practically ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... of this kind of deception, it may be stated that navigators, whose actual experience has not extended to the tropical regions, are very apt, in poring over the voyages of others, to acquire, insensibly, a very confident notion that each of the great Trade-winds blowing on different sides of the Line (the North-east and the South-east by name), are quite steady in their direction; and that, in the equatorial interval which ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... what he meant than if he had addressed him in Hindoo, and he gave the matter little or no further thought. He was in his room poring over his books the second day after the interview, when there came a ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... with bent head, poring over the little note which Sissy had sent to entreat that the past might be forgotten. "Let me do something for you," she wrote. "Come back to me, Percival, if you have forgiven me; and you said you had. I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... reticule with cakes for the little ones, so that their mothers might be more free from interruption. The exercises of that day gave a great impulse to the cause of education in Geog Tapa. As many as seventy adults were soon poring over their spelling books; and the next summer one half of the adult women were either readers or engaged in the same employment; though previous to the examination of the Seminary in 1850, not one in thirty could read, ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... to its ancient delicacy of surface and the glory of its sky-rivaling blue. He had found it an hour before upon a tobacconist's counter, containing matches, and had bought it for a few kopeks; and now, alone in his office, amid his catalogues of lathes and punches, he was poring over it, reading it as another man might read poetry, inhaling from it all that the artist, its maker, had breathed ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... He always sat far back near the door, so that he could see them come out. Then he would overtake Pop with Patsy, whenever the little fellow could go. This was not often, for now there were many days when the boy had to lie all day on the lounge in the sitting-room, poring over his books or playing with Stumpy, brought into the kitchen ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... upon to render the first paragraph. With lightness, unrecking the great moment so perilously at hand, I had begun: "'Will you lend me two thousand dollars to establish myself in a small retail business?' inquired a young man, not yet out of his teens of a middle-aged gentleman who was poring over his ledger in the counting room of one of ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... time which was facetiously called by Messrs. Tims and Swindle "the leisure" of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, being some eight hours out of the twenty-four, was spent in poring over the glorious pages of the immortal bard; and in the desperate enthusiasm of his heated genius would he, Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, suddenly burst forth in some of the most exciting passages, and with Stentorian lungs "render night hideous" to the startled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... was not done for yet. Nearly a century and a half after Marco's death a Genoese sea captain sat poring over one of the new printed books, which men were beginning to buy and to hand about among themselves. The book which he was reading was the Latin version of Marco Polo's travels. He was reading it with intentness and indeed with passion. As he read he made notes in the margin; on over seventy ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... effort, partly in order that he may combine some other advantage with the advantage of walking, but principally in order to be sure that the effort shall be an adequate effort. The same with reading. Your paramount aim in poring over literature is to enjoy, but you will not fully achieve that aim unless you have also a subsidiary aim which necessitates the measurement of your energy. Your subsidiary aim may be aesthetic, moral, political, religious, scientific, erudite; you may devote yourself ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... long passed away. He was now a bachelor past fifty, bearish and uncouth in his appearance, and ungracious in his deportment. Secluded in his chambers, poring over the dry technicalities of his profession, he had divided the moral world into two parts—honest and dishonest, lawful and unlawful. All other feelings and affections, if he had them, were buried, and had never been raised to the surface. At the time we speak of, he continued his laborious, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... and each time on my return after selling out, I'd bring them a whole bundle of illustrated papers and magazines. About my fourth return after more horses,—I was mighty near one of the family by that time,—when we were all seated around the fire one night, the women poring over the papers and admiring the pictures, the old man inquired what the news was over in the parish where I had recently been. The only thing that I could remember was the suicide of a prominent man. After ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... said, "it is much better fun to play and amuse yourself all day than to sit poring over books. Study does not ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... in cloth; and those fellows who were fond of spending their spare hours in reading the works of old favorites like Optic and Alger, as well as numerous more recent additions to the ranks of authors, were to be found poring over the contents of numerous book shelves and racks, deciding which volume they would squander ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... over here," called Schoverling, who was sitting with von Hofe in one of the wagons, poring over a map. "We'll have to have meat for these Masai by sundown. I must go over our route with the doctor, so it's ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... white men, doing the old woman's cooking, and bearing all her abuse without grumbling. Strange to relate, a battered Bible was seldom out of his sight; and whenever he had leisure, and his mistress' back was turned, he was forever poring over it. This pious propensity used to enrage the old crone past belief; and oftentimes she boxed his ears with the book, and tried to burn it. Mother Tot and her man Josy were, indeed, a ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... bearings we seated ourselves in a small cafe, and were intently poring over a map when a shuffling noise made us look up. A detachment of soldiers was entering the cafe. Much to our astonishment, they came to attention in front of us. They constituted the spy-hunting squad. All day they walked the city on the trail of suspects. ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... was seated in his office, poring over a mass of reports, when Duvall entered. He glanced up, rose, shook hands nervously, then motioned ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... brother has let you bear sword after all. How like you the trade? Better than poring over crabbed parchments, I trow. But guess you why we are here to-day? My father says that I must take service with some honourable Knight, and see somewhat of the world. He spoke long of the Lord de Clarenham, because his favour would be well in the county; but at last he has fixed on your brother, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the charts of the local waters. When Fernald came back with Dan Dalzell, Dave was still poring over the charts. ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... what it all means, or any part of it; but I have had moods in which it seemed as if the whole, secret of the mystery were about to flash upon me. Walking along in the full sun, in the midst of men, or sometimes in the solitude of midnight, poring over a book, and thinking of quite other things, I have felt that ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Ivan sat at the desk in his room, poring over his beautifully written manuscript, gloating over it, glorying in the mere texture of the paper sheets; knowing well that they represented the best and the highest that lay within him; and that the expression was almost worthy of the conception. Next morning, still acting secretly, dreading, in ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... this was a most remarkable thing for an eight-year-old boy to do, but the boy was himself remarkable. He spent much of his time poring over books. They were few in number but of good quality, and he read them over and over again until they became a part of himself. It gave him keen pleasure to memorize fine poems and also noble selections from the Bible, for he learned easily and remembered well ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... "that going another day to see the girl, I found her poring over a pile of books—all new books—just given her by this same arrogant interloper." Perry was silent, but when I paused and looked at him, I saw in his face that I was arguing along the right line. "Then the question arises, what ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... was ready for the press, he loaned the manuscript to a neighbor who left it lying on the floor, and the servant girl took it to kindle the fire. It was a bitter disappointment, but Carlyle was not the man to give up. After many months of poring over hundreds of volumes of authorities and scores of manuscripts, he reproduced that which had ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... shanty-boat, about a hundred yards down stream, was an old man's. He had a soldier's pension, and he lived in serene restfulness, reading General Grant's memoirs, and poring over the documents of the Rebellion, discovering points of military interest and renewing his own memories of his part in thirty-odd battles with Grant before Vicksburg and down the line with the Army of ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... came about that one evening, towards the close of September where we had sometimes to light the lamp as early as half-past six, I returned to my rooms about that hour of the day (we shared rooms together, so fond had I grown of him, and I trust, he of me) to find him poring over the little Catholic Missal. ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... course of study at a late period in life, frequently evince their zeal at the commencement by poring over their books twelve or more hours each day. The progress of such students is soon arrested by physical and mental depression. In such instances, it would be more judicious to commence with only three or four hours' vigorous application each day, ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... the wreck of their fortunes, and avenged themselves upon a steward by a bon mot and a kick. The Roman prince has an office, with shelves, desks, and clerks, and devotes some hours a day to business, examining accounts, poring over parchments, and signing papers. But being at once incapable and uneducated, his zeal serves but to liberate the rogues about him from responsibility. I heard of a nobleman who had inherited an enormous fortune, who condemned himself to the labor of a clerk at L50 a year, who remained ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... he sat at this window, knowing what an act of self-denial it must have been to one so boisterous and full of fun as he was to see us, after our work was over of an evening, having a jolly game at rounders, or something of that sort, while he had to sit poring over his books. ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... Darby, in consequence of his early attendance upon M'Clutchy, had been obliged to leave home that morning without his breakfast, it must be admitted that he was not just then in the best possible disposition to draw much edification from it. After poring over it with a very sombre face for some time, he at length looked shrewdly at M'Slime closing one eye a little, as was his custom; "I beg pardon, sir," said he, "but if I'm not mistaken this book I believe is intended more for the ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Monckton was poring over the ledger with his head down, the very picture of a faithful servant absorbed in his ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... together and cheated out of many a lone widow and friendless orphan had come to an end. No one knew how it had gone, except, perhaps, his son. He himself even, it was said, could not tell, though he spent his days and nights poring over books and papers, trying to find out, till he became almost as crazy as his wife. No one went to consult him on law business, except, perhaps, some smuggler or other knave who could get no decent lawyer to undertake his case, and then old Goul was sure to ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... proved that every Piper must come from one common stock. Fired by this generous idea, Mr. Cavendish gave himself up to its pursuit with enthusiasm. He would spend whole hours in the Melbourne Library poring over books of heraldry. Every chronological or biographical document bearing upon the age in which Count Piper was supposed to have lived was made the subject of long and minute examination. When the monthly mail day came round ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... Troop headquarters a few days after the discovery of the work of the bill poster. For at least three consecutive afternoons a dozen lads spent their time in the big meeting room on the second floor poring over dry looking pamphlets which bore the stamp of the Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... old gentleman who had become generally disgusted with "dese yere churches roun year." I found him poring over a big, well-worn Bible, the perspiration pouring down his shiny face, and with a big pair of spectacles resting on the tip of his nose. With an air of superior wisdom he surveyed me over the top of the spectacles, and then solemnly stated to the few who gathered around as ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... insight into the end without having studied the means; nor the same love of art without the same habitual and exclusive attachment to it. Painters are, no doubt, often actuated by jealousy to that only which they find useful to themselves in painting. Wilson has been seen poring over the texture of a Dutch cabinet-picture, so that he could not see the picture itself. But this is the perversion and pedantry of the profession, not its true or genuine spirit. If Wilson had never looked at anything but megilps and handling, he never would ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... black boy?" questioned Simpkins respectfully. "Looks as if he might have lived during the eighteenth dynasty." He had not been poring over volumes on Ancient Egypt for two nights without knowing a thing ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... from the kitchen, sir," Hardress said. "She and Miss de Lisle were poring over food—if we get no dinner to-night ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... Sevigne went on to narrate that once, when at Les Rochers, Madame de La Fayette was quite certain that she, Madame de Sevigne, was losing her mind, for no one could live in the provinces and remain sane, poring over stupid books ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the back of the stage showed a solitary figure sitting on a log of wood, poring over the map spread upon his knee, by the light of one candle stuck in a bottle. There could be no doubt who this was, for the buff-and-blue coat, the legs, the nose, the attitude, all betrayed the great George laboring to save his country, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... to paint, and he sat in the studio, silent, occupied with God knows what dreams, or reading. The books he liked were queer; sometimes I would find him poring over the poems of Mallarme, and he read them as a child reads, forming the words with his lips, and I wondered what strange emotion he got from those subtle cadences and obscure phrases; and again I found him absorbed in the detective novels of Gaboriau. I amused myself by thinking ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... inestimable benefit to the student of politics would a few such brief notices be, instead of sending him, as we send him now, to the dreary pages of Hansard! Imagine what a neat system of mnemonics would grow out of the plan, when, instead of poring over interminable columns of tiresome repetition, you had the whole narrative in few words—thus: "Barque Reform, John Russell, commander, lost A.D. 1854 The Commissioners seeing that this vessel was built for the most part of old materials, totally unseaworthy, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... were usually cast and compacted. And as Clerk Henriet went out with the moulds he took a long look through a private spy-hole at the lads of the choir who were sitting in the hall apportioned to their use. They were supposed to be busy with their lessons, and, indeed, a few were poring over their books with some show of studious absorption. But for the most part they were playing at cards and dominos, or, in the absence of the master, sticking intimate pins and throwing about indiscriminate ink, according to the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... such great hardships as the blacking-bottle period in David Copperfield would suggest if taken literally. She used to speak of the future author as always fond of reading, and said he was wont to retire to the top room of the House on the Brook, and spend what should have been his play-hours in poring over his books, or in acting to the furniture of the room the creatures ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... found the strong man poring over the pages of the book in his effort to find the way of life. He explained the gospel and Barretto was soon converted, as was also his sister. His wife held on to her old faith. She would pray, but would use the Crucifix. Finally the husband and sister decided they would burn ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... good custom, and with the exception of one small table near the door every place was occupied. Half-way through my meal I happened to glance in the direction of that empty seat, and saw that it was no longer empty. Poring over the bill of fare with the absorbed scrutiny of one who seeks the cheapest among the cheap was Laploshka. Once he looked across at me, with a comprehensive glance at my repast, as though to say, "It is my two francs ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... follow, for it was only after long argument that he had sheepishly surrendered and agreed to "dress up" at all; she sat with a picture torn from an old magazine across her knees—a color-plate of a dancing girl which she meant to copy for herself—poring over it with shining eyes, her breath coming and going softly between childishly curved lips as she devoured ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... fragments of his poor letter together again, and was still poring over those few detached and mutilated words, which were the very ones his tears had blotted, when there came a warning chink of tea-things on the stairs. He was just able to thrust the pieces back into his pocket, and to fling ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... closely, there is nothing but blustering absurdity; in the other, the poet says not truth; for CONSCIENCE is the conqueror of souls; at least it is the conqueror of mine; and who ever thought it a narrow one?——But this is occasioned partly by poring over the affecting will, and posthumous letter. What an army of texts has she drawn up in array against me in the letter!—But yet, Jack, do they not show me, that, two or three thousand years ago, there were as wicked fellows as ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of the world's ignorance of Shakespeare's life: nay, it is with a mingled thankfulness and sorrowful sympathy that we contemplate them wasting the light of the blessed sun (when it shines in England) and wearing out good eyes (or better barnacles) in poring over sentences as musty as the parchments on which they are written and as dry as the dust that covers them. But although we gladly concede that these labors have resulted in the diffusion of a knowledge of the times ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... with the basest trickery. At the suggestion of the Bishop of Ceuta, Columbus was kept waiting for his answer, and asked to furnish his plans in detail with charts and illustrations. He did so, and while the Council pretended to be poring over these for a final decision, a caravel was sent to the Cape Verde islands to try the route he had suggested,—a trial with the pickings ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... in the succeeding days, to see Agnes poring over advertisements and writing down long lists of suggested enterprises for investigation, enterprises which proved in every case to be in the midst of an already too thickly contested field, or to be hampered by monopoly, or subject to some other vital drawback. There seemed to be a strange dearth ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester |
