"Tantalising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reached the Tanana Crossing. The first five miles was all up-hill, a long, stiff, steady climb to the crest of the mountain that rises just behind the Crossing. We had to take it slowly, with frequent stops, so steep was the grade, and every now and then we got tantalising glimpses through the timber of the scene that spread wider and wider below us. Bend after bend of the Tanana River unfolded itself; the Alaskan range gave peak after peak; there lay Lake Mansfield, deep in its amphitheatre of hills, with the Indian ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... esteem his plays beyond any that have ever been published in our language"; while the fourth quoted with approval Dryden's fine phrase: "Shakespeare was the Man who of all Modern and perhaps Ancient Poets had the largest and most comprehensive Soul." But the avowed principles of these tantalising volumes justify no expectation of finding in them solid information. The biographical cataloguers of the seventeenth century did little more than proclaim Shakespeare and the other great poets of the country to be fit subjects for formal biography as soon as ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... and opened it and looked down the yawning stairway; only the sigh of the wind in the gun-slits occupied the stairway, and the dark was the dark of Genesis. And so again to bed, to lie with his weariness for long forgotten. He found that tantalising fragment return again and again, but fated never to be complete. It seemed, he fancied, something like a symbol of a life—with all the qualities there, the sweetness, the affection, the passion, the divine despair, the longing, even the valours and the faiths to make a great accomplishment, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the latter, for an abundance of beautiful butterflies came from the forest to settle wherever the skins of fruit were thrown. But he wanted to be free, and it was tiresome, he thought, to be so useless and do nothing better than to idle about the camp and watch the cooking—a tantalising matter ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... county. He whistled; and out came Pasiance in a geranium-coloured dress, looking like some tall poppy—you know the slight droop of a poppy's head, and the way the wind sways its stem.... She is a human poppy, her fuzzy dark hair is like a poppy's lustreless black heart, she has a poppy's tantalising attraction and repulsion, something fatal, or rather fateful. She came walking up to my new friend, then caught sight of me, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... whilst the youths of her kindred sing their wild songs around her - the cup of milk and the spoon presented to her by the bridegroom's mother - the arrival of the sages in the morn - the reading of the Ketuba - the night - the half-enjoyment - the old woman - the tantalising knock at the door - and then the festival of fishes which concludes all, and leaves the jaded and wearied couple to repose ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... extravagant cigar cold between his fingers. In others two young men were confabulating quietly but with a most dissipated air, heads together over a brace of glasses. At a corner service table a negro in a white jacket was busy with a silver chafing-dish which exhaled a tantalising aroma. This last, at the entrance of P. Sybarite, glanced quickly over his shoulder, and seeing a strange face, clapped the cover on the steaming chafing-dish and discovered a round black countenance bisected by a complete mouthful of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... in the game, and had assigned to her the duty of occasionally replenishing the glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp from that moment keeping one eye constantly upon her, lest she should by any means procure a taste of the same, and thereby tantalising the wretched old lady (who was as much attached to the case-bottle as the cards) in a double degree ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... whole. If, of all little cities of Provence, Forcalquier is one of the least unique and least holding, its Cathedral is also one of the least satisfying. It is not beautiful in situation nor in its own essential harmony, and the fine but tantalising perspectives of its interior may be ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... sat on the piazza of the hotel nursing his confusion and discontent, Sis Poteet rode by. It was a tantalising vision, though a fleeting one. It seemed to be merely the flash of a red feather, the wave of a white hand, to which Woodward lifted his hat; but these were sufficient. The red feather nodded gaily ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... Ajunjer early, and made five hours only, because to-morrow there is no herbage until late in the evening. How tantalising to be obliged to advance thus by short stages towards an ambuscade! We take things pretty philosophically, however, and make geological observations. Overweg (who begins to show signs of weakness) ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... confirmation of the doubts which troubled her. She wore the Liberty dress of grey velvet, and as she bent over an Arab coffee-table and her pretty hands busied themselves amid the old silver of the tea-service, Flamby made a delectable study which Orlando James who watched her found to be exceedingly tantalising. He flicked cigarette ash on to the floor and admired the creamy curve of Flamby's neck as she lowered her head in the act of ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... dear," laughed Deb, a little queerly, and she returned the baby in order to hunt for her handkerchief. "And if you must know the truth, so do I. It's tantalising to see you with more than your share, while I have none—and never shall have, worse luck! Well"—blowing her nose cheerfully—"it's no use crying over spilt milk, is it? And I tipped the can over myself, so I can't ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... society, she had been so accustomed to it from her earliest days that she had nothing to fear from the novelty of their friendship, or the danger of their compliments. Not prudish, not morbid, not envious, not sentimental, and not indolent, she was perhaps especially endowed for the tantalising career which the stage offers to the ambitious of both sexes. Acting came to her as music comes to the true musician. She never considered whether she would become a great actress or a rejected one: the art in itself was her delight, and she found more ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... and concise—what woman could ask for more? Yet there was something beyond it which was out of Miss Thorne's grasp—a tantalising something, which would not be allayed. Then she reflected that the Summer was before tier, and, in reality, now that she was off the paper, she had no business with other ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... in which we have no share is apt to be either tantalising or monotonous, I propose to skip the next fortnight and introduce myself to the reader at a moment when I am once more alone. It is about six o'clock on a summer afternoon, I am in Paris, and seated at one of the little marble tables of the Cafe de la Paix, dreamily watching ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... would be nothing less than folly to let Adrian and her aunt meet, Rachel decided. In imagination, she could follow the process of his growing dismay; she could see his puzzled stare as he watched Miss Deane, and struggled to fix that tantalising suggestion of likeness to some one he knew; his flash of illumination as he solved the puzzle and turned with that gentle, winning smile of his to herself; and then the progress of his disillusionment ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... bird—watched intently. Decently mannered, it refused to clamber on to the edge of the plate, for it was ever averse from defilement of food. The tit-bit was just beyond avaricious exertions—just at that tantalising distance and just so irresistibly desirable as might be directly stimulative of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... purpose of the Gothic History of Cassiodorus. The book itself has perished—a tantalising loss when we consider how many treatises from the same pen have been preserved to us which we could well have spared. But we can speak, as will be seen from the preceding remarks, with considerable confidence as to its plan and purpose, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... Sometimes my husband could not go with me, sometimes I couldn't go with him, and always we waited for one another in hope, till this last day overtook us. To-morrow (D.V.) we shall be in Paris. Now, will you believe how we have wished and longed to see you beyond these strait tantalising limits?—how you look to us at this moment like the phantasm of a thing dear and desired, just seen and vanishing? What! are you to be ranked among my spiritualities after all? Forgive me ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... he could not alter his nature. He went through his day's work very wretched and dejected, yet with an ineffable touch of secret comfort behind all, which sometimes would look him in the face for a moment like a passing sunbeam, yet sometimes seemed to exasperate beyond bearing the tantalising misery of his fate. A more agitated, disturbed, passionate, and self-consuming man than the doctor was not in Carlingford, nor within a hundred miles; yet it was ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... arms, bare to the shoulder, sparkling with jewels; but never before has he seen their wondrous beauty. He longs to clasp them round his neck, yet is fearful lest his trembling fingers touching them as he performs his tantalising task may offend her. Anne thanks him, and apologises for having given him so much trouble, and he murmurs some meaningless reply, and stands foolishly silent, ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... proceeded on her course, reaching on the 12th September Cape North, within 120 miles of Behring Strait; this cape Cook had reached from the east in 1778. Unfortunately the ice became packed so closely that they could not proceed farther, and they had to remain in this tantalising condition for no less than ten months. On the 18th July 1879 the ice broke up, and two days later the Vega rounded East Cape with flying colours, saluting the easternmost coast of Asia in honour of the completion of the north-east passage. ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... opened and a young lady in a very stunning street dress, with a huge hat and a tantalising veil, stood in it for a moment, hesitated, and then was about to shut it with an apology for ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... rise, with a huge sullen circle dimpling round him, cast over him, raised him, and missed him. The water was perfectly still, and the "plop" made by these fish was very exciting and tantalising. The next that rose took the alder, and, of course, ran right into the broad band of lilies. I tried all the dodges I could think of, and all that Mr. Halford suggests. I dragged at him hard. I gave him line. I sat down and endeavoured to disengage my thoughts, but I never got a glimpse ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... position we would have it distinctly understood that we do not seek alone the sympathy of bachelors, in whose objection to loving couples we recognise interested motives and personal considerations. We grant that to that unfortunate class of society there may be something very irritating, tantalising, and provoking, in being compelled to witness those gentle endearments and chaste interchanges which to loving couples are quite the ordinary business of life. But while we recognise the natural ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... disease is inability to walk, that if he will walk to the water he will get cured, and be able to walk afterwards. Why, he could not even roll himself into the pond, and so there he had lain, a type of the hopeless efforts at self-healing which we sick men put forth, a type of the tantalising gospels which the world preaches to its subjects when it says to a paralysed man: 'Walk that you may be healed; keep the commandments that you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... tells the story of his eager and passionate youth—a youth tossed about by the contending tides of Love, human and divine. Reading it to-day, with a mundane curiosity, we may half regret the space which he gives to theological metaphysics, and his brief tantalising glimpses of what most interests us now—the common life of men when the Church was becoming mistress of the world, when the old Religions were dying of allegory and moral interpretations and occult dreams. But, even so, Saint Augustine's interest ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... of the raiders held the main body of the goats. Parrot Cann, with a bag of cabbages on his shoulder, was the centre of attraction, and the dropping of an occasional leaf kept the goats pushing about him, some uprearing and straining toward the tantalising bag, others baa-ing in his face a piteous appeal. Suddenly, however, an astute billy with a flowing beard came to the rescue. He drove at Cann from the rear with masterly strategy and uncommon force, and brought him down; then in ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... dilemma. Unless we are to conceive that two of the lesser Olympians have been able to combine in adopting a symbolic disguise, either you or I have been deceived. That tantalising visitant can scarcely have been at the same time Psyche ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... think so—really? Ah, yes; you say that. Certainly not! I shouldn't think of it." There followed what I am inclined to believe was intended for a laugh, musical but tantalising. If so, want of practice marred the effort. The performance failed to satisfy even herself. She tried again; it was still only ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... few steps up and down the room. "Listen to me, dear friend," he began, in low, earnest tones. "There was a time—far be it from me to take undue advantage of these reminiscences—when you and I were thrown considerably together. At that time, that far-off, happy, and yet most tantalising time, I was bold enough to cherish certain aspirations." Here he took up his position behind a chair, resting his hands lightly on the back of it. "That those aspirations were not wholly unsuspected by you I ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... Most tantalising was it, however, to them to know that at that season they could not possibly venture across to meet their countrymen. Indeed, the gallant McClure expressly forbade them in the document they had discovered. "Any attempt to send succour will only increase the evil," were his words. The ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the moon presented to our view affords such remarkable indications of volcanic phenomena of a special kind, that we are justified in devoting a chapter to their consideration. It is very tantalising that our beautiful satellite only permits us to look at and admire one half of her sphere; but it is not a very far-fetched inference if we feel satisfied that the other half bears a general resemblance to that which is presented to the earth. It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader why it ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... grew to a certain age. He had now reached that age, but never a rabbit as yet had he encountered. He might even have concluded that the whole Rabbit story was a myth and a legend were it not that certain scents and odours were for ever tantalising his nose that could, his instinct told him, mean Rabbit and only Rabbit. These scents met him at the most tantalising times, pulling him this way and that, exciting the wildest hopes in him, afterwards condemned to ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... this, himself helped the coachman with his own white-gloved hands to put it down. Susie was therefore exposed to the full fury of the blast, and shrank still farther into her corner—an interesting and tantalising object to the school-children, a dark, mysterious combination of fur, cocks' feathers, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... day at Leigh Court surpassed our expectations. Poussin's famous "Land Storm;" "St. John," by Domenichino, the most striking, with a divine head of our SAVIOUR, by Leonardo da Vinci, and many others too tantalising to mention. Mr. King, Emmeline, Mr. Elton, and ourselves, filled the coach. Mr. King in high spirits, talked all the way there and back, and was exceedingly entertaining and instructive. He has great variety of tastes ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... for the moment as if they had been caught in a discussion of a forbidden subject; and then a tingling ran through their veins. Even MTutor for the moment found no fine speech in which to express his sense of this sudden momentary tantalising appearance of the mystic woman standing half visible out of the background of the unknown. He did think some very fine things on the subject after a time, with a side glance of philosophical reflection that ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... bearing of this view is more easily discerned than its metaphysical basis. Individual existence with its tantalising mirage of pleasures being the root of all evil, the first step towards finding a remedy is to recognise this truth, to obtain insight into the heart of things athwart the veil of Maya or delusion. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... very slender feathers—indeed they are as fine as hair-curled coquettishly at each side of his throat, exactly like bands. All the birds were quite tame, and, instead of avoiding us, seemed inclined to examine us minutely. Many of them have English names, which I found very tantalising, especially when, the New Zealand Robin was announced, and I could only see a fat little ball of a bird, with a yellowish-white breast. Animals there are none. No quadruped is indigenous to New Zealand, ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... highest test That her reckoning may bring— When she wants a god or king!— How she reins him and restrains him So his body scarce contains him While she fires him And inspires him! Keeps him yearning, ever burning for a tantalising goal— Lures and lacerates his soul. Sets a challenge for his spirit, Draws it higher when he's near it— Makes a jungle, that he clear it; Makes a desert, that he fear it And subdue it if he can— So doth Nature make a man. Then, to test his spirit's wrath Hurls a mountain in his path— Puts a ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... and there David would listen to torrents of French artistic theory, anecdote, and blague, till his head whirled, and French cleverness—conveyed to him in what, to the foreigner, is the most exquisite and the most tantalising of all tongues—seemed ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Ney Elias favours me with a curious but tantalising communication on this subject: "An old man called on me at Kwei-hwa Ch'eng (Tenduc), who said he was neither Chinaman, Mongol, nor Mahomedan, and lived on ground a short distance to the north of the city, especially allotted to his ancestors by the Emperor, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... this fine book makes us eager to visit every hill and every valley that Mr. Bradley describes with such tantalising enthusiasm. It is a work of inspiration, vivid, sparkling, and eloquent—a deep well of pleasure to every lover ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... forensic pleading that have flung a deathless glory around the names of Russell and Whiteside; but the critic, with a superior toss of his head, assures you that this can be found in Magna Charta and the Statute book. Here is the tantalising ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... very names of their different destinations, and the imagination of the wonders they would see (though we were going to a spot as full of wonders as any), raised something like envy in our breasts, all the more because most of them persisted in tantalising us, in the hospitable fashion of all West Indians, by fruitless invitations to islands and ports, which to have seen were ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... happen) Rose smothered her alarm clock at the first warning snarl. She was wide-awake at once, as are those whose yesterdays, to-days and to-morrows are all alike. Rose never opened her eyes to the dim, tantalising half-consciousness of a something delightful or a something harrowing in store for her that day. For one to whom the wash-woman's Tuesday visitation is the event of the week, and in whose bosom the delivery boy's hoarse "Groc-rees!" ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... fails fully to express the richness of his talent; for the truth is that he was a great Was and also a great Might-have-been. He said what he had to say, and yet not all he had to say. Wild pictures, possible stories, tantalising and attractive trains of thought, perspectives of adventure, crowded so continually upon his mind that at the end there was a vast mass of them left over, ideas that he literally had not the opportunity to develop, tales that he literally ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... interrupted Charley, with a tantalising drawl, "May is my valentine. Come on, now, which do you choose—Nannie or Alida? Ben is good-natured; he'll ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... numbers on one side of the street, and the evens on the other, is an advance in the right direction. Still, the fixing of the diminutive figure plate on the sideposts of a door, or, as is frequently found to be the case, in the shadow of a porch, is very tantalising, especially to the stranger. Householders should see that the No. is placed in a conspicuous spot, and have the figures painted so that they can be well seen even ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... and haunch of venison—what a good dinner!' says Tenniel, reading menu. Tantalising to Tom Taylor, who has to dine elsewhere; and Thackeray leaves early, to go to an 'episcopal tea-fight,' as he tells us—a jump 'from lively to severe,' to Fulham Palace ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... "Sold" rang out, he followed it with "5,000 at 24, 23, 22, 20." Neither Barry Conant nor any of his lieutenants got in a "Take it"; although whether they wanted to or not was an open question until Bob allowed his voice to dwell just a pendulum swing of time on the 20. It was as if he were tantalising them into sticking by their guns. By the time he paused, Barry Conant's nerve was back, for his piercing "Take it" had linked to it "20 for any part of 10,000." The bid was yet on his lips when Bob's ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... insidiously arisen for a sacrifice—a sacrifice for the sake of a fine superstition, something like honour or kindness or justice, something indeed perhaps even finer still—a difficult deciphering of duty, an impossible tantalising wisdom. Standing there before his ambiguous treasure and losing himself for the moment in the sense of a dawning complication, he was startled by a light, quick tap at the door of his sitting-room. Instinctively, before answering, he listened an instant—he was in the attitude ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... misery wondering whether Will's marriage will come off or if, at the last moment, it will be broken. He has been obsessing me these last days. He too—I am certain of it—dreads the Irrevocable, and regrets the rupture between us. I dream of him continually—such restless, tantalising dreams. And yet my mood is so contradictory. If the marriage WERE broken off and he stood before ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... much better tonight now that I know there is nothing seriously wrong with my precious darling!" she said, returning beside him to the drawing-room and tantalising him with brief glances from her shy, ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... much—bad—bad—no good for Christian man. Indian song no good for white ears." This was very tantalising, as their songs sounded very sweetly from the lips of their squaws, and I had a great desire and curiosity to get some ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... my arm, and begged me not to turn, for "it was not the thing." What "the thing" was, I never could find out, but it must have been something eminently dull and tiresome. However, we all sat eyes right, square front, gazing at the tantalising curtain, and hardly speaking intelligibly, we were so afraid of being caught in the vulgarity of making any noise in a place of public amusement. Mrs Jamieson was the most fortunate, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... swept across the face of the woman, who was absolutely on the wrong tack, as she sidled so near that her bare limbs almost touched the flowing cloak which swept round the man. His mind was full of his exquisite, delicate, tantalising, fastidious wife, his body ached for her, his soul fainted for even a touch of her little hand, so that once again he raised his right hand as though to sweep away some pestilential insect from his path, just one little careless gesture which ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... standing at the kerb-stone, beside his car, when a tall young lady, fashionably attired and using a sunshade to tantalising advantage, crossed the road in front of him and stopped before one of the office windows. She stepped back a little, looked up at the sign over the doorway, "The Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation," and ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... in the traditions of the wardroom, took the wind out of his sails. He decided that she had been making a fool of him and that he had been wasting his time. With a desperate attempt at preserving his dignity he took her back to Maple's, conscious all the time, of her tantalising beauty. He had planned a formal goodbye; but when he told her that his ship was sailing on the next day, she said, quite simply and with an unusual tenderness in her eyes that she was sorry. "If only you meant what you say..." ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... common throughout the North-west. It is a wary, restless little beast, and requires good shooting, for it does not afford much of a mark. When disturbed they keep constantly shifting, not going far, but hovering about in a most tantalising way. Natives it cares little for, unless it be a shikari with a gun, of which it seems to have intuitive perception; but the ordinary cultivator, with his load of wood and grass, may approach within easy shot; therefore it is not ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the climax of a long series of disappointments, all of a character so painful and exciting, drove the young soldier again to despair; which feeling the tantalising sense that he was now within but a few miles of his companions in exile, and separated from them only by the single obstruction before him, exasperated into a species of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... minded to tell you before," Aunt Matilda resumed, with tantalising deliberation, "but you've had your nose in that fool paper all day, and whenever I spoke to you you told me not to interrupt. Literary folks is terrible afraid of bein' interrupted, I've heard, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... here are, as a rule, keen sportsmen and honest men, meaning that they are glad whenever they can assist another in securing the recreation which makes fishermen kin all the world over. My chief trouble was that I could make no manner of use of a tantalising list of kindly invitations to cast a fly in Long Island. Then there is another and smaller island at a greater distance, Martha's Vineyard, beloved of old whalers, where there are well stocked trout streams; but it goes quite without saying that all the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... about half-way to Gavarnie, a fine, though tantalising view of the Breche is obtained. I gazed at the object of my expedition with anxious eyes, wondering how I was to get to its cloud land amidst the eternal snow-crowned Tours de Marbore; and I longed for the wings of one of the many eagles ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... whole oratorio full of them, that one can never catch and fix upon ruled paper. The idea's there, such a beautiful and vague idea, so familiar to one, but so utterly unrealisable on any known instrument—a sort of musical Ariel, flitting before one and tantalising one for ever, but never allowing one to come up with it and see its real features. I'm always dissatisfied with what I've actually written, and longing to crystallise into a score the imaginary airs I can never ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... themselves did not despond, nor did their men, who looked to them for example, do so either. Murray calculated that if they could but get a breeze, they might reach the port for which they were steering in less than twenty-four hours. It was very tantalising to be so near it, and yet not to be able to get there. Had they had any fish-hooks, they would, they thought, be able to catch some fish, but none were to be found, nor had they a file with which to manufacture any out of old nails, as they ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... were exposed. Poor Mrs Twopenny was the only invalid, she constantly requiring the doctor's attention. Thus day after day passed away, Paul Lizard in vain trying to catch a porpoise or dolphin, or some other fish. Their dark backs were frequently seen as they swam by at a tantalising distance, and sometimes a whole shoal would appear, by the curious way in which they rose and sank as they darted forward near the surface, making it seem as if they were performing somersaults in the water. Willy could scarcely believe that they only rose to breathe, and that their backs but slightly ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... letter was very interesting to me, but the glimpses into your new views which it affords are very tantalising—and I want more. What you say about the development of the Amnion in your last letter still more nearly brought "Donner und Blitz!" to my lips—and I shall look out anxiously for your new facts. Lankester tells me you have been giving ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... convincing proof of the prevalence and popularity of the ballad in Scotland in the period of Chaucer—and nothing also could be more tantalising to the ballad-hunter—than Barbour's remark in his Brus, that it is needless for him to rehearse the tale of Sir John Soulis's victory over the English ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... pursuit of the original animal, their patience was splendidly rewarded, a pair of okapi making their appearance at the drinking-pool, very late, after all the other animals had come and gone again. There was an exciting and tantalising ten minutes while these animals stood in the full light of the moon and drank, one of them being immediately behind the other, so that it was impossible to shoot both. Then the male, having drunk his fill before his mate had quite finished, wheeled and moved a yard or two. As he did so, the hammers ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... him within the sphere of his new-found divinity? Most probably not. Life has so many of these tantalising half-glimpses, which are never anything more. 'If she is Humpage's daughter,' he thought, 'I'm afraid it's hopeless; but she shall not pass out of my life if I can help it!' and so he dreamed through the sermon, with the vicar's high cracked voice forming a gentle clacking accompaniment, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... the dorsal fin, defied the efforts of the shark to disengage him, although he rolled over and over, lashing the water with his tail until it foamed all round.' After such a spirited combat, it is somewhat tantalising to read, that the final result could not clearly be made out; it is scarcely possible, however, not to wish success ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... books about Delhi are even more tantalising and unsatisfactory than those which deal with Agra. Mr. Beglar's contribution to Vol. IV of the Archaeological Survey Reports is a little, but very little, better than Mr. Carlleyle's disquisition on Agra in that volume. Sir A. Cunningham's observations in the first and twentieth ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to go upstairs, and Betty crossing the threshold stood a moment irresolute. Her basket, full of purchases recently made at the shop a mile away, was heavy enough, and her feet were weary; but Jenny's tantalising red head gleamed like a beacon twenty yards away from her, and curiosity silenced the pleadings of fatigue. Hitching up her basket she proceeded in the wake of the young couple, who were walking ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... I fear your ridicule more than that of others? You are brighter, more bewitching, more tantalising than any woman I have ever known—you are maddening—do you hear? Ah, I crave your pardon for so far forgetting myself as to dwell upon a matter which I should have forgotten in your displeasure. By the way, I should like to tell you why I will not accommodate these young ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... or Casanova, and so indecent, and compromise so many people, that we must be content to look at his life through an impenetrable veil. Then in the letters and diary the perpetual hiatus, and asterisks, and initials are exceedingly tantalising; but altogether it is very amusing. As to Byron, I have never had but one opinion about his poetry, which I think of first-rate excellence; an enormous heresy, of course, more particularly with those whose ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... was not easily allayed. She sat down beside her spouse, and plied him with numerous questions, to which Okiok gave her brief and very tantalising replies until he was gorged, when, throwing down the platter, he turned abruptly to ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... of her, the more effectually he came under her spell. Each day found her in some new and tantalising mood; and as she drew him more and more into her toils, she kept him there by her ingenuity in devising novel pleasures and entertainments for him, until, within a month of setting eyes on her, he was telling Madame de ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... mile north-east where we had to proceed without our packhorse down the creek a considerable distance without noting the distance, as I was too thirsty. As the birds were very numerous here, we were convinced that we were near water. The continual noise they made was more tantalising than can well be conceived: it sounded to us like, "We know where there is water, but you foolish fellows cannot find it." About one mile further down the creek we came upon a hole very recently dry, in the ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... than they are now," Gladys observed. "Au revoir." And with one of those tantalising and perplexing smiles, with which some women, consciously or unconsciously, counteract—and sometimes, perhaps, for reasons best known to themselves—completely nullify the needless severity of their speech, shook hands with Shiel, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... himself with rage as they deftly escape from his clasp just as he fancies he has at last caught them. The fair nymphs, who know they have nothing to fear from so infatuated a lover, swim hither and thither, tantalising him by their nearness, and lure him up and ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... pirouetted, whirling, around the room, waving her arms like a graceful butterfly skimming over flowers. Faster and faster she went, seeming scarcely to touch the tips of her toes to the floor, and smiling at Kenneth like a tantalising fairy. ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... whispered. He was seated on a part of the rock which jutted out a little lower than her resting-place, and he was so close as to be almost touching her. He could look up under the brim of that tantalising hat, which so often hid her from his view as they walked. He was quivering with excitement at this moment, the result of the thought of a kiss—and his blue eyes blazed with desire as ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... but it is open to many objections. Unfortunately Wordsworth was not himself consistent—in the various editions issued by himself—either in the class into which he relegated each poem, or the order in which he placed it there. There is tantalising topsy-turvyism in this, so that an editor who adopts it is almost compelled to select Wordsworth's latest grouping, which ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... him, helpless, tantalising, unapproachable, in her childlike dignity. Her head was dazed and throbbing. Her knees shook under her so persistently that she gave it up at last, and sank down in the road, covering her face ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... refreshments. Captain Mitchel, the captain of the Gloucester, was under a necessity of detaining both this boat and that sent the preceding day; for without the help of their crews he had no longer strength enough to navigate the ship. In this tantalising situation the Gloucester continued for near a fortnight, without being able to fetch the road, though frequently attempting it, and at some times bidding very fair for it. On the 9th of July we observed her stretching ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... would not have owned this for the world, and she was vexed and mortified by the conviction, but yet at the bottom of her heart, being not at all so bad as she wished to believe she was, felt a sense of consolation and relief, which made it at once easier and more tantalising ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... branch to branch, or swooping with ungainly flight almost on his head, meanwhile hurling at him a thousand abuses. Unless he quickly regained his refuge in the gorse, the blackbirds and the thrushes would join in the tantalising mockery, till it seemed that the whole countryside was aroused by the cry of "Fox! fox!" After such an adventure, it needed the quiet and solitude of night to restore his peace of mind; and even when he had escaped the din, and lay in his ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... trial of Dr. Sacheverel—went sorely against the grain with him.[A] The fact was that things at the Hay market were not flourishing, and the prosperity enjoyed by the Drury Lane comedy—and the Sacheverel show—seemed tantalising to bear. ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... of this rather tantalising trait in her character she was popular—every one liked her, for her natural kindness of heart, combined with great charm of manner and more than ordinary good looks, made her gladly ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... there seems to me more chance of the convention coming from Arab and Hebrew poetry than from any other source. But in the Arabian Nights at least, though there are lustful murderesses—eastern Margarets of Burgundy, like Queen Labe of the Magicians,—there is seldom any "cruelty," or even any tantalising, on ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... of the Court. As Raleigh afterwards said, the education of his youth was a training in the arts of a gentleman and a soldier. But it extended further than this—it embraced an extraordinary knowledge of the sea, and in particular of naval warfare. It is tantalising that we have but the slenderest evidence of the mode in which this particular schooling was obtained. The western ocean was, all through the youth of Raleigh, the most fascinating and mysterious of the new fields which were being thrown open to English enterprise. He was a babe when Tonson came ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Dick, after they had sat staring at the beautiful but tantalising scene for full five minutes, "it's no use meeting trouble halfway, or wondering how we are going to get across the bridge until we come to it; let's push on and get as close up as we can; then we'll get ashore, walk ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... potentiality of developing, when fourteen or fifteen movements occur per minute, about one horse-power. A cradle containing 200 tons, as may therefore be imagined, can be made to afford very material assistance in helping forward a sailing ship during a calm. In such tantalising weather the "ground-swell" of the ocean usually carries past a becalmed vessel more waste energy than is ever utilised by its sails in the briskest and most ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... head with a tantalising laugh. "That you are coming? Alas, no, poor angel! She fancies that she has been sent from the convent to avoid you—as indeed she was, and by the Reverend Mother's own order, who, it seems, had wind of the intrigue this morning. But, the saints be praised, the excellent sister who was ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton |
