"Listener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that, being an appeal to the imagination of others, every form of literature, every "deed of speech," as a friend of mine calls it, has a natural stage in the mind of the reader or the listener. Milton, let me point out, makes "gorgeous Tragedy in sceptred pall," sweep across, not the planks of a theatre, but the scholar's thought as he sits alone with his book of nights. Neither is this ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... became distinct again whether because the other two had insensibly raised their voices, or because Tommy's ears were getting more attuned, he could not tell. But two words certainly had a most stimulating effect upon the listener. They were uttered by Boris and they ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... own. One evening, as I was sitting, a little apart from the rest, with two men of the London world, to whose talk—for it ran upon the on-dits and anecdotes of a region long strange to me—I was a silent but amused listener, one of the two said: "Well, I don't know anywhere a more excellent creature than Lady Castleton: so fond of her children, and her tone to Castleton so exactly what it ought to be,—so affectionate, and yet, as it were, respectful. And ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... instinctively leads us to seek to come near those who are its objects. A man tells his friend some sad story of his sufferings, and while he speaks, unconsciously his listener lays his hand on his arm, and, by a silent pressure, speaks his sympathy. So Christ did with these men—not only in order that He might reveal God to us, but because He was a man, and therefore felt ere He thought. Out flashed from His heart the swift sympathy, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... set forth his tale, had a feeling that not all of it was new to his listener, but he hearkened attentively to all that the boy had to say, frowning when he heard of Anthony ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... to talk to himself when he was little, but one day his mother said to him jokingly, "Don't you know that he who talks to himself has the devil for a listener?" and after that he never dared whisper above his breath when he was alone, though his father and mother had both taught him that there was no devil but his own evil will. He shuddered when he heard a dog ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... laughed as he entered the car and straightway began an investigation of its machinery. Now any boy is proud to teach another something he wants to know and does not, so by the time the car was thoroughly explained any listener would have ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the force of music can no further go than Madame Morlot, and, behold, Herr Driesbach has knocked out that underpinning. I am bewildered, and I say, helplessly, "What shall I admire and be a la mode?" But if it is so disheartening to me, who am only a passive listener, what must be the agonies of the dramatis personae? "Hang it!" says Charles Lamb, "how I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!" And do Nancie, Harriette, and Herr Driesbach like it any less? What shall avenge them for their spretae injuria ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... darkly blue water, until it whistled among the masts of the boats at anchor and among the stovepipe chimneys of the fishing village. It was a wind that sang and piped and keened of many things—but what it sang to each listener was only what was in that listener's heart. And Nora Shelley, standing at the door of her father's bleached cottage on the grey sands, heard a new strain in it. The wind had sung often to her of the outer world she longed ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... decided voice just behind them, and the quartette jumped nervously at the unexpected sound, for not one of them was aware of the hidden listener. ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... but the listener had heard enough. He had to get away and think, could no longer listen; indeed, the voices of the three blackguards below came but indistinctly to his ears, as if from a distance. He was sick at heart and ablaze with indignation by turns. Unconsciously ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... grave and sad, as he stood listening. It was possible to hear almost all the prayer through the red baize door, and the words, hackneyed though they were, and almost absurd in their pious sing-song, had a naif impressiveness and, to the listener, an intense pathos. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... an amused listener of the preceding dialogue, soon followed, first inquiring into the condition of his faithful Sambo, who, on examination, was found to have been stunned by the violence of the blow he had received. This, Gerald doubted ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Hugh's listener moved as if to touch him. A boat was coming by. They paused in their "thort-ships" walk and with a slight choke in her voice Ramsey asked: "You know what I hope?" Her voice went lower. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... The drunken listener chuckled, and the words broke the spell of supernatural terror which had hung over Andy; he knew, by the words of the speaker, it was the bully joker of the election was present, who browbeat O'Grady and out-quibbled the agent about the oath ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... receptive to information, she was the best of listeners, in an intelligent way, as Mr. Clemcy moved about from object to object explaining his collection. He seemed perfectly absorbed in it, and, as the girls began to notice, in his listener as well. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... very common sense indeed," shouted the bad listener; "why, this is a soldier; a brute whose business is to kill men, not cure them." He added in very tolerable French, "Woe be to you, unlearned man, if you come between a physician and his patient; and woe be to you, misguided youth, if you listen ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... silent, and her husband resumed his efforts until the door-knob, unused to such treatment, came off in his hand. A sudden scrambling noise on the cellar stairs satisfied the listener that he had not pulled ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... was pouring heavily and I took shelter. I felt calmer; I had unpacked myself of words. Rather mournfully I now looked out into the night, and, as it were, ceased to speak to it, and became a listener. A song of sorrow came from the city, the wailing of mothers uncomforted, of children orphaned, uncared for, of forsaken ones. I heard again the old reproach of the children sitting in the market. "Here surely," I said, ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... F.L. Ritter, in one of his excellent lectures on music, says, "Beethoven's compositions appeal to the whole being of the listener. They captivate the whole soul, and, for the time being, subdue it to an intense, powerful, poetical influence, impressing it with melancholy, sorrow, and sadness, elevating it heavenwards in hopeful ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... chest protector!" cried Mr. Damon, who had come in and had been a silent listener to this. "Can it ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of towns-people of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is made in the following pages to present an argument for woman suffrage. No careful observer of the modern trend of human affairs, doubts that "governments of the people" are destined to replace the monarchies of the world. No listener will fail to hear the rumble of the rising tide of democracy. No watcher of events will deny that the women of all civilized lands will be enfranchised eventually as part of the people entitled to give consent and no American possessed of political foresight doubts woman suffrage in our land ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... I, detaining her, 'I should not dare to again address you after the repulse of last night, had I not just now been an inadvertent, but delighted listener to your own sweet confession that you loved me. Let me say in return that I love you as wildly, tenderly, passionately, as if I, like you, had been born under a southern sun; that I cannot be happy without you. Forgive me for last night. It was not that my heart was cold, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... intermingling, Murmuring in their mazy winding, All the steeped senses blinding, Their intricate courses wending, Closer still the streams are blending. Down the rapid channel rushing, Floods of melody are gushing; Flush the tender rills with gladness, Drown the listener in sweet madness. Onward sweeps the eddying singing, Ever new enchantment bringing. Break the bubbles on the river, Faints the wearied sound in darkness; But, as one that always hearkens, Floats the charmed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... of air from the one pass into the other, if blown separately the tone of each is clear; blown together there is practically no sound heard, the waves of the one streaming into the other, and a listener hears only the rushing of the air. That the conditions which produce sound are all present may be demonstrated by conveying a tube from the mouth of either of the pipes to a listener's ear, when its tone will be distinctly heard. In other words, one sound destroys the other. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... although he knew the listener couldn't see it. But he knew the other was grinning, too. "I humbly beg your ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... stranger held her audience spell-bound with her eloquence, in a voice whose pathos thrilled every heart. Her husband, hat and cane in hand, remained standing, leaning against a pillar near the altar, and seemed a most delighted, nay, reverential listener. It was a scene never to be forgotten, and one of the most pleasing incidents ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... later, in our friend the cobbler we found a more sympathetic listener. "Dame! I also used to beat my wife," he said, contemplatively, as he scratched his herculean head, "but that was when I was a Christian, when I went to confession; for the confessional was made for that, c'est pour laver le linge sale des consciences, ca" (interjecting his epigram). "But now—now ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... midnight, the impression came upon him that he could hear a lion far away, seeming to make the earth quiver beneath him by giving forth in the fierce beast's strangely ventriloquial way its awe-inspiring roar, so puzzling to the listener as to whether it is far off or near. And even in his dreamy state West found himself doubting that it could be a lion's roar that he heard so near to where civilisation had driven off most of the savage beasts of the plain. But the roar ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... it was not—and told a wily tale of having been directed to a logging camp where hands were needed, of alighting at the wrong station and losing his way in an attempted short cut through the woods. Meanwhile his listener, a man of weather-beaten face and a great shock of gray hair, observed him with shrewd attention. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... sanctify the previous steps thereto—her face again lit up with a glow of pride, as though she were already the powerful patrician's wife. And revelling in such dreams, she saw not the agony which overspread her listener's face as he read her thoughts partly awrong, and believed her content to throw herself away forever, in order to gain some temporary exaltation as a wealthy ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... reader and her listener, both of whom were sitting on the floor, was instantaneous. Each started and sat rigidly intent for a moment; then, as the sound of approaching footsteps became audible, one girl hastily slipped a little volume under the counterpane of the bed, while the other sprang ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... mankind had ever written or dreamed about the Mediterranean, the doctor had in his library and could repeat to his eager little listener. In Ferragut's estimation the mare nostrum ["Mare Nostrum" (Our Sea), the classic name for the Mediterranean.] was a species of blue beast, powerful and of great intelligence—a sacred animal like the dragons and serpents that certain religions adored, believing ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... home-thrust pass. "Who ever hearn tell of a good teacher that wasn't a fine thrasher in the bargain?" She swung the chair about with a pivotal motion, as if she were addressing an assemblage instead of a single listener, and then, bethinking herself of a clinching illustration, she called aloud to her daughter to ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... An' syne she rase, an' pu'd at something sma', A glintin' gowan, or maybe a blade O' the dead grass," and glided silent forth, Over the low stone wall by two old steps, And round the corner, and was seen no more. The clang of hoofs and sound of carriage wheels Arose and died upon the listener's ear. ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... availed the count his self-deceit; For there was one who spake of it unsought; The sheperd-swain, who to allay the heat, With which he saw his guest so troubled, thought: The tale which he was wonted to repeat — Of the two lovers — to each listener taught, A history which many loved to hear, He now, without ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... different tone, Mr. Mayhew informed his young listener that a section of cadets would board the "Farnum" at eleven that morning, another section at three in the afternoon, and a third ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... Grace's last remark. She wished to see if the name "Mabel" made any impression upon her listener, and therefore kept her eyes fixed ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... was too great, the relief too absolute for credence. He, the listener at the grotto? He, the avenger of the family's honour? He, the insurer of little Roger's continuance with the family at a cost the one who loved him best would rather have died himself than pay? Yes! there is no misdoubting this old servitor's attitude of abject appeal, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... light. Long talks between the patient and his friend Were frequent, and they heeded not my presence. Little by little Percival soon told The story that you've heard, and more which you May never hear in earthly interviews. An eager listener, I would treasure up Each word, each look; and on my soul at last Dawned the pure ray by which I saw those traits, The spirit's own, that harmonized so well With all the outward showed of good and noble. Strange that he took no notice of the way My very life was drifting! But to ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... much to both, and they were excited and enthusiastic over it. Our friend was giving many personal reminiscences of Dvorak, and his method of explaining the way he wanted his work done. I was sitting by, an interested listener, for some time. On getting up at last, and going into the drawing-room, I was startled and somewhat frightened to find a man standing there in a shadowy part of the room. I saw him distinctly, and could describe his appearance accurately. I called out, and the two men ran ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... Mary caught sight of him, and her face went flaming. She caught her companion's arm, and they hurried down the road at a great pace.... She had never chattered to him. Always he had done the talking, and she had been an obedient grateful listener. Nor did he quarrel with her silence, but her reserve shocked him—it was a pretense, worse, a lie, a masked and hooded falsehood. She had surrendered to him willingly, and yet drew about her a protective armor of reserve wherein ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... the president and his Manager did most of the talking. The engineer was, for the most part, a silent listener. When appealed to directly he answered briefly, giving such information as he had at his command, and several times his answers caused Greenfield to look ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... not look down to see how wide his listener's eyes grew as he answered: "Oh, I ain't fittin' to be no he'p to you, suh. Fust thing, I ain't nevah got religion, an' then ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... A keen listener would have noticed an odd something in Mr. Smith's voice; but Mrs. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... But it has been well observed,(527) that it is dangerous to him who employs it, as being directly opposed to humility. The satirist places himself above that which he ridicules, and makes himself the judge: the humility of the listener is laid aside; the selfish belief of his own infallibility is fostered; forbearance and sympathy are laid aside. The critic argues, the satirist only laughs. Pity may be compatible with humour, but only contempt with satire. Voltaire was by nature a satirist; ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... had been a silent and attentive listener. All through the solemnities of the sermon, that seemed written for his sake, and to point right at him, he had never moved his keen, steady eyes away from the preacher's face. The text of that sermon he was not likely to forget. He had looked it up, and read it, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... He had a way of saying a word or two and then pausing as though to take breath, which demanded great patience of a listener. ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... important distinction between a great book and a little book than this—that the great book is always a listener before a human life, and the little book takes nothing for granted of a reader. It does not expect anything of him. The littler it is, the less it expects and the more it explains. Nothing that is really great and living ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... words. They crisped and crackled like electric sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated, as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors. The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... failed as an instrumentalist he took delight in hearing music, and was always an appreciative yet critical listener to what was good and tuneful. His favourite composers were Mendelssohn—whose Lieder he was specially fond of[1]—Chopin, and Mozart. He heard Gounod's Faust whilst he was in Paris, and confesses to having been ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... took little part in the discussions, but sat an amused listener. Mary had been the recognized leader of her set at Girton; her real earnestness and the fact that she intended to go abroad to fit herself the better to carry out her theories, but making her a power among the others. Much ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... despite her age, climbed the steps violently, and burst with equal violence into the parlour, where she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty fireplace. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at Constance, who had been standing near the door in the attitude of a shocked listener. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... It was late in September and somewhat early in the day for actors to be abroad, a circumstance which invites speculation. Attention to their conversation, which was marked by the habitual humility, would have convinced the listener (who is always welcome) that both had enjoyed a successful season on the road, although closing somewhat prematurely on account of miserable booking, and that both had received splendid "notices" ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... first time in years, a man's companionship. Charity had only a dim understanding of her guardian's needs; but she knew he felt himself above the people among whom he lived, and she saw that Lucius Harney thought him so. She was surprised to find how well he seemed to talk now that he had a listener who understood him; and she was equally struck ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... a great deal of curiosity also. He had heard the screaming of Blacky the Crow and Sammy Jay, and he had listened until he couldn't stand it another minute. He just had to know what it was all about. So at the same time Farmer Brown's boy started for the Green Forest, this other listener started towards the place where Blacky and Sammy were making such a racket. He walked very softly so as not to make a sound. It ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... complete surprise on her listener, who now for the first time began to understand the reason of the estrangement of mother and daughter. But Constance was allowed to finish her speech without interruption. She said more than she had meant to say, but her feelings ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... old piece by Mozart or Bach, some minuet of Haydn's, some romance of Beethoven's, which he would play with no great power of execution, indeed, but with a rare sweetness and delicacy of touch and expression, and with an intense absorption in the music, which communicated itself to even so small a listener ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... other man returned to the tiny library they had just vacated. The girl was standing within precisely as when they had left and, as Armstrong did not close the door, the visitor knew to a certainty that his presence as listener and spectator was intentional. It was all a premeditated scene, the ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... part of the good abbe's words, however, were wholly incomprehensible to him; but, like the aurora which guides the navigator in northern latitudes, opened new vistas to the inquiring mind of the listener, and gave fantastic glimpses of new horizons, enabling him justly to estimate the delight an intellectual mind would have in following one so richly gifted as Faria along the heights of truth, where he was so much ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... interest. This she supplied by taking him to ground with which he was perfectly familiar, for she asked him to tell her something about university life in Germany. On such a theme he could converse well, and before long a fire of eager questions proved that he had not only a deeply interested listener but also a ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... that fairy music, So jubilant those bells, How days and weeks and months go by No happy listener tells! The toad-stools are with sweetmeats spread, The new Moon lends her light, And ringers small Wait, one and all, To ring with all their might— D! DI! DIN! DING! And welcome ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... took place in his early years, but he lost his reckoning many times a day upon what was going on in the town. He loved to tell stories, and Paul was a willing listener. Pleasant winter-evenings they had in the old kitchen, the hickory logs blazing on the hearth, the tea-kettle singing through its nose, the clock ticking soberly, the old Pensioner smoking his pipe in the arm-chair, Paul's mother knitting,—Bruno ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... ministers talking earnestly and turned toward Mrs. Wentz. The fur-trader's wife was glowing with pleasure. She held in her hand several rude trinkets, and was explaining to her listener, a young woman, that the toys were for the children, having been brought all the ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... or chocolate, and amuse themselves over the fire with Punch, or some warlike novel in a green or yellow cover. One of them very often read aloud to the rest; and Eric, being both a good reader and a merry intelligent listener, soon became quite a favourite among the ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... ticket, too, and rather despising Pestler, who got his theatre tickets free because he allowed the managers the use of his windows for advertisements. Felix forgave even his frozen roses whenever the Scotchman, having found a sympathetic listener, launched out upon his earlier experiences among opera stars, especially his acquaintance with Patti, whom he had known before she became great and whom he always spoke of as devotees do of the Madonna—with ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a splendid listener." He laughed. "You'll find that out for yourself, I fancy. And I know she likes people to talk to her—when they have anything to say. Tell her things; ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... his odd old wife, who manifested her growing regard for him by little touches of adornment in his room, and by infrequent confidences. As for the Judge, he took an immense delight in the young fellow, he made such a capital listener. Between Bradley and the grocery he really found opportunity to tell all his old stories and philosophize upon every conceivable subject. He talked a deal of politics, quoting Jefferson and Jackson. He criticised members of Congress, and told what he would have done in their places. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... the room, the young Russian colonel had withdrawn himself to a remote part of the room, and taken the most lively interest in the scene acted before him. A word from him would have brought the whole affair to an end, for, as an involuntary listener, he had heard all that had transpired concerning the cannoneer. Consequently he knew exactly the hiding-place in which the latter had been concealed. But it had never come into his mind to play the informer and traitor. ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... a man can always speak when he means it; and my listener's face showed that my words had gone where meant words always go—home to the heart. But he merely nodded at me. His nod, however, telling as it did of a quickly established accord between us, caused me to bring out to this new acquaintance still more of ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... much more of this and the listener on the dining room couch heard it all. He remained on that couch until Miss Cash, at the back door of the ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... anxiety to be rid of him at that point now ensued. A figure apparently rose from the earth beside her. The shape beyond all doubt was Troy's. Oak would not be even a possible listener, and at once turned back till a good two hundred yards were between the lovers ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... precepts describe accurately the most striking points of difference between perfect singing and bad singing, so far as the effect on the listener is concerned. Modern teachers are thoroughly familiar with the highest standards of the vocal art; they fully appreciate how well the precepts describe the perfection of singing. Through long continued ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... had at first seemed to be, in the farmhouse where he had taken up his lodgings. For, there was the Hospital and its old inhabitants, in whose monotonous existence he soon came to pass for something, with his liveliness of mind, his experience, his good sense, his patience as a listener, his comparative youth even—his power of adapting himself to these stiff and crusty characters, a power learned among other things in his political life, where he had acquired something of the faculty ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cedar-bird throws a mystery about him which neither his good looks nor his petty larcenies in cheery time can dispel. A bird's song contains a clew to its life, and establishes a sympathy, an understanding, between itself and the listener. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... had anything to do with the higher diplomacy is aware that diplomatic language stands in a class by itself. It is a language specially designed to deceive the chance listener. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... was I the recipient of his thoughts, walking with him up and down the lawn in front of the cottage buildings of an evening, when he would try to talk himself clear. You may imagine what a willing listener I was, whatever he chose to talk upon, and he often spoke very freely to me, I being for a long time his only resident white companion. It was not long before I felt I knew his father well, and reverenced him deeply. He never was tired of talking ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... continuing my reminiscences. Garrulity is not merely the prerogative of age; the privilege of the monologue is always that of the old boy who comes back to his childhood's home and finds in a pretty girl a charming and attentive listener. He is a poor orator, indeed, who cannot improve such opportunities. At a convenient lull in the flow of discourse we went off to ride, exploring the country roads I knew so well, and here began new matter and new reminiscences, patiently endured by ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... but she put everything right back into the firm," said Mrs. Kippam. "Lots of her old friends went back on her for doing it," the little woman went on, in a burst of loyal anger. "However," she added, very much enjoying her listener's close attention, "I declare my luck seemed to change the day she took hold! First thing was that her friends, and a lot that weren't her friends, came here out of curiosity, and that advertised the place. Then she slaves day and ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... you all about it; Aunt Jo won't mind;" and Demi settled himself on the opposite bed, glad to tell his favorite story to so good a listener. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... The listener tasked herself to the utmost to catch his answer, but it was in vain. Of the remainder of the colloquy one fact alone was plain to Anne, and that only inductively—that Miss Aldclyffe, from what he had revealed to her, was going to scheme body ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... was a bit of dingy veiling attached to the front of her old-fashioned hat, and Wyn saw her pull this down quickly over her face. The listener knew why, and she had to wink her own eyes hard to keep ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... Edmund's visit, and was nearly as much surprised at seeing him as he was at finding himself in the handsome, heavily-furnished room in Princes Gate. Stout, over fifty, and clumsily wigged, it rarely enough happened to Lady Dawning to find not only a sympathetic listener but an eager inquirer into those romantic days when love's young dream for her cousin Johnny Dexter was stifled by parental authority: "And it all ended in my becoming Lady Dawning." A sigh of satisfaction concluded the episode of ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... listener to Fanny's gay badinage, laughing merrily at the idea of Lucy's taking old women out to air and clothing her children in party dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said, was that she was a pretty, but frivolous, plaything, and it showed upon his face as he asked the question ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... them to break an inc case wide open, do you?" INC was the International Narcotics Control agency of the F. N. But the conversation would have sounded like an innocent discussion of shipping difficulties to any chance listener ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... a secret weight in her bosom. She always opens up her heart to the nearest listener. This probably relieves Aggie, but it does not make her a cheerful companion. Eight o'clock and darkness came, and still no Tish. I went into the cave and brought out my gun, and Aggie roused Mr. Muldoon and explained the situation to him. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... occupation she was addicted to sudden and silent appearances, much after the manner of materialized spirits, at windows opening into the hall, and doors carelessly left ajar. She was, however, afflicted with a chronic cold, that somewhat interfered with her ability to become a first-class listener, on account of its producing an incessant sniffle and ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... "Look here," remarked a listener, "you signed your own selves out. Nobody made you. I haven't any faith in the scheme, but I like truth ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... cruelty. They are so light, so slight, so tenderly trivial, that simply to mention them is to put them in a false position. The author's claim for them is barely audible, even to the most acute listener. They are things to take or to leave—to enjoy, but not to talk about. Not to read them would be to do them an injustice (to read them is essentially to relish them), but to bring the machinery of ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... and much, I had opportunity to observe the strangeness of the Jews who were so madly interested in God. It was their peculiarity. Not content with leaving such matters to their priests, they were themselves for ever turning priests and preaching wherever they could find a listener. And listeners ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... there should be variety in the character of the different compositions: the classic, the romantic, and the modern compositions should all be given representation. To play several slow movements or several vivacious movements in succession would tend to tire the listener. Anti-climaxes ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... that the King in his surprise mentioned this latter fact. At the name of Vendome, Pursegur lost all patience. He described, to the King all the faults, the impertinences; the obstinacy, the insolence of M. de Vendome, with a precision and clearness which made his listener very attentive and very fruitful in questions. Pursegur, seeing that he might go on, gave himself rein, unmasked M. de Vendome from top to toe, described his ordinary life at the army, the incapacity of his body, the incapacity of his ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Now! (Points it at him.) I'll make a companion to be listening to me through the long winter nights and the long summer days, and the world to be without any end at all, no more than the round of the full moon! You that have no hearing, this will bring back your hearing, the way you'll be a listener and a benefit to myself for ever. I wouldn't feel the weeks ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... illustrated them with verses from the French and German; repeated his own modest attempts at translation, gave his hearer an idea of Goethe, Uhland, Wieland, and the smaller fry of German poets, and pursued his theme, in short, until listener and reciter both were charmed and gratified beyond expression—she, with his talents and his manners—he, with her patience and attention, and, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... victim's intangible shade Can be seen to this day, so the villagers say, In diaphanous garments arrayed. In the gloom of the room where she met with her doom She's appearing once nightly, it seems, And the listener quails as lugubrious wails ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... Miss Woodley, who sat working at the window, an humble, but an attentive listener to this discourse, ventured here to say exactly six words: "Then don't ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... Easy, who had been a silent listener, "that Jack had better fish in the river, and then, if he catches no fish, at all events he will not be soused in the water, and ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... told the red man's story; far and wide He searched the unwritten annals of his race; He sat a listener at the Sachem's side, He tracked the hunter ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... near the court-house door, and commenced crying the horse, as though he were for sale, and continued for ten or fifteen minutes to ride before the court-house door, crying the horse in a loud and boisterous tone of voice. The judge sat as a silent listener to the indignity thus offered the court and counsel by this man, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... was favorable both for storyteller and listener. It commanded a wide view over all the border country, with its feudal towers, its haunted glens, and wizard streams. As the old shepherd told his tales, he could point out the very scene of action. ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... procession of laity, gravely escorted by Hubert, began to file into the now barren-looking room, while the monks stood with hands folded, and sang loudly what sounded to the uninstructed ears of each listener ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... showed Nick what a mistake it had been to fear a dull arraignment, and how he habitually ignored all lapses and kept up the standard only by taking a hundred fine things for granted. He also abounded more than ever in his own sense, reminding his relieved listener how no recollection of him, no evocation of him in absence, could ever do him justice. You couldn't recall him without seeming to exaggerate him, and then acknowledged, when you saw him, that your exaggeration had fallen short. He emerged ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... in the original, giving the atmosphere of the story: "This was the story the mystic told." Concluding sentence in the original, connecting it with our sense of unfathomable mysteries: "And this the listener gravely asked, 'One was chosen, the others left. Were the others less ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... stanzas. The two voices blended beautifully. The father asked them to sing the song again, which they did. Then they sang others, some of which were not familiar to the listener. ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... that Jay was "magnetic," for magnetic men win the rabble; but Jay did better: he won the confidence and admiration of the strong and discerning. His manner was gentle and pleasing; his words few, and as a listener he set a pace that all novitiates in the school of diplomacy ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... little. The latter had understood but vaguely the nature of the catastrophe which overhung his return to France, and now that it was indeed concrete and definite, the guardian was forced into fuller disclosures, every word making the anguish of the listener more intolerable. It was the horizonless despair of a child; and that profound protest I had so often seen smouldering in his eyes culminated, at its crisis, in a wild flame of revolt. The shame of the ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... naturally unable to appreciate, scarcely dwelt distinctly enough upon the compelling cause of his conduct. It would, indeed, have been hard for any man, much less so modest a one as John, to do himself justice in that remarkable relation, when the listener was the lady's lover; and it is no wonder that Robert rose to his feet and put a greater distance ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... and better than herself. Her keen and humorous observation of the frailties of mankind was compatible with indulgence towards the faults of her neighbours. Her growing fame did not make her the less accessible and delightful to her nieces, who could consult their aunt and obtain a willing listener in any difficulty whatever, from a doubtful love affair to the working of a sampler. Indeed, she is a standing witness to the truth that eccentricity and self-consciousness are ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... father's history of the run he had had after a fox. Frances was an equally welcome resource to him. Here was an opportunity, quite unexpected, of displaying his most fashionable ties and most splendid waistcoats; here was a listener for his best stories, and one who did not repay him in kind, as his father did; and here were a pair of bright eyes, that always looked brighter at his approach; and a pair of pretty lips, that pouted when he talked of going away ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... learn how to make a jest; But away with dreams chimerical and projects vain, though clever! The power of tongue's proportionate to wondrous length of ear; The beast that carried BALAAM is as garrulous as ever, And still the lobby listener must be content to hear Rap! rap! rap! To quell the rising clamor; Order! order! order! Hammer! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... supper the question came up about the state of the country, the crops, prospects ahead, etc. The President was a listener; the other gentlemen were discussing. Some were in favor of Boutwell's selling gold, and some were opposed to it. After they had all interchanged their views, some one asked the President what his view was. He remarked that he thought there was ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... he spoke, to one of fierce enthusiasm, and his listener shuddered. Then, sinking his voice, he went on, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... war took place in the Wilburs' drawing-room several evenings before the opening. Charlotte, supposed to be studying in the library, became an interested listener, shielded from ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... nervously clasping and unclasping as she spoke. He watched her through habit; and still forbore speaking, even when she referred to the escape of her canine favorite from his caretaker and how the dog had later been returned, though the listener's eyes had, at this ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... made them. 'The Greeks made the best plays and the best statues, and were the best architects: of course, they were the best tailors, too,' said he; and was never weary, when he could find a tolerant listener, of dwelling on the simplicity, the economy, the elegance both of means and effect, which ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... belonged to the Established Church, while other members of the family were zealous Methodists. Religion was a subject which occupied much of their attention, and several of them were engaged in one way and another in its inculcation. Marian was an attentive listener to the sermons preached in the parish church, and at the age of twelve was teaching in a Sunday school held in a cottage near her father's house. Up to the age of eighteen she was a most devoted believer in Christianity, and her zeal was so great that Evangelicalism ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Kitty answered with a little color, "about heroes and heroines; but, I'd like to live here, myself. Yes," she continued, rather to herself than to her listener, "I do believe this is what I was made for. I've always wanted to live amongst old things, in a stone house with dormer-windows. Why, there isn't a single dormer-window in Eriecreek, nor even a brick house, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... difference of opinion.) From both of those classes of disputants, my dear Jefferson, keep aloof, as you would from the infected subjects of yellow fever or pestilence. Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... listening to the aged monk recount his adventures; with knitted eyebrows he hears him moralizing on the awful destiny of the future. He is a silent listener; the conversation is carried on by the garrulous and interested youths and the happy, virtuous old monk. A forced sobriety, or the atmosphere of virtue which he dreads, has cast a gloom over him. His thoughts are still reeking with the blasphemy of the Masonic lodges, ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... his table. He talks incessantly. There is no subject upon which he has not something worth while to say. His memory is remarkable; he can quote poet after poet, or compose a poem on anything that crops up at the table. I do not think it can be said that Chesterton is a good listener. This is not in any way conceit or boredom, but is rather that he is always thinking out some new story or article or poem. Yet he is a good host in the niceties of the table; he knows if you want salt; he does not forget that wine is ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... bowling-green was so peaceful that at times he spoke aloud. The consciousness that there is no listener induces speech. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... harmony of color and exquisite adjustment of line and mass. The luminous night which enwraps the Palisades is a solemn mighty chord. The white rhythm of this statue caresses the eye that follows it. This symphony is an intricate and wonderful wave-pattern upon a sea of billowing sound in which the listener immerses himself voluptuously. The essential significance of a work of art is not to be received apart from its form, but the form is more than merely sensuous in its appeal. Finally, therefore, the color and the composition of the portrait ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... turn to talk that evening and like most solitaries who have not "gone into the silence," he availed himself of a listener with enthusiasm. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... conceptions, and to advance myself in any of the thousand kinds of intellectual process. It is on the alert, when I am engaged in animated conversation, whether my cue be to take a part in the reciprocation of alternate facts and remarks in society, or merely to sit an attentive listener to the facts and ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... Augustus Selwyn, visited England, after twelve years of labour spent in building up the Colonial and Maori Church, and of pioneering for missions in the Melanesian Isles, over which his vast see then extended. He preached a course of four sermons at Cambridge; Mackenzie was an eager listener, and those forcible, heart-stirring discourses clenched his long growing resolution to obey the first call to missionary labour that should come to him, though, on the other hand, he desired so far to follow the leadings of Providence that ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... tale of guilt and gloom, That cast upon each listener's face Its shadow, and for some brief space Unbroken silence filled the room. The Jew was thoughtful and distressed; Upon his memory thronged and pressed The persecution of his race, Their wrongs and sufferings and disgrace; His head was sunk ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... The listener's inclination was to follow the example of Anderson Crow and run madly off into the night. But beneath this natural panic was the soul of chivalry. Something told him that a woman out there in the solitude needed the arms of a man; and his blood began to grow hot again. Presently ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... above all things a rhetorician; he was an instinctive master of those qualities in words which go to produce effects of passionate vehemence, vigorous precision, and culminating force. His great tirades carry forward the reader, or the listener (for indeed the verse of Corneille loses half its value when it is unheard), on a full-flowing tide of language where the waves of the verse, following one another in a swift succession of ever-rising ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... mounted guard at his palace. His colour began to come and go; his eyes to fill and to sparkle; his limbs to become more agitated than their owner seemed to assent to; and his whole appearance was changed into that of a listener, highly interested by the recitation which he hears, and insensible, or forgetful, of whatever else is passing before him, as well as of the quality ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... lasted about a quarter of an hour before it afforded some amount of encouragement to the listener. The loneliness was awful, for he was sure that he and his fellow-prisoner were correct in coming to the conclusion that very soon after sunset the sentry had crept silently away, this terrible roar suggesting itself as an explanation of the reason for the elephant-stable with ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... have to represent a man of noble character in the act of speaking, let his gestures be such as naturally accompany good words; and, in the same way, if you wish to depict a man of a brutal nature, give him fierce movements; as with his arms flung out towards the listener, and his head and breast thrust forward beyond his feet, as if following the speaker's hands. Thus it is with a deaf and dumb person who, when he sees two men in conversation—although he is deprived of hearing—can ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... panoplied for further social triumphs, the colonel being on the mend, and herself so young as not to have looked unmoved on those famous sleigh-rides, nor without envy on Almira's blooming cheek), and from her side sped the chaplain's wife to hunt up Captain Devers. In him she found a listener indeed in whom there was ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... He ransacked his mind for the brightest stories he had ever read. Never was there a more interested listener. Andy talked in a low voice so as not ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... Chapel and Sunday-school, not only did he save money, not only was he a comfort to his stepmother and a sort of uncle to Sidney, not only was he an early riser, a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a good listener; but, in addition to the practice of these manifold and rare virtues, he found time, even at that tender age, to pay his tailor's bill promptly and to fold his trousers in the same crease every night—so ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... sympathetically to appreciate the sentiment with which the words are informed—the feeling, emotion, passion, which pervades them—but which they suggest rather than actually portray; and (2) a voice so perfected that its utterances fall upon the ear of the listener with pleasing effect, and so flexible that it can be managed skilfully to convey to him the full meaning and force of all the ideas and sentiments formally expressed by the words or latent in them. Of these two requirements ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... with all the poetic things you say in your sermons! For I am a sharp listener, and none the less such that you do not see me. I have a loophole for seeing you. And I flatter myself, therefore, I am the only person in the congregation on a level with you in respect of balancing advantages. I cannot contradict you, and you ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... and target," he would say to a listener, "your honest grandfather wore that day, and with it he forced his way through a hundred men. Well did I know him; he was my great friend, and an honest man. Few are like him ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... as "Billy," anyway, or "Laura Ann"! And they fell in gayly with her whimsy and called her T.O. The nearest they had ever come to an answer to their guesses was one night when they had been discussing "talents" and comparing "callings," and T.O. had sat by, a wistful little listener and admirer. For T.O. had no talent, and who would call selling handkerchiefs from morning till night a "calling"? Even sheer, fine ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... embargo was patent to every fair-minded observer. The alternatives, war or submission, were not pleasant to contemplate. From force of habit the party in power looked to Jefferson for leadership; but since Madison's election, he had assumed the role of "unmeddling listener," not wishing to commit his successor to any policy. The abdication of Jefferson thus left the party without a leader and without a program ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... been befooled and misled in more than one wild ploy with his boon companions. This spy, whose cruelty and cunning were universally feared, might do him a serious mischief, and he therefore did not tell his sister, to whom the name of Zminis was well known, who the listener was. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... instrument, and sounded a vibrant, resonant, minor tone, measured, full and magnificent. Each listener sank ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... is a question long since settled, and any little incidental variation from the bold and perfect outline of success in any special effort, as the faltering of her voice from natural embarrassment in the commencing of Casta Diva that first night, could not to a true listener at all impede the recognition of the wonderful art which could afford a little to humanity on so trying an occasion. For she was as it were beginning her career anew; literally to her was this a new world; and she felt for a moment ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... a silent or inactive listener while a conversation was going forward. No matter how complete his ignorance of the subject, he generally managed to hazard some remarks. Bruce talked a good deal about actors and theatres, and Hazlet had never ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... of a great principle," cried Evans, "to the petty effect of a good story on an appreciative listener. I realise your predicament. But don't you see that in establishing and regulating a place like that the city of Boston has instinctively sanctioned my idea? You may say that it is aiding and abetting the tramp-nuisance by giving vagrants food and shelter, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... observant listener. She began thus early to gain what these good people themselves would call a "slant" upon their characters and their ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper |
