"Unread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them manuscript; I had sat by ancient shelves upon hard chairs, I had sneezed with the ancient dust, and I had not put my finger upon a trace of the right Fanning. I should have given it up, left unexplored the territory that remained staring at me through the backs of unread volumes, had it not been for my Aunt Carola. To her I owed constancy and diligence, and so I kept at it; and the hermit hours I spent at Court and Chancel streets grew worse as I knew better what rarely good company was ready to receive me. This Kings Port, this little ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... judicious in this, and not allow transitional matter to monopolize our time. "Read not the times, read the eternities," cried Thoreau. The shelves of our home and public libraries are filled with priceless volumes yet unread by us. And he who is not cultivating a taste for good wholesome reading is missing one of the highest enjoyments of life as well as minimizing his chances for success. We should ever be exploring new regions of thought. And in the extreme activity ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... her pockets but in every other possible place, the letter could not be found; and though Mrs. Kaye assured them that there was probably very little of importance in it, her children could not help imagining something quite to the contrary; and to learn the unread message became the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... exceptions, all the writings of the followers of Christ within the space of ninety years from the date of the Resurrection. I do not myself think that any of these writings were composed as late as A.D. 120; but I wish to preclude all dispute. This Book I resume as read, and yet unread—read and familiar to my mind in all parts, but which is yet to be perused as a whole, or rather a work, cujus particulas et sententiolas omnes et singulas recogniturus sum, but the component integers of which, and their conspiration, I have ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to the unthinking, and it is a fact that none but the unread in history will deny, that, in periods of popular tumult and innovation, the more abstract a notion is, the more readily has it been found to combine, the closer has appeared its affinity, with the feelings of a people, and with all their immediate impulses to action. At the commencement ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... at the signature when you receive this, and may be tempted to tear up my letter, and throw it from you unread. I warn you to read what I have written, and to estimate, if you can, its importance to yourself. Destroy these pages afterwards if you like—they will have served ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... comfort to know that possibly when one is seventy years old one's brain may be good for work. It drives me mad, and I know it does you too, that one has no time for reading anything beyond what must be read: my room is encumbered with unread books. I agree about Wallace's wonderful cleverness, but he is not cautious enough in my opinion. I find I must (and I always distrust myself when I differ from him) separate rather widely from him all about birds' nests and protection; he is riding that hobby to death. I never read anything so ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... throw the letter into the fire, unread. There could be little doubt, after the time that had passed, of the information that it would contain. Could he endure to be told of the marriage of Iris, by the man who was her husband? Never! There was ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... waiting so long for you!" A servant opened the door to bring him a message. Oakley dismissed him angrily. What did he want to go down to the Continental for to drink and talk politics to a lot of muddle-pated fools when he had a brother in Paris who was an artist and a letter from him lay unread in his hand? His patience and his temper were going. Leslie was careless and unfeeling. She ought to come; he was tired ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Man lay unread. If Pelle laid down his work a moment in order to glance at it, there was Ellen nipping his ear with her lips; his free time belonged to her, and it was a glorious distraction in work-time, to frolic as carelessly as a ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the boy, Jane,' said her husband, when they were alone, and she had sat for some time with a book open but unread before her; 'I really do think ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... the multitude, Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mixed with love— That better self shall live till human Time Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb Unread forever. ...
— O May I Join the Choir Invisible! - and Other Favorite Poems • George Eliot
... in the columns of a journal, do very little, in fact, as make-weights in negotiations. I have been told here, sub rosa, and I believe it that some of our laboured efforts, in this way to obtain redress in the protracted negotiation for indemnity, have actually lain months in the bureaux, unread by those who alone have power to settle the question. Some commis perhaps may have cursorily related their contents to his superior, but the superior himself is usually too much occupied in procuring and maintaining ministerial majorities, or in looking after the monopolizing concerns ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that way of life. But we must say, that his manner of spreading the Scriptures in Spain, puts us considerably in mind of those peripatetic advertisers, whose handbills, thrust nolens volens into the fist of the passer-by, are for the most part cast unread into the gutter. It would be curious to calculate the proportion borne by those Testaments that Mr Borrow succeeded in getting really circulated and read in Spain, to the very large number which he acknowledges to have been confiscated, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Not to reach the moderate competence in literature is, for a professional man of letters of all work, something like failure. But in poetry to-day a man may succeed, as far as his art goes, and yet may be unread, and may publish at his own expense, or not publish at all. He pleases himself, and a very tiny audience: I do not call that failure. I regard failure as the goal of ignorance, incompetence, lack of common sense, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... himself on the divan and gave way to his feelings. When somewhat recovered, he recollected that a portion of the letter remained unread, and, taking it up, he resumed the reading. "Thou wilt remember," the missive ran, "what thou didst with the mother and sister of the malefactor; yet, if now I yield to a desire to learn if they be living or dead"—Ben-Hur ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the quick, enquiring glance of an eye, in which one may easily read—who knows the character—treachery, lying, and deception, just as in the letter Beth was originally easily discerned the effigies of a house, may very easily pass unread by the multitude. The language, or rather the alphabet, is much less complicated than the cuneiform of the Medes and Persians, yet no one studies it, except women, most of whom are profoundly skilled in this ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... all summer, although he had a great many letters on blue and lavender note paper scented with Roger et Gallet's violet, and Hudnut's carnation. We used to go down to the beach and make bonfires and burn them unread, and then toast marshmallows in their ashes. He said that they were communications from the spirits of the dead. I should have thought that they were from different girls, but he seemed to hate the sight of ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... intellectual luggage of a military aristocracy; and the minnesingers had, for the most part, been absolutely ignorant of reading and writing (Wolfram says so of himself, and Ulrich von Liechtenstein relates how he carried about his lady's letter for days unread until the return of his secretary); the poets of Italy, from Brunetto Latini to Petrarch, were eminently scholars; men to whom, however much they might be politicians and ringleaders, like Cavalcanti, Donati, and Dante, whatever existed of antique ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... words of not more than three syllables had begun to tell on me. I bade the artist good-bye, wandered away up the half-dozen steps to the Parade, sat down on a bench, and opened the morning paper that I had brought out unread. During the War one felt it a duty to know the worst before breakfast; now that the English polity is threatened merely from within, one is apt to dally.... Merely from within? Is that a right phrase when the ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... conscientiousness. His numerous letters applying for out-of-the-way books to buy or borrow, for every pamphlet throwing light on his subject, bear testimony to the careful exactitude which rarely permitted him to leave any record unread or any worthy opinion untested about any event of which or any person of whom he undertook to write. From Templand (1833) he applies for seven volumes of Beaumarchais, three of Bassompierre, the Memoirs of ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... distance in order to get and bring back the food so much needed by their comrades. They have brought back, too, cards and letters from those we love. What a consolation in our cheerless situation! We cannot have a light, however, so we are forced to put into our pockets, unread, the words of comfort sent by our dear ones—we have to ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... about Jenny's last letter and what happened after that. I was entirely unprepared, of course. I hadn't the faintest idea—Well, she was the one person about whom I had no doubts at all! I actually left the letter unread for a few minutes (the envelope was in your handwriting, you know)—because I had to think over what I had to do next. The police had got me turned away ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Rachel and Lady Newhaven had known of the drawing of lots. Now that he found they knew, sundry small incidents, unnoticed at the time, came crowding back to his memory. That was why Lady Newhaven had written so continually those letters which he had burned unread. That was why she had made that desperate attempt to see him in the smoking-room at Wilderleigh after the boating accident. She wanted to know which had drawn the short lighter. That explained the mysterious tension which Hugh had ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... charge of disorderly conduct, profane language, resisting an officer, and a few other things, read by a clerk; and I saw myself across in Blackwell's Island. Oh, I knew the game. I lost all interest in explanations. I didn't stop to pick up my precious, unread book. I turned and ran. I was pretty sick, but I ran. And run I shall, to my dying day, whenever a bull begins to ...
— The Road • Jack London
... then it was to be brought home—these were Scott's instructions written on the cover. But Atkinson said he was only going to read sufficient to know what had happened—and after that they were brought home unopened and unread. When he had the outline we all gathered together and he read to us the Message to the Public, and the account of Oates' death, which Scott had expressly wished to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... action of your life bespeaks concealment," she resumed. "Look at those letters you received in your dressing-room on Friday night: you just opened them and thrust them unread into your pocket, because I happened to be there. And yet you talk of caring for me! I know those letters contained some secret or other you dare not ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was left in such a way that I was to receive the entire income for twenty-five years, when the principal was to become mine. His further instructions related to this manuscript which I was to retain sealed and unread, just as I found it, for eleven years; nor was I to divulge its contents until twenty-one years ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... chat, to hear what was in the papers, what was going on in the neighbourhood, and to discuss all sorts of dreary details, over and over again. Books that Hadria would sometimes bring were generally left unread, unless they were light novels of a rigidly conventional character. Mrs. Fullerton grew so excited in her condemnation of any other kind, that it was dangerous to put them before her. In the evenings, the old couple liked to have a rubber, and often Hubert and Hadria would make up the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... again agonised Mrs Causand. "Ralph, much mischief was done in that absence—my boy, my lost William: he, whom you know as Joshua Daunton, broke into his mother's house, rifled my escritoir, and carried off some of my most important documents—that unread letter among the number." ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... week after sending it out. The largest magazines usually require three months and sometimes longer to report on a MS. If you attempt to hurry the editorial decision you will probably receive your MS. by return mail, unread. ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... shadows before him, his unread book in his hand, he recalled a later occasion when she appeared rather to shrink from him than to wish to be near him, speaking to him with downcast eyes and without the frank look in her face which was always his welcome. On this day she was more unstrung and more desolate ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Continent. I was devoted to him, and whenever he guided my character he did so with the greatest judgment. He taught me above all things the need of self-control, and never to make a remark of a fellow-creature unless I had something pleasant or kind to say. There was no subject upon which he was unread; and when my brothers, who were both exceedingly clever, returned from college and the University, wonderful and brilliant were the discussions that went on. Both my parents were of Huguenot descent, belonging to the old ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... who would now condemn Copernicus unread, and produce authorities of the Scripture, of divines, and of councils in support of their condemnation. I hold these authorities in reverence, but I hold that in this instance they are used for personal ends in a manner very different from the most sacred ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... present that I helped to draw up a petition to the United States, praying for a law against the liquor trade in the Gilberts; and it was at this request that I added, under my own name, a brief testimony of what had passed;—useless pains, since the whole repose, probably unread and possibly unopened, in a pigeon-hole ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... although the letter may come from an entirely reliable house and contain an excellent business proposition on good, substantial paper. For this reason, the letter that departs from the usual standards must assume unnecessary risks of being thrown away unread. ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... to be other than the record, and, as what I shall write in this chapter must seem meaningless and wearisome to all but those who belong to the great Secret Society of Sorrow, it were no doubt just as well that those who have known nothing but joy should follow their natural impulse and leave it unread. I confess, too, that I should feel the more comfortable without the regard of their ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... The letter remained unread. In her agitation at the discovery of the marriage certificate, Olivia had almost forgotten the existence of the letter. It was addressed to "John Delamere, Esq., as Executor of my Last Will and Testament," while the lower left hand corner ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... an unread book, You scarcely tried to keep your lids apart, While to my youthful love new growth I took, Kissing your hands ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... being, murmurs; she, Allurement; she, fulfilment; she, The stream within us urged to flood; Man's cry, earth's answer, heaven's consent; O she, Maid, woman and divinity; Our over-earthly, inner-earthly mate Unmated; she, our hunger and our fruit Untasted; she our written fate Unread; Life's flowering, Life's root: Unread, divined; unseen, beheld; The evanescent, ever-present she, Great Nature's stern necessity In radiance clothed, to softness quelled; With a sword's edge of sweetness keen to take Our breath for bliss, our ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the work, or of vindicating himself and replying to his critics. As a rule, however, the reader is concerned neither with the moral purpose of the book nor with the attacks of the Reviewers, and so the preface remains unread. Nevertheless, this is a pity, especially with us Russians! The public of this country is so youthful, not to say simple-minded, that it cannot understand the meaning of a fable unless the moral is set forth ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... since Lowell rashly characterized him as "the greatest imaginative genius since Shakespeare" our critics commonly speak of him in superlatives. Meanwhile most European critics (who acclaim such unequal writers as Cooper and Poe, Whitman and Mark Twain) either leave Hawthorne unread or else wonder what Americans find in him to stir ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... etc. Commenced Jan. 1, 1895. Finished March 6, 1896. Copied out (three times) December, 1896. Submitted to Messrs. Kesteven, Sydney; but they say they are publishing very little at present, as times are depressed. To James & James, Melbourne; returned. And unread, I am sure; the package had hardly been touched. To Brown & McMahon, Melbourne. A most polite note, but they do not care to publish so long a story. Shortened it, and copied again (July, 1898). Sent again to Brown & McMahon. A printed refusal: 'Regret cannot use.' ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... (contained in pages 1 to 4 and 189 and 191 of this volume) and you may have listened, not knowing yet that literary criticism is rarely admirable, nor suspecting that those are the pages which most people leave unread. But you are fortunate in having being born in a generation which is not afraid to say frankly what it likes, and you will, I imagine, say frankly that you have read Petronius, and intend to read him again because he tells a rattling good story, and, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... it to go back to her home in Hampshire; but she could not say whether the mother and daughter had ever returned, or had ever been heard of afterwards. No further search, on Miss Halcombe's part, through the few letters of Mrs. Fairlie's writing which she had left unread, assisted in clearing up the uncertainties still left to perplex us. We had identified the unhappy woman whom I had met in the night-time with Anne Catherick—we had made some advance, at least, towards connecting the probably defective condition of the poor ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... appeared. Efforts at a thorough purge were dull, were libellous, were not of the "form" which the Universities and the public schools taught to be sacred. They were rejected as unreadable, or if printed, were unread. The results are with ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... the candid and patient consideration which, until I read your acknowledgment, that, in relation to these petitions, "there is no substantial difference between" yourself and those, who are in favor of thrusting them aside undebated, unconsidered, and even unread, I always supposed you were willing to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... George. He was sleeping peacefully. It was too early to wake him, but I could not lay that letter down unread; was not my name on it? Tearing it open, I devoured its contents,—the exclamation I made on reading it, ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... when I read the letter aloud to him ... said it was a fine effort as a composition in rhetoric, but I might expect nothing of it—if the perpetually drunk jailer really brought it to its destination—except that it would be tossed unread into the wastebasket.... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... legend from a slightly different point of view, or look at it from another distance, the clew to the puzzle would be seized, and the words would stand forth clear and legible in your sight. But the clew never had been discovered, and the motto, if there was one, remained unread. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... bitter soul he conquered, you would have said, "This, which he thinks is degradation,—this is heroism." Oh, strange human heart! no epic ever written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread by human ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... crushed the letter in her hand—the rest unread—and sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... infinite pathos in unsuccessful authorship. The book that perishes unread is the deaf mute of literature. The great asylum of Oblivion is full of such, making inaudible signs to each other in leaky garrets ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of the least of these, to add a new joy to the crowded miracles of childhood, were no less worth doing than to leave a Sistine Chapel to astound a somewhat bored procession of tourists, or to have written a classic that sells by thousands and is possessed unread by all save an infinitesimal percentage of ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... who are unskilled in magic, unread in philosophy, and untaught in the secrets of the stars—who have neither wit, eloquence, nor song—how shall we essay to teach ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... was the bearer of another note from Mr. Scobell. This time John tore it up unread, and, turning to the secretary, invited him to sit down and make himself ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... correctly stated; and yet it is phrased with such ingenious infelicity that it can be depended upon to convey misinformation every time it is uncarefully unread: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for some time watching her from behind his newspaper, while she, with an unread book upon her lap, had, in fact, been thinking deeply and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... old worries and anxieties started afresh; I stood in great need of money, and had not the vaguest notion whither to go in search of it. I then examined very thoroughly the answer I had received during the preceding winter to my petition for a higher salary. I had left it unread, as the modifications made in it had already disgusted me. If I had till now believed that it was Herr von Luttichau who had brought about the increase of salary I had demanded, in the shape of a supplement ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... hard. His invention was a work of the purest originality. He was unread, uneducated, and had never so much as heard of a steam-engine when the idea of propelling boats by steam came to him. After repeated rebuffs—the lot of every inventor—he at length secured from the State of New Jersey the right to navigate its waters for a term of years. With this a stock ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... impossible, but the impression remains that the greater part of this volume has been passed over and left unread by at least two generations of readers. Old play-goers recall Macready as "Werner," and many persons have read Cain; but apart from students of literature, readers of Sardanapalus and of The Two Foscari are rare; of The Age of Bronze and The Island rarer still. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... in the life of her hostler accomplished what his warning had failed to do; it caused her to neglect her correspondence with the major. His letter lay in a hollow willow-tree on the river road unread for nearly a week. And when, one afternoon, she finally rode by to claim it, her interest was strangely dulled. The spice of ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... and whence came they? Each little tribe is a book unread before, and full to the brim of fascination. When they are confronted with the picture of an elephant in a current magazine, they are all excitement. The book is carried eagerly to the old man sunning ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Walter Scott admired and praised her warmly. But the pinchbeck sobriety of later times was unable to tolerate her freedom. She was condemned in no small still voice as immoral, loose, scandalous; and writer after writer, leaving her unread, reiterated the charge till it passed into a byword of criticism, and her works were practically taboo in literature, a type and summary of all that was worst and foulest in Restoration days. The absurdities and falsity or this extreme are ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... of life upon her knee, Fate sits! the unread page of love's delight By her firm hand is half concealed from me, And half revealed to sight. Ah Fate! be kind! so well I learned love's sorrow, Give me its full ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... said Mr. Cabot, bringing his palm down on a pile of unread letters awaiting him. "Go ahead. I don't promise anything, but I will say this. If you work on as you have done these two years since you came in here as errand boy, Ben, I'll make you a power in the house. Understand I don't expect you to ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... historians, who in spite of their reputation are better left unread, are: Giovanni Pietro Maffei, Historiarum Indicarum Libri XVI, Florence, 1588; Antonio de San Roman, Historia General de la India Oriental, Valladolid, 1603; Joseph Francois Lafitau, Histoire ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... baptism of his nephew. He availed himself of that opportunity, two days later, personally to hand his letter to Her Majesty. But chance brought the Comptroller-General into the room before she had opened it, and as a result the jeweller departed while the letter was, still unread. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... shuddered. Immoral, in the sense that it advocates immoral tenets, or prefers evil to good, it is not, but it is unquestionably a dangerous book, which (to quote Kingsley's words used in another connection) "the young and innocent will do well to leave altogether unread." It is dangerous because it ignores resistance and presumes submission to passion; it is dangerous because, as Byron admitted, it is "now and then voluptuous;" and it is dangerous, in a lesser degree, because, here and there, the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... pocket unread," and Doctor Dick now glanced over the note as he rode along. "I fear he is too far gone, Larry, for if he had been able he would have come into the camp. I will ride still faster, for every moment counts with a badly wounded man, and you see I ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... Madonna simply because other people had painted Madonnas before them. Some subjects, no doubt, were treated once for all; if Southey had written his history of the Peninsular war after Napier, he would have done a silly thing, and his book would have been damned unread. But what reason was there why we should not have half a dozen books on English thought in the eighteenth century? Would not Grote have inflicted a heavy loss upon us if he had been frightened out of his plan by Thirlwall? And so forth, and so forth. But all ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... good, no hope in change is a barbarian. He flinches from the truth physical and the truth spiritual that life is motion. I particularly refer to the literary person who sneers at novels because they are not epics, and condemns new poems or plays unread if they deal with a phase of human evolution that does not please him. I mean the critic who drags his victim back to Aristotle or Matthew Arnold and slays him on a text whose application Aristotle or Arnold would have been ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... should open," saying which she took it and held it out that her son might read the inscription, which was: "To be opened by my dear wife after my death, if she should survive, otherwise to be burned unread." ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... wicked old woman!" said Priscilla. Then there arose a question whether they should read Brooke's letter, or whether they should give it unread to Dorothy. Priscilla denounced her aunt in the strongest language she could use for having broken the seal. "'Clearly entitled,'—because Dorothy had been living with her!" exclaimed Priscilla. "She can have no proper conception of honour or of honesty. She had no more ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... all implied in that word "docere?" How embed conviction in the minds of our hearers? Fill your own head to repletion with the subject; be ambitious to leave, if possible, no book unread, books of even collateral bearing. The more thought stored up the more complete will be your mastery over the subject and the more abundant the materials from which to select. I was struck by a letter from Father Faber to a friend:—"I ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... visit that Crabbe received the following letter from Burke. The letter is undated, but belongs to the month of May, for The Village was published in that month, and Burke clearly refers to that poem as just received, but as yet unread. Crabbe seems to have been for the time off duty, and to have proposed a short visit to ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set before him an envelope addressed by the hand and sealed with the seal of his dead friend. "PRIVATE: for the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE and in case of his predecease to be destroyed unread," so it was emphatically superscribed; and the lawyer dreaded to behold the contents. "I have buried one friend to-day," he thought: "what if this should cost me another?" And then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... trees in streets and gardens drooped, brownishyellow, and heavy with dust. The sun met the eyes blindingly, and was reflected from every house-wall. Maurice went for a walk in the woods. In his pocket he had a letter, still unread, which he had found waiting for him that day. It was from his mother, and his eyes slid carelessly over the pages. There were the usual reproaches for his prolonged silences, the never-failing reminders ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... chapter in Marsh's masterly book, "The Earth as modified by Human Action." To "work like a beaver" is an almost universal expression for energetic persistence, but who realizes that the beaver has accomplished anything? Almost unread of and unknown are his ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... again silent, and still she sat motionless, with the letter in her hand. "Mamma," she said at last, "if you tell me not to read it, I will give it back unread. If you bid me exercise my own judgment, I shall take it ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... hopes to find in what is here written a work of literature had better lay it aside unread. At Yale I should have got the sack in rhetoric and English composition, let alone other studies, had it not been for the fact that I played half-back on the team, and so the professors marked me away ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... impressed on the feed-in tape of the computer. Sections of the tape are chosen at random by someone who is blindfolded. They are fed unread into the computer, together with instructions to multiply, subtract, extract roots, et cetera, which are similarly chosen at random and not known to anyone. Once in twenty times or so, Schweeringen predicts the result ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... cunning, perceived it would alienate Lee. The message doubtless carried an adroit explanation and excuse, ending up with numerous declarations of her affection and hypocritical assertions of her anxiety on his account. Disgust overwhelmed him. He was minded to cast the thing into the stove unread. At last, however, muttering to himself, he thrust a forefinger under the flap and ripped the envelope open. A newspaper clipping that had been enclosed in the letter dropped to the ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... sudden fierce energy. "For mercy's sake—I mean, grannie, dear; that none will come. If they should"—his ordinary gentle eyes flamed almost furiously—"Mr. Ferdinand is to burn them unread—yes, to ashes. I will tell him." And he escorted Lady Enid tumultuously downstairs, missing his footing at ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... places, but he was cheap and other workmen were not better, and thus he remained there two years. His life was uneventful. One day he received a letter, written in Esthonian, but as he himself was illiterate, and as the others did not understand Esthonian, the letter remained unread; and as if not understanding that the letter might bring him tidings from his native home, he flung it into the manure with a certain savage, grim indifference. At one time Yanson tried to make love to the cook, but he was not successful, ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... word is hunted out. For upon words, at last, we are dependent for the expression of our observation and thought. He is most entirely master of his thoughts who can accurately express them: clearly, that he cannot be misunderstood; forcefully, that he will not be unread; and elegantly, that he give the reader joy. And this mastery he evinces in a finely discriminating ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... apprehensive as that of maturest wisdom, in relation to any capital wound inflicted on the happiness; "it is finished, and life is exhausted." How? Could it be exhausted so soon? Had I read Milton, had I seen Rome, had I heard Mozart? No. The "Paradise Lost" was yet unread, the Coliseum and St. Peter's were unseen, the melodies of Don Giovanni were yet silent for me. Raptures there might be in arrear. But raptures are modes of troubled pleasure; the peace, the rest, the lulls, the central ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... unread letter in his hand he stared about the office. This place was his; he had fought for it, worked for it. He had an almost physical sense of unseen hands reaching out to drag him away from it; from David and Lucy, and from Elizabeth. And of himself holding desperately to ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... poor Bertram's failure." (Billy frowned. In Billy's presence no one was allowed to say "Bertram's failure"; but a letter has a most annoying privilege of saying what it pleases without let or hindrance, unless one tears it up—and a letter destroyed unread remains always such a tantalizing mystery of possibilities! So Billy let the letter talk.) "Of course we have heard of it away out here. I do wish if Bertram must paint such famous people, he would manage to flatter ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... as possible from those of a metaphysician: he had reflected less upon the course of his own mind than upon almost any other subject; but he knew human nature practically; disquisitions on habit, passion, or the sovereign good, were unread by him, nor, in the course of his life, had he ever formed a system, moral or prudential; but the same penetration, the same longanimity, which enabled him to govern the affairs of a great nation, gave him, when his attention turned towards himself, a foresight for his own happiness. In ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... her golden age of letters as well as her age of military glory. Her libraries and archives are filled with unread, musty manuscripts, comprising treatises on philosophy and metaphysics, histories, biographies, and poems, rich in the classic erudition of the Orient. In 1336, Sultan Orkan found leisure from war and conquest to establish, at Brusa, a literary institution, which became so famous for its learning, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that I must leave so much of the greatest writing which the centuries have sifted for me, unread for want ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... then glanced through every column in search of news about the trial, even to the editorial comments on the action of the Grand Jury. The earlier papers that had the account of the investigation by the Commission had been destroyed unread, but she inferred from what she saw that the affair rose from the complaint of independent mine-owners in Missouri and Indiana that they were discriminated against by the railroad. The federal authorities were trying to establish ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... I'm sure!" It was Esther's laughing voice. She had come so quietly that neither of them had heard her. Aunt Amy's vagueness vanished in a pleased smile and Callandar, as he sprang to open the gate, forgot all about the unread letter and everything else, save that ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... handsome woman who appeared in the circle, and complimented her in the florid style of Gascony on the bloom of her cheeks and the lustre of her eyes. When he had enjoyed the fear and anxiety of his suppliants he dismissed them, and flung all their memorials unread into the fire. This was the best way, he conceived, to prevent arrears of business from accumulating. Here he was only an imitator. Cardinal Dubois had been in the habit of clearing his table of papers in the same way. Nor was this the only point ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... arrangements for attending chapel with his Matilda, and he was in sore need of repose besides. So he rose just in time to swallow his coffee and array himself carefully for his aunt's early dinner, leaving his two Sunday papers—the theatrical and the general organs—unread on his table. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... of young and old to hear. The visits to Dream-dell were less and less frequent, for now how each remembrance so fondly connected with that spot, came fraught with pain; the works of her favorite author's lay opened, but unread, upon her knee; and the fastly-falling tears half-blotted out the impassioned words she had once read with him with so ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... conspirator ran to save himself by denouncing all others. One Cuban, of large fortune and small reputation, being implicated in these matters, brought General Concha a list of all his confederates, which Concha burned before his face, unread. Piteous, laughable spectacle! Better be monkeys than such men; yet such work does Absolutism in government and religion make of the noble human creature! God preserve us ever from tyrants, spies, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... be a favorite seems to us a safe prediction.... There is no part of it which, once begun, is likely to be left unread."—The Dial. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... hands of Henry, presents in every line transactions stained with so much of falsehood and baseness, such revolting treachery and deceit, such wilful deliberate perjury, that we would gladly pass it over unread, or throw upon it the most cursory glance compatible with a bare knowledge of the facts. But whilst the desperate wickedness of the human heart is made to stand out through these transactions in most frightful colours, and whilst we shudder at the wanton prostitution of the most ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... when the exceeding beauty of goodness had been fully disclosed to them, the depravity of evil conduct would appear no less clearly. The Emperor who, when the head of his rebellious general was brought to him, grieved because that general had not lived to be forgiven; the ruler who burned unread all treasonable correspondence, would not, nay, could not believe in the existence of such an inhuman monster as Commodus proved himself to be. The appointment of Commodus was a calamity of the most terrific character; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... dull and silent at breakfast, and hid himself and his moody temper behind his favorite newspaper. Mary had often noticed that men like to be quiet in the early morning; she gave them naturally all the benefit they claim from the pressure of unread mails and doubtful affairs. If her cousin was quiet and sombre, he might have half-a-dozen innocent reasons for the humor; when he felt more social, he would be sure to seek her. And when she saw him sauntering toward her favorite retreat she was nothing astonished. ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... thrown away, and forgotten; but yours are kept forever—unread. One of them will last a ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... that society was much more degraded than it is generally supposed. When for two centuries the whole empire scarcely produced a poet, or a philosopher, or an historian; when even the writings of famous men in the time of Augustus were lost or unread; when, from Trajan to Honorius, a period of three hundred and fifty years, scarcely a work of original genius appeared, it must be that society was utterly demoralized, and all life and ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... conscience is still quite easy. I cannot mention what the plan was that I now adopted, without seriously compromising a living person. All I can say is, that every letter from Mr. Carr to our house, passed into my hands only, and was by me committed to the flames unread. These letters were at first all for my niece; but towards the end of the year two came, at different intervals, directed to my brother. I distrusted the cunning of the writer and the weakness of Joshua; and I put both those letters into the fire, unread like the rest. After that, no more came; ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... walking in the cool of the evening with Don Francisco de Las Casas, a sensible, strong man, not unread in the philosophers. He spoke to me of his son, a young man whom he loved, who would sooner or later come out to him to Hispaniola, if he, the elder, stayed here. So soon as this we had begun to speak thus, "Come out to Hispaniola." ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... no relatives, no children to provide for, and the fancy has come to me for endowing some educational institution in your land, and for such purpose a mansion such as I suggested would, in all ways be preferable. Well, they forwarded me a list of properties. I sent them back unread lest I should covet them all, for they all would cost so little! I repeated to them the description Madame McVeigh had given me of your ancestral home, my dear sir, and told them to secure me a property possessing just such advantages as yours does—near ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... hearts had ached so long, and which we owe entirely to you, for Edward owns that nothing but your personal representations would have brought him, and, as I suppose you already know—he so much hated the whole subject of Maddox's treachery that he had flung aside, unread, all that he saw related to it. Dear Colin, whatever else you have done, you have filled a famished heart. Could you but have seen Ailie's face all last evening as she sat by his side, you would have felt your reward—it was as if the worn, anxious, almost stern mask had been ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with a dejected mind and an aching heart, what were the sorrows of Agnes? The only child of doating parents, she never had been taught the necessity of resignation—untutored, unread, unused to reflect, but knowing how to feel; what were her sufferings when, on waking, she called to mind that "William was gone," and with him gone all that excess of happiness which his presence had bestowed, and for which she had exchanged her ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... an introduction even. The manuscript was received politely, and attention was promised. But a week passed, and another, and another. A human soul was in commotion about the meat that perisheth — and the manuscript lay all the time unread, — forgotten in ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... folly and perversity of a public that will leave unread writings of the noblest and rarest of minds, of all times and all countries, for the sake of reading the writings of commonplace persons which appear daily, and breed every year in countless numbers like flies; merely because these writings have been printed to-day and are still ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... slightest roughness of word or tone seemed to her to convey a rebuke. But he was never rough. She loved to be caressed by those who were dear and near and close to her, and his manner was always caressing. She often loved, if the truth is to be spoken, to be idle, and to spend hours with an unread book in her hand under the shade of the deanery trees, and among the flowers of the deanery garden. The Dean never questioned her as to those idle hours. But at Cross Hall not a half-hour would be allowed to pass without enquiry as to its purpose. At Cross Hall there ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... translation from Pulci, so frequently mentioned by him, which appeared afterwards in the Liberal, and which, though thus rescued from the fate of remaining unpublished, roust for ever, I fear, submit to the doom of being unread.] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... manuscripts sent to the magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more carefully read than the author imagines. Editors know that, from the standpoint of good business alone, it is unwise to return a manuscript unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... now and then, as their eye travels over it, an item on the page catches their fancy. Any artistic advertisement will usually command attention; so will the receipt of some trifling article that is pretty or novel. Besides, it is chiefly the rushed city person who tosses the advertisement away unread. Those with more leisure, country people, perhaps, who receive little mail, usually read every word of the printed matter that reaches them. They do not have so many diversions as we do, and this printed stuff entertains them and keeps them in touch ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... we to the Committee room, There gleams of light conflict with gloom, While unread rheams in chaos lye, Our ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... justice to clear Hale of that charge, but she saw such a terrified appeal in her step-mother's face that she kept her peace, let Hale suffer for that, too, and walked out into her garden. Never once had her piano been opened, her books had lain unread, and from her lips, during those days, came no song. When she was not at work, she was brooding in her room, or she would walk down to Uncle Billy's and sit at the mill with him while the old man would talk in tender helplessness, ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... is quite possible the eyes of Moses may have scanned. When that column was hewn, not a stone had been laid on the Capitol, and the site of Rome was a mere marsh; yet here it stands, with its mysterious scroll still unread. Speak, stranger, and tell us, with thy deep Coptic voice, the secrets of four thousand years ago. Say, wouldst thou not like to revisit thy native Nile, and spend thine age beside the tombs of the Pharaohs, the companions ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... to get a peep into the letters, too. But Aunt Olivia would not allow that. They must be burned unread, she declared. She took the wedding dress and veil, the picture case, and the letters away with her. The rest of the things were put back into the chest, pending their ultimate distribution. Aunt Janet gave each of us boys a handkerchief. The Story Girl got ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a valid receipt. At Oriel they remained for ten years, when all of a sudden the scholars of the University, animated by their notorious affection for sound learning and a good 'row,' took Oriel by storm, and carried off the books in triumph to Bishop Cobham's room, where they remained in chests unread for thirty years. In 1367 the University by statute ratified and confirmed its title to the books, and published regulations for their use, but the quarrel with Oriel continued till 1409, when the Cobham Library was for the first ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... dead Whose sensibilities were slain By tyros, oft unskilled, unread, In all the workings of the brain; Whose concepts of the avenues That reach the mind of tender youth, Are labyrinths of tangled views Devoid of art, science, and truth; Touch but that chord of magic power Which gives the soul augmented ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... been so occupied and distracted by the flood of new books, written with the single purpose of satisfying the wants of the day, produced and distributed with marvelous cheapness and facility, that the standard works of approved literature remain for the most part unread upon the shelves. Thirty years ago Irving was much read in America by young people, and his clear style helped to form a good taste and correct literary habits. It is not so now. The manufacturers of books, periodicals, and newspapers for the young keep the rising generation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
