"Yawn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... might as well make faces at a stone post as at old 'Lias when his wandering fit was on him. When the entertainment palled, Louie got up with a yawn, meaning to lounge back to the farm and investigate the nearness of dinner. But, as she turned, something caught her attention. It was the gleam of a pool, far away beyond the Downfall, on a projecting spur ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the county town; the third was to send for a boxful of novels from London. I must confess I thought these projects for pleasing her very happily conceived, and Owen agreed with me. Morgan, as usual, took the opposite view. He said she would yawn over the novels, turn up her nose at the piano, and fracture her skull with the pony. As for the housekeeper, she stuck to her text as stoutly in the evening as she had stuck to it in the morning. "Pianner or no pianner, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the columns of the daily press. His is a name that may {8} be safely introduced into any written or spoken discussion, without fear of the stare of unrecognizing ignorance; and the only danger to which those who quote him expose themselves is that of the yawn of over-familiarity. Even in his own lifetime his reputation extended far beyond the limited circle of literature or scholarship. Actresses delighted in his conversation; soldiers were proud to entertain him in their barracks; ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... or other, exists between two loving people cast for each other's welfaring. A delicate mystery lies in it, and that is an essential strand in every true affection, but it can readily be destroyed. Break it rudely, even shock it a little, and a chasm may yawn where, before, there was a silken thread of union, tender in ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... table. Washington, looking like himself on a monument, was making not a pretence to entertain poor Lady Sterling, who was almost sniffling. Lord Sterling, having gratified, an hour since, Mrs. Washington's polite interest in his health, was stifling yawn after yawn, and his chubby little visage was oblong and crimson. Tilghman, looking guilty and uncomfortable,—it was his duty to relieve Hamilton at the table,—was flirting with Miss Boudinot. Lady Kitty and Baron Steuben always managed to entertain each other. Laurens and Kitty Livingston ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... there is any danger of her getting ahead faster than we do," replied the mate, with a yawn. "I believe I shall sleep well, if I don't get pitched ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... invention, it is true, of printing—but who read what were called books then? Books! no more like our periodicals, than dry, rotten, worm-eaten, fungous logs are like green living leafy trees, laden with dews, bees, and birds, in the musical sunshine. What could males do then but yawn, sleep, snore, guzzle, guttle, and drink till they grew dead and got buried? Fox-hunting won't always do—and often it is not to be had; who can be happy with his gun through good report and bad report in an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various
... the Countess Zoya sat apart talking together until nearly midnight. Finally, with a yawn, Zoya suggested that they try to break up the party. For a little while they looked on. Not understanding the game of baccarat, Nina watched the faces of ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... was slowly opening, as if it were a monster mouth taking a lazy yawn. The children clustered together and watched it eagerly, when, to their great amazement, out popped a little figure, not more than six inches high, dressed in a suit of sky blue velvet with white lace ruffles at the throat and wrists. The dress was ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... secured the provender, and was ready to resume his journey, he began to yawn, and to exhibit the most unequivocal ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... yawn, "what went on upstairs when the woman cried and Howells's body moved. Of course I ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... couldn't discover that it was any different from Mr. Coyote's three remaining paws. And he had just started to say so, too, when Mr. Coyote interrupted him with an enormous yawn. ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the covering, apologetic hand, yawns and yawns and cannot be appeased. Thereupon two cease to be company, and even a serpent would be greeted as a cheery and timely visitor. Dismal indeed, and not infrequent, is that time, and the vista therefrom is a long, dull yawn stretching to the horizon and the grave. If at any time we do revalue the values, let us write it down that the person who makes us yawn is a criminal knave, and then we will abolish matrimony ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... same. Men fall in love—or protest as much. And at wine they boast of their good fortunes, swearing each that his mistress is the fairest, and bragging till I yawn to listen.... And yet you say you never ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... life? Can you picture me devoting myself to the keeping of a house tidy, the overseeing of meals? I fancy I see myself spending the long, quiet evenings, my husband busy in his office or out among his patients while I dose and yawn and grow fat and old and ugly, and the great world forgetting. Dick, I should die! Of course, I love Barney. But I must have life, movement. I can't ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... a deep yawn announced that Eudaldo was getting out of his chair. The two girls heard him moving towards the outer entrance. Then they heard the woman go away, shutting the other door behind her, as soon as she was sure that Eudaldo ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... wound without being aware of it. Then suddenly he beheld an extraordinary and dreadful transformation take place in the countenance thrust so close to his own; the eyes winked several times with incredible rapidity, and then rolled upward and inward; the jaws gaped into a dreadful and cavernous yawn; the pistol fell with a clatter to the floor, and the next moment the muscles, so rigid but an instant before, relaxed into a limp and listless flaccidity. The joints collapsed, and the entire man fell into an indistinguishable heap upon and across the dead figure stretched ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... a slight movement and the sound of a yawn, and, looking towards the large settle by the side of the hearth, saw my old acquaintance, the innkeeper, evidently aroused by my knocking from a sound sleep, rubbing his eyes and stiffly getting ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... acted with simple cunning. He had remained talking pugilism with Keggs in the pantry till a prodigious yawn from his host had told him that the time was come for the breaking up of the party. Then, begging Keggs not to move, as he could find his way out, he had hurried to the back door, opened and shut it, and ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... he turned with a yawn to descend. Ships were interesting, but just now he was hungry. At the edge of the crevice he looked back once more, and was surprised to see a second sail behind the first—a smaller vessel, it seemed, but shortening the distance between them rapidly. He was surprised and ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... continuation of the vault and to rest at the horizon upon the blue sea. The sun was issuing from the waves and mounting upwards. It suddenly struck upon the breast of the brazen colossus, which was divided into seven compartments closed by gratings. His red-toothed jaws opened in a horrible yawn; his enormous nostrils were dilated, the broad daylight animated him, and gave him a terrible and impatient aspect, as if he would fain have leaped without to mingle with the star, the god, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... drew rein. In response to Billy's call a rough-bearded fellow lifted the tent flap and stood suppressing a yawn, as if visitors to his lonely claim ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the day has come at last," said Edith, as she rose that morning with a yawn. "Oh, dear, and it's going to be splendid, too. Kitty, what dress are you going to wear ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... bushes in front of the cave where Nero had hidden. The lion rolled over, stretched out his heavy paws with their big, curved claws, and opened his mouth and yawned, just as you have often seen your dog or cat yawn after a sleep. ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... before," said Mr. Freeman, stifling a yawn, "but now you mention it, I really think he is a little drunk, and hardly in a ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... complained his lordship, stifling a yawn. "What I'm to do to amuse myself for a fortnight I'm sure ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... only say that, at a certain time of life certain things cease to interest: but about some things when we cease to care, what will be the use of life, sight, hearing? Poems are written, and we cease to admire. Lady Jones invites us, and we yawn; she ceases to invite us, and we are resigned. The last time I saw a ballet at the opera — oh! it is many years ago — I fell asleep in the stalls, wagging my head in insane dreams, and I hope affording amusement to the company, while the feet of five hundred ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... shall never forget the day when he, Rogers, Moore, and myself, spent the time from six at night till one o'clock in the morning, without a single yawn; we listening to him, and he ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... way down at their roots—both clean, true, sincere, and all that," I said, with a little yawn, so she might not guess how ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... Marsh's appetite for local history was so slight as to be cloyed even by the very much abbreviated account she had given them, for he now said, hiding a small yawn, with no effort to conceal the fact that he had been bored, "Mrs. Crittenden, I've heard from Mr. Welles' house the most tantalizing snatches from your piano. Won't you, now we're close to it, put the final touch to our delightful lunch-party ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the settler. 'Never, while there's a rag of the union jack to run up. But it's getting late;' and as he rose to his feet with a tremendous yawn, Robert perceived his great length, hitherto concealed by the table on which he leaned. 'This life would kill me in six months. In my own place I'm about the farm at sunrise in summer. Never knew what it was to be sick, young man.' And so the party separated; Robert admiring the stalwart ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... made him open his eyes. Some one had just gone into the next room. He heard the rustle of a dress against the thin partition, a leaf turned in a book which could not be very interesting, for a long sigh turning into a yawn made him start. Was he still sleeping, dreaming? Had he not heard the cry of the "jackal in the desert," so much in keeping with the burning temperature out of doors? No—nothing more. He fell asleep again, and this time all the confused images which ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... noise I made in entering she moved, sat up, showed her fat legs, that were covered with unqualifiable blue stockings, and with a yawn stretched her brawny arms, which terminated with fists that resembled those of ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... him a pretty salutation, crossed the lawn, passed her husband, who had just ridden up on a powerful sorrel, and called brightly to Coursay: "Take me fishing, Jack, or I'll yawn my head off ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... courtier," said Mrs. Dodd, delighted. Julia assented: she even added, with a listless yawn, "I had no idea that a skeleton was such a gentlemanlike thing; I ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... earth's bosom bare, And left the flush'd print in a poppy there; Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puff'd it to ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... And suddenly a yawn surprised him, and recalled him to the existence of his body. He thought: "I can't really be tired. It would be absurd to go to bed." For his theory had long been that the notions of parents about bedtime were ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... found his capital did not attract the tourist types to the extent he had hoped, and so decreed that his faithful and devoted subjects, leaving their cozy hearths and inglenooks, should go forth at the hour when graveyards yawn —and who could blame them?—to spend the dragging time until dawn in being merry and bright. So saying His Majesty went to bed, leaving them to work while ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Herein Cooper never lays himself open to that instinctive and unconscious criticism, which is the only kind an author need dread, because from it there is no appeal. It is bad to have a play hissed down, but it is worse to have it yawned down. But over Cooper's pages his readers never yawn. They never break down in the middle of one of his stories. The fortunes of his characters are followed with breathless and accumulating interest to the end. In vain does the dinner-bell sound, or the clock strike the hour of bed-time: the book cannot be laid down till we know whether ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... send you a copy of Esmond to-morrow or so which you shall yawn over when you are inclined. But the great comfort I have in thinking about my dear old boy is that recollection of our youth when we loved each other as I do ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... swear that Bloo Lite Fedralism ought to be put down, and can't be tolerated in a Republikin Goverment, and who, bless their old souls! don't know no more what Bloo Lite Fedralism wuz than an unborn baby does uv Guy Fawkes. We hev that solid army uv voters whose knees yawn hidjusly, and whose coats is out at elbows, and whose children go barefoot in winter, while their dads is a drinkin cheap whiskey, and damin the Goverment for imposin a income tax. We hev the patriotic citizins whose noses blossom like the ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... frightfully late, aren't they?" exclaimed Daisy Jenkins, giving a slight yawn, and looking longingly out at the tennis courts as she spoke. "I suppose it's the way with fashionable folk. For my part, I call it rude. Mrs. Meadowsweet, may I run across the garden, and pick a piece of sweet brier to ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... else, too. I wish there were any tiger-hunting about here! we might go and kill a few before dinner. (There goes a fine girl! what an ankle, eh, Jos?) Tell us that story about the tiger-hunt, and the way you did for him in the jungle—it's a wonderful story that, Crawley." Here George Osborne gave a yawn. "It's rather slow work," said he, "down here; ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was not merely regardless of it, but ostentatiously disdainful. She took a coquettish lady's-maidish amble to the door, passing Schwartz by the way, and yawned as she looked out upon the street. Schwartz fawned after her to the door, and with a second yawn she repassed him, and returned to lie at the feet of the fat old gendarme. The absurd little drama of coquetry and worship went on until the old fellow arose with a friendly bon jour, to me, ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... go and hire a hall," remarked the sporting editor, with a yawn. "If you are engaged in a talking match you have won the money. Blanket him somebody, and take him ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... yawned—the hint, like the yawn, a broad one. The lady did not take it, however. So far she had held her own; more—had nicely secured her ends. But further communications trembled upon her tongue. The word is just—literally trembled, for they might cause anger, and James' anger—it ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... or fly far away beyond your reach. You love me because I give you the stimulus of uncertainty, and so keep bright your passion, but once you were sure, I should become a duty, as all women become, and then my Paul would yawn and grow to see I was no longer young, and that the expected is always an ennui when ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... which the young lady delivered with great serenity, and concluded with a little yawn, Mrs. Bazalgette had two thoughts. The first was: "This girl is not flesh and blood; she is made of curds and whey, or something else;" the second was: "No, she is a shade hypocriticaler than other girls—before they are married, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... portable possessions. It was very early in the morning, in that half-dark and half-dawn time, when the muffled crowing begins to sound from the village barns and the dogs crawl forth from their barrels and survey the deserted street and yawn. Tip was not usually abroad so early, but in his travelling bandanna and solemn face, as he leaned on his elbows and smoked and smoked, I saw his reason for getting out with the sun. He was taking flight. ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... silent, from sheer terror. A gulf seemed to yawn before his feet, and the Countess appeared to him in the light of the minister of wrath waiting to push him into it. With the rapidity of lightning, his whole life seemed to pass in sudden review before him—his happy childhood ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... failed, and she had managed to make herself so useful to my lady that my lady was very glad to keep her. She could make caps like a Parisian milliner; she could dress her exquisitely; she could read for hours in the sweetest and clearest of voices, without one yawn, the dullest of dull High Church novels. She could answer notes and sing like a siren, and she could embroider prie-dieu chairs and table-covers, and slippers and handkerchiefs, and darn point lace like ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... chameleon, can take all shapes; and is of such force (as Ficinus adds), that it can work upon others, as well as ourselves." How can otherwise blear eyes in one man cause the like affection in another? Why doth one man's yawning [1628]make another yawn? One man's pissing provoke a second many times to do the like? Why doth scraping of trenchers offend a third, or hacking of files? Why doth a carcass bleed when the murderer is brought before it, some weeks after the murder hath been done? Why do witches and old women fascinate and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... from his costume, and though he was clean-shaven, some instinct caused Dan to classify him as a German. He glanced back at Chevrial at last, but the latter was gazing dreamily out over the water and stifling a little yawn ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the King, giving a wide yawn and rubbing his eyes to get the sleep out of them. "Have ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... my opinion that this day will never come to an end," said Prince, with a yawn that nearly rent ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... the womb nor see the light? For what live ever here? With labouring step To tread our former footsteps? pace the round Eternal? to climb life's worn, heavy wheel, Which draws up nothing new? to beat, and beat The beaten track? to bid each wretched day The former mock? to surfeit on the same, And yawn our joys? or thank a misery For change, though sad? to see what we have seen; Hear, till unheard, the same old slabbered tale? To taste the tasted, and at each return Less tasteful? o'er our palates to decant Another vintage? strain a flatter ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... writer quaint but grand, Who penned The Hunting of the Snark and Alice in Wonderland. And I thought I knew a thing or two, or might be even three, About a Ghoul, and a Fay or Troll, and a Brownie or Banshee. I knew that a Banshee always howled, whilst a Goblin might but yawn, I also knew that a Poltergeist was not a Leprechaun, But the Psychicals, I'm bound to say, had me on "buttered toastes" With the wonderful changes which they rang on the good old ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... Eternity, it is a question of the calculus, and does not enter into a singer's first appearance, nor into the recognition of a lover. If it did, I would give you an eloquent dissertation upon it, so that you would yawn and take snuff, and wish me carried off by the diavolo to some place where I might lecture on the infinite without fear of being interrupted, or of keeping sinners like you unnecessarily long awake. There will be no hurry then. Poor old diavolo! ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... prisons will sometimes yawn, And yield their dead unto life again; And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn, In golden glory at ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... asked with a yawn. Then a sudden groan escaped him, and he put his hand to his head. "Thousand devils!" he swore, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... such a yawn! Neither of them very graceful performances, had the lady been less fair and fascinating, but Nina looked exceedingly pretty in their ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Georgiana a penetrating look as she said it, but saw only a pair of beautiful bare arms thrown up over a mass of dark locks, as her cousin, with a clever imitation of a half-smothered yawn, answered merrily: "Then we must go to bed this minute or I shall never have strength of mind to get up. And I can't leave Father Davy to the tender mercies of Mrs. Perkins longer than I can help. She'll give him everything that is bad for him, in spite ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... with a little yawn. She looked to right and to left, fearing that some acquaintance might be coming to see her in company with this rather shabby little companion. "Would you like to walk up the Cliffs a little way, or shall we go down to the ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... were moving," Jack told him as he started to stretch his cramped arms and yawn. "Feel a heap better now after that little nap and ready ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... the appearance of interest became perfunctory. Within ten minutes the few last scattering semblances of gayety had passed, and they lapsed into the longest and most profound of all their silences indoors that day. Its effect upon Penrod was to make him yawn and settle himself ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... performance," Godfrey went on, "but, as I remarked before, the leading lady failed to answer her cue, and it remained for us to touch it off. There it is, Simmonds; I turn it over to you. It and the glove will make unique additions to the museum at headquarters. And now," he added, with the wide yawn of sudden relaxation, "you fellows can make a night of it, if you want to, but I'm ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! how impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... Tribes of Israel, shouldn't wonder," drawlingly volunteered Waldo, stifling a yawn, and forced to rub his inflamed eyes with ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... time to turn in." Benton muffled a yawn. "Pleasant dreams, Sis. Oh, here's your purse. I used part of the bank roll. You won't have much use for ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... that I'll have another now. That's the thing for ideas! Oh, certainly. Picture to yourself an editor writing like mad. He indulges in a pipe to soothe his rampant brain, and while lighting it he leans back for a complacent yawn. When he gets up again, his dominant idea is that the back of his chair must have been suffering from a diseased spine. Isn't that a striking picture? The earth hitting a poor man on the back of his head, eh? Well, it's quite a true one, and the incidents it portrays are also ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... crater of an active volcano. These spinning, boiling bomb centres would shift or break unexpectedly into new regions, great fragments of earth or drain or masonry suddenly caught by a jet of disruptive force might come flying by the explorer's head, or the ground yawn a fiery grave beneath his feet. Few who adventured into these areas of destruction and survived attempted any repetition of their experiences. There are stories of puffs of luminous, radio-active vapour drifting sometimes ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... turnip-field. You have found out by that time all that there is to look for—the daily diminishing interest in your doings, the poorly assumed attention as you attempt to talk over some plan for the future; then the yawn, and by degrees, the covert sneer, the little sarcasm, and finally, the frank, open stare of boredom. Ah, Duke, when you all carry out your repressive legislation against women of evil lives, don't fail ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... at the church, for we had the fourth pew in front of the choir. They said he looked like Napoleon, but it was not true; he was a good-looking fat fellow, short and thick, and pale with fatigue, and not at all lively, quite the contrary. During the service he did nothing but yawn and rock back and forth like a pendulum. I am telling you what I saw myself, and that shows how blind people are, they want ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... separate thinking had grown rusty, and as she sat before the hearth ideas came slowly. The room was dim—lighted only by the firelight; and in that dimness her mind began to stir and stretch and yawn itself awake, like a creature that had been hibernating through a long, dark winter. Suddenly the widow of the Richest Trustee broke out into a feeble little laugh—a convalescing laugh that acted as if it was just getting about ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... danger were an old story. Do not suppose that she had exhausted the lessons, the suggestions of these awful events, their inspirations, exhortations,—that she had wept as became the horror of the tragedy. No: the curtain had not yet fallen, yet our young lady had begun to yawn. To yawn? Ay, and to long for the afterpiece. Since the tragedy dragged, might she not divert herself with that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Labyrinth mine is so much of a labyrinth after all?" he asked. "It seems to me that we might find our way through it without danger of losing ourselves," he continued with a yawn. ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... fallen asleep over King Cophetua's robe. Lucia explained the situation and delicately suggested that it would be so easy for him to "pop in" to dear Daisy's, and be very diplomatic. There was nobody like Georgie for tact. So with a heavy yawn ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... bring you your Frank clothes in the morning. I am very tired, and so I will bid you good night," and the yawn which now overspread the face of the accomplished prince told more than his words that ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... neither dog appeared to get killed or to gain any advantage over the other. One by one the party had dropped out, till the leader (who did not wish to disturb Mr. Lincoln's hold on his shoulder) was left alone, trying to conceal a yawn and to look interested. Suddenly, Mr. Lincoln, with that peculiar smile on his countenance which Mr. Carpenter can talk about, but can't paint, remarked, "By the way, my friend, I'm sorry for Brown, but I gave that appointment to the other ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... the whale's belly. The monstrous fish rolls over in the ocean, blowing portentous vapour from his trump-shaped nostril. The prophet's beard descends upon his naked breast in hoary ringlets to the girdle. He has forgotten the past peril of the deep, although the whale's jaws yawn around him. Between him and the outstretched finger of Jehovah calling him again to life, there runs a spark ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... loose tea-gown clung in long folds about her. A dull colored thing, save for the two broad bands of sapphire plush hanging straight before, from throat to toe. Melicent was plainly dejected; not troubled, nor sad, only dejected, and very much bored; a condition that had made her yawn several times while she looked at ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... whisper to Mr Parmenter, "Oh, dear! is she going to preach a sermon?" and he hid a laugh under a yawn. Somebody else heard ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... that seems now to be more unsubstantial than the fabric of a dream. I cannot think of Clara or of my mother without despair. For oh, Herbert, between me and them there seems to yawn a dishonored grave! Herbert, they talk, you know, of an attack upon the Molino-del-Rey, and I almost hope ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... round the house by the path just then, and Nils rose, with a yawn. "Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will take a little tramp before bedtime. It will make ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... to-morrow, I shouldn't wonder. Then that thinnish fellow with the hair like a hearth-brush—did you meet him? Mr. Fane, a great friend of the Fosses. He's coming to take us sight-seeing." She yawned a wide, audible yawn. "I only hope there'll be some fun in it. Confound you, Hat, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Eph, sagely. "I surely do want to stretch my legs, and take a yawn or two where a sea-gull won't ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... old poem that nobody reads Blooms in a crowded space, Like a ground-vine blossom, so low in the weeds That nobody sees its face— Unless, perchance, the reader's eye Stares through a yawn, and hurries by, For no one wants, or loves, or heeds, The little old ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... continued to talk in this dull manner nobody knows how long; but suspecting that Charley would find the subject rather dry, he looked sidewise at that vivacious little fellow, and saw him give an involuntary yawn. Whereupon Grandfather proceeded with the history of the chair, and related a very entertaining incident, which will be found ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I failed to give him a sign of attention, by a discreet, plaintive cry, that he was there. But if I touched my glass, he would spring up at once; if I filled it, he would put himself on guard, utter a kind of sigh, sneeze, lick his lips, yawn, and, shaking his ears briskly, make little stifled cries. Then he would grow impatient, and more and more watchful and nervous. When I lifted my glass to my lips he would draw back, working gradually nearer to the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... dimple!" said Mrs. Woffington, with perfect nonchalance. "Well, now I suppose I may yawn, or ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the conductor—who was just beginning to yawn—were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came from one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... drowsily from the next room, punctuated by a yawn. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she called, with the suspicious lisp which characterizes her at night, "somebody called up about noon, Mr. Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... or in thy Harlot's Lap, When thou wouldst take a lazy Morning's Nap; Up, up, says AVARICE; thou snor'st again, Stretchest thy Limbs, and yawn'st, but all in vain. The rugged Tyrant no Denial takes; At his Command th' unwilling Sluggard wakes. What must I do? he cries; What? says his Lord: Why rise, make ready, and go streight Aboard: With Fish, from Euxine Seas, thy Vessel freight; Flax, Castor, Coan Wines, the precious Weight ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... predisposes the debilitated body to infectious diseases. Weariness is like a rapid paralysis of the heart; it may induce fainting, as expressed in the popular phrase "dead tired"; but a reflex action will nearly always restore the sufferer, like an automatic safety-valve; thus a yawn, that is to say, a deep, spasmodic inspiration, which dilates the pulmonary alveoli, causes the blood to flow to the heart like a suction pump, and sets it in motion again. In anger there is a kind of tetanic contraction of all the capillaries, causing extreme pallor, and ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... and glared around, the spectators fearfully pressed backward, and drew their breath more quickly. But the tiger lay quiet and extended at full length in his cage, and only by an occasional play of his tail, or a long impatient yawn, testified any emotion at his confinement, or at the crowd which honored ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... to be able to speak together, a thing forbidden by Madame Rupprecht's rules of etiquette, which strictly prohibited any but the most necessary conversation passing between members of the same family when in society. I was sitting, I say, scarcely keeping back my inclination to yawn, when two gentlemen came in, one of whom was evidently a stranger to the whole party, from the formal manner in which the host led him up, and presented him to the hostess. I thought I had never seen any one so handsome or so elegant. His hair was powdered, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... parrots. Pedro went everywhere, and saw everything, as only a boy could. Later, when the flagship was cruising among the islands, and the Admiral, worn out by long anxiety, lay asleep in his cabin, the helmsman, smothering a mighty yawn, called Pedro to him. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... Easington-cum-Liverton, listening to his revered grandfather bubbling forth orthodoxy. Up in Distinguished Strangers' Gallery sat a little boy on his father's knee. Long he listened to the gentle murmur, broken now and then by a yawn from a back bench, or the rustling of the manuscript as it was turned over folio by folio. It was a great occasion for him; his first visit to the Chamber which still echoed with the tones of his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... joined by Fifanti himself; but he never stayed very long. He had an old-fashioned contempt for writings in what he called the "dialettale," and he loved the solemn injuvenations of the Latin tongue. Soon, as he listened, he would begin to yawn, and presently grunt and rise and depart, flinging a contemptuous word at the matter of my reading, and telling me at times that I might ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... the stretch. The yawn is a stretch of the lungs as the stretch is a yawn of the muscles. Both of these exercises express a hunger for oxygen. Whenever anyone is sitting in a cramped position or even in one position for a long time, the stretch or yawn is instinctive. The extension of the muscles of the body as illustrated ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... encouragement, but an angry frown made the lad's brow look rugged, and he was about to give orders for the hatch to be removed, when there was a yawn, and ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... Charon, the demon, with eyes of burning coal, compels a crowd of spirits in his ferryboat. They land and are received by devils, who drag them before Minos, judge of the infernal regions. He towers at the extreme right end of the fresco, indicating that the nether regions yawn infinitely deep, beyond our ken; just as the angels above Christ suggest a region of light and glory, extending upward through illimitable space. The scene of judgment on which attention is concentrated forms but an episode in the universal, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business[106] as the day Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother. O, heart, lose not thy nature; let ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed) and petitions (which ain't petited) and letters to the TIMES, which it makes my jaws yawn to re-read, and all your time have your heart with David Balfour: he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh, James More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me than the Behring Sea ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eagerly to tell him about Christ's life. At first he listened attentively; but this attention did not last long, and he began to yawn. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... searched into them, and suddenly the air was tinged with warm gold. Somewhere the sun had risen. In a little, Scrope heard a dropping sound of firing, and a few moments afterwards the rattle of a volley. The battle was joined. Scrope saw the trench again yawn up before his eyes. The Major was right. This morning, again, Lieutenant Scrope had the harder part ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... seemed to yawn before me. The loneliness and friendlessness of my position were presented to my mind with terrific reality. A deadly swoon-like feeling ensued. To yield in this might seal my fate. I paced the ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... men began to yawn, the medicated women to slip away. Good citizens who had watched in anxiety, fearful that this rash champion of the new order would find a bullet between his shoulders before midnight, began to breathe easier and seek their beds in a strange state of security. Ascalon was shut up; the howling of ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the building of that House. But we must go no farther; for, such thoughts and scenes are too high to be more than touched upon in a story of this kind; therefore we will only add, that Winifred and Edward behaved quite as well as Elizabeth had engaged that they should do, only beginning to yawn just before the end ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thus wreaked his vengeance against all, as even now he has led hither an army of the Greeks in vain, and has now returned home into his dear native land, with empty ships, having left behind him brave Menelaus.' Thus will some one hereafter say: then may the wide earth yawn for me." ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... your real rank. But enough of this subject for the present; I will see you to-morrow morning in good season, and we will not weary poor Zerbine any longer with our man's talk of affairs of honour. I can plainly see that she is doing her best to suppress a yawn, and we would a great deal rather that a smile should part her pretty red lips, and disclose to us the rows of pearls within. Come, Zerbine, fill the Baron de Sigognac's glass, and let ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... brought with it a cloud of apprehensions, for darkness must ever be the ally of crime; and it was one night, long after the clocks had struck the mystic hour "when churchyards yawn," that the hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu again stretched out to grasp a victim. I was ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... scarlet gold-laced waistcoat, which bellied out so bravely in those prosperous days when he sailed before the wind, now hangs loosely about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather breeches are all in folds and wrinkles, and apparently have much ado to hold up the boots that yawn on both sides of his ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... out after Dorothy. Bondsman trailed lazily behind. Because Shoop had not picked up his hat the big dog knew that his master's errand, whatever it was, would be brief. Yet Bondsman followed, stopping to yawn and stretch the stiffness of age from his shaggy legs. There was really no sense in trotting across the street with his master just to trot back again in a few minutes. But Bondsman's unwavering loyalty to his master's every mood and every movement ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... divine Maria Theresa's husband, and Kaiser himself one day. Foolish Natzmer found this noble young gentleman in a remote corner of the Soiree; went up, nothing loath, to speak graciosities and insipidities to him: the noble young gentleman yawned, as was too natural, a wide long yawn; and in an insipid familiar manner, foolish Natzmer (Wilhelmina and the Berlin circles know it) put his finger into the noble young gentleman's mouth, and insipidly wagged it there. "Sir, you seem to forget where you are!" said the noble young gentleman; and closing his mouth with emphasis, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had been lounging on the couch by the window, reading the "Merchant of Venice" in a critically unimpassioned way that the instructor in Dramatic Theory could not have praised too much. The room finally having become too dark for reading, she threw down the book with something like a yawn. "It would have been a joke on Portia," she remarked, "if Bassanio had chosen the wrong casket"; and she turned her attention to the campus outside. Groups of girls were coming along the path from the lake, and the sound of their voices, mingled ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... rains. Who can help laughing at sight of a flock of them huddled up under lee of a barn, limp, draggled, spiritless, shifting from one leg to the other, with their silly heads hanging inert to right or left, looking as if they would die for want of a yawn? One sees just such groups of other two-legged creatures in parlors, under similar circumstances. The truth is, a hen's life at best seems poorer than that of any other known animal. Except when she is setting, I cannot help having a contempt ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a yawn, "we have now and then to go back to Laurier, the biggest if not the greatest autonomist of all Premiers—though Sir Robert Borden years ago spoke at Peterborough quite as broadly, if less eloquently. Here it is—spoken during the war by Laurier. 'We are a free people, absolutely free. ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... concluded his first dream of fragmentary tea-cups, ere a violent pulling at his draggling coat-tails, which hung over the sill, caused him to wake with a start, when he beheld Peggy Nonce at his side, saying, "Dilly Danforth was come to see him." With a hopeless yawn he crawled out of his sunny nook, and, turning his dull, sleepy eyes toward the disturber of his quiet, demanded, in a surly tone, "what she wanted ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search! Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round Upon all space: space starr'd, and lorn of light; Space region'd with life-air; and barren void; Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.— 120 Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest A certain shape or shadow, making way With wings or chariot fierce to repossess A heaven he lost erewhile: it must—it must Be of ripe progress—Saturn must be King. Yes, there must be a golden victory; There must be Gods ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... fault: just to remind Topham that his bread depended on another's goodwill. Congenial indolence grew upon him, but he talked only the more of his ceaseless exertions. Sometimes in the evening he would throw up his arms, yawn wearily, and declare that so much toil with such paltry results was a ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... ledges and shelves of rock; covering these was an army of seals and sea lions waking from their night's rest. They would raise their bodies half upright from their stony beds, stretch their flippers and yawn, much after the manner of a human being, then drop into the water and make off toward the open sea in search of their breakfast. Stretched on his ledge, in the black rubber dress, Paul was probably taken for one ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... so completely and at such length a fool, Mosca," said Count Guarini, with a yawn, "and strive so desperately to be rascal in spite of it, that I am almost sorry for you. Tie me these points, my good fellow, get me my sword, and go to the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... said his wife. "Get on with the reading. The children are impatient." She completed the sentence in a yawn. ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... late," he said with a yawn. "After this hand, I'll drop out; I dare say one of the other two will take my place. Crestwick, I believe your sister and Miss Leslie will be waiting. You're going ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... footnote, p. 158.] And then because we try to think of ourselves having continuous opinions, without being altogether certain what a broad principle is, we quite naturally greet with an anguished yawn an argument that seems to involve the reading of more government reports, more statistics, more curves and more graphs. For all these are in the first instance just as confusing as partisan ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... taking the card (it was a quarter-plate) in hand, and smothering a yawn; for the hour was late, the day had been laborious, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cleanliness, decent and fitting curtains and other furniture, of good stuff, but neither costly nor tawdry, and convenient, but not dazzling, light, are the proper requirements in the furnishing of an opera-house. As for the persons who go there to look at each other—to show their dresses—to yawn away waste hours—to obtain a maximum of momentary excitement—or to say they were there, at next day's three-o'clock breakfast (and it is only for such persons that glare, cost, and noise are necessary), I commend to their consideration, or at least to ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... of the spectacle that was before him. A night creaking of the building made him jump, and he moistened his lips as the pencil wrote on. When the sheet was filled, the pencil fell and David looked about him with a smile and dropping his head on the desk began to yawn. He seemed to be coming out of a deep sleep, and grinned up blinking: "Gee, I must 'a' gone to sleep on you fellows. I ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... not all know some reverend, all but sacred, personage before whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be elastic? But were we once to see him stretch himself beneath the bed-clothes, yawn widely, and bury his face upon his pillow, we could chatter before him as glibly as before a doctor or a lawyer. From some such cause, doubtless, it arose that our archdeacon listened to the counsels of his wife, though he considered himself entitled ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... quick enough to take in the rushing scene. There is a rock here and a big green cave of water there; there is a tumultuous rising and sinking and sinking of snow-tipped waves; there are places that are smooth-running for a moment and then yawn and open up into great gurgling chasms the next; there are strange whirls and backward eddies and rocks, rough and smooth and polished—and through all this the canoe glances like an arrow, dips like a wild bird down the wing of the storm, now slanting from a rock, now edging a green ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... have things to do in the afternoon, but when night comes"—Nellie smothered a contented yawn—"I love getting into something comfy, and just buzzing round ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... it be polite or generous; but this of yours is a deep grief, and alarms me for you. Shall I tell you how I know? You often yawn and often sigh; when these two things come together at your age they are signs of a heavy grief; then it comes out that you have lost your relish for things that once pleased you. The first day I came here you told me your garden had been neglected of late, and you blushed in saying ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... impenetrably strong! Furious and fell, tremendous to behold! E'en with a look she withers all the bold! She mocks the weak attempts of human might; Oh, fly her rage! thy conquest is thy flight. If but to seize thy arms thou make delay, Again thy fury vindicates her prey; Her six mouths yawn, and six are snatch'd away. From her foul wound Crataeis gave to air This dreadful pest! To her direct thy prayer, To curb the monster in her dire abodes, And guard thee through the tumult of the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... desk-phone, discovered under it the inevitable mislaid memorandum, scanned it hastily, tossed the scrap of paper into the brimming waste-basket, and, yawning, raised her arms high above her head. The yawn ended, her arms relaxed, came down heavily, and landed her hands in her lap with a thud. It had been a whirlwind day. At that moment most of the lines in Emma McChesney's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... other two Approaching seem'd, an adder all on fire, As the dark pepper-grain, livid and swart. In that part, whence our life is nourish'd first, One he transpierc'd; then down before him fell Stretch'd out. The pierced spirit look'd on him But spake not; yea stood motionless and yawn'd, As if by sleep or fev'rous fit assail'd. He ey'd the serpent, and the serpent him. One from the wound, the other from the mouth Breath'd a thick ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... effect! for, surely, If ever mortal, King or Cotter, Believed that earth was charged to quake And yawn for his unworthy sake, 'Twas Peter ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... grew later, they began to yawn; and first Toby crawled inside the tent, then Owen, and finally ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... they went on board; so thought Frau Vandersloosh, who trembled for her chandeliers; so thought Babette, who had begun to yawn before the last song, and who had tired herself more with laughing at it; so thought they all, and they sallied forth out of the Lust Haus, with Jemmy Ducks having the advance, and fiddling to them the whole way down to the boat. Fortunately, not one of them fell into the canal, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... and shook himself with a yawn, throwing away the end of his cigar. His glance, in following it, lit on the telegram which had dropped to the floor. The sounds in the next room had ceased, and once more he felt ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... have "calculated," according to custom; but sleepiness overpowered him at the moment, and he terminated the word with a yawn of such ferocity that it drew from Redhand a remark of doubt as to whether his jaws ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... decent, will keep up the attention of a rustic group to whom you might read from "In Memoriam" in vain. A waistcoat of glaring scarlet will be esteemed by a country bumpkin a garment every way preferable to one of aspect more subdued. A nigger melody will charm many a one who would yawn at Beethoven. You must have rough means to move rough people. The outrageous revival-orator may do good to people to whom Bishop Wilberforce or Dr. Caird might preach to no purpose; and if real good be done, by whatever means, all right-minded people should ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... for him, and as I'm doin' the washing myself ye've got to help an' not muss things. First thing ye know he'll sour on what we are giving him and be goin' off worse than ever, trampin' the streets till all hours of the night." At which John had stretched his big frame and with a prolonged yawn, his arms over his head, had remarked: "All right, Kitty, you're boss. Sir or no sir, he's got no frills about him—just plain man like ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is a most outrageous hour in which to arise," remarked his father, not able to suppress a yawn, "and I don't mind if I do turn in—but where will you sleep, Jasper?" whirling around on his son. "I've come to look after you, and I shouldn't begin very well to monopolize your bed," with a ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... want, coming here at this hour in the morning," Bimbo said, with a yawn. "I was just dreaming that I could live without work, when you roused me. What is up that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... great sword girded upon him, and he will come down into the court-yard and walk in the sun for hours. You should see those lazy rascals of guardsmen scatter at the first sight of him—like mice running to their holes when puss begins to yawn and stretch herself." ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... yawn); "I shall not return until I have made the tour of Europe, and I just stepped in for a ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... destiny be affected by the mood of an idle moment; by some superficial indecision, mere fruit of a transient unrest. We lightly debate, we hesitate, we yawn, unconscious of the brink. We half-heartedly decline a suggested course, then lightly accept from sheer ennui, and "life," as I have read in a quite meritorious poem, "is never the same again." It was thus I now toyed there with my fate in my ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... can you show it?' said Lake with a slight yawn. 'Wylder is such a fellow. I don't the least pretend to understand him. It may be ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... light fell on her face Gerty Bridewell awoke, stifled a yawn with her pillow, and remembered that she had been very unhappy when she went to bed. That was only six hours ago, and yet she felt now that her unhappiness and the object of it, which was her husband, were of less disturbing importance to her than the ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... earth's bosom bare. And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... cheek lay. Her father was knocking the ashes from his pipe. A similar tapping sounded inside at the fireplace. The old woman had gone and Bub was in bed, and she had heard neither move. The old man rose with a yawn. ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... long job—and a tiring one—but it was almost over. Neel allowed himself the luxury of a long yawn, then shuffled over to the case of rations they had brought. He stripped the seal from something optimistically labeled CHICKEN DINNER—it tasted just like the algae it had been made from—and boiled some ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... the key, we are apt to fancy, as we stare at them, that to Lavater we owe the discovery. Those ubiquitous emperors Hadrian, Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Gordianus ditto, on whom as on other boring acquaintance you are sure to stumble in every gallery at Rome till you almost yawn in their faces, are here of course. Besides these, by way of novelty, we fall in with the grave, much-bearded, long-faced bust, Epicurus underwritten on the pedestal. If it be that sage, then has not his face any vestige of the jovial "live while you live" expression which we might ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... of English root, Though nameless in our language: we retort The fact for words, and let the French translate That awful yawn, which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... accompanied by a yawn which seemed to crack the very jawbones, attracted the attention of M. d'Avrigny; he left M. Noirtier, and returned to the sick man. "Barrois," said the doctor, "can you speak?" Barrois muttered a few unintelligible ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dark, Matilde heard something like a yawn, as of a person waking from sleep. Then Giuditta's ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... gaily-coloured print or navy-blue calico, and set to work to cook the crayfish, always bringing us the best. Then came a general gossip and story-telling or singing in our hut for an hour or so, and then some one would yawn and the rest would laugh, bid us good-night, go off to their mats, and the skipper and I would be asleep ere we ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... platitudes uttered on such occasions; yet one can never be properly critical, because the sight of the boys and girls themselves, those young and hopeful makers of to-morrow, disarms one's scorn. We yawn desperately at the essays, but our hearts go out to the essayists, all the same, for "the vision splendid" is shining in their eyes, and there is no fear of "th' inevitable yoke" that the years are ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... brought diphtheria and tonsilitis and all sorts of dreadful diseases to delicate little girls. She was afraid to move for fear the little thing would jump down and run away, but as she bent cautiously toward it the necktie of her middy blouse fell forward and the kitten in the middle of a yawn struck swiftly at it with a soft paw. Then, still too sleepy to play, it turned its head and began to lick Elizabeth Ann's hand with a rough little tongue. Perhaps you can imagine how thrilled the ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... manner in his fluent discussions of art, literature, archaeology, architecture, places, and peoples. I was sorry to miss such an evening, and think I could forego tiddledywinks with a fair degree of amiability if, instead, I could hear such a man talk. I have seen people yawn in an art gallery. I fear to play tiddledywinks lest my hour may resume the guise of a hag. But that makes me think of Atropos again, and the joke I am planning to play on her. Still, I see that I shall not soon get around to that ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... number one, my boy," said Dandy, with a yawn; "for if you don't, no one else will," and he shut his eyes and was fast ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... arching her whole lithe body into a setting for the prettiest yawn that Kirby had ever seen. "So the Jat is missing! Yes, he came here, sahib. He was never invited, but he came. He sat here saying nothing until it suited him to sit where another man was; then he struck the other man—so, with the sole of his foot—and took the man's place, and heard what ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... stopped the yawn with which he was indulging himself, and got upon his feet, surprised in no small degree to find that no one had entered the room. He went to the ladder to satisfy himself, but meeting with a like measure of ill-success ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... I thought everybody——" She stifled a yawn. "It's the wind against my face. It always makes me sleepy," she apologized. "Since you haven't heard, I suppose I oughtn't to tell you. He's become the sort of skeleton in our family cupboard—— You're still incredulous! That will please mother. She'll ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... Open the mouth to the fullest extent, so that the uvula rises and almost disappears, and the root of the tongue and larynx are depressed. The action is similar to yawning, and to accomplish it "think a yawn", ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... you smell mignonette, think of it as a soporific. Just yawn and say you've been working like a fire-horse on the Fourth.... You see, it isn't what happens that gets out to the others, including those we care about, but what is imagined by minds which are ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... emptiness. By the stars he knew that it was well toward morning. Hills bulked in the distance, with dark blobs here and there which daylight later identified as live oaks. Cliff was climbing out, and at the sound of Johnny's yawn ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower |
