"Bated" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... existence, of "life" or of "mind," it ought to reply that it does not know; if asked about "personality," or "souls," or "God,"—about all of which Professor Haeckel has fully-fledged opinions—it would have to ask for a definition of the terms, and would speak either not at all or with bated ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... bated breath, that in the dim dawn of colonial settlement a rude log hut had been erected here by pirates, who came ashore to bury their ill-gotten booty, and rumors were rife of bloody deeds and midnight orgies,—all ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... evidently too late for an interview. The windows were blank in the white light; only one—her bedroom—showed a light behind the lowered muslin blind. Her draped shadow once or twice passed across it. He was turning away with soft steps and even bated breath when suddenly he stopped. The exaggerated but unmistakable shadow of a man stood ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... have to." And then added, with an awestruck face and bated breath: "But it's awful!" A moment after he was laughing at himself, as he said to his companion, referring to a very palpable fact, "I don't wonder I made ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... started to crawl down to a big rock that was our objective point. We went cautiously, with bated breath and pounding hearts. When we got there I peeped over to see the stags still lying down. But they had heads intent and wary. Still I did not think they had scented us. R.C. took a peep, and turning ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... him, perhaps, or beat him to death—nothing would have surprised Jurgis, who knew little of the laws. Yet he had picked up gossip enough to have it occur to him that the loud-voiced man upon the bench might be the notorious Justice Callahan, about whom the people of Packingtown spoke with bated breath. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... began to watch each stroke with bated breath; or now and again, muttering the name of Jarnac, broke into brief exclamations as a blow more savage than usual drew sparks from our blades, and made the rafters ring with the harsh grinding of steel ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... in the secrets of the Chancelleries have spoken with bated breath—as though in the presence of some vision of Armageddon. On the strength of this mere talk of war by the three nations, vast commercial interests have been embarrassed, fortunes have been lost and won on the Bourses, banks have suspended payment, some thousands have been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... he cried, with a gay laugh. 'You will ever speak of my poor fortune with bated breath and in an awestruck voice, as though it were the wealth of the Indies. You cannot think, lad, how easy it is for a money-bag to take unto itself wings and fly. It is true that the man who spends it doth not consume the money, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... And sware to follow and to serve the good Which my word published and my life declared. Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top Descended leader of a band of saints, And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale I perched my convent. Yet I bated not One whit of strict restraint and abstinence. And they who love me and who serve the truth Have learned to suffer with me, and have won The supreme joy that is not of the flesh, Foretasting the delights of Paradise. This faith, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... some time before the poor bird recovered from his terrible fright. His little heart beat very fast, and when his wife returned, and he told her all about the children's visit, it was with bated and often-interrupted breath. ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... out of the rut of commonplace. Our pulses are no longer stirred at the mere mention of the word MAGIC, and even BLACK MAGIC is coldly discussed where not so very long ago none would have dared to speak it save with 'bated breath.' Yet we are all mystics by birth, and scarce one of us there is who as a child has not experienced the fear of darkness. We cannot explain it, and though the child may soon be taught to ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... to obey, and the musician, ignorant of the reason for the command, repeated the clear, ringing call, where my dull ears could take it all in. No words can describe my sensations, as, with Andrew Tully beside me, I listened with bated breath to the familiar notes unheard for years, and, with eyes brimming with tears, I could only say, "Oh, General, I thank you; this makes me feel that I must hear my mother's voice calling me home to the dear old quarters over there, 'to get ready for dinner.'" ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... wrecked,—the thirst for stimulants and the revolt against restraint which soon made headway and passed all bars. In the earlier portions of his career a buoyant humour bore him up; and amid thick-coming shapes of ill he bated no jot of heart or hope. He was cheered by vague stirrings of ambition, which he pathetically compares to the "blind groping of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave." Sent to school at Kirkoswald, he became, for his scant leisure, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... rise! A prince who might have gone with gods to wive Nor bated them in choice! This to my face! I, Husak, fawn on woman! Out with her! Drag her to death! To ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... announced triumphantly, after an interval during which the girls had watched with eager eyes and bated breath. "That was a mean one. Thought it was going to make me rip out the whole row—but I showed it! Now, please, don't anybody drop any more. I must finish that pair of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... edge of the roof. All shuddered, and began to observe him with bated breath. He passed. A tremendous hurrah rose towards heaven. The corporal resumed his way, and on arriving at the point which was threatened, he began to break away, with furious blows of his axe, beams, tiles, and rafters, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... Lizzie's brougham could hardly make its way up to the door. But way was at once made for her when Frank handed her out of it, and the policemen about the place were as courteous to her as though she had been the Lord Chancellor's wife. Evil-doing will be spoken of with bated breath and soft words even by policemen, when the evil-doer comes in a carriage, and with a title. Lizzie was led at once into a private room, and told that she would be kept there only a very few minutes. Frank made his way into the court and found that two magistrates had just seated themselves ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... tale of destitution, loneliness, and despair, which borders on the incredible. It is a tale that has been repeated in many a miner's cabin, by many a hunter's campfire, and in many a frontiersman's home, and everywhere it has been listened to with bated breath. ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... to what he judged was a large field. Trees no longer bordered the highway on the left side. Dimly Henry saw objects here and there which he thought were boulders and clumps of bushes. He saw no light and stood for a second peering into the darkness, listening with bated breath. Straight ahead of him he heard the faint purring of a muffled motor. He knew that he was not many hundred feet behind it and that this time the car could not escape him. He thrust his motor-cycle into some near-by bushes, first whipping out his metal cane. Then he ran ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... slavery game, eh?" she said, with bated breath. "Good gracious, Mr. Barnes, if this story ever gets into the newspapers you'll be the ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... none. Therefore was he sore perplexed and oft would touch the dewy flowers as half expecting they should vanish also. Now upon a certain dawn he had hid himself within the shadows and waited with bated breath and heart strangely a-throb. And with the day-spring she came again, tall and gracious in her clinging draperies and long green veil. Then, even as she bent to lay the flowers upon the grave came Beltane, soft of foot, and spake ere she ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... not stand But that her vertue guards it and protects it From blastinges and heavens thunders. There shee lyves Lyke to a ritche and pretious Jewell lost, Fownd shyninge on a doonge-hill, yet the gemme No wyse disparadged of his former worthe Nor bated of his glory; out of this fyre Of lust and black temptation sheis [sic] returned ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... Fern and Rivers off among different families," she said with bated breath. "What a shame that would be! Mr. Dillon in Stillwater, the mother in Danbury Hospital, Fern with Mrs. York, and Rivers at the Weston's. Oh, they mustn't part Fern from her baby! They can't get along without ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... roar of the guns and caissons as they thundered on their mission of death; the glittering sheen reflected from a thousand sabres, had all passed by and left us in the desolated town. We lived, as it were, with bated breath and eager ears, our nerves tensely strung with anxiety and suspense waiting to catch the first sound of that coming strife, where we knew so many of our bravest and best must fall. At last came the news of that terrible fight at Buzzard's Roost or Rocky ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... mastered its secrets and understood our own relationship to it, it is natural to turn inward, and read the other side of our life's picture, and when we do this it will be strange indeed if we do not feel the Eternal presence so close upon our soul that we will long to say with bated ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... hour the clerks of the great house talk of that dreadful day with bated breath—for as bloody Hector raged through the Greeks, so did the great Meeson rage through his hundred departments. In the very first office he caught a wretched clerk eating sardine sandwiches. Without a moment's hesitation he took the sandwiches and threw ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... maintained." It was in this spirit that, as Foreign Secretary, he watched over the interests of Englishmen abroad. Nothing could be more agreeable for Englishmen; but foreign governments were less pleased. They found Lord Palmerston interfering, exasperating, and alarming. In Paris they spoke with bated breath of "ce terrible milord Palmerston;" and in Germany they made a little song ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... realized that some movement at the foot of the tree had awakened him. He tried to look downward, but the darkness and the leaves hid everything from view. He waited with bated breath and soon heard a faint scratching. That some wild animal was at the foot of the tree ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... eyes gazed at him steadily and he stopped laughing. In the bated hush of the courtroom he said softly, "What a pity I'm not an alien too. You could have the ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... more than fifteen years since this country was following with bated breath the judicial investigation of the charges against Captain Dreyfus for treason in having sold secrets of the French War Office to Germany. Under the civil law procedure, there is little, if any, ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... wooden foot-bridge was thrown across the line. This was at a place not much frequented, as the bridge formed only part of a short cut into a by-road which led to one or two farms on the hill- sides. Along the rails round this ascending curve the ordinary trains laboured with bated breath; and even the dashing express was compelled to slacken here a ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... faithful to the trusteeship of the most priceless legacy that the past has left to the present and to the future? If this is not our function in the scheme of things, then what is our function? Is it to stand with bated breath to catch the first whisper that will usher in the next change? Is it to surrender all initiative and simply allow ourselves to be tossed hither and yon by the waves and cross-waves of a ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... has, on the whole, been treated with singular tenderness by the national party whose just expectations he has disappointed; the opposition to his schemes has, indeed, exhibited, if anything, too much of the style of "bated breath" to befit the dignity of independent legislators; and the only result of this timorous dissent has been to inflame him with the notion that the public men who offered it were conscious that the people were on his side, and concealed anxiety ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... sofa, while the others kept watch, walking from window to window, listening at the fast-locked door, starting at every sound. Occasionally the dogs would bark furiously: "There they are!" cried everybody, and rising to their feet, with bated breath and wildly-beating hearts, they would listen until convinced that their four-footed friends had given a false alarm. Those of the women-servants who had no husbands begged every night to sleep "in de house." They were terrified. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... girl saw the ring of men around the fighters contract; she saw Trevison dive headlong at the kneeling man; with fingers working in a fury of impotence she swayed at the iron rail, leaning far over it, her eyes strained, her breath bated, constricting her lungs as though a steel band were around them. For she seemed to feel ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... bated breath, and bit his lip and hearkened, And dug and dragged the stone of death, by ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... Szechuan, which has a population greater than the population of France, declared its independence; and the whole Northern army on the upper reaches of the Yangtsze was caught in a trap. The story is still told with bated breath of the terrible manner in which Yuan Shih-kai sated his rage when this news reached him—Szechuan being governed by a man he had hitherto thoroughly trusted—one General Chen Yi. Arming himself with a sword and beside himself with rage he burst into ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... ice by asking them if they took me for a ghost. As soon as they heard me speak in Dutch the fixed stare gave way to a general grin. Then they explained, with a sigh of relief, that the zealous servant had told them with bated breath that I was a bold, bad Englishman, whereupon they had made the above preparations for receiving me. I did not fail to curse the native's stupidity, after which we sat down to a plentiful dinner. When this was over the mistress of the house ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... judgment of some men of letters or of science which may represent no more than the wave of some popular feeling, or the views of some fashionable or dogmatising school. The bold assertions of men of science are received with awe and bated breath, the criticisms of an intellectual group of savants are quoted as though they were rules for a holy life, while the mind of the Church and her guidance are barely spoken ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... startle from its shaded restin' place, Seems a furry shaft o' silence shootin' into noiseless space, An' a rattlesnake a crawlin' through the rocks so old an' gray Helps along the ghostly feelin' in a rather startlin' way. Every breeze that dares to whisper does it with a bated breath, Every bush stands grim an' silent in a sort o' livin' death— Tell you what, a feller's feelin's give him many an icy prod, When thar ain't nobody ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated 85 In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life And observation strange, my meaner ministers Their several kinds have done. My high charms work, And these mine enemies are all knit up In their distractions: they now are in my power; 90 And in these ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... sees Voltaire serenely shining among the Princes and Princesses of the world; Amphitheatre all whispering with bated breath, "Voltaire! Voltaire!" But let us hear Voltaire himself, from the interior of the Phenomenon, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Eddas—probably without knowing the source. "I know, if any one does, what lack of money means, but I want you rather to have learning than wealth. Then, when the whole world is listening to you with bated breath, I shall walk across North Bridge resting on your arm, and I shall be repaid for all that my own life has not brought me. We shall walk arm in arm, you and I, at four o'clock, when the King goes for a walk, ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... mystified than ever. It would hardly have surprised us more if the prisoner had informed us that Mr. Darrow still lived. The excitement was so intense that thought was impossible, so we could only listen with bated breath for someone else to solve the thing for our beleaguered and discouraged minds. After a word with his colleague, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... bridge. She had just time enough to crouch on the thick butt of a limb that overhung the passageway when the rustling of the leaves announced the arrival of Myla. A dark form emerged from the wall of trees opposite her and ran nimbly onto the swaying bridge. Suma waited with bated breath and blazing eyes as her claws crept out of their sheathes. Onward came the shadow-like figure, all unsuspicious of the vengeful fury that lay in wait; and when the monkey reached the border of her own country and, as she ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... serious force between the invaders and the sea. Only in those distant transports, where the grimy stokers shoveled and strove, were there hopes for the safety of Natal and the honour of the Empire. In Cape Colony the loyalists waited with bated breath, knowing well that there was nothing to check a Free State invasion, and that if it came no bounds could be placed upon how far it might advance, or what effect it might have upon the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the night—a sharp sound like the crack of a whip, but louder, more menacing, more nerve-piercing. She turned, every muscle tense, and listened with bated breath. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... assuming that you are actually the person of whom I have heard so much up and down Europe—the man of whom certain men and women speak with admiration, and with bated breath—the man known in certain circles as—as ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... among the terrified goats, four of which he slew with a stroke from his powerful tail, after which he proceeded to drag their mangled carcases into his lair. We waited an hour, when, just before sundown, the reptile came forth again on his way to the water. We watched him with bated breath, and Sylvia, who now, for the first time, began to understand the trap I had set, could hardly contain her excitement. When the crocodile came to the sand-pit we had dug on the road he sank down, when ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... sentimental superstition again broke out and fastened itself upon the minds of the people, and the miracle of it was spoken of among them with almost bated breath. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... he scratched the earth away with his fingers. The hard something was a tin can, evidently, about which had been wound several feet of tape such as is used to repair bicycle punctures and such. Fishing his knife from his pocket, Phil proceeded to cut away the taping, while the others, with bated breath, awaited the result of the find. It took some minutes to scrape and cut away the hardened tape, but at last ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... ever and ever, Greed, sick with envy, and nets lifted high, Full of inherited hatred. Every one saw it, and every one felt The secret venom, gushing forth, Year after year, Heavy and breath-bated years. But hearts did not quiver Nor hands draw ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... dull; stifled, muffled; hoarse, husky; gentle, soft, faint; floating; purling, flowing &c v.; whispered &c v.; liquid; soothing; dulcet &c (melodious) 413; susurrant^, susurrous^. Adv. in a whisper, with bated breath, sotto voce [Lat.], between the teeth, aside; piano, pianissimo; d la sourdine^; out of earshot inaudibly &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... hast Thou forsaken Me?' He cried from that depth of dereliction. 'In that awful hour,' said Rabbi Duncan, addressing his students, 'in that awful hour He took our damnation, and He took it lovingly!' When, with reverent hearts and bated breath, we peer down into the fathomless deeps that such a saying opens to us, we catch a glimpse of the inexpressible value which heaven sets upon the souls of men. And, when Michael Trevanion has led us to such inaccessible heights and to such unutterable ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... prisoner of a mixed band who had joined together to effect his capture. As the discussion went on it became more evident that there were two parties and two factions, both anxious to possess his person, and he listened with bated breath and a beating heart to every ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... With fear in their hearts and bated breath, the tribe waited again for the sound that ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... scarcely knew what was passing—still less how it had come about. It was said that Janus had died of malignant fever, due to the terrible malaria of the coasts where he had been hunting. Yet some hinted that there were natural poisons, as of the marshes, and others—more fatal: but this was with bated breath and kept well without the innermost circle of the court, for no one really knew. It was easy to talk of poison, but far less easy to make assertions implicating those who might be innocent; and, meanwhile, the complications surrounding the throne of Cyprus demanded infinite ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... physician who was credited with possessing certain medicines of peculiar virtue. He was believed to have in store one drug—a powerful salt—which he reserved only for the most dangerous cases, and regarding which, though they had never seen the result of its operation, the community spoke with bated breath. At the vehement request of his mother the mysterious medicine was administered to Goethe at the crisis of his malady, at the hour of midnight, and with all due solemnity. From that moment ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... expected to die, but he held up his shield, and lost no ground, nor bated any cheer. All men that beheld him said they never saw knight fight so well as Arthur did, considering the blood that he bled, and they were sorry for him. But Accolon was so bold because of Excalibur ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... and something slid off into the river with a splash. The lapping of the ripples sounded like a drinking beast. Kenkenes put a bold foot on the soggy sand and stepped out. Rachel followed him with bated breath. Anubis unceremoniously mounted his shoulder. He dragged the bari far up on the shore, once more lifted Deborah and ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... life and death. The moon, a white, cold patch, lay against the steel-blue sky. The snow, thick coated with frost, glittered and scintillated in the moonlight. A silence impressive, complete, tense, lay upon the frozen white world. It spoke of death, as the bated breath of the storm, before it breaks, ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... witness of the exploit—was that Hester Sommers had been carried off in the manner related by an apparently friendly British sailor. This she told soon after to Peter the Great, and this was the substance of the communication which Peter the Great, with glaring eyes and bated breath, made to George Foster, who received it with feelings and expressions that varied amazingly as ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... which is easily soluble in water, precipitates gelatine completely, gives a bluish-black coloration with iron salts, and gives a precipitate with aniline hydrochloride. To investigate its tannoid properties, the mixture was brought to the acidity 1 gm 10 c.c. N/10 NaOH and a piece of bated calf skin was then introduced into a solution measuring about 2 B. After eighteen hours the pelt was nearly tanned through, and a further twenty-four hours completed the tanning process, after which a light fat-liquor was given. ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... beautiful, radiant, still-smiling face of the young girl, and then at the impressive features of the elder lady, Weldon Gardner, with bated breath and a dazed expression in his startled ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... fervent panegyrists of Abbe Duchayla spoke of him with bated breath, and, when he himself looked into his own heart and recalled how often he had applied to the body the power to bind and loose which God had only given him over the soul, he was seized with strange tremors, and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... With bated breath and eagerly beating heart Rod pursued his search. On one of the walls he found the remains of what had once been garments—part of a hat, that fell in a thousand pieces when he touched it; ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... turned and saw her sad, imploring face, And tears that quenched the wild fire in my heart. I pressed her hand and passed into the hall, While she stood sobbing in a flood of tears, And he stood choked with anger and amazed. But as I passed the ivied porch he came With bated breath and muttered in my ear— 'Beggar!'—It stung me like a serpent's fang. Pride-pricked and muttering like a maniac, I almost flew the street and hurried home To vent my anger to the silent elms. 'Beggar!'—an ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... fallen down and he had been told that this was a divine judgment, he would have said, "May be; but the bearing o' the roof and walls wasn't right, else it wouldn't ha' come down"; yet he believed in dreams and prognostics, and to his dying day he bated his breath a little when he told the story of the stroke with the willow wand. I tell it as he told it, not attempting to reduce it to its natural elements—in our eagerness to explain impressions, we often lose our hold of the sympathy that ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... dream of thee: She is not that for which youth hoped; But she hath blessings all her own, Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, And faith to sorrow given alone: Almost I deem that it is thou Come back with graver matron brow, With deepened eyes and bated breath, Like one who somewhere had met Death. "But no," she answers, "I am she Whom the gods love, Tranquillity; That other whom you seek forlorn. Half-earthly was; but I am born Of the immortals, and our race Have still some sadness in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... were speaking with him familiarly—you were speaking with him almost as an equal," she pronounced in bated accents, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... by its different modulations! How we laugh and cry, become indignant, revengeful, our feelings leaping from one extreme to the other, according to the passion-freighted or love-freighted words which reach our ear; how we sit spell-bound, with bated breath, before the great orator who is playing upon the emotions of his audience, as a musician plays upon the strings of his harp, now bringing out tears, now smiles, now pathos, now indignation! The power of his word-painting makes a wonderful impression. A thousand listeners respond ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Noir, this is no time 'for bated breath and whispered humbleness.' I am but a simple girl of seventeen, but I understand your purpose and that of your son just as well as though I were an old man of the world. You are the fortune hunters ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... that two masters of their craft, two desperate men, had met, and that the great sport had become a vital combat between their own champion and the champion of another land—Spain, France, Denmark, Russia, Italy?—a hush spread over the great space, and every eye was strained; men gazed with bated breath. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the older children, some of them with rough, hard, sly faces. One or two grinned rudely and nudged each other. The older girls sat with bated breath; they perceived something strange in the air. Most of them had heard his ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... room of the first floor that the jury had assembled. There on the narrow bed lay the mortal remains of the officer whose death-cry had startled the garrison so short a time before. Men and women had spoken with bated breath, with dread and horror on their faces, with heavy load at heart,—many had not slept at all,—since the news flew round the garrison at one o'clock. It was shocking to think of Mr. Gleason as murdered, but that ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... is Shakespeare all this time? He has retired to a side table with Alleyn, who has another historical play that requires altering. Their conversation is of comparatively little importance; what we are to note with bated breath is that Will is filling a pipe. His face is placid, for he does not know that the tobacco Ned is handing him is the Arcadia Mixture. I love Ned Alleyn, and like to think that Shakespeare got the ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... or military, were fixed. They were no more than specks in the great open space—just so many little coloured ants to the eye—and the gaze of the spectators gloated on them. For they were Britain's chosen. These were the men of whom all London had been reading with bated breath for well nigh three years past. These were the men of Alma's heights and Balaclava's charge and Inkerman's fog, and the frost of the trenches—the pick and pride of the whole contingent which had gone ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... sons of tradesmen and artisans. Nowhere is there so little religious formalism, coupled with such deep religious feeling, as in the country where sermons are preached to empty benches, while Tannhauser and Lohengrin, Wallenstein and Faust, are listened to with the hush of awe and bated breath by thousands ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... fire, rose up between the officers; every mess in every ship was divided against itself; brothers-in-arms of yesterday were enemies of to-day; and no one spoke of the outlook at home except in bated breath and measured speech, from fear that the bitter cup would overflow then and there, and water turn to blood. Many Southern officers sent in their resignations at once, and all, both from North and South, were anxious to get ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... during the course of the afternoon, contrived to pass near Staniford. "Why, there wa'n't no need of your doing it," he said, in a bated tone. "I could ha' had him out with the boat, ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... o' waitin, aw'll off to mi wark, Awst be bated a quarter,—that's flat;— If tha's nobbut been fooilin me just for a lark, Tha may find thi mistak when to lat. Aw wanted to mak thi mi wife, for aw thowt, Tha'd prove thisen just sich a mate as aw sowt; But it seems tha'rt a false-hearted, young gooid-for-nowt! But aw see thi, ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... taught by the priests for centuries. I pointed to the board on which hung the edicts prohibiting Christianity, and told them I believed in that doctrine, and that Christ was the One adored and loved by us. A volley of naru hodos, spoken with bated breath, greeted this announcement, and I could only understand the whispered "Why, that is the sect whose followers will go to hell!" The old ladies could not walk fast, and we soon parted, after many a strange question concerning morals, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... hush of death could not have been quieter nor more impressive. Even as people looked at each other in wonder, the tumult came to its own again. Afterward a whole populace was to recall this strange, depressing second of utter stillness; to the end of time that sudden pall was spoken of with bated ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... silence, as the red of the farm-house and the barn was like a part of the green of the fields and woods all round them: the black-green of pines and spruces, the yellow-green of maples and birches, dense to the tops of the dreary hills, and breaking like a bated sea around the Lion's Head. The farmer stooped at his work, with a thin, inward-curving chest, but his wife stood straight at hers; and she had a massive beauty of figure and a heavily moulded regularity ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wealth and position are wholly indifferent to all public matters. While English women take an active part in elections, holding meetings and canvassing their districts, here, even the wives of judges, governors, and senators speak with bated breath of political movements, and seem to feel that a knowledge of laws and constitutions would ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... with me, all you who love France, into one of those Parisian houses, where after dinner when the cloth has been removed, the huge road maps are spread out on the dining-room table, and every one eagerly bends over them with bated breath, while the latest communique is read. Fathers, mothers, grandmothers, and little children, friends and relatives, solemnly, anxiously await the name of their secteurs—the secteurs where their loved ones are engaged. How all the letters are read, re-read ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... seconds all on board who watched these messages of death stood with bated breath. Then a general roar of relief went up as the two "tinfish" glided harmlessly past the ship, the nearest at a distance of less than twenty feet, and parallel to the new course ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... of the Faithful, vowed to follow Old Thames's placid flow, We'll breathe of his leviathans that wallow, In bated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... an hour late, but at length the luggage porters began to assemble, and with bated breath I watched the train of dusty sleeping-cars slowly draw into ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... night of the very day it came he was dancing gloriously with, and had been saying things to, Evelyn Darrah that she one day earlier had listened to with bated breath. Now his mustache swept her pretty ear as he lowered his head in the midst of the loveliest "glide," and murmured something more, whereat she had suddenly swung herself out of the circle of his arm, swept him a stately courtesy and fairly startled—stunned ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... Byronic when it is natural and fearless and strong; and it is a melancholy admission of something timid and sluggish in us all that we should speak "with bated breath and whispering humbleness" of this brilliant figure. A little more courage, a little less false modesty, a little more sincerity, and the lambs of our democratic age would all show something of that ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... our first visit of ceremony that the government of a turbulent province could not have been intrusted to better hands. In the antechamber we found a priest waiting, as it struck me from his deportment, to prefer his suit with “bated breath,” and the feeling that the wings of the priesthood are now clipped in the Sardinian states. The Marquis conversed with frankness on his own position and the state of the island. He had been in London at the time of the “Great Exhibition,” ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... the marriage, although in the last three nights before the event came off, her mother, Mrs. Evelyn, slept in the spare bedroom with which my room communicated. Nevertheless, we met and carried on our amorous sports with bated breath and suppressed sighs. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... had not been so gay for years. And they were all there—all her old friends and many of Jane's new ones, who for years had looked on Lucy as one too far above them in station to be spoken of except with bated breath. ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a mountain town. The mountaineers swarmed from far and near, and lined the streets on every hand with open mouth and bated breath, as the grand procession, with band, and clown, and camels, and elephants, and lions, and tigers, and spotted horses, paraded in brilliant array. The excitement was boundless when the crowd rushed into the tent, and they left behind them a surging mass of humanity, unprovided with ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... broke the seal. Bending near the light he read the lines, his vision blurred, his heart throbbing so fiercely that the blood seemed to be drowning out other sounds for all time to come. In the dim corridor stood the two men, watching him with bated breath and guilty, ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... admire the beauties of nature. When I had seated myself, in proper attitude, on the gnarled root of an old tree, overhanging a lovely ravine, I proceeded to the reading part of the play, and must of course be too much absorbed to hear the approaching footsteps, to which I listened with bated breath. So I did not look up when they stopped at my side, or until a ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... deliver you. As moat abated captives to some nation That won you without blows. And bated is used in a kindred sense ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... hardly suit the theories of those hard-hearted players who believe that the true artist is never "carried away," or affected by the pathos of his part. Surely, the scene is ridiculous rather than imposing, and one is tempted to suggest, albeit with bated breath, that the Spectator was indulging in a bit of good-natured exaggeration. Exaggeration did we say? The modern newspaper writer, who is always glad, when off duty, to call things by their plain ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... nor close thy lips, Nor speak with bated breath; This evil shall not always last, The end of ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... threshold, moneyes is your suite. What should I say to you? Should I not say, Hath a dog money? Is it possible A curre should lend three thousand ducats? or Shall I bend low, and in a bond-mans key With bated breath, and whispring humblenesse, Say this: Faire sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time You cald me dog: and for these curtesies Ile lend you ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... person; nor can he bear that other people should laugh at his expence. Besides, if the subject had been properly chosen, the joke was too severe in all conscience.' ''Sdeath! (cried the knight) I could not have bated him an ace had he been my own father; and as for the subject, such another does not present itself once in half a century.' Here Mrs Tabitha interposing, and bridling up, declared, she did not see that Mr Lismahago was a fitter subject for ridicule than the knight ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett |
