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Gape   Listen
verb
Gape  v. i.  (past & past part. gaped; pres. part. gaping)  
1.
To open the mouth wide; as:
(a)
Expressing a desire for food; as, young birds gape.
(b)
Indicating sleepiness or indifference; to yawn. "She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes, And asks if it be time to rise."
(c)
Showing unselfconsciousness in surprise, astonishment, expectation, etc. "With gaping wonderment had stared aghast."
(d)
Manifesting a desire to injure, devour, or overcome. "They have gaped upon me with their mouth."
2.
To open or part widely; to exhibit a gap, fissure, or hiatus. "May that ground gape and swallow me alive!"
3.
To long, wait eagerly, or cry aloud for something; with for, after, or at. "The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes."
Synonyms: To gaze; stare; yawn. See Gaze.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gape" Quotes from Famous Books



... clear obscure, the brown and yellow rocks of bare limestone, at the foot of which is the small inn, seem to be drawing nearer. All their details become luminously distinct as the air grows darker, while the caverns gape like the black mouths of some stealthily approaching, monstrous, many-headed form. Two men are still working in a field of tobacco, and they go on until lights flash forth from all the houses in the valley. Then they slowly move off into the dusk ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... it will not be honourable for us to retreat to the hollow ships; but [rather] let the black earth here gape for all. This indeed would at once be better for us, than that we should permit the horse-breaking Trojans to drag him to their ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... he was too scared to do more than gape at th' skipper like a codfish three days out er water, an th' old man gits a ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... Sits the grim monarch of insatiate Death; The shark rapacious with descending blow Darts on the scaly brood, that swims below; The crawling crocodiles, beneath that move, Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above; 60 With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour. —Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display! From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd, And one great ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... only one of the quartet unable to give utterance to his feelings. He could only cower there, and gape, while the unknown sailing craft was bearing down straight for the little motor-boat, and apparently bound to smash ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... Ilioneus' stout ship, her that Achates leal 120 And Abas ferried o'er the main, and old Aletes' keel The storm hath overcome; and all must drink the baneful stream Through opening leaky sides of them that gape at every seam. ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... that we do no longer gape on the aristocracy admiringly, and write of them curiously, as if they were creatures in a Paradise? Is it that Thackeray has converted us? In part, surely, we are just as snobbish as ever, though the gods of our adoration totter ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... the princess were hiding behind an oak. Upon my word, as the head came waving and undulating through the air and reaching almost within arm's length of Prince Jason, it was a very hideous and uncomfortable sight. The gape of his enormous jaws was nearly as wide as the gateway ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... before Bullard's gape became modified to a grin. "I see! You want me to keep it till you sail. Wise man! But upon my word, you took me aback—refusing money!—you! When do you want it, then? You had better tell me where to send it, as next week ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... still in the water, when, within arm's length, rose above the stream a huge muzzle. The lower jaw lay flat, the upper reached as high as Amyas's head. He could see the long fangs gleam white in the moonshine; he could see for one moment, full down the monstrous depths of that great gape, which would have crushed a buffalo. Three inches, and no more, from that soft side, the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... result is the Soldier's Gospel. It would cause the devotees of little Bethel to faint with its crude "superstitions" and absence of meaningless and stupid dogma yet its grip of spiritual things and Divine Aid would make the ordinary "go to meeting" Christian gape with astonishment. The soldier's simple faith, his willing endurance, his quiet heroisms, his silent self-sacrifice, though they call for no louder name than duty, are just those chords which link him to the Great Heroism which saw ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... revelation made him stand up in the carriage and gape at the photographs of Irish scenery in ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... yo want, poor things, An' cannot do withaat it, Go arm yorseln to th' teeth, he sed, An' doant be long abaat it; Both rakes an' powls an' props an' ropes Yo cannot get ta sooin, An' take the Cowinheaders' plan When thay discovered th' mooin. Doant gape abaat, but when arm'd Tak each a different rowt, An' let yor cry be ivery man, Th' ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... the Chases were off—in a cab engaged by Max, in deference to Sally's wishes. Neil and Dorothy took a jocose farewell, the one declaring that their presence had stretched the apartment till it could be seen to gape at the seams, the other vowing that Sally must come to see her soon, in order to be able to take a full breath again. Then the ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... excuses. He apologizes to the Beyrout ship-chandler and everybody else, but he must leave with his friends for Port Said at once and catch the homeward-bound mail-boat. His presence is urgently demanded on business in London. The company gape. But our friend, the Italian journalist, doesn't go in for gaping. His business is, after all, news, and he burrows round, interviewing and telegraphing brothers of the craft until he lays bare the rather pathetic story. He doesn't tell it among his friends in the Land ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... was no denying that the procession looked strange. File clerks and receptionists stopped their work to gape at the four bedizened walkers and their plainly dressed satellites. Malone needed no telepathic talent to ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... listened in silence, not mocking him. There were wide-eyed, haunted-looking children, and men and women not quite sober who drifted out from the public-houses to gape heavily at this cheaper form of entertainment. Possibly they thought he was some missionary trying to induce them to sign the pledge. Some of them must have known that he was mad. But even they did not laugh at him. Into their own dark and formless thoughts there may have come the dim ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... around long enough, Smarly," gibed the Pippin, as he passed by on his way toward the door, "maybe some of the rubber-necks off the gape-wagon will take pity on you and buy you another—the slumming parties are just ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... whispering, crowded room, The friends who come, and gape, and go; The ceremonious air of gloom— All, which makes death ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... wonderful in the eyes of the untutored Bruin. His own aspect was, meanwhile, not less odd in the opinion of the more civilised animals. His untrimmed hair and beard, his ragged coat, his queer gait, and the unrestrained gape of wonder with which he stared around him, were sufficient to excite the attention of the most indifferent, and it was with a tolerably large train at his heels that he reached the entrance to the principal street. Here crowds of well-dressed dogs, ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes

... of red toothless mouth than one might have calculated his face could contain. "Some take it easier than others," he went on. "It's harder with young men like you." Again he opened his jaws in a gape as whole-souled as that of a house-dog before a kitchen fire. "It must be disagreeable to have a rope tightened around your neck. I don't know." He thrust his pipe-stem absently between his lips, closed his eyes, mumbled absently, "I don't know," and in a few moments was ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... greatly to Jimmy's delight, and for once he could eat all he wanted with nobody to criticize, for the lumbermen were no tyros at this sort of thing, and packed away food in quantities and at a speed that made the boys gape. ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... in peace, at least," she shouted at the crowd, "is it a spectacle for you to gape at? With cigarettes! (Cough, cough, cough!) You might as well keep your hats on.... And there is one in his hat!... Get away! You should respect ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... be thy title right or wrong, Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence. May that ground gape and swallow me alive, Where I shall kneel to him ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... the Churchmen, whose one cry was that "something must be done"—something beautiful, but useless, for preference. Mostly, they constitute some wing added to a hospital; hostels for disabled soldiers; alms-houses, and other purely practical benefits which afford nothing to gape at and not very much to talk about. People infinitely prefer some huge ungainly statue or some indifferently stained glass window, any seven-days' wonder in the way of marble, granite, or glass. ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... this healthy, wealthy, and wise man do but reach his arms up to the second-story windows and gape noisily. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... Nocturna; but this would be too broad massing; for although the creature is more swallow than owl, living wholly on insects, it must be properly held as a distinct species from both. Owls cannot gape like constrictors; nor have swallows whiskers or beards, or combs to keep both in order with, on their middle toes. This bird's cat-like bristles at the base of the beak connect it with the bearded Toucans, and so also ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... after he had counted them. For they actually presented the absurdity of being less than his hopefulness had decided that they must be. What can the fitness of things mean, if not their fitness to a man's expectations? Failing this, absurdity and atheism gape behind him. The collapse for Fred was severe when he found that he held no more than five twenties, and his share in the higher education of this country did not seem to help him. Nevertheless he said, with rapid changes in his ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... rather more amusing than I expected. Martha liked it very much, and I did not gape till the last quarter of an hour. It was past nine before we were sent for, and not twelve when we returned. The room was ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for breath; They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... row about it. It won't wash, I can tell you. What business has he to make us tub, eh, do you hear? That's only one thing. He came and jawed us in the big room this morning, and said he meant to make football compulsory! There! You needn't gape as if you thought I was gammoning. I'm not, I mean it. Football's to be compulsory. Every man Jack's got to play, whether he can or not. I call it brutal! The only thing is, it won't be done. The fellows will kick. I shall. I'm ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... strong-box looked to them a hero, a saint, a Christ, compared to these modern thieves who were environed with all the defences and impunity which the law and the State could give. When an earth-shock makes the soil under your feet quiver, and gape, and mutter, you feel that unnatural forces are being hurled against you, you feel that you are the mere sport and jest of an unjust deity. This was ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... she makes use of them for the purpose of deception. She persuades him that a thing costs so much because he would kick up a row if its price were higher. And she always extricates herself from the difficulty cunningly by a means so simple and so sly that we gape with amazement when by chance we discover them. We say to ourselves in a stupefied state of mind 'How is it we did not see this ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... to-day, and I think a bout with the gloves will do me good," yawned Archy, with a hideous gape, as he stretched himself at full length upon the velvet cushions, with his feet hanging out over ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... pray for Stingaree. Meanwhile the present was no mean occasion, and Fergus was glad to see that Macbean had thrown open the official doors in his absence. They had often agreed that it would be worth all their labor to enlighten Donkin by letting the pit gape under his nose as he entered the bank. Fergus glanced over his shoulder, saw the other hurrying, and hurried himself in order to take up a good position for seeing the cashier's face. He was in the middle of the treacherous floor before he perceived that it was not ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... O tender Lady, Queen Mary, Thou gentleness that dost enmoss and drape The Cross's rigorous austerity, Wipe thou the blood from wounds that needs must gape. ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... move, but stood as if carved out of a block of hardened putty by the hand of an artistic drill-sergeant; listening, though, with his ears, which looked preternaturally large from the closeness of the regimental barber's efforts, and seeming to gape. Then he left his rifle in a ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... Fool turned to gaze at them as they wound past. In sooth, had it not been for that, he would never have given them a glance at all, not having much curiosity about the things other people love to gape at. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... take a gape for himself without gittin' these cussed bugs down his throat," he complained, and coughed again. "Gimme some coffee! I got one skeeter the size of a devil's darnin' needle stuck ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... 'lunge Ben took me out in the evening equipped with the correct tackle for bass. It consisted of a single piece of bamboo, about 15 ft. long, a strong line a few inches longer, a bung as float, and a hook with 2-in. shank, and gape of about 3/4 in. You will remember this kind of rig-out, only with hook of moderate size, as often used by Midland yokels in bream fishing. It is delightfully primitive. Heavily leaded, you swing out the line to its full extent, and, hooking a fish, haul ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... any wonder if asylums for the insane gape for such men? There comes to them at last a season of business embarrassment; or, when they get to be fifty or thereabouts, the brain begins to feel the strain, and just as they are thinking, "Now we will stop and enjoy ourselves," the brain, which, ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell

... his cause seem'd good, anon behold Many a strange knight, and many a baron bold, Brought by the tourney's fame, on fiery steeds Couch lance to aid; and mortal strife succeeds. Long time beleagur'd gape the castle walls; First in the breach the indignant monarch falls: Nogiva's lord next meets an equal fate; And Gugemer straight weds ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... the skin. In vain Ruggiero tried to do so a hundred times. The combat was of no more effect than that of the fly with the mastiff, when it dashes against his eyes and mouth, and at last comes once too often within the gape of his snapping teeth. The orc raised such a foam and tempest in the waters with the flapping of his tail, that the knight of the hippogriff hardly knew whether he was in air or sea. He began to fear that the monster would disable the creature's wings; and where would its rider be ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... great point is action! Every one Comes as spectator, and the show's the fun. Let but the plot be spun off fast and thickly, So that the crowd shall gape in broad surprise, Then have you made a wide impression quickly, You are the man they'll idolize. The mass can only be impressed by masses; Then each at last picks out his proper part. Give much, and then to each one something passes, And each one leaves the house with ...
— Faust • Goethe

... another, the lotion which awakens love, or cures jealousy, or changes the fright into the beauty. All the while he plays with his tame serpents, and chatters as if his tongue went of itself, while the crowd of peasants below gape at him, laugh with him, and buy from him. Listen to him, all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... his throat a huge blast, half roar, half howl. When Clare came to himself he knew, though he had never heard it before, that the fearful sound was the voice of the lion. He did not know that all it meant was, that his majesty had thought of his dinner. It was not indeed much more than an audible gape. He stood for a moment, not at all terrified, but half expecting to see a huge yellow animal burst out of one of the caravans—he could not guess which: the roar was much too loud to indicate one rather than another. He ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... must brush aside all opposition of persons and circumstance and beg her to go with him, leaving the world to gape and wonder as it might. It was only a fevered dream, but it suggested another possibility that presently became a definite resolve. At least he would see her again, and beg her not to go blundering back into the arms of the man she did not love. He would plead with her ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... department store was reached and Mrs. Bobbsey let Freddie and Flossie take their time in looking into the several windows. One was full of dolls, which made the little girl gape in wonder and delight. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope

... of Des Sarts, as yet un-visited, we skirted the gape of the crater, climbing over craggy accumulations of wreckage, and traversed a tunnel with an arched roof and mildewed brick walls, like a wine vault. The floor of it was littered with the knapsacks and water bottles of dead or captured men, with useless rifles broken at the stocks ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... any good-bye, Chris found himself outside on the top step. The din of cars and honking horns rushed at him like a gape-mouthed monster; the drumming whine and roar from the freeway shook the ground, and up ahead the lights of the People's Drugstore looked garish but friendly. Across the way as he turned to go home, Chris glanced at the two tumbledown storehouses opposite, ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... and, it being already past midnight, began to undress himself. This process presently brought him to that corner of his room where his bed stood, when he suddenly stopped, and his sleepy yawn changed to a gape of surprise. For, lying in the bed, its head upon the pillow, and its rigid arms accurately stretched down over the turned-back sheet, was a child's doll! It was a small doll—a banged and battered doll, that had seen ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... many sons have you Who call you mother, whom you never knew! But most of them who that relation plead Are such ungracious youths as wish you dead; They gape at rich revenues which you hold, And fain would nibble at your grandame ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... drawing-room, but he preferred the kitchen. The kitchen is a brick room detached from the wooden hut. It was once, in fact, an armourer's shop, and has since been converted to a kitchen. The floor is rudely laid, and the bricks gape here and there. A barrack fender guards the fire-place, and a barrack poker reposes in the fender. It is a very ponderous poker of unusual size and the commonest appearance, but with a massive knob at the upper end which was wont to project ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... dandelions on the side lawn. I inconsistently let the dear, cheery flowers grow and bloom their fill in the early season, when they lie close to the sward, but when they begin to stretch awkward, rubbery necks, and gape about as if to see where they might best shake out their seed puffs, they must be routed. Do it as thoroughly as possible, enough always remain to repay my cruelty with a shower of golden coin the next ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... dared to be myself! But my fear of ridicule was greater than my fear of vice. 'Bless me, my dear Lady Delacour,' whispered Harriot, as we left this house, 'what can make you in such a desperate hurry to get home? You gape and fidget: one would think you had never sat up a night before in your life. I verily believe you are afraid to trust yourself with us. Which of us are you afraid of, Lawless, or me, or yourself?' There ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... has grown apathetic and purblind. Critics rage and quarrel before a canvas, but the nations do not care; quarries of marble are hewn into various shapes, and the throngs gape before them and are indifferent; writers are so many that their writings blend in the public mind in a confused phantasmagoria, where the colours run into one another, and the lines are all waved and indistinct; the singer alone still keeps the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... sire, we are annoyed by the vulgar curiosity of the populace, who gape in our faces as if we were South Sea Islanders or specimens of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... about to deliver his hint that he was greatly displeased at the antics of the bench, a sob came to his ears. Turning his head swiftly, he caught sight of the stranger's face, and sorrow was marked so strongly upon it that the sight made Hopalong gape. His hand opened slowly and he cautiously sidled back again, disgruntled, puzzled, and vexed at himself for having strayed into a game where he was so hopelessly at sea. He thought it all over carefully and then gave it up as being too deep for him to solve. But he determined one thing: He was ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... me hence I pray you.' Then her father nodding said, 'Ay, ay, the diamond: wit ye well, my child, Right fain were I to learn this knight were whole, Being our greatest: yea, and you must give it— And sure I think this fruit is hung too high For any mouth to gape for save a queen's— Nay, I mean nothing: so then, get you gone, Being so ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... the question in such a form as would bring the million to agree with me. Look, for instance, at the execution of a criminal. See the thousands that will assemble, day after day, after travelling miles for that single object, to gape and gaze upon the last agonizing pangs and paroxsyms of a fellow-creature—not regarding for an instant the fatigue of their position, the press of the crowd, or the loss of a dinner—totally insusceptible, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... wooers heere? poore sillie men, Highly deceiv'd to gape for marriage heere Onely for gaine: I have another reache More high then their base spirits can aspire: Yet must I use this Doctors secret aide, That hath alreadie promist me a drug Whose vertue shall ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... Bill Westaway knows better. Yes, you may gape your hateful eyes out of your head; but Bill Westaway's my friend; and he's straight; and he's took good care to keep me in touch with the facts ever since I came here—so now then! You was after Chuff from the minute ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... His bag in hand, his head lowered, he strode straight behind the counter, and let himself fall into the chair, as though he had tramped all the way from Dover. It was early morning. Stevie, dusting various objects displayed in the front windows, turned to gape at him with reverence ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... capon, Let other hungry mortals gape on, And on the bones their stomach fill hard; But let All Souls men have their mallard. Oh, by the blood of King Edward, It ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... wound smoothly with a sharpe knife: that done, cleaue him cleanly in the middle with a cleauer, and a knocke or mall, and with a wedge of wood, Iron or Bone, two handfull long at least, put into the middle of that clift, with the same knocke, make the wound gape a straw bredth wide, into which you must put ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson

... Our house is soon full of the little crouching women, with their tiny slit eyes vaguely smiling; their beautifully dressed hair shining like polished ebony; their fragile bodies lost in the many folds of the exaggerated, wide garments, that gape as if ready to drop from their little tapering backs and reveal the exquisite napes ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... their fathers and mothers. No, no, Bobus can't spare a week from his reading-party, but must leave his mother to a set of chance acquaintance, and Allen-whom poor Caroline always thinks the affectionate one, if he is nothing else-can't give up going to gape at the sun at midnight, and Rob was wanting to make one of their freight of fools, but I told him it was quite enough to have one son wandering abroad at other people's expense, when it couldn't be helped; and that I wouldn't have another unless he was prepared to lay ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... down. Between my dread of the Captain and her pained astonishment, I could only sit stammering and longing for the earth to gape and swallow me up. Suddenly a dreadful suspicion struck ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... said the stranger. "I've done nothing but gape since I came here. Say, this circus is a regular city in itself, ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... monsters than his own Mediterranean breeds; of the Leviathan, the whale, larger than the largest ship which he has ever seen, rolling and spouting among the ocean billows, far out of sight of land, and swallowing, at every gape of its huge jaws, hundreds of living creatures for its food. But he does not talk of it as a cruel and devouring monster, formed by a cruel and destroying deity, such as the old Canaanites imagined, when—so the legend ran—they offered up Andromeda ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... needed in the case of hollow backs, as there should be no high water line across the back defining where corset ends and back commences. The collar should fit nicely into the neck at the back, and not gape open from being cut too low. There should be no fulness at the top of the sleeves, for nothing looks more unsightly than "bumpy shoulders" on horseback. It would be well for the wearer when trying on, to lean back and extend her arms, as she would do when giving her horse his head over a fence, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... the bow and one under the stern, their arms extended and their hands clutching the sides. The beach was forty yards away; the current was swift and as opaque as chocolate; they could not see what depths might gape before them; but they must do the distance without ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... Others still gape t' anticipate The cabinet-designs of fate; Apply to wizards, to foresee 25 What shall and what shall never be; And, as those vultures do forebode, Believe events prove bad or good: A flam more senseless than the roguery ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... He who does not gape after the favour of princes, as after a thing he cannot live without, does not much concern himself at the coldness of their reception and countenance, nor at the inconstancy of their wills. He who does not brood over his children or his honours with a slavish propension, ceases not to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... flared from the torches; and she saw him deliberately go through the operation of making the projection available for the purpose of a gallows, by binding the cord to it, and suspending a running noose, which seemed to gape in grim gesture for its victim. The moment the rope was suspended, James pointed to it, and asked the warder to proceed and answer his questions. The terrified man cast a wild eye on the relentless crowd around him, and then on the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... with the bloud that flowd from it, writ a ful obligation of his soule to the divell: yea more earnestly he praied unto God never to forgive his soule than manie Christians doo to save theyr soules. These fearfull ceremonies brought to an end, I bad him ope his mouth and gape wide. He did so: as what wil not slaves doo for feare? Therwith made I no more adoo, but shot him ful into the throat with my pistol: no more spake he after; so did I shoote him that hee might never ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... Father, as she knew him, was not in the least like that infant. At the rest of the photographs she looked politely, but it was hard work to keep from yawning, and at last her mouth suddenly opened of itself and gave a great gape. ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... The greatest Of all is this, that true and real wonders Should happen so perpetually, so daily. Without this universal miracle A thinking man had scarcely called those such, Which only children, Recha, ought to name so, Who love to gape and stare at the unusual And ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... minutes) I thought it must be one of the finest things in the world to speak for three-quarters of an hour, and there was a legend circulated about an old member of the society's having done so, which used to make us all gape and stare. However, I fear it does not necessarily imply much more than length. Doyle spoke remarkably well, and made a violent attack on Mr. Canning's friends, which Gaskell did his best to answer, but very ineffectually from the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... not enter it; they dare not. Before getting within the gape of its gloomy portals they hear voices issuing therefrom. They can see tiny sparks of fire glowing at the lips of ignited cigars. From this they can tell that there are sentries there—a line of them across the ravine, guarding it from ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... manned by an exceptionally strong and efficient crew. As soon as she was clear of the ship she was brought to the wind, under an enormous spread of exquisitely cut canvas, and away she went, close-hauled on the port tack, heading to the northward at a pace which made us gape with astonishment; while the ship, with squared yards, gathered stern-way and first fell broadside-on to us, then gradually paid off until she was before the wind, when down she came driving toward us, yawing so broadly to port and starboard that ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... been beautiful under its crown of luxuriant black hair, it now was distorted. While the eyes were closed, the mouth was open, very wide—an ugly, repulsive gape. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... the ring of his deep bass to the tentative falsetto of Mr. Lincoln's opening words. If Stephen expected the Judge to tremble, he was greatly disappointed. Mr. Douglas was far from dismay. As if to show the people how lightly he held his opponent's warnings, he made them gape by putting things down Mr. Lincoln's shirt-front and taking them out of his mouth: But it appeared to Stephen, listening with all his might, that the Judge was a trifle more on the defensive than his attitude might lead one to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the "Dryden." Here the Staff would make no attempt at self-repression; and I have been told how the idle and the curious would congregate outside upon the pavement and listen to the voices of the wits within, and wait to gape at them as they passed ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... the field as well as the men, they being used to it. They will not believe us when we tell them that our women do not work in the field. When an acre of ground yields twelve bushels of corn it is thought to be a fine crop. They gape with wonder when we tell them we break our ground with two horses, plow our corn with a plow on which we can ride; that one man can tend forty acres and raise forty bushels to the acre. When we tell them about ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... that the British Museum at night, rid at last of those who gape at Egypt's dishonoured dead, may not be filled with snatches of music from throat or hand of those unfortunates, priest, priestess, fair woman and honoured man, dug out and laid upon a slab of grass ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... ambitions in this direction, and when he heard of the matter wrote to the Lord Chancellor and the Earl of Salisbury declining the honour. He says: "My mynde in my younger times hath been ever free from ambition and now I am going to my grave, to gape for such a thing were mere dotage in me." Further, he prayed for "free liberty to dispose of myne owne as other of ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... carriage at the palace gate; a knot of people, a small crowd, perhaps, collects to salute me and gape at the horses and livery. I sweep up the stoop, lined by my own, and the Countess's, servants. The bronze doors open. The Countess advances with stately curtsy; a few words sub rosa, and I—fly into the arms of love, while faithful Lucretia mounts guard at the street side, and Her Ladyship's ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... sending us out into the great hazardous unknown; the very folk who stand there in their fishing-boats and look wonderingly after the Fram as she slowly and heavily steams along on her northward course. Many of them wave their sou'-westers and shout "Hurrah!" Others have barely time to gape at us in wonderment. In on the point are a troop of women waving and shouting; outside a few boats with ladies in light summer-dresses, and gentlemen at the oars entertaining them with small-talk as they wave their parasols and pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes; it is they who are sending ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... Wealthy, handsome, brilliant, bold—who could refuse his love? Not the Harleys—not Miss Harley! No, the transparent sureness of it set sneeringly a-curl the San Reve's mouth. Soon or late, Storri would lead Miss Harley to the altar. The bells would ring, the organ swell, the people gape and comment. And then Storri and his bride would ride away; while she, the San Reve—she, the disgraced—she, the daughter of a man who tamed lions—she would be left ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... the seneschal had scarcely been put forth, when, lo! the astonished deputy shrank back in dismay. A sudden change came over his angry countenance—a look of surprise mingled with horror, as though he could have wished the earth to gape and hide him from the object of his apprehensions. He stood trembling, speechless, pale as ashes, expecting immediate and condign punishment. So suddenly this change was wrought that the spectators fancied it to be some direct interposition from heaven; concluding that he was smitten for the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... been on our feet nearly twenty-four hours, and I think you must be about played out," said the sergeant with a gape. "I am tired out; and you are still young, too young to go without ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... he will. Cinque ace! well, curse it! the same throw over again! 'Tis too bad. I missed taking you last time, with that stupid blot you've covered—and now, by Jove, it ruins me. There's no playing when fellows are getting up every minute to gape after doctors' coaches, and leaving the door open—hang it, I've lost the game by it—gammoned twice already. 'Tis very pleasant. I only wish when gentlemen interrupt play, they'd be good ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... tradition, was made by Merlin. He lent him to Pierres, who was a friend of his, and who made long journeys with him, and, as has been said, carried off the fair Magalona, bearing her through the air on its haunches and making all who beheld them from the earth gape with astonishment; and he never lent him save to those whom he loved or those who paid him well; and since the great Pierres we know of no one having mounted him until now. From him Malambruno stole him by his magic art, and he has him now ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... oyster-worm,) half an inch long, found in oysters, which shine in the dark like glow-worms. The sea-star, cockles, and muscles, are the great enemies of the oyster. The first gets within the shell when they gape, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... shook him, thinking he was walking in his sleep. He tottered past them, however, hurried up the aisle, which was so narrow that Dan'l Ross could only reach his seat by walking sideways, and was gone before the minister could do more than stop in the middle of a whirl and gape in horror after him. ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... told about these nomads and the whole population turned out to gape and wonder at them. Jeremiah directed them to the Temple, and hundreds of people ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... death, the jaws Of hell against us gape. Who from peril dire as this Openeth us escape? 'Tis thou, O Lord, alone! Our bitter suffering and our sin Pity from thy mercy win, Holy Lord and God! Strong and holy God! Merciful and holy Saviour! Eternal God! Let us not despair For the fire ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... all things which are natural and congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. "And again, figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... sighs with amazement, the children gape, the man with the round face has an anxious look—he seems ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... pretendedly (it's too ignoble!) on the same side or in the same air as my brother-in-law; whose value is that he has thirty "business ideas" a day, while I shall never have had the thirtieth fraction of one in my whole life. He just hums, Tom Price, with business ideas, whereas I just gape with the impossibility of them; he moves in the densest we carry our heads here on August evenings, each with its own thick nimbus of mosquitoes. I'm but too conscious of how, on the other hand, I'm desolately outlined to all ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... her, and expected that she would gape and collapse. To his surprise she answered with some spirit, "An explanation may bore you, Mr. Herriton: it drags ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... When he extended his hand even my bewilderment did not blind me to the half-inch of flat dead tips to the fingers. Beneath his arm was an umbrella—on a broiling August morning! He wore spats—in mid-summer! His trousers were fawn coloured. I could only gape at him as he wrung me ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... do nothing but gape and stare around at the bustling crowd and the number of men busily carrying great baskets on the top of porters' knots. Women, too, in caps, ready to put the same great pad round forehead and make it rest upon their shoulders, and bear off great boxes ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... a quart of water down a fellow's neck, and rub his nose off, need you? I'm awake, so take your old sponge and go along," growled Jack, with one eye open and a mighty gape. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... she had patched up with an old scarlet silk petticoat, and there was Baby Akbar under its shadow; and, having—young as he was—been taught to salute to a crowd, he began waving his little fat hand with much dignity, until the people who had come out to gape ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... African Laeephotes, the Chinese Ia, and the Papuan Philetor are allied genera, each with a single species. Chalinolobus and Glauconycteris have the same general dental character as Vespertilio, but are distinguished by the presence of a lobe projecting from the lower lip near the gape; the former, with p. 2/2, is represented by five Australasian species, one of which extends into New Zealand; while the latter, with p. 1/2, is African. The species of Glauconycteris are noticeable for their peculiarly thin membranes traversed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... bridge the chasm 'Twixt man to-day and protoplasm, Who theorize and probe and gape, And finally evolve an ape— Yours is a harmless sort of cult, If you are pleased with the result. Some folks admit, with cynic grace, That you have rather proved your case. These dogmatists are so severe! Enough for me that Fanny's here, Enough that, having long survived ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... to stop workin', heh?" demanded their father, fiercely. "Leave me see you at it, do you hear? You stop another time to gape around and I 'll lick you good! Stop your bawlin' ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... which he could lay his hands on, though belonging to people below him of whom he knew nothing. He jumped in, and had himself driven all over the city, and outside it. On one occasion he seized hold of the coach of Madame de Mattignon, who had come to gape at him, drove off with it to Boulogne and other country places near Paris. The owner was much astonished to find she must journey back on foot. On such occasions the Marechal de Tesse and his suite had often hard work to find the Czar, who had thus ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... corn, lying right on the water's edge, behind which the dead stones and the dead sands commence at once. And sometimes, even, the desert chain closes in so as to overhang the river with its reddish-white cliffs, which no rain ever comes to freshen, and in which, at different heights, gape the square holes leading to the habitations of the mummies. These mountains, which in the distance look so beautiful in their rose-colour, and make, as it were, interminable back-cloths to all that happens on the river banks, were perforated, during some 5000 years, for the introduction of sarcophagi ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... Observe I have not said one word about the thorns. That is the stale gibe of the cynic whose heart of youth has dried before its time. And what if there are thorns? A single rose with the dew of love upon it is worth more than a pair of scratched hands. Gape? Could you believe it of me—of me, Francois Villon? No, son of my teaching, I doffed my hat and went on ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... you do something?" cried the girl, at length. "It seems to me if I were a man I could think of something to do besides stand and gape!" ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... repeat in low murmurs to each other,—"Wait awhile!" By-and-by the flow of life in the streets ebbs, and the old leafy inhabitants—the smaller tribes always in front—saunter in, one by one, very careless seemingly, but very tenacious, until they swarm so that the great stones gape from each other with the crowding of their roots, and the feldspar begins to be picked out of the granite to find them food. At last the trees take up their solemn line of march, and never rest until they ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... sanguine expectation; she is not yet dry and eight men can carry her with the greatest ease; she is strong and will carry at least 8,000 lbs. with her suit of hands; her form is as complete as I could wish it. the stitches begin to gape very much since she has began to dry; I am now convinced this would not have been the case had the skins been sewed with a sharp point only and the leather not cut by the edges of a sharp nedle. about ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... but living men may die; and this pick never, for man or woman, opened a mouth that was left to gape long without victuals." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... matter with you, Cecil? Don't gape at me like that, and come along at once, unless you want to be left behind. Yes, we are very short-handed and the chief let me go down to see Mr. Trent. He didn't expect for a moment that I should get him to talk to me, but I did, and he let me sketch ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage—who can tell?—but truth—truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder—the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff—with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... lost art; that, like some other marvels of the ancient time, this is a secret process that perished with the people who employed it. Did we desire it, we could embalm our princes and our priests, and retain their shrunken similitudes for distant coming times to gaze and gape upon, as skilfully as they who practised this art in Egypt's palmiest days. Nay, it is doubtless far within the truth to claim that better than they did we could do; and we are actually apprised of better methods and results than they employed ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... tired, and that air what makes him gape like that. Wait until he gets some bigness. ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... so that when he opened his mouth wider than ordinary, or when he yawned, he could not shut it again. In the midst of his harangues, therefore, if any of his pupils began to be tired of his lecture, he had only to gape or yawn, and the professor instantly caught the sympathetic affection; so that he thus continued to stand speechless, with his mouth wide open, till his servant, from the next room, was called in to set his ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... true, true to their disgrace. They both felt the reproach. How were they better than the rest of the neighborhood, who were content to gossip and gape and take the fortunes of the Tristrams as mere ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... slight, Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;[79] Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns; A thief new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab[80] did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft— The gray hairs yet stack to the heft: ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... as full of curtsies, as if I had been her godmother. The truth on't is, I did endeavour to make her look like a Christian—and she was sensible of it, for she thanked me, and gave me two apples, piping hot, out of her under- petticoat pocket. Ha, ha, ha: and t'other did so stare and gape, I fancied her like the front of her father's hall; her eyes were the two jut-windows, and her mouth the great door, most hospitably kept open for the entertainment ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... it— Adders and venom and horrors to men. Here is the "ghost of a garden" whose minister Fosters strange blossoms that startle and scare. Red as man's blood is the sun that, with sinister Flame, is a menace of hell in the air. Wrinkled and haggard the hills are—the jags of them Gape like to living and ominous things: Storm and dry thunder cry out in the crags of them— Fire, and the wind with a woe ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... been taken down. The windows gape into the darkness outside. The furniture has been covered in brown loose-covers and pulled forward. The flowers have been taken away, and the large black stove lit. The MOTHER is standing ironing white curtains by ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... Claire was angry; but that the Gilsons and Mrs. Corey, flap-eared, gape-mouthed, forward-bending, were very proud of their little Jeff. He saw that, except for their clothes and self-conscious coiffures, they were exactly like a gang of cracker-box loafers at Heinie Rauskukle's badgering a ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... seemed to be a stream of dirty water, flying far up in the air, as though a fireman's hose had been turned on! That must be the dark-looking crude oil, mingled with water, Toby conjectured, as he continued to gape and wonder. Then after all the suspicions of Maurice Dangerfield had proven true, and the Pontico Hills region did harbor rich ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... crowd. At a smaller ball Theodora's exquisite beauty must have commanded instant attention, but this was a special occasion, and the world was too occupied with a desire to gape at the foreign king to trouble about any new-comers. Certainly for ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... he cease to sin against the Gods in the pride of his heart. And do thou that art his mother go to thy house, and take from it such apparel as is seemly, and go to meet thy son, for the many rents that he hath made for grief gape in his garments about him. Comfort him also with gentle words; for I know that 'tis thy voice only that he will hear. And to you old men, farewell; and live happily while ye may, for there is no profit of wealth in ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... or foremost part, issued two horns CC, of a shape sufficiently differing from those of a blew Fly, though indeed they seem to be both the same kind of Organ, and to serve for a kind of smelling; beyond these were two indented jaws DD, which he open'd side-wayes, and was able to gape them asunder very wide; and the ends of them being armed with teeth, which meeting went between each other, it was able to grasp and hold a heavy body, three or four times the bulk and weight of its own body: ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... evade the stroke of Death That rends all ties asunder? Do not his awful shambles gape For me to ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... questioner, "art struck with a syncope that thou dost nothing but gape and stare ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... enough for their needs, so with intelligence; they possess just what will suffice for the service of the will, that is, for the carrying on of their business. Having made their fortune, they are content to gape or to indulge in sensual pleasures or childish amusements, cards or dice; or they will talk in the dullest way, or dress up and make obeisance to one another. And how few are those who have even a little superfluity of intellectual ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... stand in the street and gape at the passers-by: thus do they also wait, and gape at the thoughts which ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... all those physical circumstances belonging to localities, which work such wonderful changes in the physical character of man, appear to have no influence upon the tribe of Israel. The circumcised of Monmouth-street is as like that of Judea-Gape, in Frankfort, as two individuals of the same nation can be; let them be by birth and residence German, English, Russian, Portuguese, or Polish, still the one and only set of features belonging to the race will be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... it in for a couple of ginks that handed him one—a bull and a chauffeur on a gape-wagon," he grinned, punctuating his words with a cough. "The Flopper's got an idea the corpse-preserver's business is dull, and he's going to help 'em out with two orders and pay for ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... still peace to grow. No foreign banish'd wight shall anchor in this port; Our realm it brooks no strangers' force, let them elsewhere resort. Our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ, To poll their tops that seek such change, and gape for joy. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... rational friends? Surely, Man is neither the featherless biped of the Greek Philosopher, nor the tool-using animal of the Sage of Chelsea. For animals, too, have their tools, and man, in his visible flounces, has feathers enough to make even a peacock gape. Both my Philosophers have hit wide of the mark this time. And Man, to my way of thinking, is a flounce-wearing Spirit. Indeed, flounces alone, the invisible ones in particular, distinguish us from the beasts. For like ourselves they have their fashions ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... wonder! We the Huns did this. Why discuss what we have done? We have destroyed your city. Gape and stare, stupid fools! What does it matter to us? We took your precious town from you, because we wanted it. Now we don't want it any more. Here it is back again. With our love.) Some merry soldier wrote that up, I suppose. It ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson

... render greater service to our country in this manner than in any other way, or we should not have been sent to this quarter," said Christy, with a long gape. ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... Velasquez, Zurbaran, Ribera and Murillo, having spun their cocoons, passed through the chrysalis stage, developed wings, and soared to high heaven. But the generations of imitators who followed these have usually done little better than gape. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... opinion—no! but the false, hypocritical enthusiasm about objects for which in reality they cared not the fraction of a straw. To hear these bores talk of educating the people to an acquaintance with what they call 'high art'! Ah, heavens, mercifully grant that the earth may gape for us before our name is placed on any such committee! 'High art,' indeed! First of all, most excellent bores, would you please to educate the people into the high and mysterious art of boiling potatoes. We, though really owning no particular duty or moral obligation ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... and men of the Grenadier Guards ceased to be objects of admiration, and the War Office would have howled with exquisite torture at sight of their hair and clothes. Speak of wrapping clothes around head or body to keep out the dust? It is sheer nonsense to prate so. Why it is hard enough to gape and gasp and catch a mouthful of sanded breath, without that added worry. There is nothing for it, but to grin and bear it and get through with the swallowing of that proverbial peck of dust in a life-time, as quickly and ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh



Words linked to "Gape" :   rictus, gawp, yaw, stare, facial expression, yawn, goggle



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