"Dumbfounded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his chief by communicating to him his intention of becoming a candidate for the representation of the borough of Strathbogy, at the next general election, which was to take place very shortly after the close of the session. Sir Gregory was dumbfounded, and expressed himself as incapable of believing that Tudor really meant to throw up L1,200 a year on the mere speculation of its being possible that he should get into Parliament. Men in general, as Sir Gregory endeavoured ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... it, unfastened it, and remained dumbfounded with astonishment and rage; in the middle of the silk there was a hole as big as a sixpenny-piece; it had been made with ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... so unexpected that the governor, like a vane which suddenly receives an impulsion opposed to that of the wind, was quite dumbfounded at it. "Diversions!" said he; "but I take them ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Antwerp, called on M. Vanderberg, and was shown the books. He at once offered 14,000 francs for them, which was accepted. Imagine the surprise and chagrin of the poor monks when they heard of it! They knew they had no remedy, and so dumbfounded were they by their own ignorance, that they humbly requested M. Vanderberg to relieve their minds by returning some portion of his large gains. He ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... down the Confederates claimed the victory. But if victory it was it was too dearly bought with the death of their commander-in-chief. Nor did the Federals own themselves beaten. They were dumbfounded and bleeding, but not shattered. They felt that the struggle was not over, and still facing each other the weary armies lay down to rest on the field, under the lashing rain, each side well aware that with the morrow would come ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... Roger was quite genuinely dumbfounded at Nan's heterodox pronouncement on the relative values ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... you glad to see me, or be you too dumbfounded to get out a word, like good old Jenny?" stroking the donkey's cars. "Posies of primroses! How sweet they be! You ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... table, and, as the mate advanced, dabbed viciously at him with the spoon. Then she suddenly dropped both articles on the table and moved away, as the mate, startled by a footstep at the door, turned a flushed visage, ornamented with three streaks of mustard, on to the dumbfounded skipper. ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... of defiance he and his Lascar gang rushed aft in a body for the poop, where the captain and his officers were standing together, while the forecastle hands stood for the moment dumbfounded at the ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that the fishing-boat was tied to the wharf, Mlle. Beaucaire sprang ashore. Gros Jean, breathless and excited, was there to greet her. But the greeting between father and daughter was not very cordial. The innkeeper seemed to be dumbfounded with surprise ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... at the garden-gate. Indoors everything was anyhow: Fonske was going about in his shirt, Bertje had one leg in his breeches and Dolfke sat on the floor, playing with Trientje. Father had made coffee and stood with the bottles and glasses ready, looking dumbfounded at his child, now that he saw her for the first time in her white clothes. The boys crowded round shyly; they no longer knew their sister in this great lady; they kept hold of one another shyly, with their fingers in their mouths; they were unable ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... gasp of astonishment, and the rough pine floor creaked as Bully Presby, dumbfounded, comprehending, conquered, turned toward the door. He opened it blindly, fumbling for the knob with twitching hands—hands unused to faltering. He looked back and hesitated, as if all his directness of life, all ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Revolution; its motto, 'Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.' This paper is to be a weekly, price $2 per year; its editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor, Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody subscribe for it!" Miss Anthony was dumbfounded. During the long journey that day, he had asked her why the equal rights people did not have a paper and she had replied that it was not for lack of brains but want of money. "Will not Greeley and Beecher and Phillips and Tilton advance the money?" "No, they say this is the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... you are!" And here he stood looking down at me from his superior height, rasping his fingers up and down his thin, unshaven cheek like one quite dumbfounded. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... burden. He still did not understand; so he did—from her standpoint the worst thing possible—nothing. While she was impatiently waiting at home for a reconciliation and a proposal—which never came—he was dumbfounded with grief, and employed his time, tearfully of course, selecting all of her favorite poems—for she was fond of a certain kind of poetry. Then it was that the idea of "Poets and Poetry of the South" came upon him. The popularity of the book was assured in advance, because he selected only ...
— A Few Short Sketches • Douglass Sherley
... nobleman. Philippe de Mala mounted the stairs as lightly as a greyhound in love, and was guided by delectable odour of perfume to certain chamber where, surrounded by her handmaidens, the lady of the house was divesting herself of her attire. He stood quite dumbfounded like a thief surprised by sergeants. The lady was without petticoat or head-dress. The chambermaid and the servants, busy taking off her stockings and undressing her, so quickly and dextrously had her stripped, that the priest, overcome, gave vent to a long Ah! ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... however, that they were two of the men of Herm on a very peaceful mission, as they simply came to deliver a letter to me which a boat had brought over from St. Peter Port. I dare not speak, or could have asked them their mission, and they seemed quite dumbfounded at my bellicose ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... times at random. The departure is set for to-morrow, and some citizen has brought no provisions, because he didn't know he had to go; he stops in front of the statue of Pandion,[380] reads his name, is dumbfounded and starts away at a run, weeping bitter tears. The townsfolk are less ill-used, but that is how the husbandmen are treated by these men of war, the hated of the gods and of men, who know nothing but how to throw away their shield. For this reason, if it please heaven, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... gazed on dumbfounded at this little scene, making futile efforts to grasp the vexed point under discussion, the strange new-comer, whom the Lamb addressed as Gresham, deposited on the floor a huge and shapeless brown-paper parcel, under whose weight he was staggering, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... on the job at Headquarters next morning as usual, showing no marks of the encounter. The petites demoiselles, over whom Charlie exercises daily authority, were dumbfounded to learn that their boss was a bruiser. But it is significant that the fires in the Intelligence Section to-day ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... was dumbfounded. Mrs. Duncan had led him to expect that he would find a change in Freckles, but this was almost deathly. The fact was apparent that the boy scarcely knew what he was doing. His eyes had a glazed, far-sighted ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... at once, or felt rather than knew, for the knowledge was instinctive, that this must be the Conjure man of Siargao, but I was dumbfounded to find him, not, as I had supposed, a native, but a white man, as surely as I am one. Before I could pull myself together enough to speak to him, he spoke to me, in Spanish, calling ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... for expected footsteps. Francois he knew was prowling about the streets. In the early hours of the morning the servant had come hastily and told his master of the rescue of Princess Maritza. De Froilette had turned pale and dropped back in his chair, dumbfounded at the news, but he quickly recovered himself. Her freedom could be only temporary. There might be some street fighting, but her re-capture was certain. Francois had neither heard nor seen anything of Captain Ellerey, but he was sure to come, and ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... seemed without the power to reply, dumbfounded, as his active brain tried to realize the probabilities of the declaration. "It seems to me," he said at length in a voice of which he was scarcely master, "that, whether your statement is true or otherwise, you are placing ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... women could answer her. They were all simply dumbfounded at such a gross insult, and left the cabin in silence. The mate tried to smooth things over, but one of the women—Mataafa's niece—gave him a look that told him to say no more. In half an hour the whole lot of them were ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... moments later Georgia came up to our room, and found me dressing myself with greatest care. In amazement she asked, "Eliza, where are you going?" and was dumbfounded when I answered, "To find another ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... standing there stupid, dazed, dumbfounded, too bewildered for his mind to act or thoughts to come to him; he suddenly bursts into a roar of Titanic, overwhelming laughter. He laughs, and laughs, staggers to the sofa, falls on it, rocks and roars till the tears roll down his cheeks. He sways from side to side, unable to ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... Elizabeth was dumbfounded. The tears rushed into her eyes, her voice choked in her throat. She must, she would defend her brother. Then she thought of the dinner of the night before, and the night before that—of the wine bill at Winnipeg and Toronto. Her colour faded away; her heart sank; ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Emperor gave me that message, the Captain of the Panther was dumbfounded. It was a direct contradiction of the official orders he had received from the Foreign Office to go to Morocco and make a demonstration against the French and the English interests. Those previous orders had been to create war, this verbal message was to stop war. Could the German "jingos," the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... dumbfounded in his chair. The sudden mastery of this child, who had for the second time rebuked him, touched his pride. His instinct as an irresistible charmer told him she was not indifferent to him. Still he could not ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... sweet look she bent on Hazel as she spoke, to which the girl herself, too dumbfounded and shaken off her feet to quite know where she was, could find no better answer than a full rush of bright drops to her eyes, coming she knew not whence; and then a deep suffusion of throat and cheeks and brow, but was much better recognized and said it meant to stay. ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... The mutineers were dumbfounded, and even the boldest could make no reply. Most of them, indeed, did as they were ordered and threw their weapons on the deck, hanging down their heads and looking ashamed of themselves. The boatswain and Hulk, ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... breviary, and when you have got a breviary you will sit in a chair as great as a lord, and will say to some brother, Friar! go and fetch me my breviary!' And he laid ashes on his head, and repeated, 'I am your breviary! I am your breviary!' till the novice was dumbfounded and amazed; and then again the Saint said that he also had once been tempted to possess books, and he almost yielded to the request, but decided in the end that such yielding would be sinful. He hoped that the day would come when men would throw their books ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... experienced one of her surges of energy, and thrust him to one side, and striding out upon the field of combat, proceeded to deliver herself of her pent-up sentiments. It was a discourse in the grandest style of tragedy, and Mary Flanagan was quite dumbfounded—apparently this was a "lady" after all! So the Flanagan family packed its belongings and departed in a chastened frame of mind; and Corydon turned to her spouse, her eyes still flashing, and remarked, "If only I had talked to her that way ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... of being ably struck by a poisoned dart, but once a meeting has been obtained without any serious consequences accruing, it is not so difficult as it might be supposed to follow it up with a parley, for the feared (and fearing) individual is dumbfounded at the extraordinary double event of either not having killed you or of not having been killed himself, according to the law of reciprocity ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... man who had been sent out as a spy, the guardian of the lady from Susa, Araspas himself. [15] When the news reached Cyrus, he sprang up from his seat, went to meet him himself, and clasped his hand, but the others, who of course knew nothing, were utterly dumbfounded, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest greeted them on their way, unless Claude Frollo, which was rarely the case, walked with head upright and raised, showing his severe and almost august brow to the dumbfounded jeerers. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... bursting forth into cries of delighted wonder, as I had expected, my companion stood mute and still, her hands tight-clasped, viewing now the splendour of these falling waters, now the foam-sprent deeps below, like one quite dumbfounded. At last: ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... him, and snatched from him a sporting paper, which he spread out under the light of a gas-lamp, scanning its pages for certain names of horses: Fleur-des-pois, La Chatelaine, Lucrece. With haggard eyes, trembling hands, dumbfounded, crushed, he dropped the sheet: his horse had ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... of the whisky. I had not attached much importance to it; whisky will sometimes vanish in very queer ways in a household of eight or nine persons; but it had seemed strange that it should go in that way on that evening. Martin had been plainly quite dumbfounded by the fact. It seemed to me now that many a man—fresh, as this man in all likelihood was, from a bloody business, from the unclothing of a corpse, and with a desperate part still to play—would turn to that decanter as to a friend. No doubt he had ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... appeared to be dumbfounded by my knowledge of his name. But he soon recovered himself and leaned his back against the wall, looking us both ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... up to this time has been almost dumbfounded by this sudden good fortune, now collects himself, and speaks delightedly but with sufficient reserve of his feelings. BLANCHE does not take her eyes from ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... Harry Brown on the home trip, he was to be agreeably disappointed. Mr. Brown was not on the roadway. He was, instead, on the depot platform at Lonesomeville, and when the westbound express train whistled for the station he was standing grimly in front of two dumbfounded young people who sat sleepily and unwarily on a ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... against the parapet, she got a hold also of Nina's foot. She perceived instantly what was the girl's purpose, but, by God's blessing on her efforts, there should be no cold form found in the river that night; or, if one, then there should be two. Nina kept her hold against the figure, appalled, dumbfounded, awe- stricken, but still with some inner consciousness of salvation that comforted her. Whether her life was due to the saint or to the Jewess she knew not, but she acknowledged to herself silently that death was beyond her reach, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... State and never realized that he and his colleagues were treating themselves to all these things at the expense of the people, and so, although he bore off as much note-paper as he could carry, now and then, to send to his son, Henry, he was horrified and dumbfounded when the bill was proposed appropriating $135,000 for the expenses of the seventy days' session of ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... sorrow, and tried to get her to look at him so that his eyes might read in hers her real feelings. Sophy, still more angry at his boldness, gave him one look which removed all wish for another. Luckily for himself, Emile, trembling and dumbfounded, dared neither look at her nor speak to her again; for had he not been guilty, had he been able to endure her wrath, she ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... mixing, and, behold! my one outburst of extravagance—strawberries. There is also a camembert cheese lying in ambush outside because of its strength. I would suggest that during the three minutes which will ensue before I serve you with the stew, you open the champagne. You are so dumbfounded at my audacity that perhaps a little exercise ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were Paul and Stockie, whose good example was followed without any exception by every boy in the school. The president was dumbfounded. He shook his head sadly. After a brief consultation with the professors he remarked. "The young men now before me are grievously lacking either in understanding or veracity." Numerous were the mishaps that befell Paul and his companion Stockie, owing ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... out of the window for a minute. Then she drew her head back into the room again. She was dumbfounded. "Of course he is eccentric," she meditated. "But running about London—in the height of the season, too—in his socks!" A happy thought struck her. She hastily put her bonnet on, seized his shoes, went into the hall, took down his hat and light overcoat from the pegs, emerged upon the doorstep, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... cut off in the middle of a syllable. Somebody had come to believe that he really heard what he thought he heard. Now there would be reaction. At the sunrise-line on Tralee only a handful of people were awake. They were dumbfounded. Where people breakfasted, the intentionally savage voice made food seem unimportant. Where it was midday, waves of violent emotion swept over ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah—yes—that's all," he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him. "Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... hastily into the house one evening and call out to the family: "Come outside and look at the sky!'' Ours was a country house situated on a commanding site, and as we all emerged from the doorway we were dumbfounded to see the heavens filled with pale flames which ran licking and quivering over the stars. Instantly there sprang into my terrified mind the recollection of an awful description of "the Day of Judgment'' (the Dies Ir), which I had heard with ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... say dumbfounded. She had just screwed herself up to the task which Mr. Neuchatel had imposed on her, and was about to appeal to the good offices of Lord Roehampton in favour of the prince, when he had indulged in a remark which was not only somewhat strange, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... back to the ferry. My explanation that I am bound in the other direction elicits sundry additional bobbings of the head and soothing utterances and smiles, but he points reassuringly to the ferry. Arriving at the river, the little officer is dumbfounded to discover that I have no sampan—that I am not travelling by boat, but overland on the bicycle. Such a possibility had never entered his head; nor is it wonderful that it should not, considering the likelihood that nobody, in all his experience, had ever ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... rather rude. They have all heard of our wish to stop the slave-trade, and are rather taken aback when told that by selling they are part and part guilty of the mortality of which we had been unwilling spectators. Some were dumbfounded when shown that in the eye of their Maker they are parties to the destruction of human life which accompanies this traffic both by sea and land. If they did not sell, the Arabs would not come to buy. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... Aaron was quite dumbfounded by the night's event: the loss of his flute. Here was a blow he had not expected. And the loss was for him symbolistic. It chimed with something in his soul: the bomb, the smashed ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... surprise, as I had not expected anything of the kind, and I was so dumbfounded that all I could say was to thank them for the presents, the thought never having entered my head that my services had been so highly appreciated by the ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... open. The Krovitzer soldiers stood dumbfounded at the sight of the star which hung upon the Cockney's breast. As though its appearance had countermanded all previous orders, they turned puzzled faces to their superior, ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... carrying with them so great an amount in gold over a journey of such extreme length and difficulty. Now this exhibition of such a huge treasure of jewels and precious stones, all tumbled out upon the table, threw the guests into fresh amazement, insomuch that they seemed quite bewildered and dumbfounded. And now they recognized that in spite of all former doubts these were in truth those honoured and worthy gentlemen of the Ca' Polo that they claimed to be; and so all paid them the greatest honour and reverence. And ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the shepherd was quite calm. He was lying with his eyes closed and appeared to be in deep and quiet sleep. As the Lama began to open his abdomen, I shut my eyes in fear and horror; and, when I opened them a little while later, I was still more dumbfounded at seeing the shepherd with his coat still open and his breast normal, quietly sleeping on his side and Tushegoun Lama sitting peacefully by the brazier, smoking his pipe and looking into ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... Phil," Lucile went on with her story. "I never saw anyone so dumbfounded. He stopped with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth and gaped at Dad as if he were some curiosity. I must have looked funny, too, for suddenly Dad began to laugh, and he laughed and he laughed till we thought ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... speaking, and he fell swooning back in the arms of the praefect of Rome, the conspirators remained quite still, staring at one another, dumbfounded. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... did not see the dumbfounded Craig, for his eyes fell on the figure of the younger man. He too had risen, swaying on weak legs. And the girl was sitting up and staring at the ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... corpse will be interred, Come with us and see it buried, Out in yonder cemet'ry:" Soon they knew the worst and pondered Half-amazed and half-dumbfounded;— And returning home, they wondered Who their little friend ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... dumbfounded. The woman who had played ghost was really a lunatic, and this unprincipled adventuress had dared allow her to get into a place like Lenox, and to go about the countryside without restraint! Sally felt almost sick at the thought, ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... never a gathering more dumbfounded than that present in the room. A few questions were asked, and then five gentlemen were appointed to examine Mr. Sothern's hands, etc., before he began his experiments. Having thoroughly washed the parts that he proposed to subject to the flames, Mr. Sothern began ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... looked around. There was the sun, just beginning to peep over the eastern horizon. "It's—it's just rising!" said Katherine, dumbfounded. "Did it oversleep, too?" ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... had had no idea of the menace that crept nearer us with each passing hour. They were dumbfounded, horrified to learn of the peril. We sat awhile in silence, realizing our situation to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... dressed in white stood at the door leading to the rear room, and the startled auditors turning their heads, saw Nellie Dawson, with her chubby finger pointed reprovingly at the dumbfounded chairman. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... animal, blind with rage, plunged below the surface of the water, leaving the marionette and the others dumbfounded. ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... in a state of suspension, dumbfounded at what was going on. But as soon as the young man dipped into his pocket and fished out a handful of silver, they broke into smiles; this at least was intelligible. The silver was distributed, the ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... silence. The Count seemed dumbfounded. He stared at Anna as though unable to grasp the meaning of ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dollars, is usual blood-money in Abyssinia. When that is paid and received, feuds among the tribesmen end, and murders are soon forgotten. But Mirach was so highly valued as a warrior by his people that they offered McMillan no less than three hundred camels for his life. They were dumbfounded ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... the next darkness and stillness, neither light nor life nor sun, moon nor stars, the blank infinite. Although the thing was done by my own act, although I had already tasted this very of effect in Cavor's company, I felt astonished, dumbfounded, and overwhelmed. I seemed to be borne upward into an enormous darkness. My fingers floated off the studs, I hung as if I were annihilated, and at last very softly and gently I came against the bale and the golden chain, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... she drew her hand free. She had been quite dumbfounded, but not so dumbfounded that she did not realize that this new situation had requirements of its own. He appeared absolutely sincere ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... with some water as Hagar placed Mrs. Detlor on the sofa. It was only a sudden faintness. The water revived her. Baron stood dumbfounded, ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... dumbfounded. She had moved some steps away from him before he recovered the gift ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... between Christ and Beelzebub." He is joked about the fait accompli; and asked whether he would consider a box on his ears was excused and accounted for by a similar denomination of the occurrence; questioned, whether he would like himself to be deprived of all his property; and at last dumbfounded by the inquiry, whether the reasoning of his beloved pamphlet is anything but rank communism. M, in fact, after this tirade ceases any attempt at argument, and contents himself with feeble suggestions, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... Ketch stopped, dumbfounded. On the nail, hanging by the string, as quietly as if they had hung for ages, were the cloister keys. Ketch rubbed his eyes, and stared, and rubbed again. ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... M'Ginnis's companions, dumbfounded by the sudden ferocity of it all, stood awhile inactive, staring at those two forms that lurched and swayed, that strove and panted, grimly speechless. Then, closing in, they waited an opportunity to smite down M'Ginnis's foe from ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... the exquisite young fop at her side was utterly dumbfounded. He could not remember ever before in his life being so completely taken by surprise and dismay that he had not a word to answer. But this time he said not a single word. He did not even attempt an ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... Miss Mathewson utterly dumbfounded. She understood perfectly that Dr. John Leaver had suffered a severe breakdown from overwork, and that this was his first test since his recovery. But she knew nothing of the peculiar circumstances of his last appearance in an operating-room, and could therefore have no possible notion ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... their two years of matrimony had he and Katy been separated for a night. John read the note over and over in a dumbfounded way. Here was a break in a routine that had never varied, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... still and told us our real names. But Raffles insisted on hearing how he had found us out, and smiled as though he had known what was coming when it came. I was dumbfounded. ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... was detained a short time, and when he returned to the classroom was dumbfounded to find his favorite pupil gone. He went to the window and called "Peppo, Peppo", but received no answer. At first he could scarcely believe that the boy, who had always been so obedient, could be guilty of such a ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... at his offspring dumbfounded and reproachful, his eyes saying as plainly as any words could, "That I should live to hear a son of mine give voice to such gross ignorance!" Then when he had conquered his amazement ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... the unexpected developments on board the Bella Cuba. Dr. Sauber had relinquished, indeed, almost forgotten, the clever plan by which the yacht was to be detained. The French Consul, Loria's host, was hurriedly brought on board, to be dumbfounded by a recital of what had happened. With Loria dead, and guilty, the fugitive concealed on the Bella Cuba innocent, De Letz's personal motive for detaining the prisoner disappeared. His chivalry was fired by Virginia's ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... ever were a set of dumbfounded men, they were the rustlers who closed about the leader and recognized him in the moonlight. The remarks that followed his identification were as ludicrous as ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... my correspondent was in Adelaide, and had evidently forgotten all about my coming. "Well," I said to the blacksmith, "if you can get together a dozen intelligent men I will explain effective voting to them." He looked at me with a dumbfounded air, and then burst out, "Good G—, madam, there are not three intelligent men in the town." But the old order has changed, and in 1909 Mrs. Young addressed an enthusiastic audience of 150 in the same town and on the same subject. ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... checks in dumbfounded silence; then carrying them to the light he examined them with minute care before bringing them back to the ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... dumbfounded when he went into the police captain's. He saw instantly that every one knew. They had positively thrown down their cards, all were standing up and talking. Even Nikolay Parfenovitch had left the young ladies and run in, looking strenuous and ready ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... so sharp and quick that certainly she was the most dumbfounded there. Her utter stupefaction amazed Driscoll as much again as the question itself. He stiffened as though struck. If this were a revelation? If it could be—if it could be that she really knew no reason ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and gave out the opening hymn. An intense silence ensued, broken only by the sweet organ notes. Very few in the congregation thought of singing, as they were too busy whispering to one another. Jake Jukes stood dumbfounded. He could not believe his eyes, and paid no heed to his wife who kept nudging his arm. Empty's mouth was wide open and his eyes were fairly starting out of his head. His mother, too, was greatly affected, and her hand trembled so ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... was pretty excited, for I was thinking just then of the awful tragedy that had occurred on Mount Cutler the year before. What if we should find a dead man? Well, what do you suppose we did find? I was dumbfounded. There below us were the dying embers of a log-fire. The flames had long since died, and now it was just smoldering and smoking. On either side of the fire lay a man, well-wrapped in his blanket. A gun that for some reason looked very familiar to me was leaning against the rock ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... she is hidden from sight by the eager thousands who are crowding and pushing one another to catch a glimpse of the winner. Jay Gardiner stands for a moment as if dumbfounded. He is hardly able to credit the ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... to an orange hue, spattered with shadows of waving boughs and birds fluttering and twittering among the leaves. He shared their joy in the cool refreshing dawn of the summer day. It certainly was a fine morning—but whose dwelling was this? . . . He gazed dumbfounded at his bed and surroundings. Suddenly the reality assaulted his brain that had been so sweetly dulled by the first splendors of the day. Step by step, the host of emotions compressed into the preceding day, came climbing up the long stairway of his memory to the last black and ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... lie; and just as in Lorenzi's case, fortune stood by him. The Marchese no longer troubled himself to deal to the others. The silent Ricardi rose somewhat mortified; the other Ricardi wrung his hands. Then the two withdrew, dumbfounded, to a corner of the room. The Abbate and Olivo took matters more phlegmatically. The former ate sweets and repeated his proverbial tags. The latter watched the turn of the ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... the tax-collector of the whole matter; for on seeing me in my chair of state, he merely grinned in a vicious way, and cried to the nearest not to let me escape. "We have lost one rogue, but we will hang the other," he said. And while the townsfolk stood dumbfounded round us, he slipped with a groan from his horse, and bade his two ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... she uttered the black-eyed girl's voice had risen. Overmastered by anger she fairly screamed the final sentence of her arraignment. Then she turned and bolted from the room, leaving behind her a dumbfounded trio of ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... I'm a Socialist," suddenly put in Doe, and Chappy turned to him, dumbfounded to witness the eruption of a second youth. "I've long thought that, when I find my feet in politics, I shall be in the Socialist camp. They may be visionary, but they are idealists. And I think it's up to us public-schoolboys to lead the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the strange soldier's pistol was whipped out—a flash, a report, and Jim George fell dead at his feet, a victim to his own swagger and an innocent jest of his companions. So dumbfounded were the innocent "foragers," that they allowed the cavalryman to ride away ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... I be kicked to death by little red spiders!" exclaimed Seaton, dumbfounded, as the other disappeared. "He ain't a man, ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... him, dumbfounded. Granet, however, remained perfectly at his ease. He laid down the telescope and scrutinised ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fragment of his brain lay in every course of masonry. Like all true engineers, he delighted in the physical expression of his ability, and here had been such an opportunity as few engineers ever realized. He felt not so much dejected as dumbfounded that so much skill and labor could be brought to a full stop just as it reached its permanent stride. In his eyes the figure of Clark had long achieved titanic proportions. Innumerable things had been demonstrated to be possible, ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... staring at each other, without exchanging a word, dumbfounded, stupefied. The air was torn by the horn of a motor-car. A breath of wind rustled through the leaves. And Shears did not stir, his fingers still fixed in Wilson's throat, which continued to emit ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... form of pretence that nobody knows that they are billing and cooing beneath the sand, though of course everybody knows it, and they know that everybody knows it, except possibly the one other person most interested. But Paris was dumbfounded that a very prominent and beautiful comtesse should leave her husband and her children in broad daylight, and go visiting the most famous pianist in the world. The pianist was to blame, of course, in the public eye, and the whole affair was branded as a flagrant ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... idea of my feelings is simply impossible. I must refer every thing to the imagination of the reader; and, by way of comparison to assist his imagination, I beg leave to call his attention to our old friend, the thunder-bolt. "Had a thunder-bolt burst," and all that sort of thing. Fact, sir. Dumbfounded. By Jove! that word even does not begin ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... for a moment, then was about to answer, when he turned to the gambler and said: "You are at the bottom of this. Give me my papers." But Pierre and Galbraith were as dumbfounded as the Sergeant himself to know that the letter was gone. They were stunned beyond speech when Jen said, flushing: "No, Sergeant Tom, I am the thief. When I could not wake you, I took the letter from your pocket and carried it to Inspector Jules last night,—or, rather, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... so decided, and had received such strength and grace from heaven, that the priest was dumbfounded,—my smooth stone out of the sling had hit him in the right place. After much effort to appear bland and good-natured, he drew near my chair, seized my hand, and said, "My dear daughter, you mistake me. I love you as a daughter, I wish ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... saliva from his distended mouth run on his copy-book. His brothers and sisters also started to roar, but bringing the rod down on the table, I threatened to thrash every one of them if they so much as whimpered; and they were so dumbfounded that they sat silent in terrified surprise. Jimmy continued to ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... too dumbfounded, too much overwhelmed with shame and sorrow for him to resent the attack upon herself, or to attempt reprisals. Of her defenceless submission he took advantage, and presently had brought himself honestly to believe ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... two I was too dumbfounded to speak. I knew that savages were subject to queer and unexpected turns of thought, but this was a development that I had never foreseen even in my most fantastic imaginings, and I was utterly at a loss as to how I was to deal with such an extraordinary ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Builder was dumbfounded at the sudden cordiality. In recent days, Thougor had done such a good job of discrediting, he never dreamed of regaining his ...
— Regeneration • Charles Dye
... was a man with a big black moustache, which made him look like the pictures of Nietzsche. He stared at Hal, frankly dumbfounded. "What the devil?" ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... found himself confronting the rubicund countenance and imposing form of Heriot Walkingshaw. Over the shoulder of this apparition he looked into the clear eyes of Frank. They were trying to convey a caution to use whatever tact he possessed; but the artist was too dumbfounded ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... He was too dumbfounded to grasp all that was said, but he recovered his senses in time to hear the Mayor assuring his audience that it gave him great pleasure, indeed he might go so far as to say the very greatest pleasure, to welcome on behalf of their town one ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... dumbfounded. Had the report come from down-river, I should have instantly thought that one of my own men had fired. But coming from up-river it puzzled me considerably. Who could there be with firearms in primitive England other than we ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said without a trace of emotion, so flatly and with so quiet a smile that Helene was dumbfounded and uttered not another syllable. She was obliged to lend some assistance to Juliette, who suddenly decided to bring the table close to the fireplace. Then she drew back, and the rehearsal began once more. In a soliloquy which followed the scene, Madame de Guiraud with considerable power spoke these ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... many men have jumped In logic, and the safer course they took; By any other they would have been stumped, Unable to argue, or to quote a book, And quite dumbfounded, which they cannot brook; They break no bones, and suffer no contusion, Hiding their woful fall, by hook and crook, In slang and gibberish, sputtering and confusion; But that was not the way Sam came to ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... oats were gone. Mr. Murry sought in vain for his beloved accordion. Mr. Harkrudder was furious when he found his grinding machine was gone. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy made a dash for the grub-box. It was empty. We were dumbfounded. Each of us kept searching and researching and knowing all the while we would find nothing. Mr. Struble is a most cheerful individual, and, as Mrs. O'Shaughnessy says, "is a mighty good fellow even if he is Dutch." "The ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Tristram was dumbfounded. He knew not what to do. Whatever was the cause, it now hurt him horribly to see her weep—weep like ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... to chance for eluding the more remote one just brought to view,—it was not till Gaut, with assurances of the last being but a miserable, trumped-up affair, had pushed and goaded him up to action, that the dumbfounded attorney recovered his old confidence. He then straightened back in his seat, and, with the air of one who has meekly borne some imposition, or breach of privilege, till it can be borne no longer, turned gruffly to his opponent, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... to talk to 'em I cannot tell,—'My friends, but ye seem to have more work in your hands than wit in your noddles—ye might have spared yourselves the labour, I trow.' With that the whole rout turned upon me with a shout and a chattering that would have dumbfounded the shrillest tongue in the whole hundred—the mill-wheel was nothing to it. I would have escaped, but my feet were holden like as they had been i' the stocks. One, the foremost of the crew—I do think he had a long tail and gaping hoofs, but I was over frightened ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the little neighbouring town, and added with a despairing gesture, "Helas! C'est la guerre!" showing us the official telegram from Paris. We at once landed and accompanied the station-master up to the house, where our host was dumbfounded at the news, for, like me, he had continued to hope against hope. Five minutes later he was knotting the official tricolour scarf round his waist, for it fell to his duty as Maire to read the Decree of Mobilisation in the town, and I accompanied him there. ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... There was no anger in his eyes, no menace in his attitude. He merely appeared dumbfounded, crushed; there was in his face a look of mute, helpless astonishment, as a child might look when it saw an edifice of sand carefully and lovingly erected, levelled to the ground by the first careless wave. Almost ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... enough, Jorrocks was dumbfounded at this sort of reply from a creditor, it not being at all in accordance with the Lex mercatoria, or law of merchants, and quite unknown on 'Change. Before, however, he had time to recover his surprise, all the passengers having ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... dumbfounded," said van Manderpootz. "I presume you are aware, by hearsay at least, of the existence of thought. The psychon, the unit of thought, is one electron plus one proton, which are bound so as to form one neutron, embedded ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... Heaven's name? How can you help it?" The speaker is too dumbfounded, so far, to be able to get the whip hand of the circumstances. But the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... could put his stammering dumbfounded query, strong hands seized and jerked him roughly from his horse, while other hands at the same moment jerked Bud off his horse. One of the men who seized and pulled Thure from his horse was the big red-headed man, who had jumped up on top of the barrel and who had led the rush ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... of fish that had appeared so miraculously he was nearly dumbfounded. With eyes and mouth wide open and hands up-raised he uttered a sudden yell of fright and dove through the doorway leading to the dining room and the ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... the direction of the sound, and saw, to my horror and amazement, not the snake, but a large panther, not twenty yards away, and creeping stealthily towards me, with glaring eyes, gleaming white teeth, and ears well laid back upon his head. For an instant I was dumbfounded; then, recollecting myself, I turned the rifle ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... dumbfounded to learn that he already had their names on a card before him. They were getting a new idea of the efficiency of ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... improvise another as well as I could. I found it a better method to prearrange a few points in my mind, and trust to the spur of the occasion, and the kind aid of Providence, for enabling me to bring them to bear. The presence of any considerable proportion of personal friends generally dumbfounded me. I would rather have talked with an enemy in the gate. Invariably, too, I was much embarrassed by a small audience, and succeeded better with a large one,—the sympathy of a multitude possessing a buoyant effect, which lifts the speaker a little way out of his individuality and tosses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... not go to bed that night. She threw herself, dressed as she was, onto her bed, and she had not even the strength to cry left in her, she was so thoroughly dumbfounded. She remained quite inert, scarcely knowing that she had a body, and without being at all able to collect her thoughts, though at moments she remembered some of what had happened, and then she was frightened at the idea of what might happen. Her terror increased, and every time the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... after having taken Marchiali away from me, do you bring him back again?" cried the unhappy governor, in a paroxysm of terror, and completely dumbfounded. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with a limbless, cylindrical body, a huge flat, pulpy head, and protruding, luminous lips, which were tightly glued to the infant's ears; and again my friend heard a faint, sickly sound of sucking, and a sound more hideously nauseating, he informed me, could not be imagined. He was too dumbfounded to act; he could only stare; and the phantasm, after continuing its loathsome occupation for some seconds, leisurely arose, and moving away with a gliding motion, vanished in the yard of an adjacent house. The child did not ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... most dumbfounded moment of the Reverend Saunders' life. His jaw dropped. But only to come together the tighter. "Young woman," said he, "I am a servant of God. I have served Him all ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... was dumbfounded. He had never said a word to any creature as to Beatrice's dowry; and when Mr Gresham had told him, with sorrow, that his daughter's portion must be small, he had at once passed away from the subject as one that was hardly fit for conversation, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... was dumbfounded, the merchant, who was ushered into his presence soon after sunrise, was much more so. He told Wali Dad that he had not slept all night, and by the first streak of daylight had started to seek out his friend. And what a search he had had! A great stretch of wild jungle country had, in ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Carolina's prowess in silence, now and then looking up at the pilot and nodding assent. He saw that the pilot was intent upon astonishing him with his wonderful advancement in the theory of government, and the important position of South Carolina. Again he looked dumbfounded, as much as to acknowledge the pilot's profundity, and exclaimed, "Well! South Carolina must be a devil of a State: every thing seems captivated with its greatness: I'd like to live in Carolina if I ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... in the town that your two sons are at the front,' she said, 'but I know that one at least of them is not.' And I was dumbfounded. I say to her, 'Woman, it is a lie you tell me. Both of my boys are with their regiments, in the trenches even now, if by the grace of the good ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... answered, and for a moment I was dumbfounded. I guessed at once it was the Colonel, and I had counted so confidently on his being ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... said, Diane, "and papa laughed like—well, like a regular hyena. I was dumbfounded. Papa's so queer. He ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... silence, and then a perfect yell of laughter from the boys. For a moment the usher was dumbfounded, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... in the world. They never interrupt anyone in his talk. And so, even Robert, who at first was simply dumbfounded and amazed, controlled himself and held his peace. Very few white men could have done so. I had purposely so placed him, that if he had suddenly attempted violence, stronger men could instantly have restrained him. But nothing of the kind was ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... reading to talk to him, and, in a few minutes, had completely dumbfounded him with her pedantic replies, which fell from lips as luscious ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various |
