"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dull, a scribal pen Dead legends wrote, half-known, and feared: In lettered lands to poet men Romance, who lives ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... fire was dying down from a flame to a dull red glow, and a rush of wind against the kitchen window was accompanied by the light pattering of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... because the animal life is the lowest and rudest part of his being and that which he shares with inferior creatures, to call any individual man an animal is to imply that the animal nature has undue supremacy, and so is deep condemnation or utter insult. The brute is the animal viewed as dull to all finer feeling; the beast is looked upon as a being of appetites. To call a man a brute is to imply that he is unfeeling and cruel; to call him a beast is to indicate that he is vilely sensual. We speak ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... surely deem May light these hearts of ours on darksome days, When loneliness hath power, and no kind beam Lightens about our feet the perilous ways? For of Eternity This present hour is all we call our own, And Memory's edge is dull'd, even as it brings The sunny swathes of unforgotten springs, And sweeps them to our feet like grass ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Style receives its beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad style means a dull or confused brain. ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... sketched out in a few words the whole policy of my married life. I feel an awful fraud. And I had encouraged you to look forward to years of incessant quarrelling. Do you think you can manage without it? I'm afraid it's going to be shockingly dull for you,' ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... heart beat as I heard the dull rumble of the wheels, and caught the lurid glare of the two lamps coming. By the brief glance I got I saw that the guard (as I had hoped) had crouched in for shelter under the driver's hood, and that the sole occupant of the back coupe was ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... these it were well to lift the veil on the sackcloth of home, where weepeth the faithful, stricken mother, and the bruised father bendeth his aching head; where the bereft wife or husband, silent and alone, looks [10] in dull despair at the vacant seat, and the motherless little ones, wondering, huddle together, and repeat with quivering lips words of strange import. May the great Shepherd that "tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and binds ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... who can hire a house and pay for it have his way, and let none be disturbed; the opposers can stay away. But for us, let us be thankful that in such hot weather there is something to amuse us, something to season our insipid dishes, something to spice our dull days with. Mem. It was cooler in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... followers, just escaped from the dull prison of their ships, were intent on admiring the wild scenes around them. Never had they known a fairer May-day. The quaint old narrative is exuberant with delight. The tranquil air, the warm sun, woods fresh ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the straps, and finally having them properly arranged, stepped backward a few feet and raised his left arm as a sign to the Electrocutioner in the closet that everything was in readiness. And then, just as John Convert uttered the words, 'Always Consult Your Soul for Advice,' a terrible, dull, buzzing sound took the place of his voice, his body suddenly expanded, as if about to burst, his limbs were drawn up and distorted, blue flames shot forth with a weird glow, a sickening odor of burning flesh saturated the air, and quicker than it takes to tell, the deadly ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... horseman passing under, would infallibly knock his head against the corner of one of their first floors. But chiefly on donkeys is this risk noticeable—the stubborn brutes which it is much the fashion to ride, and whom none but the drivers can guide. On entering Smyrna by night—those dull streets where gas is not—your only plan is to keep well in the middle of the street, right in the hollow. It is a beautiful quarter of the town; in itself picturesque and variegated in colour, and beset with the fairest embellishments. Look up at that lattice for a moment only, and then prick ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... longer able to overlook and manage the government of the State, he sent to Corcyra and summoned Lycophron to come back and take the supreme power; for in the elder of his sons he did not see the required capacity, but perceived clearly that he was of wits too dull. Lycophron however did not deign even to give an answer to the bearer of his message. Then Periander, clinging still in affection to the youth, sent to him next his own daughter, the sister of Lycophron, supposing that he would yield to her persuasion more than to that of ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... close enough he hurled the stone at the wolves, and a dull thud, followed by a shrill, dog-like howl of pain, told him that he had countered on the rib plate of one of the nasty brutes. Then he let out a wild yell, and three of the ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... a pelican in the wilderness! I observed again to-day the burnt volcanic stones scattered over The Desert. They were of all colours, yellow, black, brown, and red, like so many brick-bats. These stones scattered for miles around, together with the hot-spring of the city, and many of the low dull Saharan hills, like so many heaps of scoriæ and lava, give apparently a volcanic origin to all these regions, or ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to wait after that. There was a lapse of perhaps a minute and a half, and then a dull, booming roar shook the building, and the burglars ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... earnest man recently said: "I was born and raised upon the farm. I never knew a dull day in my life. I went fishing. I went ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... are born in a thatched cottage by the roadside, or in some narrow lane. This cottage is usually an encroachment. In the olden time, when land was cheap, and the competition for it dull, there were many strips and scraps which were never taken any notice of, and of which at this hour no record exists either in the parochial papers or the Imperial archives. Probably this arose from the character of the country in the past, when the greater part was open, or, as it was called, ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... Press.—"A story in which there is not a dull page, nay, not even a dull line. The characters are well drawn, the incidents are novel and often astounding, and the language has a terseness and briskness that gives a character of vivacity to the story, so that the reader is never tired going on unravelling ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... fortune, having no understanding of her weariness of more artificial men; but a time comes when the stupidest sees in an eye the glance of his other half; and it came to him, who was quite the reverse of dull. As he gained confidence accidental encounters led to encounters by design; till at length when they were alone together there was no reserve on the matter. They whispered tender words as other lovers do, and were as devoted a pair as ever was seen. But not ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... talk! Why dost thou say that she is illustrious,[FN25] for all she is of the scum of slave-girls and of the refuse of the people? I will not sell her to thee." When the merchant heard this, he knew he was dull-witted and said to him, "Calm thyself, for I will buy her of thee, notwithstanding the defects thou mentionest." "And how much wilt thou give me for her?" asked the Bedouin "None should name the child but its father," ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... was simple, unsuspecting, pure, and extremely modest, she was far from dull—she was not now to learn the difference between the language of ordinary trifling and general compliment, and that to which she now listened, and which, however vague, was still so particular as ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... he spoken than there sounded, high and shrill above the dull rumble of the oncoming cattle, ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... vague and dull enough—something about the Prince of Wales reviewing Yeomanry, and the race for some hunt cup in India. But that peerage! To ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... said no more, but four stout negro men stepped forward, nailed down the lids, and lowered the rough boxes into the ground. Turning to Madam P——, I saw her face was red with weeping. She turned to go as the first earth fell, with a dull, heavy sound, on the rude coffins; and giving her my arm, I led her ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... against the torrent of grief which came rushing over his heart once more, he sobbed aloud in tones which penetrated even the thickness of the prison walls, and made dull echoes awake behind them. Then, tearing off his satin tie, and seizing by the collar, the smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, he stripped the latter ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... very early days. The Great Hall was lighted by tall windows reaching almost to the roof and traversed with shafts of solid stonework; the one immediately opposite Farmer Jocelyn's chair showed the very last parting glow of the sunset like a dull red gleam on a dark sea. For the rest, thick home-made candles of a torch shape fixed into iron sconces round the walls illumined the room, and burned with unsteady flare, giving rise to curious lights and shadows as though ghostly ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... overheated room the vitiated air had slowly mounted to the brain; soon a third of the spectators nodded in their chairs scarcely able to keep awake; others moved restlessly with a dull sense of physical discomfort, while the law, expressing itself in archaic terms, wound its way through a labyrinth of technicalities, and reached out hungrily ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... a signal. From behind him there rose a dull murmur. A lad not much older than himself raced up and ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... a small camp by a hospital, and the soldiers came out to examine our papers and warn us to go no farther, as there was fighting in the town. The road was black with frightened civilians carrying away small bundles from the ruins of their homes. Ahead was a great column of dull gray smoke which completely hid the city. We could hear the muffled sound of firing ahead. Down the little street which led to the town, we could see dozens of white flags which had been hung out of the windows in a childish hope ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... of a dull greenish brown, but when excited its back becomes a rich olive green, leaving the head yellowish: the underside of the body is of a very pale blue, almost approaching white. The open mouth exhibits the fauces of an intense vermilion tint; so that, although extremely handsome, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... at the same time he was averse to writing letters home; his father complained once in the holidays that he knew nothing of what the boy did at school. Hugh could not put into words what he felt to be the truth, namely, that he hardly knew himself. He submitted quietly and obediently to the dull routine of the place, and felt so little interest in it, that he could not conceive that his father should do so either. There were of course occasional exciting incidents, but to relate them would have required so much explanation, such a list of personages, such a description of ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... who were bound to the thwarts below deck, had been listening with dull surprise to the fighting on deck—not that fighting was by any means unusual in that vessel, but they must have known that they were in harbour, and that the main body of the pirates were on shore. Still greater was their surprise when ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... weaver in Edinburgh lost his situation one winter, on account of business being so dull. He begged earnestly of his employer to let him have work; but he said it was impossible. Well said he, "I'm sure the Lord will help." When he came home and told his wife the sad news she was greatly distressed. He tried to ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... except when, as in S. Mark's there is the wonder of dimness too. For Venice is not like other historic cities; Venice, for all her treasures of art, is first and foremost the bride of the Adriatic, and the call of the sea is strong. Art's opportunity is the dull ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... boxful, and two or three were lighted at a time, and held so that the doctor could see the drowned face better than he could in the uncertain moonlight. It was a strange scene. The lonely, weird character of the place; the dark trees scattered about; the dull pond with its bending willows; the swaying, murmuring crowd collected round the doctor and what he was bending over; the bright flickering flame of the match-light; with the pale moon overhead, getting higher and higher as the night ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... doin' her hair Ruby was in a class by herself. No spit curls or French rolls for her! She sticks to the plain double braid, wound around her head smooth and slick, like the stuff they wrap Chianti bottles in, and with her long soup-viaduct it gives her sort of a top-heavy look. Sort of dull, ginger-colored hair it is too. Besides that she's a tall, shingle-chested female, well along in the twenties, I should judge, and with all the earmarks of ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... not experienced it, can know any thing of the suffering such a child endures when deprived of the sweet influences of home. Such an one often appears dull and stupid to a careless observer, when there is throbbing under that cold exterior, a heart of the keenest sensibility. Let the bold, healthy, active boy be sent from home, if necessary; a little hardship, and ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... that creature was the same who had not recoiled before the infamy of an anonymous letter, pretty and sinister Lydia Maitland—that delicate, that silent young woman with the large brown eyes, always smiling, always impenetrable in the midst of that dull complexion which no emotion, it seemed, had ever tinged. The failure of her first attempt had exasperated her hatred against her husband and against the Countess to the verge of fury, but a concentrated fury, which was waiting for another occasion ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... why the successive editors of Park's Travels have passed it over, printing only the last page or two, wherein Amady Fatouma relates the explorer's end. One thing I know has been against its adoption, to wit, an insufferably dull style. Seeing that it is difficult to be dull in the Arabic tongue, and that it was impossible for Isaaco to be so in any of the tongues he used, I suspect the English translator (no doubt a mere clerk in Governor Maxwell's Office) of pruning ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... slightest variation in tone, and can detect traits and moods hidden from the eye, because not registered upon the face. There is a strong voice, a brave voice, a voice full of hope and cheer; a tired voice, a crafty voice, a voice full of dull despair. And so here again I do not feel the lack of eyesight in noting differences in my fellow men. I know that there are distinguishing marks, that heads are shaped differently, and that hair and eyes have different colors, corresponding to the various ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... Helen did not falter. She immediately took control of all necessary arrangements. Nothing was forgotten. Ronnie's outfit was managed with as little trouble to himself as possible. They dealt together, in a gay morning at the Stores, with all interesting items, but those he called "the dull things" apparently selected themselves. Anyway, they all appeared in his room, when the ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... innovation in gleeful whispers—for guitar had never twanged in that part of Africa before—they moved on to their work. No consideration could cause them to neglect that. They might fritter away the dull, rough gems when they had found them, but the lust of handling diamonds once was the strongest passion they knew. And so the day's toil was not curtailed; but at the conclusion Miss Musgrave had an application for ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... concealment of an ambush. Atinius, having by his scouts discovered only the body of infantry, led his troops into the field, ignorant both of the domestic treachery and of the stratagem of the enemy. The engagement with the infantry was particularly dull, a few Romans in the first rank engaging while the Thurians rather waited than helped on the issue. The Carthaginian line retreated, on purpose that they might draw the incautious enemy to the back of the hill, where their cavalry were lying in ambush; and when they had come there, the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... the door, and watched them wistfully as they ran off. It was dull to turn back into the empty kitchen, and wait there till the old dame came downstairs. If Robbie could have put his feelings into words, he would have said that he would have been happier roughing it with Duncan and Elsie ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... citizens." In vain Harry urged that he was outraging grammar. Mr. Waverton did not believe him, did not want to believe him—the same thing. Mr. Waverton was convinced that he had an insight into the soul of Horace which Harry's pedantic eyes could not share. He explained, as one explains to a dull child, the rare poetic beauty of the sentiment which he had produced. The hero whom Horace was celebrating, you know, was the man superior to the common herd. Now common men (as even Harry might be aware) are all overbearing. ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... documents, letters with their edges worn into tatters and addressed in the crabbed writing of a century ago, title deeds discolored and yellow with age, most of them fastened with great red seals, a mass of musty records that looked dry and dull indeed. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... to invariable rules even the slightest actions of their domestic life, they have been rendered stupid by the effort to render them obedient. Their subsistence is in general more certain, and their habits more pacific, but subject to the constraint and the dull monotony of the government of the Missions, they show by their gloomy and reserved looks that they have not sacrificed their liberty ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... and dull controversy as to the origin of Scottish folk-songs was due to ignorance of the comparative method, and of the ballad literature of Europe in general. The result of the discussion was to leave a vague impression that the Scottish ballads were perhaps as old as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... reply, in effect, was "What make you here, you little Bulgar boy?" He maintained that, while not as "dull and cautious" as he had meant it to be, the speech referred to in no way bore out Mr. BUXTON'S assertions. Then he proceeded in characteristic fashion to knock together the heads of the pro-Bulgarians and the ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... hour or more—she sat perfectly still, staring at a wavering line made on the floor by a stray sunbeam which had forced its way through the window of her hotel sitting-room. At first she looked unseeingly, with the dull, introspective gaze of the melancholic. Then she began to notice the thing, and to fear it, and to watch for outlines of a quivering human face, and to tremble a little. Surely there had been a face—she thought vaguely, and puckered her brow in an effort to remember. It was ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... meantime, had lapsed into a state of dull indifference to everything but her great sorrow. That absorbed her whole mental life. It was the house in which her soul dwelt, the chamber of affliction wherein she lived, and moved, and had her being—so darkly draped that no light came in through the windows. ...
— The Son of My Friend - New Temperance Tales No. 1 • T. S. Arthur
... could either amuse or interest us. The necessity of not exceeding the limited distance of one or two miles, lest a snowdrift, which often rises very suddenly, should prevent our return, added considerably to the dull and tedious monotony which day after day presented itself. To the southward was the sea, covered with one unbroken surface of ice, uniform in its dazzling whiteness, except that, in some parts, a few hummocks were seen ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... and stubble, the dull yellow of the waggon, toned down by years of weather, the green woods near at hand, darkening in the distance and slowly changing to blue, the cloudless sky, the heat-suffused atmosphere, in which things seem to float rather than to grow or stand, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... windy night in late October. The leaves are whirling in dusty spirals and shutters bang with unmelodious emphasis, and all the world seems dreary; yet, to him, with love lighting the way, with the knowledge that the girl he has learned to worship is here within these dull brick walls, there is a thrill and vigor in every nerve. No light burns in the hallway; none in the lower floor of the number to which he has been directed. He well knows it is too late to call, even to inquire for them, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... swiftness they rushed toward me, and in a single second had merged themselves into my own being; and I understood in some marvellous manner beyond the possibility of doubt that they were symbolic of my own soul: the dull animal part of me that had hitherto acknowledged nothing beyond its cage of minute sensations, and the higher part, almost out of reach, and in touch with the stars, that for the first time had feebly awakened into life during ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... ciphers, and yet always with circumspection. He was perfectly satisfied with Pierrette's eyes and relieved that they were not blue, for blue eyes may be cold, and the finest of black eyes are sometimes dull. Gray eyes alone—misty, fathomless gray eyes—share imagination with brown ones. But neither a blue-eyed nor a black-eyed nor a gray-eyed Pierrette was to be thought of. Pierrette's eyes were brown, as he should have known, and what she was saying to him was just what ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... own mouth except to Gawtrey, with whom Philip often observed him engaged in whispered conferences, to which he was not admitted. His eye, however, was less idle than his lips; it was not a bright eye: on the contrary, it was dull, and, to the unobservant, lifeless, of a pale blue, with a dim film over it—the eye of a vulture; but it had in it a calm, heavy, stealthy watchfulness, which inspired Morton with great distrust and aversion. Mr. Birnie not only spoke French like a native, but all his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... at the Palazzo Montevarchi, and while Corona was busy with her dressmakers, Prince Saracinesca was dozing over the Osservatore Romano in his study. To tell the truth the paper was less dull than usual, for there was war and rumour of war in its columns. Garibaldi had raised a force of volunteers and was in the neighbourhood of Arezzo, beginning to skirmish with the outlying posts of the pontifical ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... greatly grown meantime, few persons would recognize the hearty, blithesome, genial, and wiry Abraham Lincoln of earlier days in the sixteenth President of the United States, with his stooping figure, dull eyes, careworn face, and languid frame. The old clear laugh never came back; the even temper was sometimes disturbed; and his natural charity for all was often turned into unwonted suspicion of the motives of men, whose selfishness caused ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... waved. Zeal awakened with the assurance that conspicuous merit was sure of its reward, and that no officer who did his duty would now be made a sacrifice, like Admiral Byng, to appease public indignation at ministerial failures. As Nature, languishing in chill vapors and dull smothering fogs, revives at the touch of the sun, so did England spring into fresh life under the kindling influence of one ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... which often involves the murderer in a death more cruel than that he has given, he pointed to the Florentine traitor with his amiable smile and his deadly poison. He indicated certain powders and potions, some of them of dull action, wearing out the victim so slowly that he dies after long suffering; others violent and so quick, that they kill like a flash of lightning, leaving not even time for a single cry. Little by little Sainte-Croix became interested in the ghastly ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... One dull, rainy day, as we sat indoors mending our clothes, and yarning and smoking, we heard the scream of parrots, and, going to the door, saw some twenty or thirty of them, large, fine, green and scarlet plumaged birds, hanging on to and crawling in and out among the branches ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... had always four or five boys whom he had taught to swim thoroughly well, and he made them swimming-masters. They benefited by having to give instruction to others, and by learning to keep their tempers. Nothing, perhaps, tries the temper so much as having to teach dull or inattentive boys. Blackall had been made one of the swimming-masters, but at the commencement of the bathing season the Doctor called him up, and without a word of explanation told him that he thought fit to dismiss him from the post. He lost, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... it is a dull, animal happiness, the content of the full belly. The dominant note of their lives is materialistic. They are stupid and heavy, without imagination. The Abyss seems to exude a stupefying atmosphere of torpor, which wraps about ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... of air as the heavy chair descended, followed by a dull thud, and a second impact as the soldier fell to the ground with a crushed skull. Colonel Anderson was over the unconscious form in a moment, ready to choke an outcry should his blow not have been true. But there was no need for this. His aim had been true, and the man ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... either of us had much idea where we were or whither we were bound. Our guiding principle seemed to be to get as much sunshine as possible, and to find the easiest road. We avoided dull sandy levels and hard rocky places, with the same instinctive dexterity. We gloomed together through dark dingles, and came out on sunny reaches with the same gilded magnificence. There are days when every stream is Pactolus and every man is Croesus, and thanks to that first and greatest of all ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... that much was introduced by the foreigner in the wake of Christianity which her alert mind recognised as being all to the advantage of women. Even the old Refuge-keeper could read a little, but she was quite dull and slow, whereas without much trouble Mrs. Fan herself could master quite a number of new characters every day, and a few hours had been enough for the initial lesson of ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... haziness and headaches he was quite at a loss to account for his situation. He knew vaguely that he was lying flat on his back and that he was being jolted uncomfortably to and fro. His dazed brain registered sensations of pain both dull and sharp from a score of bruised nerve centers. For some reason he could neither move his hands nor lift his head. His body had been so badly jarred by the hail of blows through which he had plowed that at first his mind was too blank ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... certainly die if he is exposed to this biting wind and constant rain. I intend to tell the captain, but you, Trawl, go and stay with him whenever you can; it will cheer him up, poor fellow, to have someone to talk to, and that dull Horner cannot speak two ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... turned and looked down on the face of this man that I had learned to love, and the full measure of his needed rest was with him; and the rainy day that glowered and drabbled at the eastern window of the room was as drearily stared back at by a hopeless woman's dull demented eyes. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... I knew then. How dull I had been, and stupid! The men caught her meaning, too, and we tramped heavily forward, the girl and ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... And when some one said: "People, you have recovered from the errors which led you astray; you have recalled your kings and your priests," they replied: "We have nothing to do with those prattlers." And when some one said: "People, forget the past, work and obey," they arose from their seats and a dull rumbling could be heard. It was the rusty and notched saber in the corner of the cottage chimney. Then they hastened to add: "Then keep quiet, at least; if no one harms you, do not seek to harm." Alas! they ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... is. Eyes cannot see it—fingers cannot feel it, but he who possess it knows that it is there for it fills his whole breast with a great, wonderful love and worship for something infinitely finer than man's dull senses can gauge—something that guides him into paths far above the plain of soulless ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wein, weib," etc., were brought to my mind at once. Thus I had the sign in full: the powerful agent of the sun on earth had fixed Carl Elzner and his Protestant beer-garden on the stereoscopic view forever, whether the dull eyes of men could read them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the reign of Taharqa are examples of excellent workmanship. That of Amenertas was over-praised at the time of its discovery; the face, half buried by the wig which we usually associate with the statues of the goddesses, has a dull and vacant expression in spite of its set smile, and the modelling of the figure is rather weak, but nevertheless there is something easy and refined in the gracefulness of the statue as ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... if they are not proof against their attacks, let me be thought by posterity what those authors would be thought if any memory of them or of their writings could endure so long as to another age. But these dull makers of lampoons, as harmless as they have been to me, are yet of dangerous example to the public. Some witty men may perhaps succeed to their designs, and, mixing sense with malice, blast the reputation of the most innocent amongst men, and ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... yellowing leaves. How swift were disillusion, were it not That thou art steadfast where all else deceives! Solace and Inspiration, Power divine That by some mystic sympathy of thine, When least it waits and most hath need of thee, Can startle the dull spirit suddenly With grandeur welled from unsuspected springs, — Long as the light of fulgent evenings, When from warm showers the pearly shades disband And sunset opens o'er the humid land, Shows thy veiled immanence in orient skies, — Long as pale mist and opalescent dyes Hung on far isle or ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... no subject of wonder to me. Your inferiors in understanding I know would not act like you; but the weak do not give law to the strong. I own that I have been dull enough, unjust enough, not to suspect your true motive for refusing, as you have done lately, to accompany us to public places. But this is a heavy penalty on you which an act of virtue ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... entrails.[395] But I leave the monsters To their own fate. And since the Comic Muse Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try If Tragedy have a more kind aspect. Leave me! There's something come into my thought That must and shall be sung, high and aloof, Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... them, and above them, and behind them, and all around them, there arose a deep, low, dull, rushing sound, which seemed as if all the snow on the slope was moving. Their ears had by this time become sufficiently well acquainted with the peculiar sound of the rushing snow-masses to know that this was the noise that heralded their progress, and to feel sure that ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... objects of his personal dislike. Of these Sir Charles Taylor was one. He was not a welcome member of the Hooks and Eyes, and Jerrold knew it. There was really no reason why Sir Charles should not have been liked, except perhaps that he was dull and prosaic; rather simple than dull, perhaps, for he was always ready to laugh with the rest of us, whether he understood the joke or not. And what could the most brilliant do ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... abruptly, "I see you have let them go out with a neighbor—why not have accompanied them yourself, or let them wait for me, if they wished to take a walk; which is natural enough, this room being so dull. But I am astonished that they should have gone out before they had news of good Mother Bunch—they have such kind hearts. But how pale you are?" added the soldier looking nearer at Frances; "what is the matter, my poor ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... for a cry to escape, but his teeth remained fast set, and there was not a sound for the moment. He was conscious of dropping rapidly down without the slightest change in his position, and then there was a dull heavy shock, when the apparently solid piece of ledge, after being exposed to the atmosphere for ages, crumbled into dust and went on downward with a curious whispering rush along a steep slope ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... now; the bright colors that had made them look like hanging gardens were gone, with the ladies. The reporters' gallery, was merely occupied by one or two watchful sentinels of the quill-driving guild; the main body cared nothing for a debate that had dwindled to a mere vaporing of dull speakers and now and then a brief quarrel over a point of order; but there was an unusually large attendance of journalists in the reporters' waiting-room, chatting, smoking, and keeping on the 'qui vive' for the general irruption of the Congressional ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Do not count on the charms of youth, it is a flower that shall very soon fade, and like a bird on the wing, shall leave no trace behind it. The lustre of your eyes now beaming delight shall soon grow dull; the bloom shall depart from your cheek; the bright hopes that now fill your soul shall give place to sad souvenirs; and your heart which is now the abode of delight shall then be harrowed with sorrow and woe. To-day you are ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... trousers pockets. Little boys, in the costumes of French chefs, paraded up and down the irregular aisles vending fancy cakes. There was a low rumble of conversation and a subdued clinking of glasses. Clouds of tobacco smoke rolled and wavered high in air about the dull gilt of the chandeliers. ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... breast. The Wood-Thrush has very clear, distinct oval spots on a white ground; in the Hermit, the spots run more into lines, on a ground of a faint bluish-white; in the Veery, the marks are almost obsolete, and a few rods off his breast presents only a dull yellowish appearance. To get a good view of him you have only to sit down in his haunts, as in such cases he seems equally anxious to get a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... to see their big boy who was ill. They had promised to be home for Christmas, but a big snow had blocked the railroad track, and nurse was afraid the train would be delayed until the day after Christmas. What a dull Christmas for two little girls, all alone in the great city house, with only the servants! They felt so lonely that nurse let them play in the big drawing-room instead of in the nursery, so they arranged all the chairs in a row, and pretended it was a snowed-up train. Tita was the conductor, ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... pensionary of the Batavian Republic, was destined by his education for the bar, but by his natural parts to await in quiet obscurity the end of a dull existence. With some property, little information, and a tolerably good share of common sense, he might have lived and died respected, and even regretted, without any pretension, or perhaps even ambition, to shine. The anti-Orange faction, to which his parents and family appertained, pushed him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... houses. I then went to the Pacific Coast, against the advice of friends who gave it as their opinion that my style of plays would not take very well in California. I opened for an engagement of two weeks at the Bush Street Theatre, in San Francisco, at a season when the theatrical business was dull, and Ben DeBar and the Lingards were playing there to empty seats. I expected to play to a slim audience on the opening night, but instead of that I had a fourteen hundred dollar house. Such was my success that I continued my engagement for five weeks, and the theatre was ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... wife should entertain after a fashion that had never yet been known even among the nobility of England. Both in town and country those great mansions should be kept open which were now rarely much used because she had found them dull, cold, and comfortless. In London there should not be a Member of Parliament whom she would not herself know and influence by her flattery and grace,—or if there were men whom she could not influence, they should live as men tabooed and unfortunate. Money mattered nothing. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... to find a reader who "twigs" every point as acutely as your brother has done. I told somebody—was it you?—I rather wished the printer would substitute o for e in Irenicon. So far as I have seen any notices, the British critic (what a dull ass he is) appears to have been seriously struck by ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... rush towards the pleasant noise. It was only a man from the smithy who happened to have a musical ear and had rigged up a kind of gallows from which he had hung carbine and rifle barrels of varying lengths and calibre, on the which he was beating with an iron rod. The sulky dull beginning of the dawn on Christmas Day, and there in the trenches the Christmas bells ringing as they might have rung in any village church in old England, two thousand miles away. And the hearts of the listeners rose to their throats, ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... cheeks with both hands, so as to make their faces as long as possible. Mr. Bunnet informs me that the Australian aborigines when out of spirits have a chop-fallen appearance. After prolonged suffering the eyes become dull and lack expression, and are often slightly suffused with tears. The eyebrows not rarely are rendered oblique, which is due to their inner ends being raised. This produces peculiarly-formed wrinkles on the forehead, which ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... dedication to a book dealing with the gridiron heroes of the past than to a man like Johnny Poe. For football is the abandon of body and mind to the obsession of the spirit that knows no obstacle, counts no danger and for the time being is dull and callous to physical pain or exhaustion. It is a something that makes one see ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... no threat, impatience, or acting in her voice, but he recognized the same dull desperation he had once heard in it, and her eyes, which a moment before were quick and mobile, had become fixed and set. He had no idea of trying to penetrate the foolish secret of her name and relations; he had never had the slightest curiosity, but it struck him now that Stratton ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... ragged, wild, bearded man, about forty, grossly disfigured with the small pox, and looked both dull and savage. Although his English was very bad and broken, yet Alan (according to his very handsome use, whenever I was by) would suffer him to speak no Gaelic. Perhaps the strange language made him appear more backward than he really was; but I thought he had little good-will to ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... VIENNA:—a long, and perhaps final farewell! If I have arrived at a moment when this capital is comparatively thinned of its population, and bereft of its courtly splendors—and if this city may be said to be now dull, compared with what its winter gaieties will render it—I shall nevertheless not have visited it IN VAIN. Books, whether as MSS. or printed volumes, have been inspected by me with an earnestness and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... days of the term were terribly dull, because some of us had to do collections, and my papers did not altogether please Mr. Edwardes. I promised again that I would do a lot of work in the vac; but Jack Ward arranged that he would come down and stay with us directly after the 'Varsity match was over, and I could not be expected ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... the best sense characteristic—it illustrated, that is to say, the best side of his character. "Believe me," were the words of the dying King, "that I have always been a religious man." It may be admitted, in justice to William, that according to his generally dull and often confused and hazy lights he did always recognize the standard, higher than that of mere expediency, or political compromise, or personal convenience, set up to regulate the conduct ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... an account of a visit a stranger paid to a rich man in Damascus. He went through dull and narrow streets, with no windows looking into the streets. He stopped before a low door, and was shown into a large court behind the house. There was a fountain in the midst of the court, and flower-pots all round. The visitor was then led into a room with a marble ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... had become intense. The storm demon had broken loose in all its fury and was lashing sea and land in wild frenzy. The shrieking wind, the dull, thunderous pounding of the waves upon the rocks and the hiss of driving snow, filled the air with a tumult that was little ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... apply here, my dear friend; for you will show me more indulgence than I have skill to demand. And should you find matter of interest in this book, yours, rather than the author's, will be the merit. As the beauty of nature is from the eye that looks upon her, so would the story be dull and barren, save for the life and ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... blinks dull and shy; And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, 585 And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread, At Christabel she looked askance!— One moment—and the sight was fled! But Christabel in dizzy trance Stumbling on the unsteady ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... seemed to be the special property of her superior. Even in her few months of training she had learned to keep herself calm and serviceable, and not to let her mind speculate idly. She was gazing out of the window into the dull night. Some locomotives in the railroad yards just outside were puffing lazily, breathing themselves deeply in the damp, spring air. One hoarser note than the others struck familiarly on the nurse's ear. That was the voice of the engine on the ten-thirty through express, which ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Roscoe, if you are happier I shall be, too," she said. "I know it must have been very dull for you here. My conscience has troubled me not a little all these years. I realize that a man, a young man like you, needs an interest in life; he wants something more than the care and companionship of a useless creature ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... dull, oblique gaze fixed upon the lights of the chateau. "They worked on her feelings; they knew that was the way. She is a delicate creature. They made her feel wicked. She is ...
— The American • Henry James
... flattering, I am sorry to say. Dull times, my son, very dull indeed. But I can tell you where you can find employment, I think. My son carries on the printing business in Philadelphia, and one of his men died the other day. I think he would be glad to ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... come here," she said. "It's so dull at the Castle I had to break my leg just to get a change. The Duchess sits reading near the fire with her gold eye-glasses on her nose and Lady Gwendolen plays haughtily on the harp and Lady Muriel coldly ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... improvement in quality, as well as for methods of marketing the large production of Harford county. A move in the right direction has been started by the forming of associations, which seek to build extensive warehouses and aid weak packers to carry stock, instead of forcing it upon a dull market. ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... vindication of their taste, and have deemed it better to applaud at the Theatre de la Republique, than lodge at St. Lazare or Duplessis.—Thus political slavery has assisted moral depravation: the writer who is the advocate of despotism, may be dull and licentious by privilege, and is alone exempt from the laws of Parnassus and of decency.—One Sylvan Marechal, author of a work he calls philosophie, has written a sort of farce, which has been performed ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... especially here in London, I find there haue bene some false prophets gone before vs, telling strange tales. For as our countrey doeth bring foorth many gallant men, who desirous of honour doe put themselues into the actions thereof, so doeth it many more dull spirited, who though their thoughts reach not so high as others, yet doe they listen how other mens acts doe passe, and either beleeuing what any man will report vnto them, are willingly caried away into errors, or tied to some greater mans faith, become secretaries ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... The woman led them by farm roads, sometimes turning off to the right or left, but keeping her way with a certainty which showed how well she was acquainted with the country. Several times they could hear the dull sound of bodies of cavalry galloping along the roads; but this died away as they got further into the country. The horse had been turned loose a mile from their starting place. Vincent removed the bridle and saddle, saying: "He will pick up enough to feed on here for some time. When he gets ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Catholics, and royal bridegrooms must always have royal brides. There were, however, Protestant princesses in Germany; this was suggested to his majesty, but he replied, with an expression of contempt, that they were all dull and foggy, and he could not possibly have one ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... "I do mean it though. The King does not wish that we should be dull here at Marly, and has ordered me to make everybody play; and, for fear that nobody should dare to begin, to set, myself, the example;" and with this he began to play at brelan; and the salon was soon filled with ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Sea of Galilee. Less stern than Wast Water, less fair than gentle Windermere, she had still the winning ways of an English lake; she caught from the smiling heavens unceasing light and changeful phases of beauty, and with all this brightness on her face, she yet clung so fondly to the dull he-looking mountain at her side, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... court His friends became alert, and whispered to each other with much earnestness, and a vast number of them bowed to him, and shook hands with him, and advised him to be cool, and keep up his spirits. His appearance, however, was any thing but firm; his face was deadly pale, his eyes dull and cowardly, his knees trembled so much that he was obliged to support himself on ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... have a good time, anyway," Dick declared stoutly. "So far, those who have tried to annoy us have succeeded only in furnishing some excitement for us. Although we've been snowbound most of the time here we've had anything but a dull time." ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... be your good fortune, but it's not mine," the girl said, pettishly. "It will be very dull here, without you. I know what it will be. Your mother will always be full of anxiety, and will be fretting whenever we get news of any disturbances; and that is often enough, for there seem to be disturbances, ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... generally behaving right this, that and the other withal; but when Yolande, asking Harvanger what will happen to her when he is away, receiveth for answer, "Truly I fear that thou wilt be very dull"; or when Bernlak, the fighter, says of a dead man, "I took over such effects as he left" (very much after the manner of my solicitor), one can't help feeling a little let down. Of such indeed are the perils ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... Goethe, "when I look at these beasts. Their state—so limited, dull, gaping, and dreaming—excites in me such sympathy, that I fear I shall become a sheep, and almost think the artist must have been one. At all events, it is most wonderful how Roos has been able to think and feel himself into the very soul of these creatures, so ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... a feeble dawn in the room when Hetty awoke, a little after four o'clock, with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke upon her gradually as she began to discern the objects round her in the dim light. And then came the frightening thought that she had to conceal her misery as well as to bear it, in ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... gleaming, as is its wont, in translucent ultramarine; its more distant depths slowly surge in blue-black waves, while those nearer to shore are of quite a different hue, and meet their sisters that lie nearer to the horizon in a dull greenish-grey, as dusty plains join darker lava beds. The northeasterly wind, which had risen as the sun rose, now blew more keenly, wreaths of white foam rode on the crests of the waves, though these did not beat wildly and stormily on the mountain-foot, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... romance possessed the field. The Yellow Book and similar strange exotics of the first period withered and died, and the cult of literature (!) for the British Home was shortly afterwards in full blast. There followed an avalanche of insufferably dull and puerile magazines, in which the word Sex was strictly taboo, and the ideal aimed at was apparently the extreme opposite to real life. It was odd how suddenly the sex note—(as I will call it for want of a better word)—disappeared ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... "Night is dull and dark. The clouds rest on the hills. No star with green trembling beam; no moon looks from the sky. I hear the blast in the wood, but I hear it distant far. The stream of the valley murmurs, but its murmur is sullen and sad. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... side of which the alley for four-corners was erected, gleamed in the darkness of a moonless summer night between the trees; and even farther than the streaming light, pierced the loud oaths and louder laughter, the shouts of triumph, and the yells of defeat, mixed with the dull heavy blows of the large wooden bowl, from the drunken ...
— The Beauty Of The Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the infinite, events poise invisible, awaiting their opportunity to incarnate themselves. They fasten, each after his kind, on these human lives of ours, as germs find the culture soil they love; so it follows that to the commonplace comes a life of dull routine, foolish happenings seek out the sentimentalist, sordid events seek the sordid and on the mystic dawns the mysterious. Calamities wait there, too, until Fate points out a weak spot in character on which they may pounce relentless with the temptation ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... primal man, Grim utilitarian, Loving woods for hunt and prowl, Lake and hill for fish and fowl, As the brown bear blind and dull To the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... a dull party; but after dinner Lady Bathurst began talking about the King, and told me one or two anecdotes. When the account of Lord Liverpool's seizure reached the King at Brighton, Peel was at the Pavilion; the King got into one of his nervous ways, and sent for him ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... in November; and the cold glimmering sun sank behind the Pentlands. The trees had been shorn of their frail leaves, and the misty night was closing fast in upon the dull and short day; but the candles glittered at the shop windows, and leery-light-the-lamps was brushing about with his ladder in his oxter, and bleezing flamboy sparking out behind him. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and down-sinking about my heart and stomach, to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir |
