"Dumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anything to boast of,' replied Walter, 'I should refrain from so doing; and therein I should only be acting according to the maxims of chivalry; for you know we are admonished to be dumb as to our own deeds, and eloquent in praise of others; and, moreover, that if the squire is vainglorious, he is not worthy to become a knight, and that he who is silent as to the valour of others is a thief and ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... world of sin and of sorrow. Believe me, Edward, my lot has been wisely ordered. I bless God, who in his boundless mercy has gently laid me down to die here at your side, your hand in mine, your words of love in my ears; they will follow me to the last, and 'When my failing lips grow dumb—when thought and memory flee,' the consciousness that you are near me will remain, and I shall die as I have lived—no, no, not as I have lived—my life has been dreadful, and my death ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... not so? The cushat dove To such a shrine we trust, Though in dumb protest she will shove Her tootsies through the crust; And larks, that sing at Heaven's gate When April clouds are high, Not seldom gain the gourmet's plate Through portals ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... Beugnot, I., 380, 384. "He struck the good Germans dumb with admiration, unable to comprehend how it was that their interests had become so familiar to him and with what superiority he ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... brother in a way which in these times boys would call bullying; and, as no one ever dared to oppose the King's eldest son, it was pretty much the same with every one else, except now and then some dumb creature, and then all Lothaire's cruelty was shown. When his horse kicked, and ended by throwing him, he stood by, and caused it to be beaten till the poor creature's back streamed with blood; when his dog bit his hand in trying to seize the meat with which he was ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I wanted to know what that if was. But Powell could not say. There was something—a difference. No doubt there was—in fineness perhaps. The father, fastidious, cerebral, morbidly shrinking from all contacts, could only sing in harmonious numbers of what the son felt with a dumb and reckless sincerity. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... wake its string again? Come, let us chant one grateful song To Him, whose patience waited long,— "God ruleth, let the earth rejoice!" Yes, let us make a joyful noise. We're chastened by a hand divine, Let us be dumb, nor dare repine; Thou didst it. O, our Father, God, Then let us humbly kiss the rod. Though from our eyes the tear-drop starts, When those who twine around our hearts Are suffering with exquisite pain, ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... "I am dumb." And for a moment there was silence, till I began to fear that our argument would collapse; when, to my relief, ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... now in the Height of the Affair, and my Lord's Creatures have all had their Whispers round to keep up the Farce of the thing, and the Dumb Show is become more general. He casts his Eye to that Corner, and there to Mr. such-a-one; to the other, and when did you come to Town? And perhaps just before he nods to another, and enters with him, but, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... all this while,—steadfastly navigating to and fro, steadfastly eating tough junk with a wetting of rum; not thinking too much of past labors, yet privately 'always keeping his lost Ear in cotton' (with a kind of ursine piety, or other dumb feeling),—no mortal now knows. But to all mortals it is evident he was home in London at this time; no doubt a noted member of Wapping society, the much-enduring Jenkins. And witnesses, probably not one but many, had mentioned him to this Committee, as a case ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Ailie: one look at her quiets and abates the eager students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them; they sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power of her presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black bombazine petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet shoes. Behind her ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... that to her seemed ironical. She sat down, but when she cast about her mind for some safe and easy topic to introduce, every idea had fled; even memory and fancy turned traitors; not a lively sally could be found, not a pleasant remembrance returned to help her, and she sat dumb. Before the dreadful pause grew awkward, however, rescue came in the form of Tilly. Nothing daunted by the severe simplicity of her attire she planted herself before Warwick, and shaking her hair out of her eyes stared at him with ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... must one day be found and destroyed by the real God. Not the less the fact remains, that miserable suffering abounds among them, and that, even supposing God did not foresee how creation would turn out for them, the thing lies at his door. He has besides made them so far dumb that they cannot move the hearts of the oppressors into whose hands he has given them, telling how hard they find the world, how sore their life in it. The apostle takes up their case, and gives us material for an answer to such as blame ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... acquired the name of dumb cane, in consequence of its fleshy, cane-like stems, rendering speechless any person who may happen to bite them, their acrid poison causing the tongue to swell to an immense size. An ointment for applying to dropsical swellings is prepared by boiling the juice in lard. ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... I should be her lover forever and a day, And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray; And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb They would not smile in heaven till ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... mirth; for surely that mirth is brutal which springs, not from a heart filled with innocent rejoicing, but from lips that sputter out the frenzies of a brain on fire with the stimulants of alcohol. How Frank Oldfield got home he could not tell. His horse knew his road, and followed it; for, dumb brute as he was, his senses were not clouded by the unnatural stimulant which had stolen away the intellects ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... was also a dumb one. Until the Senora rose from her knees, there was not a movement made, not a word uttered. The girls waited shivering with cold, sick with fear, until she spoke. Even then her words were cold as the ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... intact; the next they were gone, and in their place a mighty river of water was tearing down the vale with a hiss and roar that struck the gazers dumb; and then a great gap was visible where the vast dam-wall had been, the pool was empty, there was little more than a stream, and the roaring monster that had swept all before it could be heard gnashing, raging ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... giants leapt in through the entrance side by side; after them, soundlessly, pressed a throng of striped, armed, gleaming warriors, awful to behold. Eight made their way into the hive. Still no orders to attack from the queen. Was she dumb with horror, ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... is a man, and, like most men, very dumb when they have anything at heart which requires care in the speaking. He knows no better than to let things be as they are; to leave the words all unspoken till he can say to you, 'Now is the time for us to go and get ourselves married;' just ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... silence drew My lady's life away. I watched, dumb with dismay, The shock of thrills that quivered thro' And tightened every limb: For grief my eyes grew dim; More near, more near, the moment grew. O horrible suspense! O giddy impotence! I saw her fingers lax, and change ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... in its wild excess, paralyzes the faculties, makes dumb the voice, confuses the brain, until ecstasy becomes agony, and all the senses are enveloped in a cloud of doubt. Such was the joy of Maurice as he stood powerless, questioning the blissful reality of the hour, yet in the actual presence of that being who was never a moment absent ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Again Bessie was dumb. She blushed, and did not know what to say. She would not have liked to hear that Harry had been set down to dinner in the servants' hall at Fairfield, though she had not herself been hurt by a present ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... the back av the arsenal an' I stripped to him, an' for ten minutes 'twas all I cud do to prevent him killin' himself against my fistes. He was mad as a dumb dog—just frothing wid rage; but he had no chanst wid me in reach, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... becomes the object of every one's attention; he is literally dumb with amazement: if he could, he would whisk Caroline off through a trap, as ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... "soft-headed," he finally lost his reason, five years before the period of which I am writing, when a great fire occurred, and that thenceforth anything, save sunlight, that in any way resembled fire plunged him into this torpor of dumb dread. Naturally the people of the suburb devoted to him a great ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... children were butchered; but two others—little girls of six and eight years—were saved by the self-devotion of his maid-servant, Hagar, apparently a negress, who dragged them into the cellar and hid them under two inverted tubs, where they crouched, dumb with terror, while the Indians ransacked the place without finding them. English accounts say that the number of persons killed—men, women, and children—was forty-eight; which the French increase to ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... back in shame and sorrow. That vote in his hand might have answered the prayer so lately on his lips now dumb, and perhaps averted the awful calamity. Fathers, may not the hands of the "thousands slain" make mute appeal to you? Your one vote is what God requires of you. You are responsible for it being in harmony with His law as if on it hung the ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... had been struck utterly dumb with astonishment, could not refrain from a cry of admiration at the sight of the lovely Fatma. She seemed to him a hundred times more beautiful than any description he had heard of her ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... mother bringeth light; On her depends the issue of all things, Works great and glorious in Olympus wrought Whereof comes blessing unto men. But thine— She sits in barren crypts of brine: she dwells Glorying mid dumb sea-monsters and mid fish, Deedless, unseen! Nothing I reck of her, Nor rank her with the immortal ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... help. The world's cry of pain, I used to hear it as a boy. I hear it yet. I meant to help. They that are heavy laden. I hear their cry. They cry from dawn to dawn and none heed them: we pass upon the other side. Man and woman, child and beast. I hear their dumb cry in the night. The child's sob in the silence, the man's fierce curse of wrong. The dog beneath the vivisector's knife, the overdriven brute, the creature tortured for an hour that a gourmet ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... some duration followed upon the closing of the door. The two subalterns were as perplexed as Faversham to account for their hero's conduct. They sat dumb and displeased. Plessy stood for a moment thoughtfully, then he made a gesture with his hands as though to brush the whole incident from his mind and taking a cigarette from his case proceeded to light it at the candle. As he stooped ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... continues; package after package of letters roll out on the counter as though they were potatoes rather than the dumb expression of every human emotion, or the innocent touchspring of their awakening. The pouches are labeled to indicate those requiring the earliest attention, as are also the packages of letters they contain; this plan prevents, to a great extent, the carrying ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... — is it thou That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough, As I pass to the beach, art stirred? Dumb woods, have ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... tiny face expressive of emotions that in later years it would speedily learn to suppress,—wonderment and interest. A thinly-clad girl of five or six clung to the mother with one hand and clutched her little blanket with the other. They all looked cold and hungry, and the big eyes wore that dumb, professionally pathetic look which these born beggars are ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... father. And for what offence? because he was not eloquent, nor ready in discourse. Which defect of nature, whether ought it to be treated with leniency if there were a particle of humanity in him, or ought it to be punished, and rendered more remarkable by harsh treatment? The dumb beasts even, if any of their offspring happen to be badly formed, are not the less careful in nourishing and cherishing them. But Lucius Manlius aggravated the misfortune of his son by severity, and further clogged the slowness of his intellects; and if there were in him even the least spark ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... observers were particularly concerned with justice; what they desired was action, swift and drastic. A general resentment at being balked of their amusement was manifest in murmurs of "Go ahead, do it." "What's the matter with you?" "Don't be dumb—do it for nothing—youll get plenty business out of it." They appealed to his nobler and baser natures, but he ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... emotion that he stood dumb, incapable of articulating the least word. She was there, in front of him, at his disposal! What a victory over Arsene Lupin! And what a revenge! And, at the same time, that victory seemed to him ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... now your consciences agree with you. Nay, why doth the Lord speak to them? Because the people consider not, because consciences have given over speaking to them, therefore the Lord directs his word to the dumb earth. Yet how gracious is he, as to direct a second word even to the people, though a sad word? It is a complaint of iniquity and backsliding, and such as cannot be uttered, yet it is mercy to challenge them, yea, to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... poor, vulgar show—a pantomime jerry-built to accommodate her particular talent. She walked through it—the dumb but irresistible model of a French atelier, who made fools of all her lovers, cheated them, sucked them dry and tossed them off with a merry cynicism. When the mood took her she danced and her victims danced behind her, a grotesque ballet, laughing and clapping their hands, as ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... proposed to Clara, she was for a moment stricken dumb with astonishment and with something ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... down; Marble-bred loud echoes stirr'd: With fix'd fingers, knotted, brown, Dumb, the ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... M'bo sang them a hymn, with the assistance of Pierre, half a line behind him in a different key, but every bit as flat. The Fans seemed impressed, but any crowd would be by the hymn-singing of my crew, unless they were inmates of deaf and dumb asylums. Then we took our farewell, and thanked the village elaborately for its kind invitation to spend the night there on our way home, shoved off and paddled away in great style just to show those ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... force, or what? They make no shadow of pretence, these beautiful flowers, of being beautiful for my sake; of bearing honey for me; in short, there does not seem to be any kind of relationship understood between us, and yet . . . language does not express the dumb feelings of the mind any more than the flower can speak. I want to know the soul of the flowers! . . . All these life-laboured monographs, these classifications, works of Linnaeus, and our own classic Darwin, microscope, physiology - and the flower has ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... place, the dull, heavy peasants, in whom no one has hitherto suspected brains or passions, long dumb under oppression, will now find speech and opinions and an unwonted strength. They will rise against their noble oppressors and burn castles and perhaps do murder. They will force the astonished bourgeoisie and upper classes to take notice of them and indirectly they will impress ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... dumb: but the appellant and the appellee were relieved by the less delicate intervention of one of the company; who declared, perhaps with malicious irony, he never heard his lordship to greater advantage. 'Do you think so,' ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... dumb with fear, but, conquering her weakness, she now decided to draw near and take part in the conversation. "How can you say that, my dear young lady?" she exclaimed. "You know that the count—God rest his soul!—was an extremely cautious man. I am certain that there ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Lolita arrives within gun-shot distance of the yucca-tree she checks the mustang to a slower pace—to a walk in short. In the spectacle of death, in the throes and struggles of an expiring creature, even though it be but a dumb brute, there is something that never fails to excite commiseration, mingled with a feeling of awe. This last has come over the young girl, as she draws near the spot where the birds ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war— And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the Morning Star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,[hm] Or whispering, with white lips—"The foe! They ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... the delicate, feminine, Prosperina-like motion of all growing things; its fruit, full of drowsy and poisonous, or fresh, reviving juices; its sinister caprices also, its droughts and sudden volcanic heats; the long delays of spring; its dumb sleep, so suddenly flung away; the sadness which insinuates itself into its languid luxuriance; all this grouped itself round the persons of Demeter and her circle. They could turn always to her, from the actual earth itself, in aweful yet hopeful prayer, and a devout personal ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... hound: "Take off her chain, and place The veil once more about the sinner's face, And lead her to her house in peace!" he said. "The law is that the people stone thee dead For that which thou hast wrought; but there is come Fawning around thy feet a witness dumb, Not heard upon thy trial; this brute beast Testifies for thee, sister! whose weak breast Death could not make ungentle. I hold rule In Allah's stead, who is 'the Merciful,' And hope for mercy; therefore go thou free— I dare not show less ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... The idea now occurred to me that perhaps my nun was dumb; but I almost instantly thought that this could not be, for dumb people were almost always deaf, and she could hear well enough. Then it struck me that she might be a Trappist nun, and bound by a vow of silence; but I reflected ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... rule of life did he shine in so many and so great miracles that he appeared second to no other saint. For the blind and the lame, the deaf and the dumb, the palsied, the lunatic, the leprous, the epileptic, all who labored under any disease, did he in the name of the Holy Trinity restore unto the power of their limbs and unto entire health; and in these good deeds was he daily practised. ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... by four narrow pillars. From the centre of this hung a ball, about the size of an ordinary football. To the left, suspended from a beam, was an enormous leather bolster. On the floor, underneath a table bearing several pairs of boxing-gloves, a skipping-rope, and some wooden dumb-bells, was something that looked like a dozen Association footballs rolled into one. All the rest of the room, a space some few yards square, was bare of furniture. In this space a small sweater-clad youth, with a head of light hair cropped very short, ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... had loved me as if I had been her own and only grandson. For Nemestronia manifestly had believed me dead. At sight of me she was as thunderstruck as if she had seen an indubitable specter. She was smitten dumb and rigid and her discomposure was remarked by all present. But she recovered herself in time, passed off her agitation as having been due to one of her sudden attacks of pain in the chest. After that she did as much as Vedia to dispel ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... supplies on January 26, 1767, he boasted, without any previous consultation with his fellow-ministers, that he could raise a revenue from America nearly sufficient to maintain the troops there. The house received his words with applause, his colleagues with dumb dismay. Grenville and Lord George Sackville took them up and forced him to pledge ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... mile below there are a hundred canoes upon the bank, and thither those screaming fiends are bound. Now, follow me, unless you care to ride back again to the hollow. I will impose no duty upon you except to remain dumb." ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... suddenly alighted on the table and there exploded, there would have been, no doubt, more feeling of fright, but not more of shocked surprise. Dumb silence followed. Angry eyes were directed towards the speaker from the top and from the bottom of the table. Miss Frere cast down hers with the inward thought, 'Oh, you foolish, foolish fellow! what did you do that for, and spoil everything!' Pitt ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... woman. She had borne severe trials for her religion with a spirit of patience and Christian propriety which won the love and esteem of the community. She went to the altar of God, a widow, with the little deaf and dumb child, and presented it for baptism. It was as though the impending calamity of its father's death had shut up some of the senses of the child, and God had placed it in the mother's hand as a silent memorial ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... passion had been inflamed by hope, that my jealousy was due to this reason. No sooner did Ruth speak in the way I have described than a dull despair laid hold of my heart, and I was dumb. I could see now that she loved Wilfred, and that she saw nobility in him, which, in her opinion my nature was too poor to see, that the fact of my having saved her life was to her little more than the action of an animal, who acted instinctively without a thought of danger. ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... Reginald Redding was struck dumb. Glancing round to see what had fascinated the gaze of the fur-trader, McLeod turned with ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... abundantly foolish, one must admit." Yet it was clear to her that mankind was being prepared for some great development of truth. She would keep her eyes wide open to facts and her soul lifted up in reverential expectation. By-and-by she felt the dumb wood of the table panting and shivering with human emotion. The dogmatism of Faraday in an inadequate theory was simply unscientific, a piece of intellectual tyranny. The American medium Home, she learnt from her friends, was "turning the world upside down in London with this spiritual ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... church, and should be disregarded even when not denied. It was not only inevitable; it was a Christian duty distinctly enjoined by apostolic authority.[372:1] The five years of war, during which Christians of various lands and creeds intermingled as never before, and the Sunday laws were dumb "inter arma" not only in the field but among the home churches, did perhaps even more to break the force of the tradition, and to lead in a perilous and demoralizing reaction. Some reaction was inevitable. The church must needs suffer the evil consequence ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... generations to come; the children of today are those who tomorrow will shape the destiny of our land, and we cannot afford to neglect them. The Legislature of Colorado has recommended that the National Government provide some general measure for the protection from abuse of children and dumb animals throughout the United States. I lay the matter before you for what I trust will be ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... can interpret all her martir'd signes, She saies, she drinkes no other drinke but teares Breu'd with her sorrow: mesh'd vppon her cheekes, Speechlesse complayner, I will learne thy thought: In thy dumb action, will I be as perfect As begging Hermits in their holy prayers. Thou shalt not sighe nor hold thy stumps to heauen, Nor winke, nor nod, nor kneele, nor make a signe; But I (of these) will wrest an Alphabet, And by still practice, learne ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... blue, was visible in this smaller mountain bowl, and it is fed by a glorious cataract, supported by those snow-fields, which pours down in thundering foam, at one point, in a leap of a hundred feet to die in that brilliant color, guarded by those cold, dumb crags. ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... the planes for a dive. The aeroplane descended rapidly, grazed the tops of the trees, and then, more slowly, swept, silently, in a gentle curve towards the throng of men, who were chattering about the mysterious sky visitor. When they caught sight of it they were struck dumb, and for a few moments seemed to be fixed to the ground with amazement. Then, as it came directly towards them, and Smith set the noisy propellers in motion, they uttered shrieks of dismay and terror, and fled ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... was speechless, dumb—his tongue paralyzed! The room swam and then teetered up and down, and everything seemed touched with a strange, wondrous light. And in both hands Josiah Wedgwood tenderly held that precious copy ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... forever.... But to me it has been given to see—to hear—and keep sane in the light. Oh, from what planet is the call? From what one of the hundred million spheres? How many centuries has it been sent outward to the deaf, the dumb, and the blind? And what is the word? Is it Hail? Help? Hope?... Or is it an answer? An answer to some signal of mine? How shall I know?... ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... red. Their looks exchanged a rapid communication, in which neither Lizzie's reluctance to speak nor his hesitation in asking was of any avail. He put down the sixpence which he had in his hand upon the counter, and went out into the night in a dumb confusion of mind, as if he ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... 'Tis a brave thing, is it not, Neighbour, to be come to Threescore Years, and to have had Fruitful Loins, and to be Mocked and Misused by those thou hast begotten? How infinitely better do we deem ourselves than the Cat and Dog, and yet how often do we imitate those Dumb Beasts in our own degree! fondling them indeed when they are Kittens and Puppies, but fighting Tooth and Nail with them when they be full grown. But there is as much to be said on the one side as on the other; and for every poor old Lear wandering up and down, pursued by ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... lost in the gloom of those places, that resembled narrow niches for coffins in a whitewashed and lighted mortuary. Voices buzzed louder. Archie, with compressed lips, drew himself in, seemed to shrink into a smaller space, and sewed steadily, industrious and dumb. Belfast shrieked like an inspired Dervish:—"... So I seez to him, boys, seez I, 'Beggin' yer pardon, sorr,' seez I to that second mate of that steamer—'beggin' your-r-r pardon, sorr, the Board of Trade must 'ave been drunk when they granted you your certificate!' ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... She had struck me dumb. I did not know how to answer her, and she knew it. Even Dick, with his quick Yankee wit, for once was unready. And indeed, the Duchess had us at a ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... misfortune to belong to a social 'strattum' which is trampled flat and hard beneath the feet of the landowners. Mr. Cullen rises to such a point of fury that one dreads the consequences—to himself. Already the chairman is on his feet, intimating in dumb show that the allowed ten minutes have elapsed; there is no making the orator hear. At length his friend who sits by him fairly grips his coat-tails and brings him to a sitting posture, amid mirthful tumult. Mr. Cullen ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... She sat silent, dumb, and as though turned to ice. She had expected everything, but never this. She burned with resentment but not a single tear clouded her eye. She gazed about her distractedly, for that hoarse cry still rang in her ears: "Get out of here! . ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... kneels before her. Alexander was much joyed when he saw her approach so near that he could have touched her; but he has not so much courage as to dare even to look at her; but all his senses have so left him that he has almost become dumb. And she, on the other hand, is so bewildered that she has no use of her eyes, but fixes her gaze on the ground, and dares not direct it elsewhere. The queen greatly marvels; she sees her now pale, now flushed, ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... little children were sent down on the dumb-waiter, Harry riding on the top of the wooden frame. Mrs. Gerry's rescue was delayed until Harry could send the dumb-waiter up to the third floor, where she and Tom awaited its return. Aided by Tom, she descended to the kitchen without accident; ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... judicious use of their money-bags among the Spanish officials; the better classes of the population floundered hopelessly, leaderless, in the confused whirl of opinions and passions; while the voiceless millions for whom he had spoken moved on in dumb, uncomprehending silence. He had lived in that higher dreamland of the future, ahead of his countrymen, ahead even of those who assumed to be the mentors of his people, and he must learn, as does every noble soul that labors "to make ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... speaking one. During the five minutes which it appeared in the doorway, it, and the body belonging to it, became powerfully eloquent. It might have conveyed to one's mind, as it were, a series of tableaux vivants. Gillie's first look was as if he had been struck dumb with amazement (that was Lawrence suddenly seizing one of Emma's hands in both of his and looking intently into her face). Then Gillie's look of amazement gave place to one of intense, quite touching—we might almost say sympathetic—anxiety as he placed a hand on each knee and stooped ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of songs, and bits of old familiar airs, with no accompaniment but the roar and rattle around, their voices unheard save when some high-pitched note was struck; and others found odd moments when by lip-signs and dumb show they communicated ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... closet; but, soon becoming disgusted with this vain quest, and feeling depressed by the lassitude of his spirits, he tossed away his cigarette, whistled a popular street-song, bent down and picked up a heavy dumb-bell that lay under a chair. Having raised with the other hand a curtain that draped a mirror, which served him in judging the accuracy of a pose, in verifying his perspectives and testing the truth, he placed himself in front of it and began ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... masters' sons have never been able to see why the Negro, instead of settling down to be day-laborers for bread and clothes, are infected with a silly desire to rise in the world, and why they are sulky, dissatisfied, and careless, where their fathers were happy and dumb and faithful. "Why, you niggers have an easier time than I do," said a puzzled Albany merchant to his black customer. "Yes," he replied, "and ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... The chief magistrate continued dumb. The pale and terror-stricken countenances of those present were turned toward him. The members of the Council implored and besought him to put ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... the world are of no value to the individual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him, in strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time and effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... soon the rocks grew lower; and we came out presently on to a great desolate plain, with stones lying thickly about, among a coarse kind of grass. At each step I seemed to grow stronger, and walked more lightly, and in the thin fine air my horrors left me, though I still had a dumb sense of suffering which, strange to say, I found it almost pleasant to resist. And so we walked for a time in friendly silence, Amroth occasionally indicating the way. The hill began to slope downwards very slowly, and the wind ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ourselves— our veritable selves—for, if we were, the air would resound with our ceaseless lamentations! It is HORRIBLE to think of all the pent-up sufferings of humanity—all the inconceivably hideous agonies that remain forever dumb and unrevealed! When I was young,—how long ago that seems! yes, though my actual years are taut thirty, I feel an alder-elde of accumulated centuries upon me—when I was young, the dream of my life ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... called him out into the woodshed, where an inviting bed had been made ready for him. Hobo stretched himself upon the folded rug with a groan startlingly human. It was clear that the loss of blood had weakened him, and his gaze directed to Peggy was full of pathetic questioning and dumb appeal. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... beyond, above, A land where wronged souls wait; (Those spirits called to earth by love, And driven back by hate). And each one stood in anguish dumb and wild, As she beheld the ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... very," said the boy, with his queer promptness. He stood resting himself on his crutches at the door, and he now wheeled about, and led the way out to the living-room, swinging himself actively forward. It seemed that his haste was to get to the dumb-waiter in the little china closet opening off the dining-room, which was like the papered inside of a square box. He called to the girl below, and helped pull it up, as Annie could tell by the creaking of the rope, and the light jar of the finally arriving crockery. ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... have sent "more than twelve legions of angels" to deliver him, he was giving an example of humility. When he kept silence, at the bar of the high-priest, of Herod, of Pontius Pilate, like "a lamb dumb before her shearers," while his enemies were charging him falsely with all kinds of wickedness; when he allowed the Roman soldiers to scourge him with rods, till his back was all bleeding; to put a crown of thorns upon his head; to array him in a purple robe in ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... "not like other people." I had imagined it to refer to a mental, not a physical, defect; whereas it was clear to me now that my prospective landlord was stone-deaf, and I presently discovered him to be dumb as well. Thereafter I studied him with some attention during our drive of four or five miles. I called to mind the theory that an innate physical deficiency is seldom without its moral counterpart, and I wondered how far ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... our letters and our buildings and our humour between them. There was a death and an ending in it which promised no kind of reconstruction, and the fools who had wasted words for now fifty years upon some imagined excellence in the things exterior to the tradition of Europe, were dumb and appalled at the sight of barbarism in action—in its last action after the divisions of Europe had permitted its meaningless triumph for so long. Were Paris entered, whether immediately or after that approaching envelopment ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... occasion the poor curly-headed Sailor felt too miserable even to attempt whistling; he went away in dumb despair! ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... the pig-killer, as one accustomed to be heard. 'One that I knowed was deaf and dumb, and we couldn't make out what was the matter wi' the pig. 'A would eat well enough when 'a seed the trough, but when his back was turned, you might a-rattled the bucket all day, the poor soul never heard ye. Ye could play tricks upon en behind his back, and a' wouldn't ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... go when I have done my little span? What new adventures lie in store for it? Across the Ponte Vecchio in Florence runs a gallery of portraits: at the south end of this gallery there is or was a corner given over to a copyist. He strikes you dumb with the cleverness of his work, but he has only an eye and a hand—he hasn't a soul. A copy is to the original what a dummy is to a live man, no matter how amazingly well done the copy is. The original, the dream; nothing else ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... and the late hour at which she went, might account for the omission, especially as Lysbet remembered that Joanna's servant had been sick, and might be unfit to come. She was determined to excuse Katherine, and she refused to acknowledge the dumb doubt and fear that crouched ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... to the court of Arthur, and had craved harbourage there, and the king of his kindness had granted it them. But by reason of the prophecy which the trolls knew of concerning the great renown which Perceval was to gain, they had been dumb of speech since they had ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... close cabal marked how the Navy eats And thought all lost that goes not to the cheats; So therefore secretly for peace decrees, Yet for a War the Parliament would squeeze, And fix to the revenue such a sum Should Goodricke silence and make Paston dumb. ... Meantime through all the yards their orders were To lay the ships up, cease the keels begun. The timber rots, the useless axe does rust, The unpractised saw lies buried in the dust, The busy hammer sleeps, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... successively, at distinct intervals."[40] Revelations of God's special interpositions in the affairs of this world are thus written by his own finger in the fossils and coal, and engraved on the everlasting granite of the earth's foundation stones. Dumb beasts and dead reptiles start forward to give their irrefutable testimony to the repeated supernatural acts of their Creator in this world which he had made. Every distinct species of plants and animals is proof of a distinct supernatural overruling of the present laws ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... all, the thing you had under your coat was a saw. I saw you hide something under the woodpile here, but I'm so dumb that I didn't think much of it at the time. Now, the log over the gully was a ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... and am constrained to look upon it all as the work of a Higher Power, who, when He pleases, can accomplish his results by the feeblest instruments. I am glad of anything which gives notoriety to the book, because it is a plea for the dumb and the helpless! I am glad particularly of notoriety in England because I see with what daily increasing power England's opinion is to act on this country. No one can tell but a native born here by what an infinite complexity of ties, nerves, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... room with tightly locked hands and eyes full of unspeakable anguish. "Oh, Richard, Richard! I forgave you long ago, and surely I have expiated my innocent offense by these years of suffering! For her sake I did it, and for her sake I still keep dumb. God knows I ask nothing for myself but rest and ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... as a matter of course, he exceeded; and it seemed to those who looked at him that there was a special impudence in the manner in which he walked up the House and took his seat. The Under-Secretary of State, who was on his legs, was struck almost dumb, and his morsel of wit about the facings was lost ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... contains no pure feeling of poetry in it, while, in the town, in the house, in the street, wherever the human mind and hand have left their imprints, his language grows warm, his fancy swoops and grasps the significance of detail; these dumb survivals of the past become eloquent to his ears; his eyes discover in them a reflecting retina which, obedient to his command, resuscitates former contacts, a world buried and now found again. When attempting the historical novel, in which his persons are typical rather ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... that sound he awoke and arose, and went forth on the bead-bearing grass— At that sound, with his loving Francesca, he piously knelt at the Mass. If the sun shone in splendour around him, and that certain music were dumb, He would deem it a dream of the night-time, and doubt if the ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... noblest friends, and property its most prudent adversary,—what say you of our deputies, our ministers, our king? Do you believe that the authorities are friendly to us? Then let the government declare its position; let it print its profession of faith in equality, and I am dumb. Otherwise, I shall continue the war; and the more obstinacy and malice is shown, the oftener will I redouble my energy and audacity. I have said before, and I repeat it,—I have sworn, not on the dagger and the death's-head, amid the horrors of a catacomb, and in the presence of men ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... I sat dumb, consumed with misery and hoping that perhaps I might meet his glance and so tell him silently all that words would only mar. But he never looked at me. And then the first bitterness, which had made even Cuthbert seem disloyal in wishing himself in his ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... miss his daily visit to his father. He would come in, apparently his handsome, good-humored self, ready to read aloud for twenty minutes, or merely to sit in silence by the sick man, his eyes making affectionate answer every now and then to the dumb looks of Lord Tranmore. Only his mother sought and found that slight habitual contraction of the brow which bore witness to some equally persistent disquiet of the mind. But he kept her at arm's-length on the subject of ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from such agreeable lodgings, the moment they were comfortably settled. She wondered he should be such an enemy to music and mirth. She heard no noise but of his own making: it was impossible to manage a family in dumb-shew. He might harp as long as he pleased upon her scolding; but she never scolded, except for his advantage; but he would never be satisfied, even tho'f she should sweat blood and water in his service — I have a great notion that our aunt, who is now declining into the most desperate state of ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... in dumb amazement. She was so accustomed to feeling a little superior to Cricket, on account of her orderliness and generally good behaviour, that she was struck with surprise at the old woman's joy over seeing ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... reverend murderer, after having been set free on bail, was glad to return and take refuge within the walls of his prison, to escape summary punishment at the hands of an outraged community. At the bare mention of such cruelty, every heart grew sick and faint; men and women were dumb with horror: only tears and a hot ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... impossible, mama? Because Mr. Boult can't say agreeable things is no reason he cannot do them. Don't you know that there are poor shut-up souls who want to be nice, who long to be loved—who have to speak in the dumb language ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... not banish from my mind the incident of the morning. I could not forget the appealing faces of those dogs. Ethne and Sir Alister had left me there and returned to the house together, and, after their departure, those poor, dumb beasts had gathered round me in a way that was absolutely pathetic, licking and fondling my hands, as though apologising for their previous misconduct. Still, I understood. That bristling up their spines was precisely the same sensation ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... treated of with still more distinction as connected with pantomimic dances and representations. Aeschylus appears to have brought theatrical gesture to a high degree of perfection, but Telestes, a dancer employed by him, introduced the dumb show, a dance without marked dancing steps, and subordinated to motions of the hands, arms, and body, which is dramatic pantomime. He was so great an artist, says Athenaeus, that when he represented the Seven before Thebes he rendered every ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... I would have their lot infinitely better. We men should possess a double treasure; firstly, the soul common to us all, just as we happen to be, sages or fools, children, idiots, or our dumb companions the animals; secondly, another soul in common, in a certain degree, with the angels, and this soul, independent of us though belonging to us, should be able to reach to heavenly heights, whilst it could also dwell within a point's space. Having a beginning it should be without ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... [What a sublime answer was that which one of the deaf and dumb pupils of M. Sicard gave to the question, "What is eternity?" It is "a day," said Massieu, "without yesterday or to-morrow,—un jour sans hier ni demain." The thoughts of our author on this boundless theme ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Marathon—they set out for a scene of contest (B. C. 480), perilous and precarious, and no longer on the site of their beloved and father-land. Their grief was heightened by the necessity of leaving many behind, whose extreme age rendered them yet more venerable, while it incapacitated their removal. Even the dumb animals excited all the fond domestic associations, running to the strand, and expressing by their cries their regret for the hands that fed them: one of them, a dog, that belonged to Xanthippus, father of Pericles, is said to ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... over her, or that having so lived she had preserved the sweetness and clinging softness of temperament which gave to her such a strange charm—at least in the opinion of one. Doubtless she owed much of her well being to the kindly care of an old deaf and dumb woman, the only servant in that lonely old house, who had entered it to nurse the children's mother through her last illness, and had stayed on almost as a matter of course, receiving no wage for her untiring service, but only the coarse victuals that ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... far-off country there once lived a king and queen. And they had an only son, Prince Ivan, who was dumb from his birth. One day, when he was twelve years old, he went into the stable to see a groom who was a great friend ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... went away as though he were walking upon air, and indeed so closely did he obey her that he was dismissed by his masters as a dumb fool before he reached home again. But whether or no Sihamba's medicine softened the heart of the maid ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... He was dumb with astonishment and pain. "What has come over her?" he asked himself. "She has always before been so delighted to go any and every where with me. Have I been too ready to reprove her of late? I have thought myself rather forbearing, considering how ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... what is or can be more silly than to be lovers and admirers of ourselves? And yet if it were not so there will be no relish to any of our words or actions. Take away this one property of a fool, and the orator shall become as dumb and silent as the pulpit he stands in; the musician shall hang up his untouched instruments on the wall; the completest actors shall be hissed off the stage; the poet shall be burlesqued with his own doggrel rhymes; the painter shall ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... Etruria, gazing forlorn O'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn! O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for shame! O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name! Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves, And his tender compassion of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the walk with swiftly flying feet, outstretched arms, and glowing face wildly eager, was a light girlish figure in a pretty travelling suit, and the mother, feeling her strength forsaking her knelt down on the porch and opened her arms, her lips dumb, her eyes ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... speak of him: For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood. I only speak right on: I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show your sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar, that should move The stones of ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... his house, and stand staring stupidly at the pigs. He was a very coarse, hideous man, with bristling yellow hair, and little eyes, and a face rather like a pig's, and he always looked stupid, but just now he looked more stupid than ever. He seemed dumb with surprise. ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the emotion. 'One never gets away from this question,' he said. 'From whatever point a discussion starts, it is always led back and attached to that. It is the madness of Rufus about Naevia; "He thinks of nothing else; talks of nothing else, and if Naevia did not exist, Rufus would be dumb."' ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... a place meant. I believe if I hadn't pulled myself up sharp, I'd have jumped out into the street and run away. It didn't last more than a few seconds, but I don't want any more like them. I was afraid, afraid—there's no use pretending it was anything else. I was in a dumb, silly funk, and I turned sick inside and shook, as I have seen a horse shake when he shies at nothing and sweats and trembles down ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... temper,—that supernatural gift, belonging to but few souls among those who love harmony, to understand and accept its meaning. She could not play or sing; she looked often in the dog's eyes, wondering if its soul felt as dumb and full as hers; but she could not sing. If she could, what a story she would have told in a wordless way to this man who was coming! All she could do to show that he was welcome was to make crackers. Cooking is a sensual, grovelling utterance of feeling, you think? Yet, considering the drift of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... waters, cruel, changeless, She sleeps, beyond all rage of earth or sea; A smile upon her dear lips, dumb, but waiting, And I—I ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... tears; With tenderest might unerring Wisdom steers Through those mad seas the bark of Innocence. Doth thy heart burn for vengeance on the deed— Some barbarous deed wrought out by cruelty On woman, or on famish'd childhood's need, Yea, on these fond dumb dogs—doth thy heart bleed For pity, child of sensibility? Those tears are gracious, and thy wrath most right Yet patience, patience; there is comfort still; The Judge is just; a world of love and light Remains to counterpoise the load of ill, And ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
