"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arranged the saree, draping it well over his head to conceal his face. Then giving him a ghurra (water vessel) told him to pretend that he was going to fetch water from the river. Cheered by her courage, he caught her to his heart in a mute farewell, and her prayers ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... vibrations of a woman's heart. He is always, always the same, always good, always smiling, always kind, always perfect. Oh! how I sometimes have wished that he would roughly clasp me in his arms, that he would embrace me with those slow, sweet kisses which make two beings intermingle, which are like mute confidences! How I wished that he was self-abandoned and even weak, so that he should have need of me, of my ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... friendship he bore me with caresses. Indeed there seemed a hidden goodness in his heart, a nobleness that caused the current of his friendship to flow with much gentleness, and a singleness in his mute appeals to my approbation, that I could not help contrasting with the insincerity of those dogs who go about the world on two legs, and imagine themselves most ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... me don't want to fight," Mrs. Clark quickly replied with a touch of humor, and the first expression that the judge had seen upon the little girl's mute face appeared. A smile touched her lips, flickered and went out. She sat stiffly beside her aunt in the judge's great leather chair,—a pale, badly dressed little mouse of a girl, who did not ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... mute: alone, untaught to fear, Tydides spoke—"The man you seek is here. Through yon black camps to bend my dangerous way, Some god within commands, and I obey. But let some other chosen warrior join, To raise my hopes, and second my design. By mutual ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... forgotten something, clearly the hat. With a slight deprecatory laugh she removed it and went hurriedly down the stair. Whatever had she been doing with it, I thought, and settled with a sigh of satisfaction once more to my work, now that the nightmare in red, a kind of mute scarlet "Raven," was gone from my room. How very quiet it was. Not a single sleigh passed, no sounds came from the houses opposite or from next door, the whole world seemed smothered in the soft thick pillows of snow quietly gathering upon it. After a while, however, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... over them, lying there, shattered and mute, What deep echo rolls?—'Tis a death salute From the cannon in place; for, heroes, you braved Your fate not in ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... through the rift a shaft of sunlight shot, glad to be free, and touched our world of sea and rock with loving finger-tips, but failed, as I turned homeward, hearing no voice of my unknown mother in the wandering call of the bell; and all the world went gray and sullenly mute, as it ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... they remaine in the temple. And there they reade softly vnto themselues, not vttering any voice at all. Whereupon comming in amongst them, at the time of their superstitious deuotions, and finding them all siting mute in maner aforesayde, I attempted diuers waies to prouoke them vnto speach, and yet could not by any means possible. They haue with them also whithersoeuer they goe, a certaine string with an hundreth or two hundreth nutshels thereupon, much like to our bead-roule ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... laughed joyously. "Enjoy myself! Like you!" he cried. "Man, you're as doleful as a mute at a laird's funeral! What's come over you? I know what it is. You go and take a course ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... the sun gone, Jean, Since on your lips I pressed Mute farewells; if that pain was keen Fair were you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... organise a complaisant Senate, a mute legislative body, and a Tribunals which was to have the semblance of being independent, by the aid of some fine speeches and high-sounding phrases. He easily appointed the Senators, but it was different ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... stairs there was a window through which the light fell upon the bare oak steps, proving them to be spotless and polished as the floor of a convent. It was an unexpected quality, this rigid cleanliness, and the boy acknowledged it with a mute and deep satisfaction. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... this mute and smiling pity without being at all aware of it, encased in his pride, receiving as admiration that which was really compassionate sympathy, forced to have recourse to painful simulations in order to surround himself with as much luxury as before, thinking that he was deceiving ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... nothing of the meadow air, Because of what is There. Lost things of hope and sorrow without tongue: The human lilies, sprung Out of the ooze, and trodden, Even as they breathed and clung! Lost lilies, bruised and sodden; Lost faces, gleaming there, Where misery blasphemes the sacred young! Mute outcry, most, of those Small suffering hands defrauded of their rose; Faces the daylight shuns; Ruinous faces of the little ones,— Pale witness, unaware. Starved lips, and withering blood— O broken in the bud!— Blank eyes, and ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... give the benediction; when the bell tinkled and the censer flew on high and the organ opened all its throats and the glittering monstrance slowly made a cross in the air and above the heads of the worshippers, she fell forward over her praying-stool and lay like that, swooning in mute adoration, until all was silent again, the candles out and she sitting alone there in the dark with a few black shapes of cloaked women who wandered discreetly from one station of the Cross to the next. Outside she heard her brothers playing in the church-square. ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... daran hatten wir keinen Zweifel, und wir hofften, dieses Bchlein sollte nicht unwrdig die Feuerprobe bestauden haben. Allein wie hohl und leer ward uns in deiser tristen Atheistischen Halbnacht zu Mute, in welcher die Erde mit allen ihren Gebilden, der Himmel mit allen seinen Gestirnen verschwand! Eine Materie sollte sein von Ewigkeit und von Ewigkeit her bewegt, und sollte nun mit dieser Bewegung ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... a hush of peace—a soundless calm descends; The struggle of distress, and fierce impatience ends; Mute music soothes my breast—unuttered harmony, That I could never dream, till earth was lost ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... that are kept in training here for future military use seemed reluctant to fly in the still air, missing probably the excitement of sounds that urge them to revel in multitudinous cross-currents when shells are about; and long-tailed Namaqua doves flitted mute about the pine branches, as if unable to coo an amorous note without the usual accompaniment. Quiet did not reign all day, however. Towards evening the enemy's gun on Rifleman's Ridge, or Lancer's Nek, opened straight over the general's new quarters, to which Sir ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... his watch with some feigned surprise, as a feeble excuse. "I've an appointment at home." He hadn't the courage to stay. His heart misgave him. Once fairly round the corner he fled like a wounded creature, too deeply hurt even to cry. Eustace Le Neve, raising his hat, hastened after him, all mute wonder. For several hundred yards they walked on side by side across the open heathy moor. Then, as they passed the first wall, Tyrrel paused for a moment and spoke. "NOT a murderer!" he cried in his anguish; "oh, no, not quite as bad as a murderer, surely, ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... example of their master; and Miss Diana St. Leger might have gone down to her ancestors "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," if Isabel had not volunteered and enforced her attendance. Hour after hour her fairy form flitted around the sick-chamber; or sat mute and breathless by the feverish bed; she had neither fear for contagion nor bitterness for past oppression; everything vanished beneath the one hope of serving, the one gratification of feeling herself, in the wide waste of creation, not utterly ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the parlors with their garrulous crowds I dwell alone, with little need of words; I have mute friendships with the stars and clouds, And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... a looty toot Last night when at the Rainbow Social Club She did the bunny hug with every scrub From Hogan's Alley to the Dutchman's Boot, While little Willie, like a plug-eared mute, Papered the wall and helped absorb the grub, Played nest-egg with the benches like a dub When hot ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... she feared him. There had been nights at the hotel in Paris when she had felt the fiery current of his glance, but he had never spoken; many a time she had read the secret in his eyes, but his lips had remained mute. She understood this tact, this diplomacy which, though it chafed her, she could not rebuke. Thus, he was more or less a fragment of her thoughts, day after day. Ah, that mad folly, that indescribable impulse, which ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... were overwhelmed with consternation at this astounding calamity, which had burst upon them in the very moment of triumph. The warriors sat mute and mournful, while the women filled the air with loud lamentations. Their weeping and walling, however, was suddenly changed into yells of fury at the sight of four unfortunate white men, brought captive into the village. They had been driven on shore in one of the ship's boats, and taken at ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... ready, and by the light of a couple of lanterns we laid him down in the great rest. The graveyard and the funeral had few of those accessories of the modern mortuary which are supposed to be the characteristics of civilized sorrow. There was no mute, no crape, no parade—nothing of that imposing array of hat-bands and horses by which man, even' in the face of the mighty mystery, seeks still to glorify the miserable conceits of life; but the silent ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... only one thought had occurred to her—to help him all she could. She had been appalled when she first saw the dusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helplessness and the loneliness of the tired little face touched her, and she was straightway responsive to the mute appeal in the dark eyes that were lifted to her own with such modest fear and wonder. Now her surprise at her brother's infatuation was abating rapidly. The girl's adoration of him, her wild beauty, her strange winning personality—as rare and as independent of birth and ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... confused. It had not been so easy as Eleanor had supposed to win over the sympathy of Lady Ella with his resignation. Indeed it had not been won over. She had become a stern and chilling companion, mute now upon the issue of his resignation, but manifestly resentful. He was secretly disappointed and disconcerted by her tone. And the same hesitation of the mind, instinctive rather than reasoned, that had prevented a frank explanation of his earlier doubts to ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... through the medium of souls like his own, produce another; but all the time his real happiness was in his wanderings by field and hedge and road and lane, by canal side and by river bank, thinking the vague delicious thoughts of sensuous solitude and dreaming over the dumb quiescence of that mute inanimate background of our days into which, with his exasperated human nerves, he longed to sink ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... softly swaying in the hushed air, so my being moves in its elements, in the charming dream of her.' 'Our souls rush forward in colossal plans, like exulting streams rushing perpetually through mountain and forest.' 'If the old mute rock of Fate did not stand opposing them, the waves of the heart would never foam so beautifully and become mind.' 'There is a night in the soul which no gleam of starlight, not even ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when I first knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The "Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, I hope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names. The "Smart Men," old and young, the "cheery boys," the "dancing dogs,"—the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... it be kept exactly as he had known and loved it during the ideal hours he had spent in it with wife and child. He and Peggy had spent many a precious one there since its radiant, gracious mistress had slept in the pine grove. Harrison crossed the hall and opened the door, still mute as an oyster. Mrs. Stewart swept in, Toinette, who had followed her, tearing across the room ahead of her and darting into every nook and corner. At that moment the obnoxious poodle came nearer her doom than she had ever come in all her useless life, for Harrison ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... sits mute on the beach, And ever the tides as they flow, As if they were gifted with speech, Repeat the ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... shot that made the blood stream widely down his face. He clapped both hands to his head. "Oh!" he said, and ran. Another grunted suddenly as if he had been struck by a club in the stomach. He sat down and gazed ruefully. In his eyes there was mute, indefinite reproach. Farther up the line a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee joint splintered by a ball. Immediately he had dropped his rifle and gripped the tree with both arms. And there he remained, clinging desperately and crying for assistance that he might withdraw ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... rhapsody that nearly destroyed his new reputation for judgment. Lady Conway gave him an affectionate invitation to visit her whenever he could, and summoned the young ladies to wish him good-bye. The mute, blushing gratitude of Isabel's look was beautiful beyond description; and Virginia's countenance was exceedingly arch and keen, though she was supposed to know nothing ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interest in the choice of a play for the theatricals, and could remember and find parallel passages; but alongside of these surviving powers, were lapses as remarkable, she misbehaved like a child, and a servant had to sit with her at table. To see her so sitting, speaking with the tones of a deaf mute not always to the purpose, and to remember what she had been, was a moving appeal to all who knew her. Such was the pathos of these two old people in their affliction, that even the reserve of cities was melted and the neighbours ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who overwhelmed them with insults. On this new demonstration of patriotism the government restores to them their administrative or judicial "satrapies, and, odious as they are, they are endured and obeyed, with the mute and mournful obedience of despair." The soul sinks[5189] on daily perusing the executions of conscripts and emigres, and on seeing those condemned to transportation constantly passing by.... All who displease the government are set down on these lists of the dead, so-called emigres, this or that ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... eighty-three), the sepoys, choprasees, masolgees, and so on, had all crowded on the platform at the sound of my shouting, and dreadful was the consternation, shrill the screaming, occasioned by my words. The men stood irresolute and mute with terror! the women, trembling, knew scarcely whither to fly for refuge. 'Who are yonder ruffians?' said I. A hundred voices yelped in reply—some said the Pindarees, some said the Mahrattas, some vowed it was Scindiah, and others declared ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conducted themselves was simply surprising. The utmost order prevailed amongst them, and how this was brought about we could not tell. One little pleasant-looking nun had charge of the whole confraternity, and she could say them at a word—make them as mute as mice with the mere lifting of her finger, and turn them into all sorts of merry moods by a similar motion, in a second. If this little nun could by some means convey her secret of managing children to about nineteen-twentieths ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Julia, lifting white imperious hand, "suffer me one word, at least; in justice to myself I can sit mute no longer—" ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... black hair had fallen, then with a shudder he again strained Fanny to his heart, saying, "Thank God, thank God, I escaped her in time!" Then turning to the minister, who all this time had stood looking on in mute astonishment, he added, in an authoritative manner, "Go on with the ceremony, sir, and make her my wife." But a new thought entering his mind, he released Fanny, and said, "Pardon me, dear Fanny; sorrow has well nigh bereft me of my senses. In my first joy in finding you innocent, I forgot ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... O mute and infinite extension, O time beyond our comprehension, Shall thought and deed ungarnered fall? Ev'rything dost take and slay, Ev'rything dost bear away, ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... severally declined, with a polite but solemn smile—all except one, a large, savage-looking Turk, with a most ferocious scowl, and the largest black beard I ever beheld. He did not content himself with a mute refusal of our offer, but stopping suddenly, he raised up his hands above his head, and muttered some words in Turkish, which one of the party informed us was a very satisfactory recommendation of the whole company to Satan for ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the foot gave her new pain, for a flush rose to Daisy's brow, but she said not one word either of suffering or expostulation. Her friend stepped with her as gently as he could over the rough way; Daisy supported herself partly by an arm round his neck, and was utterly mute, till they were passing the place of luncheon; ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... side glance at Fraulein Rottenmeier to see what effect this request would have upon her. Heidi immediately seized the roll and put it in her pocket. Sebastian's face became convulsed, he was overcome with inward laughter but knew his place too well to laugh aloud. Mute and motionless he still remained standing beside Heidi; it was not his duty to speak, nor to move away until she had helped herself. Heidi looked wonderingly at him for a minute or two, and then said, "Am I to eat some of that too?" Sebastian nodded again. "Give me some then," she said, looking ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... wonder, was it who could fling off such an apt impromptu, and how many more mute inglorious writers have we not who might do anything they chose if they would only choose to do anything at all? Some one else had written on an ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... Unluckily, however, as I was strolling, about a month afterwards, along the Strand, I chanced to stumble up against him. The shock seemed equally unexpected on both sides; but my tailor (as being a dun) was the first to recover self-possession; and, with a long preliminary hem!—a mute, but expressive compound of remonstrance, apology, and resolution—opened ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... fact; and so it is that the French Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic comedy of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and which would never have been enacted without the intervention of this august mute personage. It was he that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley. It was he whose arrival in his capital called up all France in arms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust him. While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the fate of the Peasant has yielded, The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall; With 'scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, And pages stand mute by the canopied pall: Through the courts at deep midnight the torches are gleaming, In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming, Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a chief of the people ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... speech paralyzed, her large eyes starting from their sockets from terror, an expression of mute helpless agony on her beautiful face, she looked up at him with horror. Not yet could she fully grasp the meaning of his words. At last the frightful spell was broken. With an effort ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... the ambulance showed eight muddy soles, three pairs with toes upturned, the fourth at such an angle, one foot with the other, as to suggest a pain beyond any but this mute expression. ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... waiting for her last sigh. They did not leave her side for fear that she would make a will in favor of the convent of Beguins belonging to the town. The sick woman kept silent, she seemed dozing and death appeared to overspread very gradually her mute and livid face. Can't you imagine those three relations seated in silence through that winter midnight beside her bed? An old nurse is with them and she shakes her head, and the doctor sees with anxiety that the sickness has reached its ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... miles off, the victims are shipped for the South. Listen to the Gazette of that place,—"Here you may behold fathers and brothers leaving behind them the dearest objects of affection, and moving slowly along in the mute agony of despair,—there the young mother sobbing over the infant, whose innocent smiles seem but to increase her misery. From some you will hear the burst of bitter lamentation; while from others the loud hysteric laugh breaks forth, denoting ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... upon my own aroused me, and, looking down, I met such an altered face, it touched me like a mute reproach. All the passion bad died out, and a great patience seemed to have arisen there. It looked so meek and wan, I bent and kissed it; but no smile answered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... How are you, Mr. Emerson?" He extended a soft hand, which Boyd took. Apparently reassured by this mute response, Marsh continued: "I heard you were in town. How is the new cannery ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... more of mute and agonised suspense, and men's fingers tightened their grip on the revolvers. Then the upturned straining eyes looked upon such a sight as human eyes will never see again save perchance those which, in the fulness of time, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... had my heart. I lived and breathed with them, out under the free winds of heaven; and when I could not see them, I wrote about them. Much that I contributed to those mill-magazine pages, they suggested,—my mute teachers, comforters, and inspirers. It seems to me that any one who does not care for wild flowers misses half the ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... some great calamity had befallen her, of which she as yet scarcely knew the extent; she sat mute and bewildered—too bewildered to ask why all this thing ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... shelter behind the jejune explanation that there are two worlds with two moralities. One is war and the other is peace. We may affectionately survey the hospitals and orphanages, the institutions for the blind and the mute, the asylums and the charities with which each belligerent country pays tribute to the virtues of the merciful life. Whatever we do, we cannot dispel the darkness by a frenzied denunciation of war. The monster ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... had entered Parson John had kept his eyes fixed full upon the Bishop's face with a mute, questioning look which spoke louder than words. "What have you found out?" He seemed to be saying. "What stories have they been telling about me? Who have been ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... there was nothing very extraordinary in this, neither was there anything very unusual in the meek and pleading look of the little fruit girl, as she timidly raised her large blue eyes to the face of every one who passed her—for such humble callings, and such mute but eloquent appeals, are the common inheritance of many, very many of God's poor in large cities, and do not generally attract any great degree of notice from the careless (and too often unfeeling) children of prosperity;—but there was something in the appearance of the pale, sad ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... these jewels of the Arctic will forever look barren and unfinished to me after this. Even the sailors, who know too well what a menace they are to their craft, yield to their beauty a mute and grudging homage. To sit in the sun or the moonlight, and watch a heavy sea hurling mountains of water and foam over one of these ocean monarchs is a never-to-be-forgotten experience. So too it is to listen to the thunder of one of them "foundering"; ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... they fare to the place of the dead, Where cold is Gudrun sitting mid the waste of Sigurd's bed. Then they take the man beloved, and bear him forth to the hall, And spread the linen above him, and cloth of purple and pall; And meekly Gudrun followeth, and she sitteth down thereby, But mute is her mouth henceforward, and she giveth forth no cry, And no word of lamentation, though far abroad they weep For the gift of the Gods departed, and the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... by all his household. His domestics live in a state of terror. At table, if he does not speak, no one utters a word. Who would dare to break the silence when he is mute? One would think it was a dinner of dumb people, or a supper of Trappists, except for the good cheer. He likes to wind up the repast with fish. If there is turbot he has it served after the creams. He drinks, when dining, a bottle and a half ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... her husband's side. There were tears in her eyes and her hands squeezed mute messages upon his arm, for she knew that his many-wounded heart was now more bitterly hurt than in all his knowledge of Wakefield. He was a prisoner in disgrace gazing through the ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the spirit of expediency once begins, we know not where it will stop. Thus a blind man has been initiated in Mississippi, and a one-armed one in Kentucky; and in France a few years since, the degrees were conferred by sign-language on a deaf mute! ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... Pyramid is mute, but we find in other pyramids inscriptions of some hundreds of lines. The author of the story, who knew how much certain kings of the VIth dynasty had laboured to have extracts of the sacred books engraved within their tombs, fancied, no doubt, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... not a single eye out of the whole twenty-seven (Dutch Hans had lost one of the black beads from his worsted countenance) turned for a moment toward the table, or so much as winked, as they lay in decorous rows, gazing with mute admiration at Belinda. She, unable to repress the joy and pride which swelled her sawdust bosom till the seams gaped, gave an occasional bounce as the wind waved her yellow skirts, or made the blue boots ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... upon people down to the coach, and such other troublesome ceremonies as our courtesy enjoins (O servile and importunate custom!) Every one there governs himself according to his own method; let who will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up in my closet, without ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... listen to me, will you? You may at any rate do as much as that for me." And then Clara stood perfectly mute, looking into his handsome face as he continued to rattle ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... and at last (in some out-of-the-way towns) the priests, in gaudiest robes, bring out from under the altar and expose aloft to the crowds, in swaddling-clothes of gold and white, the Babe new-born, and all fall down and cross themselves in mute adoration. This service is universal, and is called the "Misa del Gallo," or Cock-crow Mass, and even in Madrid it is customary to attend it. There are three masses also on Christmas Day, and the Church rule, strictly observed, is that if a man fail to attend this Midnight Mass he ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... time forward not a day passed without the young officer making his appearance under the window at the customary hour, and between him and her there was established a sort of mute acquaintance. Sitting in her place at work, she used to feel his approach, and, raising her head, she would look at him longer and longer each day. The young man seemed to be very grateful to her; she saw with the sharp eye of youth, how a sudden flush covered his pale cheeks each ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... but it has for fellow Some-wood-flower, its speechless counterpart, Form and color moulded to one cadence, To voice something of the wild mute heart. ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... voted on May 17, and with passionate conviction, an order of the day directed to Orlando. In that order it was stated that they looked upon the plebiscite of October 30, 1918, as an indestructible, historical and legal fact. Grossich exposed the situation and was then for some instants mute. His voice was trembling when he spoke: "The sacrifice which circumstances may demand is tremendous, but if it is required by the supreme interests of Italy we will know how to support it. More than a citizen of Fiume, I feel myself an Italian" ("Primo che fiumano ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... hearts Which only Acting lends— The youngest of the sister arts, Which all their beauty blends: For ill can Poetry express Full many a tone of thought sublime, And Painting, mute and motionless, Steals but a glance of time, But by the mighty actor brought, Illusion's perfect triumphs come— Verse ceases to be airy thought, And ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... thief! stop thief! a highwayman!" Not one of them was mute; And all and each that passed that way Did ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... round the place, they fell on the sleeping form of a young Arab, dressed in a turban, and his white haick folded gracefully round him. The instant the light fell on his eyes, he started up with a look of mute astonishment, and laid his hand on the hilt of a dagger by his side. Before he could unsheath it, Mr Vernon had thrown himself upon him, and wrenched it from his grasp, while, I following, we without much difficulty secured him; for, though graceful and active in appearance, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... the higher order, with the exception of a few mute dogs that belong to very hot or cold climates, is possessed of some sort of musical tone, expressive of pain or joy, and by means of which he can express certain emotions. Darwin claimed that the voice of the gibbon, while extremely loud, was very musical; and Waterhouse said that this musician ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... dealings. It was only when he mounted the stilts of foreign travel that his paces became so enormous. Perhaps, after all, a rude poetic and artistic faculty possessed the man. He might have been a humbler phase of the "mute, inglorious Milton." Perhaps his narrations required the privileges and allowances due to the inventive arts generally. Certain it was that, in common with other artists, he required an atmosphere of sympathy and confidence ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... reached the summit of the great Uinta range, and I, being a little in advance of my still mute companion, halted to take a survey of the field before me. The top of the range here is bare of timber and there was no snow. When Field came up I broke the silence which had lasted since the little unpleasantness of the night before, ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... his shoulder, the Fighting Nigger sallied from his cabin, completely armed and rigged for war. Giving a loud, fife-like whistle, he was instantly joined by a huge brindled dog of grim and formidable aspect. As he passed by the door where his mistress sat, in her mute, tearless, motionless grief, he turned to her for a moment, cap in hand, and with terrible sublimity said: "Miss Jemimy, you see me come back wid Bushie, or you neber see yo' ol' nigger ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... herbarium. Just at the outskirts of the shrubbery a small figure was skulking among the bushes. At the sound of footsteps it gave a low, peculiar whistle, then advanced slightly from the shadow and stood at attention, as if in mute challenge of the new-comers. Irene Scott, for it was she, was evidently on sentry duty. No one with a knowledge of ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... in his face, my dear,' resumed Mr. Sowerberry, 'which is very interesting. He would make a delightful mute, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Mrs St. Felix's house as soon as I had escorted Virginia home, leaving her very happy. The doctor was there, mute and melancholy; and I was thinking that we should have some difficulty in getting rid of him, when Tom ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... drag it down to his lair, and Slid shall dive from the Threshold into the sea to see if it be there, and coming up when the fishermen draw their nets shall find it not, nor yet discover it among the sails. Limpang Tung shall seek among the birds and shall not find it when the cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go Umborodom to seek among the crags. And the hound, the thunder, shall chase the Eclipse and all the gods go seeking with Their stars, but never find the ball. And men, no longer having light of the golden ball, shall pray to the gods no ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... to him from some distant ridge or hidden glen the tinkling of a cow-bell, as the herd wandered here and there grazing upon the green uplands. Once—for an instant only—a mirage appeared upon the southern sky, as if in mute testimony to the transitory character of all earthy things, the fleeting phases of human life. It seemed to Paul, with a score of years dimming the vista of his young manhood, not more shadowy and unreal than the wonderful scenes in ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... at the root, Ere the winter come as king, Villanelle, why art thou mute? Hath the Master lost ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... American silversmiths, but most of the pieces are by lesser known makers and are in the collection because of historic interest rather than artistic merit. The chief usefulness of the collection lies in its value as a social document and in the mute evidence it gives of the taste and craftsmanship of the periods covered. The collection is also helpful in dating type specimens that do not have specific associations with persons and dates. Perhaps even more interesting than the gamut of styles that the collection ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... time they may have been found, anyway," added Mrs. Ford, gently leading Mollie toward the house, Betty at her side, while Grace and Amy followed, mute with sympathy. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... few minutes after the disappearance of the countess were passed by her husband in rapidly striding up and down the room, by her son, in the same posture of mute and motionless anguish in which she had left him. There is no need to define that suffering, his peculiar situation is all-sufficient to explain it. Hurriedly securing the door from all intruders, the earl at length ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... seems the last, Remembering all his greatness in the past. No more in soldier fashion will he greet With lifted hand the gazer in the street. O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute; Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, Whole in himself, a common good. Mourn for the man of amplest influence, Yet clearest of ambitious crime; Our greatest, yet with least pretense, Great in council and great in war, Foremost ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... bundles of household goods, their little children in their arms, (do you remember how Reuben wandered through the storm carrying his little son?), crossing the gang plank of the steamer which brings them to the island, raising their tired eyes in mute gratitude to the American flag which floats above them as they pass. And from where I stood I could also see the great Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, the woman with the light in her hand to guide the ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... behind her a note to the effect that she intended to drown herself in the Thames. Her family and friends were distracted. The river was dragged, but no trace of the missing girl was found. On the river bank, however, were discovered her bonnet and shawl, mute witnesses to the fate that seemed to have overtaken her. Her father alone refused to believe that his daughter had ended her life tragically. He persisted in his search for her, and was soon rewarded by a clue which threw a different and more ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... the soul of man, made in the image of his Creator? If He stoops to give to the rose-bush, whose withered blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet assurance of another springtime, will He refuse the words of hope to the sons of men when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though changed by the forces of nature into a multitude of forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it has paid a brief visit like a royal guest to this tenement of clay? No, He who, notwithstanding His apparent prodigality, created ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... he asked, in a voice that sounded detached and foreign. At least she might acknowledge he was with her. But she only averted her soft, mute face a little from his gaze. And he knew that there were tears in her eyes, her own tears, tears of her strange religion, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... slight body was no longer still. His back heaved with mute sobs that had no tears. All his gentle soul was torn and bleeding. He had not that iron in his composition with which another man might have crushed down his feelings and stirred himself to a harsh defense. He was just a warm, loving creature of no great strength ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... includes any form of expression by which thoughts and feelings are communicated from one individual to another. Words may be spoken, gestures made, cries uttered, pictures or characters drawn, or letters made as means of expression. The deaf-mute converses with his fingers and his lips; the savage communicates by means of gesticulation. It is easy to conceive of a community in which all communication is carried on in sign language. It is said that the Grebos of Africa ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... do all that?" said the child. "You may stand as mute as a fish: it will be your companion's business to do ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... spot, 'mid the brown mountain heather, Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay; Like the corpse of an outcast, abandoned to weather, Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay; Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended, The much loved remains of her master defended, And chased the hill-fox and the raven away. How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? When the wind waved his garments, how oft didst thou start? How many long days ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... them naught; the old sailor keeping provokingly silent and being as mute as the Sphinx on the subject, in spite of their wistful ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a mute acceptance of it; and mademoiselle, conscious from our manner we were not particularly amiable toward each other, hastened to avert ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... sight than that which my eyes then rested upon I never saw. The gate-way of the Citadel was a very shambles. Piles of dead men lay all around me; and the prodigious number of the enemy lying slain there testified with a mute eloquence to the desperate fashion in which our handful of men had fought. Over the rough pavement, down the slope towards the lake, there flowed a stream of bright red blood that in places shone a brilliant vermilion where it was touched by the glintings of the sun. Among ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... I forget the darling theme, Be my tongue mute! my fancy paint no more! And, dead to joy, forget, my heart, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... he noticed the forlorn look of his sailor son as he walked about the place, and pictured the inevitably jarring effect of fiddles and tambourines upon Bob's shattered nerves at such a crisis, even if the notes of the former were dulled by the application of a mute, and Bob shut up in a distant bedroom—a plan which had at first occurred to him. He therefore told Bob that the surcharged larder was to be emptied by the charitable process above alluded to, and ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... completely to the ground, they supposed that their victim had perished in the flames; but their guilty consciences had never permitted them to venture near the debris to see if her charred bones remained a mute witness ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... The mute slave picked it up, and laid it carefully on the table again, while his master threw a ball into a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of rain was swept against the streaming window pane, and a gust of wind shook the frame in its sockets. The watcher turned away from the window with a mute gesture of despair. No eye could pierce that black chaos. He sank again into his seat, and looked around shuddering. The high, vaulted chamber was lit by a pair of candles only, leaving the greater part of it in gloom. Grim, fantastic ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill, And the watchers on the mountain standing mute, Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still, As he raced across the clearing in pursuit. Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... wrote the following extraordinary lines: "I must tell you that George Sand is only a pale reflection of Pierre Leroux, a fanatical disciple of the same ideal, but a disciple mute and fascinated when listening to his words, and quite prepared to throw all her own works into the fire, in order to write, talk, think, pray and act under his inspiration. I am merely the popularizer, with a ready pen and an impressionable ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... and laughter, glasses ringing, voices uplifted in set speeches, and many a shout of gratulation. When a betrothal is in the wind, folks ever believe that they have hold of the guiding clue to happiness, even if it be between a simpleton and a deaf mute. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... defiance to their enemies; the latter, giving proof of a marksmanship which had already made them famous, were content to keep under cover, quiet, mute. ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... were filled with birds in gilded cages, which we should have taken for songsters but for the fact that, although crowds gathered about and regarded them with mute admiration, not a sound issued from their throats—at least we heard none. A palanquin stopped at one of these shops, and a lady alighted and bought three beautiful birds which she carried away in their cages, watching ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... a flaming face she stood before Coaly Mathew, who hardly raised his eyes to her—much less did he speak. As long as the sun was shining he was almost always mute, and only at night, when nobody could look into his eyes, did he like to talk, and then ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... to the rest of the company. Even the rough men-at-arms desisted from their boisterous jests, and spoke beneath their breath. The harper glancing around as the silence grew, and finding the lord's black looks ever upon him, trailed off at last in his song and sat mute, with uncertain fingers plucking at the strings of his instrument. The company broke up, glad to escape from the gloom of their lord's glances, and somebody showed the old man to a rude chamber, where a bundle of pease straw was to serve ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... come in?" When I released her, there appeared to my surprise at her call, no human intruder, but one of the ambau, bearing on a tray a goblet, which, as he placed it on a table beside us, I perceived to contain a liquid rather different from any yet offered me. The presence of these mute servants is generally no more heeded than that of our cats and dogs; but I now learnt that Martial ideas of delicacy forbid them, even as human servants would be forbidden, to intrude unannounced on conjugal ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... the sister arts, Where all their beauty blends! For ill can poetry express Full many a tone of thought sublime; And painting, mute and motionless, Steals but a glance of time. But by the mighty actor brought, Illusion's perfect triumphs come— Verse ceases to be airy thought, And sculpture to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... bed, with a natural pang of terror darting through his heart. But the next instant, the panting voice of Arthur, faint, but in its old accustomed tones, fell upon his ear, and Guly listened in mute wonder. ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... building only just in time. While yet a hundred yards or so from it, the cool night-breeze dropped all in a moment, and was succeeded by a hushed and breathless calm. An awful silence suddenly fell upon nature, the myriad insect voices became mute, the night-birds ceased to utter their melancholy cries, the sighing of the wind through the trees of the distant wood was no longer heard; a hush of dread expectancy ensued. A few seconds elapsed, and then a mysterious murmur filled the air, the trees swayed and tossed their branches ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the pleading quality of the glance, and was filled with amazement by it. Witchery seemed to have touched the stranger when paralysis touched him, else he would not so quickly have changed from his suspicion of the girl into that mute ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... head upon her breast, and her shining hair fell loose and disheveled. He saw the pathetic droop of her tired shoulders, and knew that she was crying. In that moment a thrilling warmth flooded every fiber of his body, and the glory of this that had come to him from out of the Barren held him mute. To him woman was all that was glorious and good. The pitiless loneliness of his life had placed them next to angels in his code of things, and before him now he saw all that he had ever dreamed of in the love and loyalty ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... fourteen months old,—but little older than Alice's. If the beauty of Mrs. Leslie's protege first excited his coarser nature, her maternal tenderness, her anxious care for her little one, struck a congenial chord in the father's heart. It connected him with her by a mute and unceasing sympathy. Templeton had felt so deeply the alarm and pain of illicit love, he had been (as he profanely believed) saved from the brink of public shame by so signal an interference of grace, that he resolved no more to hazard ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... way than that," Lady O'Gara said on a sudden impulse. She had taken Stella's cold little hand in hers, and it made a mute appeal. She was sure Stella was unhappy, poor little motherless child. The two poor children, fretting and worrying each other about nothing at all! Her comprehending, merry, pitiful gaze went from one to the other ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... understood their mute petition; yet it was one he could not grant. But he would take her in his arms, and giving her the fondest, tenderest caresses, would say, in a moved tone, "My darling, don't look at me in that way; it almost breaks my heart. Ah, if you could only be satisfied ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... at us in mute astonishment for a moment, flushing like a bashful girl meanwhile. Then, recovering himself, he muttered: "I will tell him, gentlemen; he ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... cry rang out upon the air. Janetta stood mute and trembling, unable for the moment to move or speak, as little Julian suddenly flung himself into her arms and tried to drag ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... broke in, quickly. "Don't bring up that subject again. What you said when I last saw you was enough. It almost kept me from coming to-night, but it was my duty; but you do not have to say any more about that." She took a step backward and stood staring at him in mute misery. She had never felt that she was worthy of him, in a way, but his cold reference—as she understood it—to her misfortune released a spring of resentment she hardly knew was wound ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben |
