"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote," and the poor fellow was mute during the remainder of the evening. "Favor me with your company on Wednesday evening, you are such a lion," said a weak party-giver to a young author. "I thank you," replied the wit; "but on that evening I am engaged to eat fire at the Countess of ——, and stand upon ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... "I will be mute," said Nello, laying his finger on his lips, with a responding shrug. "But it is only under our four eyes that I talk any ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... grant you, for a self- respecting citizen, to end life just where his father did; often the case, nevertheless, in this hard world, where so many fine qualities go unappreciated,—no societies having as yet been formed to seek out "mute, inglorious Miltons," and ask to ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... witness Heaven above! The malady of hopeless love I have endured without respite. Happy who thereto can unite Poetic transport. They impart A double force unto their song Who following Petrarch move along And ease the tortures of the heart— Perchance they laurels also cull— But I, in love, was mute ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... they were close friends we were content. Possibly, in a humorous mood, he went straight to his friend, for shortly they both came back, the first asking for his boots; he would receive no explanation (while the cause of the trouble stood mute), and with vile epithets, using a heavy cane, again and again assaulted my partner, who was compelled tamely to submit, for had he raised his hand he would have been shot, and no redress. I would not have been allowed to attest to "the deep ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... be mute there; they will cry and wail, and gnash their teeth, and, perhaps, too, sometimes at God; but I do not think but that the justice that they have deserved, and the equal administration of it upon them, will, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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"; for their equilibrium ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... miogalo. Musket pafilo. Muslin muslino. Mussel mitulo. Must (verb) devas. Must mosto. Mustard mustardo. Mustard plant sinapo. Mustard-plaster sinapa kataplasmo. Muster kunvenigi. Musty malfresxa. Mutation sxangxado. Mute muta. Mute mutulo. Mutilate vundegi. Mutinous ribela. Mutiny ribelo. Mutter murmuri. Mutton sxafajxo. Mutton, leg of sxaffemuro. Mutual reciproka. Mutually reciproke. Muzzle (for ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... him. He was poorly dressed and carried a small bundle. He looked cold and tired. Philip, who never could resist the mute appeal of distress in any form, reached out his hand and said kindly, "Come in, my brother, you look cold and weary. Come in and sit down before the fire, and we'll have a bite of lunch. I was just beginning to think of having something to ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... now, to punish me, she keeps afar her jocund band, With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the lute; If I creep near yonder oak she will wave her fairy wand, And to me the dance will cease, and the music all be mute. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... destroying habit to-day, Jefferson. It tires you out; resolve to be idle; no one should labor; HE SHOULD HIRE OTHERS TO DO IT FOR HIM;" and then he would fix his mournful eyes on Jeff. and hand him a dollar, while the eyes of the wonder-struck darkey would gaze in mute admiration upon the good and wise originator of the only theory which the darkey mind could appreciate. As Jeff. went away to tell the wonderful story to his companions, and backed it with the dollar as material proof, Artemus would cover his ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... alterations in the text, so as to obtain a favourable medium for singing. My knowledge of the scores of Auber and Boieldieu had misled me into assuming that the French people were entirely indifferent as to whether the mute syllables in poetry and singing were to be sounded or not. Vauthrot maintained that this was only the case with composers, but not with good singers. He was always feeling misgivings about the length of my ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... not forgotten, but they did not seem to get on in the new house. The Miss Gandishes came to one of Mrs. Clive's balls, still in blue crape, still with ringlets on their wizened old foreheads, accompanying papa, with his shirt-collars turned down—who gazed in mute wonder on the splendid scene. Warrington actually asked Miss Gandish to dance, making woeful blunders, however, in the quadrille, while Clive, with something like one of his old smiles on his face, took out Miss Zoe Gandish, her sister. We made Gandish overeat and overdrink ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beside her lover, with a mute obedience characteristic of impassioned natures at times, and when they had wrapped themselves up over head and ears in the sailcloth again, they plunged back into the now thick night. Tess was so receptive ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... on these pages, as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the blank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I remember seeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we had one day at our boarding-house. This child was a deaf mute. But its soul had the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacity which through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it had to talk with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid alternations of feeling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the gracious deities who, in spite of Straton's precepts, were no mere figments of human imagination and, as if he had become a child again, poured forth his overflowing heart with mute gratitude ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gentle June? Thou hast a Naiad's charm; Thy breezes scent the rose's breath; Old Time gives thee her palm. [5] The lark's shrill song doth wake the dawn; The eve-bird's forest flute Gives back some maiden melody, Too pure for aught so mute. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... and no picture was permitted to appear even on the walls of the sacred edifice: [470:4] then, a church frequently suggested the idea of a studio, or a picture-gallery. Now, the whole congregation joined heartily in the psalmody: then, the mute crowd listened to the music of the organ accompanied by the shrill voices of a chorus of thoughtless boys. Now, prayers, in the vernacular tongue and suited to the occasion, were offered with simplicity and earnestness; ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... mute. Why is your land so mournful? It is almost a week since I've seen my shadow. It is impossible! I don't see ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... them, guiding my horse this way and that way, lest he should profane with his hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as I looked on their bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the country for which they had given their lives, whose flag had only been to them a flag of stripes, on which no star of glory had ever shone for them—feeling I had wronged them in the past ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... their Thoughts below, Then like their own Church-Organ-Pipes they go. Not Davids Lyre could more his Touch obey: For as their Princes breathe and strike, they play. 'Gainst Royal Will they never can dispute, } But by a strange Tarantula strook mute, } Dance to no other Tune but Absolute. } All Acts of Supreme Power they still admire: 'Tis Sacred, though to set the World on Fire, Though Church-Infallibility they explode, As making Humane knowledge ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... the barrier, your wife is mute. She says not a word, she sits with her arms crossed, and will not look at you. You have neither soul, heart, nor sentiment. No one but you could have invented such a party of pleasure. If you are unfortunate enough to remind Caroline that ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... account for this queer coincidence, this mute communion, Peter elbowed over the edge, dangerously high above the water, and slid down a stanchion to the ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... endeavour At yonder old wall. With the Bourbon we'll gather At day-dawn before The gates, and together Or break or climb o'er The wall: on the ladder, As mounts each firm foot[dh], 140 Our shout shall grow gladder, And Death only be mute[235]. With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er The walls of old Rome, And who then shall count o'er[di] The spoils of each dome? Up! up with the Lily! And down with the Keys! In old Rome, the seven-hilly, We'll revel at ease. 150 Her streets shall be gory, Her Tiber all red, And her temples ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... quite capable of crying over it again, and his honest, manly face bore mute witness to his words. Though addressing himself to Miss Hemingway, his eyes were more often fixed on Grace Sinclair, and it was plain that it was her good opinion he valued most. But she was as merciless as Dolly, and showed not the ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... mother-land. He adopted in full the tenets of Garrison, which were excessively disagreeable to the whole public mind. The ground which he took was that which Garrison took. Seeing that the conscience of the North was smothered and mute by reason of the supposed obligations to the compromises of the Constitution, Garrison declared that the compromises of the Constitution were covenants with hell, and that no man was bound to observe them. This extreme ground Mr. Phillips also took,—immediate, unconditional, universal ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... ways that are beyond our ways, Or he would not be calm and she be mute, As one by one their lost and empty days Pass without even the ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... 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 ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... for influence. Democracy exalts the individual. It realizes that of all the treasures of the nation, the talent of its individual men is the most important. It realizes that its first duty is to waste none of this. It cannot afford to leave its Miltons mute and inglorious nor to let its village Hampdens waste their strength on petty obstacles while it has great tasks for them to accomplish. In a democracy, when work is to be done men rise to do it. No matter what the origin of our Washingtons and Lincolns, our Grants ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... 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 ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... and once again closed his eyes and feigned sleep. Hsi Jen distinctly grasped his idea and, forthwith nodding her head, she smiled coldly. "You really needn't lose your temper! but from this time forth, I'll become mute, and not say one word to you; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... mute but trying to smile, and saw the last of him—a hurrying sturdy, boyish figure, kilt swinging and ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... lonely, too, but in a different way. The little drama of her life had run sadly and smoothly. She was willing to give the man her friendship if it could help him, rather because he seemed to ask for it in a mute fashion than because ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... that of Madeline Staveley. Many have I seen with a richer lip, with a more luxurious curve, much more tempting as baits to the villainy and rudeness of man; but never one that told so much by its own mute eloquence of a woman's happy heart and a woman's happy beauty. It was lovely as I have said in its mirth, but if possible it was still more lovely in its woe; for then the lips would separate, and the breath would come, and in ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Achaian, slain, whose loss the Greeks Fills with regret. Haste, therefore, to the fleet, 835 Inform Achilles; bid him haste to save, If save he can, the body of his friend; He can no more, for Hector hath his arms. He ceased. Antilochus with horror heard Those tidings; mute long time he stood, his eyes 840 Swam tearful, and his voice, sonorous erst, Found utterance none. Yet even so distress'd, He not the more neglected the command Of Menelaus. Setting forth to run, He gave ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... thoughts to the choice of mourning dresses. While the coffin was placed in the huge, black and white, wax-besprinkled catafalque that does duty for some three thousand dead in the course of its career—so I was informed by a philosophically-minded mute whom I once consulted on a point over a couple of glasses of petit blanc—while an indifferent priest mumbling the office for the dead, do you know what the friends of the departed were saying as, all dressed in black from head to foot, they sat or stood ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... them on the hills above us. In sailing along the shore we had heard them call out loudly to us, and observed them frequently lift something which they held in their hands; but, on coming up to them, they remained so perfectly mute and motionless, that, accustomed as we had been to the noisy importunities of their more sophisticated brethren, we could scarcely believe them to be Esquimaux. There was, besides, a degree of lankness in the faces of the two men, the very reverse of the plump, round, oily cheeks of ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Ruth Lansing sat mute in her grief at the head of the couch, listening to the comments and stumbling condolences of neighbours from the high hills and the lower valleys. They were good, kindly people, she knew. But why, why, must every one of them repeat that clumsy, monotonous lie— How natural ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... of the ladder, as he threw the rays of the lantern 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; ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... she say after what she had seen? Could she tell him—with Flora, as it were, still in his arms—could she explain that she had been seeking him to cast herself there? Or if she stood mute until he should speak, what could he say to count one heart-throb against what she had seen? Oh, before God! before God! it was not jealousy that could make her dumb or deaf to either of them. She confessed its pangs. Yes! yes! against both of them, when she remembered certain things or ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... pleased him, smooth and still As the mute Swan that floats adown the stream, Or on the waters of th' unruffled lake Anchored her placid beauty. Not a leaf That flutters on the bough more light than he, And not a flower that droops in the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Uncle Denny puffed down on Jim. "Still Jim, me boy, don't be sore at me. I should have spoken if I'd been a deaf mute!" ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to 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 bars ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... opening, we saw the immense flight of pigeons blackening the sky overhead. Stiffened by their night's rest, they flew low; but the beauty and immensity of the flight overawed us, and we stood in mute admiration, no one firing a shot. For fully a half-hour the flight continued, ending ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... useful on the farm, and at the fishery, in which there was much more done then than is now-a-days. The shoals of mackerel glittered in the dark nights, and showed the course they were taking; the crabs gave piteous cries when pursued, for fishes are not so mute as they are said to be. Every Sunday when he went to church, and gazed on the picture of the Virgin in the altar-piece, Joergen's eyes always wandered to the spot where Clara had knelt by his side; and he thought of her, and how kind she had been ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... heart. The farmer's son turned pale, and leaped from his chair in a great fright, believing that the old woman was making her entrance; but nothing appearing, the same awful silence and stillness as before took place, only fear staid behind in the farmer's breast, and Mr. Carew and his companion kept mute, as though in expectation of what would follow; but soon this solemn silence was disturbed by a loud thump at the door; again the farmer leaped from his seat, crying out, O Lord! save and deliver us! At ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... occasioned the greatest sorrow to me that ever I knew in this world, for my wife, coming up suddenly, did find me embracing the girl.... I was at a wonderful loss upon it, and the girle also, and I endeavoured to put it off, but my wife was struck mute and grew angry, and so her voice come to her, grew quite out of order, and I to say little, but to bed, and my wife said little also, but could not sleep all night, but about two in the morning waked me and cried, and fell to tell me as a great secret that she was a Roman ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the 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 ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... high And holy mysteries of Heaven! How turned to thee each glazing eye, In mute and awful sympathy, As thy low prayers were given; And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while, An angel's features, a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the foormes: and their heads are bare so long as 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 ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... after supper, when the old darky had lighted the dips—there being no longer any oil or candles to be had—that the thrush, who had been going into interminable ecstasies of fluty trills, suddenly became mute. A jingle of metal sounded from the garden, a step on the porch, a voice inquiring for Mr. Westcote; and old Mose replying with reproachful dignity: "Mars Wes'cote, suh? Mars ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... across the shimmering glare of that parched and tawny plain, and strains his eyes in vain effort to catch sight of the longed-for column issuing from the opposite valley, but it is hopeless. The hot sun beats down upon his bruised and aching head and sears his bloodshot eyes. He raises his hand in mute appeal to heaven, and at the instant there is a flash, a sharp report not thirty yards away, an angry spat as the leaden missile strikes the shelving top of his parapet and goes humming across the gorge, a stifled shriek from Ruth looking fearfully up from below, an Irish oath from Walsh as he ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... der Geistlichkeit als gefaehrlich, dem Staat als unzulaessig erschienen moechte, daran hatten wir keinen Zweifel, und wir hofften, dieses Buechlein sollte nicht unwuerdig 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 rechts ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... the blackness of the sky outside, and Jeannie could see Daisy but indistinctly. Then with a wicked flare of lightning it leaped into light, and the thunder rattled round the eaves. But in that moment's flash Jeannie saw Daisy's face again, mute, white, and appealing, and it was intolerable to her. Besides, anything was better and less dangerous than a tete-a-tete with Daisy. At any moment she might tell her about Lord Lindfield and the offer she expected. That would make her part infinitely worse to play; ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... floor. They never had glittered so bright before; The light it flew in flashing splinters Away from those burning, revolving centres; While the gems on the lady's flying skirts Gave out their light in jets and spirts. Poor Mackerel gazed in mute dismay At this unprecedented display. "Oh, stop, love, stop!" he cried at last; But she only flew more wild and fast, While the flutes and fiddles, bugle and drum, Followed as if ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... you said, Mr. Piper. And you must let me," from Oliver with complete decision. He hadn't bargained for that. Mr. Piper might not notice Ted on the fire-escape—but then again he might—and if he did he would certainly investigate—mute bound bodies were not ordinary or normal adjuncts of even the most illegal of Riverside Drive apartments. And then. Oliver's hand went down over the revolver in his pocket—if necessary he stood perfectly ready to hold up Mr. Piper at the point of his own pistol to ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... half-open mouth still fluttered around it, and her curved fingers still ran up and down the rails of the chair-back as if they were the cords of some mute instrument, to which she was trying to give voice. Her rings once or twice grated upon them as if she had at times gripped them closely. But she rose quickly when he paused, said "Yes," sharply, and put the chair back ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... watching mother, solitary and friendless, soothing the moaning child; or you might hear her crooning some old Welsh air, in hopes to still the pain with the loud, monotonous music. Her sorrow was so dignified, and her mute endurance and her patient love won her such respect, that the neighbors would fain have been friends; but she kept alone and solitary. This is a most true story. I hope that woman and her child are dead ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... The poet takes words, and out of their rhythms finds the harmonious vehicle for ideas. The scientist sees the apple fall and has the revelation of a universe moving in a symphony before which the mind stands mute and awestruck. The cook takes the pig from the stye and the apple from the tree and makes a pretty lyric for the dinner-table. The Great Adventure, in short, is just this passionate pursuit of the soul of harmony in things, great and small, spiritual ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... to me,—and gave an interest to the young stranger which, though I dared not manifest, I could not help feeling. Fortunately his undisguised admiration of Edith was a safeguard to me. He was too artless to conceal it, yet too modest to express it. It was evinced by the mute eloquence of eyes that gazed upon her, as on a celestial being; and the listening ear, that seemed to drink in the lowest sound of her sweet, low voice. He was asked to exhibit his sketches, which were ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... hardly keep my teeth from chattering, his head bent forward, still listening. I listened too, with 'all my ears,' but could not catch a sound; indeed the silence over the great expanse of snow might have been called awful; even the dogs were mute. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... searching for some sign of guilty consciousness in the face revealed in such clear outline near him, but saw none. Again, Thalassa met him with answering look, but remained mute. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... completely the tumult within him was quieted. He rose and stood forth mute in spirit as in speech; humbled, yet content, in the consciousness that having miserably failed first to save himself and then to rue himself back to destruction, the hurricane had been his deliverer. ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... knees, and prayed that the soul which had been persecuted might have rest. Then, when the last stroke of the bell had died away, she sat down in mute despair, and felt that she had lost the best thing life had ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Calderon remained mute and erect, with his arms folded on his breast, and his cheek flushed with suppressed passions. Philip gazed at him earnestly, and then, muttering to himself, approached the favourite with ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as he came up; Dysart merely became mute; Geraldine looked around with a start; her lips parted in a soundless, mechanical greeting, then the flush in her cheeks brightened; and as she rose, Dysart got onto his feet and stood silently facing the ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... at the sea and at each other in mute amazement. But in the midst of their perplexity, what sound was that which startled them? Was it mere fancy? Was it the reverberation of the cannon still booming in their ears? Or was it not truly ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... origin, a large number of words are essentially the same, and differ merely in certain phonetic changes. Take the word 'father.' In Latin, as also in Greek, it is 'pater.' Now the Latin 'p' in English becomes 'f;' that is, the thin mute becomes the aspirated mute. The same change may be seen in the Latin 'piscis,' which in English is 'fish,' and the Greek '[pi upsilon rho]' which in English is 'fire.' Again, if the Latin or Greek word begins ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... that time, that there was the devil and all to do, and the island was in a fair way of being left without inhabitants. Some stood up for this pope-hawk, some for t'other. Some, struck with a dumbness, were as mute as so many fishes; the devil a note was to be got out of them; part of the merry bells here were as silent as if they had lost their ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... an' his head failed a bit forrard an' he sat strokin' of the dog. Arter that, when us seed Newlyn, it 'peared to bring en to his senses a bit, an' he knawed Tom was drownded. He rambled in his speech a while; then went mute again, wi' a new look in his eyes as though he'd grawed so auld as history in a single night. Theer he do stand bedoled wi' all manner o' airthly sufferin', poor creature. Him wi' all his righteousness ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... head vigorously. "Shan't!" His eyebrows rose in mute enquiry. "Because I don't want to," she explained with childlike candour. "I'm tired of being dragged around and plied with drink. Do you realise I've had as much as two and a half glasses of champagne to-night, out of the countless bottles you've ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Mr Easy would have continued it is impossible to say; but the door opened, and Mr Easy looked up while still administering the punishment, and perceived Dr Middleton in mute astonishment. He had promised to come in to tea, and enforce Mr Easy's arguments, if it were necessary; but it certainly appeared to him that in the argument which Mr Easy was then enforcing, he required no assistance. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... They are there for us and we are here for them. Their lips, though temporarily mute, are more eloquent than ever before, and their voices, though silent, ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... to him a foreign art. He hired a poet of repute, Learnt yards of eloquence by heart, Came, full of it, to press his suit; At sight of me forgot his part ... What could I say when he was mute? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... and 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 seem ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... sat down on a seat, then strolled about the park; reaching the river, he went down and then stood lost in thought, looking at the water. The sullen pines with their shaggy roots, which had seen him a year before so young, so joyful and confident, were not whispering now, but standing mute and motionless, as though they did not recognise him. And, indeed, his head was closely cropped, his beautiful long hair was gone, his step was lagging, his face was fuller and paler ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... stared at each other and the two speakers in mute surprise. But they saw nothing in the words beyond a personal wrangle—though even that was such a novelty as to arrest instant attention. I busied myself with my plate. The Director assumed his harshest tone, and asked ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... chords are mute, The bond is rent in twain; You cannot wake the silent lute, Or clasp its links again. Love's toil, I know, is little cost; Love's perjury is light sin; But souls that lose what I have lost, What have they ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... felt creep over him the comforting sense that he need not forever fight sleep. A wan glow flared behind the dark, uneven horizon, and a melancholy misshapen moon rose to make the white night one of shadows. Absolute silence claimed the desert. It was mute. Then that inscrutable something breathed to him, telling him when he was alone. He need not have looked at the dark, still face ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Kaiser Conrad's young Boy, who one day might have swept the ground clear of them, perished,—bright young Conradin, bright and brave, but only sixteen, and Pope's captive by ill luck,—perished on the scaffold; "throwing out his glove" (in symbolical protest) amid the dark mute Neapolitan multitudes, that wintry morning. It was October 25th, 1268,—Dante Alighieri then a little boy at Florence, not three years old; gazing with strange eyes as the elders talked of such a performance by Christ's ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... suddenly into his mind just what the multitudinous shambling enigma below meant. It was an appeal against the unexpected, an appeal to those others who, more fortunate, seemed wiser and more powerful, for something—for INTELLIGENCE. This mute mass, weary footed, rank following rank, protested its persuasion that some of these others must have foreseen these dislocations—that anyhow they ought ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... orderly in its arrangement or comprehensive in its contents. It is devoid of anything in the nature of a bill of rights,[461] and concerning the sovereignty of the people it has nothing to say. Even in respect to many essential aspects of governmental organization and practice it is mute. It contains no provision respecting annual budgets, and it leaves untouched the entire field of the judiciary. The instrument lays down only certain broad lines of organization; the rest it leaves to be supplied through the channels ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... speak at once. In the moment needed to regain her self-possession she could only regard him with mute gratitude. She saw that he was young and well-built, though lean of features, but with frank, healthy eyes. He was not at all bad-looking. Also she observed that he was neatly garbed in puttees and knickerbockers, and she quickly appraised him as the usual type of Easterner ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... may be filled with beings who will be blind and deaf as the inmost rock, yet will execute changes as delicate and complicated as those of human language and all the intricate web of what we call its effects, without sensitive impression, without sensitive impulse: there may be, let us say, mute orations, mute rhapsodies, mute discussions, and no consciousness there ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... your pardon!" cried the Italian, laying his finger on his lips. "Henceforward I am mute as a carp of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... over her by the skilful retiaria. She stood stock-still in mute surprise, with averted eye and deeply blushing cheek, fighting desperately with the confusion she feared to let Angelique detect. But that keen-sighted girl saw too clearly—she had caught her fast as a bird is caught by ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... table, and then, at the command of the Emperor, with a ladle of the same precious material and ornamented with gems, served out the wine to the company. At first, as the glittering pageant advanced, astonishment kept us mute, and caused us involuntarily to rise from our couches to watch the ceremony of introducing it, and fixing it in its appointed place. For never before, in Rome, had there been seen, I am sure, a golden ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... cynicism appeared in his talk of public matters; politics amused him, and his social views lacked consistency, tending, however, to an indolent conservatism. Despite his convivial qualities, he had traits of the reserved, even of the unsociable, man: a slight awkwardness in bearing, a mute shyness with strangers, a hesitancy in ordinary talk, and occasional bluntness of assertion or contradiction, suggesting a contempt which possibly he did not intend. Hugh Carnaby declared that the true Rolfe ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... 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 dance a sort of jig upon the door. Hanging was evidently not ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... her tiny black-gloved hand, and then, also in silence, raised it passionately to my eager lips. Her soft, dark eyes—those eyes that spoke although she was mute—met mine, and in them was a look that I had never seen there before—a look which as plainly as any words told me that my wild fevered ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... presumption of man is the central idea of Sophocles. In either case the whole tone is essentially religious. To choose such a theme as Lear, to treat it as Shakespeare has treated it, to leave it, as it were, bleeding from a thousand wounds, in mute and helpless entreaty for the healing that is never to be vouchsafed—this would have been repulsive, if not impossible, to a Greek tragedian. Without ever descending from concrete art to the abstractions of mere moralising, without ever attempting ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... that orphan girl had imagined what that tale might be; how often before she had examined every one of those mute tokens; how many times gazed with moist eyes at the faces in the locket; and how, as the years bearing her onward toward maturity passed, had she hoped and waited, hoping ever that some word, some whisper from that far-off land of her birth might reach her! But none ever ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... lift My voice to heaven and man: though enemies Surround me, and none else, yet other men And other times shall hear: the agony Of an oppressed and of a bursting heart No violence can silence; at its voice The trumpet is o'erpowered, and glory mute, And peace and war hide all their charms alike. Surely the guests and ministers of heaven Scatter it forth through all the elements; So suddenly, so widely, it extends, So fearfully men breathe it, shuddering To ask or fancy how ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... right rough without one divagation into irony or pungency. It is the story of a much-injured and revengeful Norse pilot, who, having the chance to drown his old enemies, Milord and Milady, saves them at the mute appeal of their blue-eyed English baby. Terje Vigen is a masterpiece of what we may define as the "dash-away-a-manly-tear" class of narrative. It is extremely well written and picturesque, but the wonder is that, of all people in the world, ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... with Canadian sorrow For him known lovingly as "OLD TOMORROW." Hail to "the Chieftain!" He lies mute to-day, But Fame still speaks for him, and shall for aye. "To-morrow—and to-morrow!" SHAKSPEARE sighs. So runs the round of time! Man lives and dies. But death comes not with mere surcease of breath To such ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... But he is too wise to affirm or to deny the existence of another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind, no Catholic opinion held semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus. The intellectual faculties (perception and reflection) are mute upon the subject: they bear no testimony to facts; they show no proof. Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate that receptive mood ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... this man after the death of his last remaining companion, all alone in that terrible world, gazing round him in mute despair, the sole, living thing in that dark frozen universe. The sky is somber, the earth whitened with a glittering whiteness that chills the heart. His clothing is covered with frozen snow, his face lean and haggard, his ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Poor mute companion of my toil, My wanderings and my woes! Far have we sought this vaunted soil, And here our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... not the less earnest because it was mute, and took steady aim at the Dyak's left breast. The birds fluttered about in ever smaller circles. Then one of them dropped easily on to the lip of the rock. Instantly his bright eyes encountered those of the man, and he darted off with a scream ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... stars and a good name, riches and honors, and a houseful of sons,—she uttered not a word; but with eyes brimming with gratitude, flattered to tears, by a sudden graceful movement she touched my foot with her hand and immediately laid it on her head,—and then, with many shy and mute, but eloquent salaams, retired. It is difficult to imagine such a woman scolding and slang-whanging as low Hindoo women do, accompanying with passionate attitudes and gestures a reckless torrent of words, and fitting the foulest action ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... from his blankets and went down to the shore of the lake like a shadow—silently, as only Indian blood can move. He raised his head and looked about him. The thick darkness rendered sight of small avail, but, like the animals, he possessed other senses that darkness could not mute. He listened—then sniffed the air. Motionless as a hemlock stem he stood there. After five minutes again he lifted his head and sniffed, and yet once again. A tingling of the wonderful nerves that betrayed itself by no outer sign, ran through him as he tasted the keen air. Then, merging his ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... floor was thick with dust, but the marks of many footsteps going and returning gave mute evidence of the frequency of Leland's visits. The air was heavy and oppressive and the temperature and humidity increased as they progressed along the winding length of the rock-walled passageway. The floor sloped, ever downward ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... on their hill The murdered Caesars make no sign; Their myriad subjects, too, are still,— Mute as the voiceless Palatine; Yet overhead the fixed stars shine, And bid ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... finally. His sister-in-law was waiting in the next room. As soon as his descent cleared the way she hurried in. From the threshold she glanced at the girl; what she saw sent her hurrying out to recompose herself. But the instant she again saw that expression of mute and dazed despair the tears fought for release. The effort to suppress outward signs of pity made her plain fat face grotesque. She could not speak. With a corner of her apron she wiped imaginary dust from the glass bells ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the jolly tavern, the bandits gayly drink, Upon the haunted highway, sharp hoof-beats loudly clink? Yea; past scant-buried victims, hard-spurring sturdy steed, A mute and grisly rider is trampling grass and weed, And by the black-sealed warrant which in his grasp shines clear, I known it is the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... beside her in mute sympathy while he finished his cigarette. There was a certain depression in his attitude of which presently she became aware. She summoned her resolution and turned herself from the great vision that ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Mars and Mercury fell at variance whose servant he should be; and there is an epigrammatist that saith that Art and Nature had spent their excellences in his fashioning, and, fearing they could not end what they had begun, they bestowed him up for time, and Nature stood mute and amazed to behold her own mark; but these ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... before a Country one; because, he being desirous of Knowledge, had there the Opportunity of improving it. In the Country, 'tis true, there are Woods, Gardens, Fountains and Brooks, that entertain the Sight, but they are all mute, and ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... Arminius and Candace, Roxana and Scipio. But perhaps the most fruitful example for consideration is La Princesse de Cleves. Here, small as is the total space, there is a great deal of history and a crowd, if for the most part mute, of historical persons. But not one of these has the very slightest importance in the story; and the Prince and the Princess and the Duke—we may add the Vidame—who are the only figures that have ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... tribes first gazed at him in mute surprise; then hurried, with every variety of squeak, and quack, and fluttering ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... so disconcerted me now that I had my chance, and was alone with him, that I could not find a word to say, and stood before him mute. I think this pleased him, ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... by another event. Passing through Ferney in our way to Geneva, unaccustomed sounds of music arose from the rural church which stood embosomed in trees, surrounded by smokeless, vacant cottages. The peal of an organ with rich swell awoke the mute air, lingering along, and mingling with the intense beauty that clothed the rocks and woods, and waves around. Music—the language of the immortals, disclosed to us as testimony of their existence—music, "silver key ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... order to do it. There, in exile—in Switzerland—he wrote many of his most sublime scores, and these he did not hear played till long years after, for although the man could compose, he could not execute. The music was in his brain and he could not get it out at his finger-tips—for him the piano was mute. So now and again Franz Liszt would come and play for him the scores he had never heard, and tears of joy would flow down his fine face; then he would stand on his head, walk on his hands and shout ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... hand on the arm of her care-worn, sallow father, and frothing her light draperies, proceeded over the eternal red carpet. Her father, mute and yellowish, his black beard making him look more careworn, mounted the steps stiffly, as if his spirit were absent; but the laughing mist of the bride went ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... at home, Mrs. Lumbe?" he asked, in response to her mute glance of inquiry. He spoke condescendingly, like a man who recognized the social gulf between them, but believed in being polite to the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... else was allowed that privilege when the 13th came, excepting Mrs. Frost herself. James, afraid that a scene would hurt his wife, severely forbade Clara to give way; and the poor girl, mute and white, did as she was told, and ventured not a word of farewell, though her embraces were convulsive, and when she went down stairs she could not help ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said, "Our Pan is dead; His pipe hands mute beside the river;— Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, But Music's airy voice is fled. Spring mourns as for untimely frost; The bluebird chants a requiem; The willow-blossom waits for him;— The Genius of the wood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... moment; but the mute invitation, so arch yet timid, so pretty, tender, sly, and womanly, was too much for him, as it has generally proved for males, and the philosopher's foot was soon in the very place to which the Simpleton with the mere tail ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... if not in the Dramatic Art then in the poetry of motion with that necessary and always essential concomitant of both—Pantomime. Indeed, of the Terpsichorean Art, it has been truly observed "That deprived of the imitative principle (i.e., Pantomime), the strength, the mute expression, it becomes nothing but a series of cadenced steps, interesting merely as a graceful exercise." Equally so in every way does it apply to the Dramatic Art, which minus its acting, its gestures—in a word, its Pantomime—we ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... be done now? Clyde asked himself this question as he stood there before the bolted door, flushed with excitement. He looked at his brother, who was almost as excited as he was, and had started to his feet, only to remain there mute and motionless. It was all a mystery to Ray, who now heard the reference to the ten thousand dollars for the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... say whether his apostrophe to the "mute companions of his toils" is more to be admired for the elegance and beauty of the poetical imagery, or for the tenderness and humanity of the sentiment. He who can read it without being affected, will do his heart no injustice if he concludes it ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... not the kind of talk that was pleasing to the father, and he became morosely silent. It was equally repugnant to Ruggles and the parson to hear Nellie Dawson referred to as being in love with the execrated officer. Ruggles was grim and mute, and the parson deftly drew the ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... growing anxiety, chatted of the novel, of the people at the boarding house, of anything and everything he could think of likely to divert attention from the one important topic. The answers he received were more and more brief and absent. At last, when Edwards again appeared, appealingly mute, at the entrance to the dining room, Captain Elisha, with a sigh which was ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the door remained open, everyone became mute, and amid the general silence the young man crossed part of the length of the antechamber, and entered the apartment of the captain of the Musketeers, congratulating himself with all his heart at having so narrowly escaped the end ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sadly altered, in the presence of that stern, practical mother, reality. Instead of flowery paths, days of perpetual sunshine, and bowers hanging with golden fruit, the road was rugged and full of thorns, the sunshine was eclipsed by shadows, and the mute appeals for help too often were answered by cold neglect. Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race—the transition from slavery to freedom was too sudden for you! The bright dreams ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... show signs of deep annoyance at the death of his domestic, which, as he reflects, is a positive loss to him; but as regards his friend his position is in no wise materially affected, and thus, though he would never dream of leaving his other possessions disregarded and ill cared for, friendship's mute appeal is ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon |
