"Numb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we had ever seen, and the biggest army beleaguered Belgium had ever seen, and one of the biggest, most perfect armies the world has ever seen. We watched the gray-clad columns pass until the mind grew numb at the prospect of computing their number. To think of trying to count them was like trying to count the leaves on a tree or the pebbles ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... alone into the world of pure, new snow. But the dazzling whiteness seemed to beat upon her till it hurt her, she felt the cold was slowly strangling her soul. Her head felt dazed and numb. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... time were numb with cold. We had been ascending steadily, and Byfield's English thermometer stood at thirteen degrees. I borrowed from the heap a thicker overcoat, in the pocket of which I was lucky enough to find a pair of furred ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some rich woman, on a winter's morn, Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge 300 Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire— At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, When the frost flowers the whiten'd window panes— And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... her tone and manner made me feel strangely; a chill crept over me, and for a second I felt numb. ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st of April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... felt weak, his hands numb. It was with an effort he refrained from dropping the revolver. Like his chums, Frank was a crack shot, for Mr. Temple early had accustomed them to the use of rifle and shotgun, and the previous summer ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... but thee must go out—thee is not a member." "But my father is a member." "Thee is not a member," and Susan felt as if the spirit was moving her and soon found herself in outer coldness. Fingers and toes becoming numb, and a bright fire in a cottage over the way beckoning warmly to her, the exile from the chapel resolved to seek secular shelter. But alas! she was confronted by a huge dog, and just escaped with whole skin though capeless ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... cell above, and indeed all the cells in that direction were flooded like my own. Of course it was no trouble for me to keep afloat; my only danger was that the intense coldness of the water would numb my body beyond recovery. Still, I had been accustomed to hardships of that kind before now, in the frozen North. At last the gentle roar of the waterfall ceased, and I realized my cell was emptying itself. When I reached my shelf again, I stretched my ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... broke when Thirlwell began his homeward march. The sky was low and leaden, and a biting wind blew from the south. It drove the snow-dust into the men's smarting faces and froze their breath on their furs. Their hands stiffened on the sledge-traces and their feet got numb. The cold got worse when snow began to fall and when they camped one night Thirlwell noted that they had used more food than he thought. The transport of provisions is perhaps the main difficulty of a winter journey in ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... huge lion, its hot breath upon his face, its rough tongue upon his cheek. The ape-man had often been close to death; but never before so close as this, he thought, for he was convinced that death was but a matter of seconds. His brain was still numb from the effects of the blow that had felled him, and so he did not, for a moment, recognize the lion that stood over him as the one he had so ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... she had hardly slept, and now, though her body was numb with weariness, her mind kept up a feverish activity. She was bent on excusing Godwin, and the only way in which she could do so was by arraigning the world for its huge dishonesty. In a condition ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... became painfully aware of the terribly damp, cold wind searching out and chilling life, even to the very marrow of the bones. Then he remembered that he had come out in his dress boots, consequently his feet were wet and numb, and he had a fierce pain under his shoulder. A sudden, uncontrollable fear went to his ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... types of drinkers. There is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... only speaks of Moses in the third person, but also bears witness to many details concerning him; for instance, "Moses talked with God;" "The Lord spoke with Moses face to face; " "Moses was the meekest of men" (Numb. xii:3); "Moses was wrath with the captains of the host; "Moses, the man of God, "Moses, the servant of the Lord, died;" "There was never a prophet in Israel like unto Moses," &c. (34) On the other hand, in Deuteronomy, ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... enough, for the sick child was a restless sleeper. But now she could hear nothing, not even the faint vibration of her sister's breath. The silence was absolute and appalling; it struck tangibly upon her sense, as the darkness struck upon her eye-balls and filled her with a numb, unreasoning terror. She slipped out of bed and struck a match. In another few seconds she was standing by Jeannie's white little bed, waiting for the wick of the candle to burn up. Presently the light grew. Jeannie was lying on her side, her white face ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... departure from England: I crossed the Channel next morning. Throughout that Sunday afternoon with Braxton at the Keeb railway station, pacing the desolate platform with him, waiting in the desolating waiting-room with him, I was numb to regrets, and was thinking of nothing but the 4.3. On the way to Victoria my brain worked and my soul wilted. Every incident in my stay at Keeb stood out clear to me; a dreadful, a hideous pattern. I had ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... was pouring in through the screening and across the bed. On the outside of the wire screen clung a number of house-flies, early-hatched for the season and numb with the night's cold. As Forrest ate he watched the hunting of the meat-eating yellow- jackets. Sturdy, more frost-resistant than bees, they were already on the wing and preying on the benumbed flies. Despite the rowdy noise of their flight, these yellow hunters ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... indigestion and loss of sleep—something I often have," he lied. "A cup of coffee will set me up. Don't worry. I'm strong—head doesn't bother me at all this morning, except a numb feeling inside." ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... I thought the day was ours. The headlong Rupert Swept all before him, like the wind that bends The thin and unkind corn, his men were numb With slaying, and their chargers straddling, blown With undue speed, as they had hunted that Which could not turn again—e'en thus was Rupert, When round to meet his squadrons came a host Like whirlwind ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... minute particle that was on my nail makes my tongue tingle and feel numb," he remarked, still rubbing. "Let us go back again. I want ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... vanishing of the gleam of hope, the gloomy desperation that succeeded. The beautiful black brows met in a spasm of pain over eyes that stared at an abyss of ruin; her lips whitened, she wrung her hands unconsciously; and then, as if numb with horror, she leaned back in her chair, and her chin sank until it touched the black ribbon at her throat. When after a while she rallied, and forced herself to listen, a pleasant-faced young man was on ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... baby, straining her ears for its faltering heart-beats, had no words. In a sort of numb terror she waved the woman off. It was no more than fifteen minutes later that the Malay came again; yet it seemed to Mrs. Ozanne that she waited hours with cracking ear-drums to hear once more the terms of the strange bargain. This time, the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... said Obed, with a characteristic squeeze of Lord Chetwynde's hand, which made it numb for half an hour afterward. "It's possible, my boy, for it's the actual fact. But still, I must say, you're about the last man I expected to see in these diggins. When I saw you in London you were up to your eyes in business, and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... mother was dead, his father was poor, and there were many mouths at home to feed. In this country the winters are long and very cold, the whole land lies wrapped in snow for many months, and this night that he was trotting home, with a jug of beer in his numb red hands, was terribly cold and dreary. The good burghers of Hall had shut their double shutters, and the few lamps there were flickered dully behind their quaint, old-fashioned iron casings. The mountains indeed were beautiful, all snow-white ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... making one final effort to move up into the vacant niches, though conscious that her fingers and toes were so numb that she could not ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... revisionary interest. These subtleties naturally were beyond the experience of Skippy, in fact he was quite unable to reason on anything. His heart was swollen to twice its natural size, his pulse was racing, and the next moment with the wrench of the farewell, he felt in a numb despair, the light go out of the day, and a vast sinking weight rushing him down into chill ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... and faster, and Pierre's legs found it harder and harder to move themselves through the great drifts. They seemed heavy and numb, and he was growing oh, so tired! If he could but lie down to sleep until Christmas Day! But he knew that he must not do that. For those who choose this kind of soft and tempting bed turn into ice-people, and do not wake up in the morning. ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... time when I came to the end of the rope I threw myself back against it, and pulled hard. The skin of my breast stretched out as wide as your hand, but it would not tear, and at last all my chest grew numb, so that it had no feeling in it; and yet, little by little, as I threw my whole weight against the rope, the strips of skin stretched out longer and longer. All day long I walked in this way. The sun blazed down like fire. I had no food, and did not drink; ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell
... carried back upon the current instead of making headway against it. Fight as he would, he could feel that sliding, hopeless drag against which he was powerless to combat. His strength vanished ounce by ounce. His arms grew so numb with fatigue and cold that he could do nothing but move them up and down, dog fashion. On he went, down toward the stern ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... rope is wrapped around my body. Anyway it hurts like fun, and my arms seem all numb," he ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... scarcely been a breathing spell for the onlookers in this rapid-fire game. Every inning had held them, one moment breathless, the next wildly clamorous, and another waiting in numb fear. What did these last few moments hold in store? The only answer to that was the dogged plugging optimism of the Denver players. To listen to them, to watch them, was to gather the impression that baseball fortune always ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... over this portage was a most miserable one. We were soaked from morning till night with mingled snow and rain, and numb with the cold, but when we made our night camp, below the junction of the rivers, one or two ax cuttings were found, and I knew that now our troubles were nearly at an end and we were not far from men. The next afternoon (Monday, October sixteenth) we ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... thought: I was like something half animal, half vegetable, which feeds, yet has no mouth, nor sees, nor hears, nor has sense, but only lives. I seemed hung in space, as one feels when going from sleep to waking—a long lane of half-numb life, before the open road of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... swift ear of Peleus' son dragged in the dust the limbs of him I loved, and groaned loud as they quivered beneath the weight of Hector dead. Then was I overthrown, then cast to utter ruin, and since then I bear whatso falleth upon me, with a heart that is numb with grief, chilled and insensible, and long since had I snatched myself from the hands of the Greeks and followed my husband, did not my child keep me among the living: he checks my purpose and forbids me to die; he constrains ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... bruised. He bled from mouth and nose, but what was any other pain compared with the torture of his clenched fists? It made his arms numb to the elbow and sent currents of fire through his veins. His eyes kept on the thick throat of McTee. Though he was knocked reeling and half senseless, his stare never changed, and the wolf pack, with their heads jutting forward with eagerness ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... until the short twilight of the tropics darkened into night, and then, with the idea of saving firewood, climbed a tree. But now the cold became intense. The heat of the day had been followed by sharp frost, and the unfortunate sportsman, with no extra covering, became so numb that he decided to descend from his perch and light his fire. He had clambered down to the lowest bough, and was about to drop to the ground, when something stirred below him. A moving body parted the bushes, and he heard at his feet an unmistakable sound, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... long time, and there was no sign of the wolves coming near us. It was very cold, but our furs kept in our warmth. By and by I fell asleep—which was not dangerous so long as I kept warm, and I thought the cold must wake me before it began to numb me. And as 'I slept I dreamed; but my dream did not change the place; the forest, the tree I was in, all my surroundings were the same. I even dreamed that I came awake, and saw everything about me just as it was. I seemed to open ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... creeping cloud, except when a heavier gust lifted it high in air and flung it out in a blinding swirl. Battling with that wind sent the warmth through his body again, but his hands and feet were numb when he skirted the highest, deepest, solidest drift of them all and crept into the desolate fissure that was the ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... mind, at first numb, was now going at lightning speed. Brought face to face for the first time with one of the greatest facts of a woman's life I was asking myself why I had not reckoned ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... to overwhelm them, there was a strange exhilaration, a mad thrill in rising to every giant wave and shooting down its green side in a cloud of spray. One—two—three—each one seemed the last, and yet there were ever more. Nashola's arms were numb and heavy, his head reeled, but still he struggled on. He wished at last that death would come quickly, to still the terrible aching weariness that possessed his whole being. The worst of the storm had blown, roaring, past them, but the seas were still heavy ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... intellects and base,) 620 They could not find the slightest trace To indicate deception; Indeed, it is declared by some That spirits (of this sort) are glum, Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb, And (out of self-respect) quite mum To skeptic natures cold and numb Who of this kind of Kingdom Come Have not a just conception: True, there were people who demurred 630 That, though the raps no doubt were heard Both under them and o'er them, Yet, somehow, when a search ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... answering well. Her capacity to calculate also remained poor. When asked about the more inactive state, she said she had been afraid to stir. (What afraid of?) "I didn't know where to go or what to do." Further, she recalled that she had had a numb feeling in her tongue, could not speak quickly, and that her mind had felt confused and "she could not take in things." Further review with her of the earlier period of her psychosis showed that there was a blank for external events and ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... back awkwardly to her, and felt the grip of small, cool, very firm fingers upon my wrists. My arms fell apart, numb and perfectly useless; I was half aware of pain in them, but it passed unnoticed among a cloud of other emotions. I didn't feel my finger-tips because I had the agitation, the flutter, the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... And left the glad voice of his loved one dumb. To him the living now will come And cross his threshold in the self-same way To clasp his hand and vainly try to say Words that shall soothe the heart that's stricken numb. ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... two Lambs. "This is the offering made by fire which ye shall offer unto the Lord: two lambs of the first year without spot, day by day, for a continual burnt-offering." (Numb. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... room. Lassiter's subtle forecasting of disaster, Venters's forced optimism, neither remained in mind. Material loss weighed nothing in the balance with other losses she was sustaining. She wondered dully at her sitting there, hands folded listlessly, with a kind of numb deadness to the passing of time and the passing of her riches. She thought of Venters's friendship. She had not lost that, but she had lost him. Lassiter's friendship—that was more than love—it would endure, but soon he, too, would be gone. ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... the most soul-splitting crash you have ever heard and the sound as of a gale of wind shrieking through the telegraph wires. It will give you a little idea of what it was like under this bombardment. It seemed to numb one's very brain. What it must have been like in the German position is beyond me to conceive. We were certainly ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... consigned to my bed, for how long, Heaven only knows. This is written while in a horizontal position, reposing on my right arm, which is almost numb from having supported me for some sixteen hours without turning over. Let me see if I can ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... extended his hand toward the bent figure that was about to shuffle past him. The withered hand of the white-faced clown rested in the strong grasp of the pastor, and his pale, little eyes sought the face of the stalwart man before him; a numb desolation was growing in his heart; the object for which he had gone on day by day was being left behind and he must stumble ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... of me?" he said, "My tempers are nothing; they are like a gust and it is over. I didn't mean what I said. When I think of my violin, that it is lost, gone forever perhaps, that my hands are so numb and so stiff, it makes me frantic. I feel as if I should go mad for a moment, locked in here; and I never could bear the dark, never; not when I was a child. I see things; sounds ring in my ears. I want to cry out, and storm, and fling myself against the walls; do ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... time when, in default of being conventionally cold, every one becomes intensely cool. A general chill pervades the domestic virtues: hospitality is aguish, and charity becomes more than proverbially numb. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... thou hast not felt the lapse of hours. For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls: 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls, And numb the elastic powers. Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen, And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, To the just-pausing Genius we remit Our worn-out life, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... answered, was I satisfied? For a time I gazed, and drew a deep delight from the gratification of my vain and impious craving. But at length the still, cold presence of forms no longer of this earth began to oppress me. I grew cold and numb beneath their moveless aspect; and constant gazing upon eyes lighted up by no varying expression, pressed upon my tired senses with a more than nightmare weight. I felt a sort of dull stagnation through every limb, which held me bound where I sat, pulseless ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... he bought in the liquor store—knowing that, I felt my teeth gritting hard and I took a fierce swing with the stick I was carrying, at a little maple tree beside me.... I socked that tree so fierce with my stick, that my hands stung so bad they were almost numb; the stick broke in the middle and one end of it flew ahead to where Circus and Dragonfly were ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... crowding people, and the tumbril went up to the steps, and there stopped. The executioner got down, removed the board at the back, held out his arms to the marquise, and set her down on the pavement. The doctor then got down, his legs quite numb from the cramped position he had been in since they left the Conciergerie. He mounted the church steps and stood behind the marquise, who herself stood on the square, with the registrar on her right, the executioner on her left, and a great crowd of people ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... beat again rather wildly, but she reasoned with herself; she was no coward, and indeed why had she any cause for alarm? No one could be more aloof than her companion seemed. She was already numb with cold too, and her common sense told her shelter of any sort would ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... So, dazed and numb, I hent me up, and lo! coming arm in arm towards me were Otho von Reuss and his newly appointed Chief Justice and assessor—who but mine old friend Michael Texel! The Duke bent a searching look on me as I bowed low before him, but he saw only the tan of my ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... mansion, you told me to stick them over the door. I was afraid lest any one else should spoil them, as they were being pasted, so I climbed up a high ladder and was ever so long in putting them up myself; my hands are even now numb ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... as though their flailing tentacles were as myriad as the stars they had never seen. It seemed as though their numbers would never appreciably diminish. We thrust and parried till our arms grew numb. And still there appeared to be hundreds of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... me, when I was weak and old? And warmed me, when I was numb with cold? And who, when I in poverty pined, Has shared ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... and Mrs. Ukridge petted Edwin and sewed, and Ukridge smoked cigars and incited the gramophone to murder "Mumbling Mose," I would steal away to my bedroom and write—and write—and write—and go on writing till my fingers were numb and my eyes refused to do their duty. And, when time had passed, I might come to feel that it was all for the best. A man must go through the fire before he can write his masterpiece. We learn in suffering what we teach in song. What we lose on the swings ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... surely to grapple with lurking death than the men who faced Mauser bullets, but with none of the incidents of glorious war, the flag, the hurrah, and all the things that fire a soldier's heart, to urge them on,—clinging, half naked, with numb fingers to the ladders as best they can while trying to put on their stiff and frozen garments,—is one of the sights that make one proud of being a man. To see them in action, dripping icicles from ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... Underhay. Long and anxiously did they watch the ebbing tide, and when it had gone out sufficiently to allow of two stout planks being laid across the channel, an active sailor ventured over with a light, and in a few moments stood by Eric's side. Eric saw him coming, but was too weak and numb to move; and when the sailor lifted up the unconscious Russell from his knees, Eric was too much exhausted even to speak. The man returned for him, and lifting him on his back crossed the plank once more in safety, and carried them both to the carriage, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... your brother has told us, who is as poor as a rat, and yet must read; and so in winter he lies in bed with an empty stomach, until day is far advanced; and he has his book before him, and first he takes out one hand to hold his book, and then, when that is numb with cold, the other. Ah! tongue cannot tell how poorly the man must live; and yet your brother has told me, if he has but a few pounds, he does n't think at all of himself; he always looks out for one still poorer than he is, and then gives all away: and he 's always ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... had made gave Marie a curious sensation; Julia and the room and the red fire swam around her; her brain was numb and dizzy; she staggered and caught at ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... criminals on their way through the dark halls, crouching in fear at the sounds. Eleven o'clock struck, and then twelve with its continued uproar. It seemed a long time before one and then two sounded. Pendleton's limbs were beginning to feel loggy and numb because of the chill and the continued inaction. He had ventured to stir them a little, and was wrapping the heavy blanket more closely about himself, when he felt ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... reflected Hiram. "It was numb and useless when the half breed attended to it, but he was mistaken and so was I in thinking ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... His soul sustained his sorrows in her sight. And earth was bitter, and heaven, and even the sea Sorrowful even as he. And the wind helped not, and the sun was dumb; And with too long strong stress of grief to be His heart grew sere and numb. ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of the cell: The dull, numb pain of waking, Stillness ... Fear clutching oblivion; And then to hear The brazen, blasphemous tolling of the bell, A crash of doors, Loud-clanging tins, The swell of brutal voices nearer and more near, Bursts at the last about you. Clangour. Queer delight ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... to strike him dumb in consternation, her success must have afforded Sally intense satisfaction. Since she hadn't, her personal consternation was momentarily so overpowering as to numb her sense of appreciation. So that for the period of a long minute neither of them moved nor spoke; but remained each with a blank countenance reflecting a witless mind, hypnotised by the stupefaction ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... while had I sold it on that Wednesday in May when Ethel begged me, before the increased dividend turned out a mistake, I should have made money. But Philippi Sewers were threatened; Pasteurised Feeders had been numb since June; Pollyopolis Heat, Light, Power, Paving, Pressing, and Packing was going to pass its quarterly dividend; and Standard Egg had gone down from 63 to 7 1/8. My million dollars on paper now was worth in ...
— Mother • Owen Wister
... we had occupied Tarrano during them. Georg was through the balcony doorway and beyond our sight. Elza was standing motionless, too frightened to move. I felt myself growing numb, weighted to the floor as though my feet had taken root. My arms were hanging like wood; fingers tingling, then growing cold, dead to sensation. And a numbness creeping up my legs; and spreading inward from my arms ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... the wholesome flesh decay, And the willing nerve be numb, And the lips lack breath to say, "No, my ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... follow thee, While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene, The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw, A holy calm descends like dew upon me, I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise, I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses; Thy song expands my numb'd imbonded spirit, thou freest, launchest me, Floating and basking ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... a great part of it was fancy, and even now I can't get it into shape, for everything was so dull and dreamy and confused. All I can tell you more is, that I woke up once, feeling a little more sensible, and began to feel about me. Then I knew that my sword was by my side and my hand numb and throbbing, for the sword-knot was tight about my wrist. I managed to get that loosened, and after a good deal of difficulty sheathed my sword, after which I began to feel for my revolver, and got hold of the cord, which passed through my hand till I felt that it was broken—snapped ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... that the end of the world for which she had so fondly prepared would come, but as the days wore on she sank into a numb despondency. When she thought of the loss of her property, she groaned and turned her face to the wall. And Samuel Anderson sat about the house in a dumb and shiftless attitude, as do most men upon whom financial ruin comes in middle ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... futility of argument, and, indeed, in the violent reaction that attacks such ardent natures, she felt too numb to make the attempt even had she wished. She stood staring at Mrs. Lear with her eyes dark in her pale face and the first presage of defeat ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... description of Charles Lamb as "a pitiful rickety, gasping, staggering, stammering tom-fool" is not an amiable one! Or take his account of Wordsworth- -how instead of a hand-shake, the poet intrusted him with "a handful of numb unresponsive fingers," and how his speech "for prolixity, thinness, endless dilution" excelled all the other speech that Carlyle had ever heard from mortals. He admitted that Wordsworth was "a genuine man, but intrinsically ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... children in the way they should go, even from their earliest infancy. The first signs of self-will must be carefully looked for, and plucked up by the roots at once before they had time to grow. Theobald picked up this numb serpent of a metaphor and cherished it ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... or store or mill near by. In doing this, they not only injure their tender growing bodies, but indirectly, they drag down the father's wage ... The home becomes a mere rendezvous for the nightly gathering of bodies numb with weariness and minds drunk with sleep." And if they survive the factory, they marry to perpetuate and multiply their ignorance, ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... I was quite numb from the waist down, from my tumble and from running, and it was some time before I could breathe quietly. Suddenly Sperry fell ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... back door to return the civilian suit and recover the cavalry blouse and trousers left hanging in Rafferty's room. He could hear the lieutenant moving about overhead. He had to strike a light; he struck several matches; found the clothes, slipped out of the "cits" and into his own. He was cold and numb. He knew there was liquor on the sideboard in the middle room. The craze was on him, and he risked it. He struck more matches and threw the burning stumps to the floor, drank his fill, then stumbled away, intending ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal-peor." (Numb., ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... unendurable. In the first place, Nelson could not imagine a man making such a declaration; it was new to his entire experience and contrary to his code. It was unconservative, therefore it staggered him. It was, in fact, a phenomenon so unique as to leave him numb. He told himself that it must have been the act of a madman or a fool. Under no circumstances could he conceive of himself warning an enemy of his intentions; on the contrary, when he undertook to crush a rival he went about ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... all over his bright little face. Wherever he can find a strip of ice to slide across, he goes with a rush and a whoop. Sometimes there is only a raw turnip and a piece of corn pone in his pocket for dinner. His feet and fingers are always numb with cold by the time he reaches the school house, but his eyes still shine, and his whistle never loses its note ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... is of no use to talk to me. I hear what you say, of course; but it does me no good. My heart is numb." ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... glanced about her. She could no longer see the shelter she had left, and she stood alone in the midst of a tremendous desolation of rock and snow, with the valley yawning, a vast dusky pit, beneath her feet. It was appallingly lonely, and she was numb with cold, while, since she was sure that she could not climb back to her companions unassisted, there was only one person on whom she could rely, and that was the packer, who had insisted on her doing what he thought fit. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... oval-shaped thing of dull metal, with great curving cuts of glass-like substance in its blunt bow, like staring eyes; a lifeless, staring thing, stretching far into the curtain of gloom behind. How long it was, Keith could not tell; at first his numb brain refused to grasp it and reduce it to definite, sane standards of size and length. The cold weeds of the sea-floor kelp beds swayed eerily over and around it. From its bow, he saw, peculiar knobs jutted, the function of which he guessed ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... to him that during his five days' devotion to "Overdue" he had not heard from Brissenden nor even thought about him. For the first time Martin realized the daze he had been in, and he felt shame for having forgotten his friend. But even the shame did not burn very sharply. He was numb to emotions of any sort save the artistic ones concerned in the writing of "Overdue." So far as other affairs were concerned, he had been in a trance. For that matter, he was still in a trance. All this life through which the electric car whirred seemed ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... my pallet. I looked around in a dazed way and saw the Brother Director and a young gendarme by the closed door. Something black and irregular in the outline of the bed at my side attracted my eyes. I saw that it was Edouard's head buried in the drapery. As in a dream I laid my numb hand upon those crisp curls. I was an old man, she was a weak, wretched girl. She raised her face at my touch, and burned in my brain a vision of stricken agony, of horrible soul-pain, which we liken, for ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... locked and the boy turned disconsolate to his companions. It was the hour when, at home, their fathers would send them lovingly to bed, when their mothers would tuck them comfortably under the covers and kiss them good-night; and here they lay, clad in tatters, numb with cold, pinched with hunger; pictures of misery and woe. Heart-rending were the sighs, bitter the complaints, in which the poor lads ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... one of the chief's many slaves; but she had repulsed the Onondaga pagan. As Ragueneau looked, the girl fell dead with her skull split by the chief's war-axe. The Hurons on the lake now knew what awaited them; and a cry of terror arose from the children. Then a silence of numb horror settled over the incoming canoes. The women were driven ashore like lambs before wolves; but the valiant Hurons would not die without striking one blow at their inveterate and treacherous enemies. They threw themselves together back to back, prepared to fight. For a moment this show ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... moan and ever it giveth this answer: "My heart it is numb with the cold of the love that was born of the Summer— I come from the garden all white with the wrath and the sorrow of Winter; I have kissed the low, desolate tomb where my bride in her loveliness ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... I start, some clear-blown night, When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, An' creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, Walk the col' starlight into summer; 60 Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer Than the last smile thet strives to tell O' love gone heavenward in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... every one around him, but his memory was still clouded, and his thoughts sadly confused. He had partially recovered his articulation, though his speech continued to be thick and at times unintelligible. His limbs also had been partly freed from the thraldom of paralysis, but were still heavy and numb, as though they had long worn chains. He clung to Madeleine more eagerly than ever, and seemed to be disturbed and uncomfortable except when she was near him. He had a vague consciousness that she was the medium through which all good flowed in to him, and often repeated, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... be fascinated by any special route leading towards it, and that it is sufficiently free and disengaged to turn with eager interest to any problem, however novel, with which it may be suddenly confronted. Use and want are not its masters, sluggish contentment cannot numb its activity. The customers' requirements, nay, their whims and fancies, are ever sure to receive close attention and prompt satisfaction. The contrast between this unflagging alertness and the drowsy apathy of the British manufacturer and tradesman is an old story, which has evoked comments ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that had the anguish of a farewell in them, the color suddenly flushed all over her blanched face; she trembled in his arms; and a great, shivering sigh ran through her. It came too late, this warmth of love. She learned what its sweetness might have been only when her lips grew numb, and her eyes sightless, and her heart without pulse, and her ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... "Numb-head!" muttered the sheriff, pounding on the side of the cabin with his whip-stock. "Come out and show yourself! We know you're in there, and it's no ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wry face at the interruption, but after a moment's pause he took the card, put on his pince-nez, and, uttering a groan, rose, in spite of the pain in his back, to his full height, rubbing his numb fingers. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... a lope to a walk an' then he put his nose to the ground an' fairly shuffled along. I was wearin' sheepskin with the wool on, but after a time the needles began to creep in an' I grew numb as a stone, while my flesh seemed shook loose from my bones, an' it hurt me to breathe. Oh, Lord, but it was cold! If it hadn't 'a' been for the kid I'd have gotten down an' walked alongside the pony, but as it was, he was out o' the wind an' sleepin' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... how different! An educated woman, this; one who has learnt a good deal about herself and the world. She is 'emancipated,' in the true sense of the hackneyed word; that is to say, she is not only freed from those bonds that numb the faculties of mind and heart, but is able to control the native passions that would make a slave of her. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... embattled lines rising thick and green; August, with reddened orchards and heavy-headed harvests of grain, October, with yellow leaves and swart shadows; December, palaced in snow, and idly whistling through his numb fingers;-all have their various charm; and in the rose-bowers of summer, and as we spread our hands before the torches of winter, we say joyfully, "Thou hast made all things beautiful in their time." We sit around the fireside, and the angel feared and dreaded by us all ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... and at last he began to wonder if even his splendid constitution would stand a night of this exposure, bound hand and foot, without serious results. He lay awake for hours, suffering in body but rejoicing in heart. At last, numb with cold, he sank into a half-doze. He was aroused by sounds at the door—the cry of a key turning an unoiled lock and the creak of rusty hinges. Then the welcome gleam of a lantern flooded to him along the frosty floor. The visitor was Bill Brennen. He stooped above the sailor and squinted ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... shot missed, but he immediately followed it with another. It struck, for my right foot felt as if it had been hit with a club, and grew numb. Four more shots came in quick succession. One of them—which I cannot tell—struck the same foot and broke the bridge, as I knew from the immediate loss ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... job than he had expected it to be, for my pal was tired and numb. But the grave was made at last, upon the very summit of ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... my place, Fred," he said as they came in for their turn at bat. "My arm is numb and I ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... my lad," said the doctor, laying his hand upon his patient's forehead. "It feels numb and dead from ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... renown over all Sicily, and those spoils hanging in thine house?' Thereat he: 'Desire of glory is not gone, nor ambition checked by fear; but torpid age dulls my chilly blood, and my strength of limb is numb and outworn. If I had what once was mine, if I had now that prime of years, yonder braggart's boast and confidence, it had taken no prize of goodly bullock to allure me; nor heed I these gifts.' So he spoke, and on that flung down a pair of gloves ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... ashore with him, or go down trying. He bumped into a log and instinctively grasped it. It turned, and when he came up again it was bobbing five feet ahead of him. Ages seemed to pass before he flung his numb arm over it and floated with it. He was not alone in the flood; a coyote was pushing steadily across his path towards the nearer bank, and on a gliding tree trunk crouched a frightened cougar, its ears flattened and its sharp ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... dry, and stretched herself on tiptoe in front of the round eagle-crowned mirror, above the mantel vases of dyed immortelles, while she ran her fingers comb-wise through her hair. The gesture had acted on Darrow's numb feelings as the glow of the fire acted on his circulation; and when he had asked: "Aren't your feet wet, too?" and, after frank inspection of a stout-shod sole, she had answered cheerfully: "No—luckily I had on my new boots," he began to feel that human intercourse would still be tolerable ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... destined to produce a horror of great darkness, and a cup of trembling of which all the nations should drink, hardly affected Hogarth at the time. He did, indeed, shoot an interested glance at the old man, but the next moment his mind, numb that morning, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... "They are numb," he said, in surprised apology to his host. A moment later he shivered violently, beads of sweat burst out on his forehead, and the color swept from his face. He started up, staring wildly about him; he tried ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... not his wind that was weak, it was his feet—his tortured, blistered feet that were two flaming aches. Later they would become numb. He wished they were numb now, and cursed silently the man who first invented cowboy boots. Every jog of the trotting horse whose back he bestrode was a ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... of his straining shoulder blade ran down his arm, which throbbed painfully. His twitching, struggling fingers, straining against the weight which was forcing them open, clutched the rim. They were burning and yet seemed numb. Oh, if he could only wipe his palm and that rim with a dry handkerchief! He tightened his slipping fingers again and again. The muscles of his arm smarted as from a blow. He tightened his lips—and that seemed ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... room to run and slide, Denny fell to the floor and commenced to creep through the narrow space between the trampling guard's bulk and the wall. He felt his left arm and shoulder go numb as he was crushed for a fleeting instant against the wood partition. Broken, he thought dimly. The collar-bone. But still he ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... all they could. The pay was thirty cents a gallon; and just as it took a lot of cranberries to make a peck, it took a lot of these middle-sized oysters to make a gallon. To keep the oysters fresh, the sheds were left so cold that the workers must often dip their numb hands into pails of hot water. All this was hard on Grandma's rheumatism; but painful as the work was, she did not give it up until something happened that forced ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his," exclaims the truth-compelled and reluctant prophet, Numb. xxiii. 10. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... sorrowing child in her arms, to comfort her if she could, to reassure her if she had the power. But a strange icy feeling had gradually invaded her heart, even whilst she listened to the simple unsophisticated talk of Jeanne Lange. Her hands felt numb and clammy, and instinctively she withdrew away from the near vicinity of the girl. She felt as if the room, the furniture in it, even the window before her were dancing a wild and curious dance, and that from everywhere ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... high went numb. She made a gesture, as to the same reason and with the same words she'd made before, of weariness with this thing, "Ah, my God, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... were getting numb. She had been sitting on them in correct Japanese fashion all this time. She was proud of the accomplishment, which she considered must be hereditary, but she could not keep it up for much longer than half an ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... close, and she consented to fix a day for their wedding. The last of October was the moment selected, and the selection was almost all that was wanting to Bernard's happiness. I say "almost," for there was a solitary spot in his consciousness which felt numb and dead—unpervaded by the joy with which the rest of his spirit seemed to thrill and tingle. The removal of this hard grain in the sweet savour of life was needed to complete his felicity. Bernard felt that he ...
— Confidence • Henry James |
