"Numb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... feet and untied with pearl-gray fingers the great white satin ribbon which restrained them in the pew. Sylvia caught her aunt's eye on her, its anxiety rather less well hidden than usual. With no effort at all the girl achieved a flashing smile. It was not hard. She felt quite numb. She had been present only during one or two painful, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... courage as I might attain by deadening myself to the danger I was in by inflicting intense pain on myself. You have often asked me the reason of that mark on my hand; it was where, in my agony, I bit out a piece of flesh with my relentless teeth, thankful for the pain, which helped to numb my terror. I say, I was but just concealed when I heard the window lifted, and one after another stepped over the sill, and stood by me so close that I could have touched their feet. Then they laughed and whispered; my brain swam so that I could not tell the meaning of their words, but I heard my ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... Minerva, the village poetess, Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk, And all the more when "Butch" Weldy Captured me after a brutal hunt. He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers; And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up, Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice. Will some one go to the village newspaper, And gather into a book the verses I wrote?— I thirsted so for love I hungered ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... is Jane Whitly!—well, never mind the name!—this is Colonel May's house!" She was numb, and fearful of those passionate hands which might any instant drag her from the instrument. "Tell the sheriff to come quick!" she screamed. "Dale ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... as if Don Jose's dagger plunged into my heart, not Carmen's. That sounds high-flown, but I mean it—a sudden, sick, cold sensation, as if everything was numb. Lady Ver turned round pettishly to Christopher. "What on earth is the matter ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... flew together to the Villa Morla, a notorious abode of illicit lovers. It was here that the enraged Pedro caught up with them and killed Enrique with a look. Isabella Angelica was then taken against her will to join the Court. At last at Madrid. For two years, Dr. Polata tells us, her heart was numb with anguish; then gradually the life at Court, still at Madrid, began to take effect on her malleable character. She became intensely vicious: much of the sweetness portrayed in Enrique's portrait vanished, leaving her expression cross and occasionally ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... beyond the power of imagination to picture such a plight. Each girl hugged to herself the conviction that with her at least would remain immortal youth; that happen what might to the rest of mankind, no length of years could numb her own splendid vitality and ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... intensely to remember the truth always, because the truth is bound up with Marie, and Marie with the truth. Why need I be shy now about her? Why should I hesitate, under the fear of my own later timidity, of saying exactly now what I feel? God knows what I do feel! I am confused, half-numb, half-dead, I believe, with moments of fiery biting realisation. I'm neither sad, nor happy—only breathlessly expectant. The only adventure I have ever had in my life is not—no, it is not—yet ended. And I know that Marie could not have left me like ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... at a gallop towards the dawn. The dawn lay cold about Minden Cottage as we came in sight of it; and at first, noting that all the blinds were drawn, I thought the household must be asleep. Then I remembered, and shivered as I rose from my seat, cramped and stiff from the long journey, and so numb that Jim the guard had to lift me down to the porch. Miss Plinlimmon, red-eyed and tremulous, opened the door to me, embraced me, and led ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... can remembah, hoein', pickin' cotton and othah chohs 'round the fahm. We didden have much clothes, nevah no undahweah, no shoes, old ovahalls and a tattahed shirt, wintah and summah. Come de wintah, it be so cold mah feet weah plumb numb mos' o' de time and manya time—when we git a chanct—we druve the hogs from outin the bogs an' put ouah feet in the wahmed wet mud. They was cracked and the skin on the bottoms and in de toes weah cracked and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... of the biggest army 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 ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... uncertain time between night and morning she awoke; her face and the pillow were damp with the tears of sleep. She was numb from the drawing of tight clothing, and with a great mental pain and a confused sense of sadness, that weighed on her like a tangible thing. Her mind groped uncertainly for a moment; then, with a great rush, the past night and the things before it returned ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?" But the drum Answered, "Come! Better there in death united, than in life ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Philip bitterly envied him—envied his life, envied his approaching death; for was he not wrapped round with that woman's tender love, and is not such love stronger than death? Philip had felt as if his own heart was grown numb, and as though it had changed to a cold heavy stone. But at the contrast of this man's lot to his own, he felt that he had yet the power of ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... came in with chicken broth. Vesta made a light for him to sup by, protesting when he would sit up to help himself, the spoon impalpable in his numb fingers, still swollen and purple from the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... the bad taste—or perhaps it was misfortune—to blurt out an agonised "I told you so" at a time when the family was sitting numb and hushed under the blight of the first horrid blow. He did not mean to be unfeeling. It was the truth bursting from his ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... filled the soul far better than words, that curtain of foliage which masks our thought. Pierre allowed himself to be cradled by this humming. Such the song of a golden wasp that floats through the chiaroscuro of one's thought. His days became numb things in this new languor. That solitary and naked heart dreamed of ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... lost all buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked, and beat the water with my numb hands. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... the world. Once more the mighty Fletcher doth arise, Roab'd in a vest studded with stars and eyes Of all his former glories; his last worth Imbroiderd with what yet light ere brought forth. See! in this glad farewel he doth appear Stuck with the Constellations of his Sphere, Fearing we numb'd fear'd no flagration, Hath curl'd all his fires in this one ONE: Which (as they guard his hallowed chast urn) The dull ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... torments, being convinced that Barbara was dead and buried in that new-made grave beneath the trees. He could not speak, he could scarcely stand, and yet a picture began to form in his numb mind. He saw himself seated in the dark in the Treasure-house at Bonsa-Town; he saw a vision in the air ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... slowly through Juve's mind, he felt an intense desire to sleep come over him, his limbs suddenly became numb and heavy; and then ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... found she had overslept, necessitating haste upon her part. As to that, the temperature of the room did not admit of leisurely dressing. She had no adequate name for the feeling of the water. And her fingers grew so numb that she made what she considered a disgraceful matter ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... him flat 'n' plain as if he was n't goin' to marry Tilly, he need n't count on spendin' the winter as their company. Well, he says you can maybe realize what a shock that was. He says his nose was just smashed numb 'n' his sleep was full o' grabbin' at 'em in his dreams 'n' now it looked like all was for nothin' a tall. Still he says he scraped up a smile 'n' a cheerful look 'n' told Old Pearson as he was more 'n willin' to marry Tilly for his winter's board ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... moments that followed the escape of the drug were the most horrible of his life. The discovery struck old Dr. Kent, Glora and Alan into a numb, blank confusion. They stood transfixed, staring with cold terror. The fly was scurrying along the floor close against the wall Already it was as large as Alan's hand. It ran into the corner, hit the wall in its confused alarm, and turned back. Its wings were droning with an audible hum. It reared ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... and numb with cold and weak from an illness of some duration, did not raise an arm to ward off the blow, nor was he even prepared to dodge. The iron rod crashed down upon his head. His legs crumpled up; he dropped in a heap at the top of the steps and rolled ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... fight rages round me. I have done my duty. This is my consolation. I hope to meet you all again. I left not the line until all had fallen and colors gone. I am getting weak. My arms are free but below my chest all is numb. The enemy trotting over me. The numbness up to ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... without some surprize at the gross blunders that ingenious men have been forced into by endeavouring to reconcile this appearance with the ordinary Principles of optics. Since the writing of which there hath been published in the TRANSACTIONS [Numb. 187. P. 323] another paper relating to the same affair by the celebrated Dr. Wallis, wherein he attempts to account for that phenomenon which, though it seems not to contain anything new or different from what had been said before by others, I shall nevertheless consider ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... 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 ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... archers drove back the 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 ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... broke again into a canter, and it was long before the reins of the riders brought them to another pause. The day was bitterly cold, and, notwithstanding the exertion of riding, Sim's teeth chattered sometimes as with ague, and his fingers were numb and stiff. It was an hour before noon when the travellers left Kendal, and now they had ridden for two hours. The brighter clouds of the morning had disappeared, and a dull, leaden sky was overhead. Gradually the heavy atmosphere seemed to close about them, yet a cutting wind ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... huddled up in the midst of other horses and of buggies under the shed near the store, told that court had probably already convened. Hands numb, the boy hitched the old mule to the only rack left under the shed, then made Buck lie down under the buggy. Heart pounding, he went up on the store porch with his mother and pushed the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Tex was dead or alive, but he would get the body 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 ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... rubbed his eyes, and tried to stretch his limbs, now numb with the damp dullness of the night. Potts had run to him and was asking the "matter," with ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... October when, somewhere in the pile of Prosper's mail, there lay a small gray envelope. Joan drew his attention to it, calling it a "queer little letter," and he took it up slowly as though his deft and nervous fingers had gone numb. Before he opened it he looked at Joan and, in one sense, it was the last time he ever did look at her; for at that moment his stark spirit looked straight into hers, acknowledged its guilt, and bade her a mute ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... ravages of time made no difference. Could not Love work miracles! He loved her more than he had ever loved her in the olden days. He felt a mad hunger for her. Passion would give them back the fires of youth. Love was like a springtime that brings new sap to branches grown numb in the winter's cold. Let her say "Yes," and on the instant she would behold the miracle, the resurrection of their slumbering past, the awakening of their souls to ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... true indices of the change that had taken place within her. From sheer numb incredulity, which was all she had felt as she'd walked away from Rodney's office door, and from the pain of an intolerable hurt, she had reacted to a fine glow of indignation. She had found herself suddenly feeling lighter, older, indescribably more confident. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... chapel he had erected for his private devotions, first tortured him like fiends, and then, dispatching him, flung his body into a pit. His daughter, following them, clung fast to her father, and, though her heart bled and her brain grew numb between the gashes and the groans, she still cheered him with her passionate endearments; and, holding before his eyes a cross of gold that always hung on her bosom, inspired him to die like a brave man and a Christian. After ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... for bare life they were. I turned sick as I paused to listen; no answering sound came but the unfeeling echoes. Only the noiseless, pitiless snow kept falling thicker, thicker—faster, faster! I was growing numb and sleepy. I tried to move about, but I dared not go far, for fear of the precipices which, I knew, abounded in certain places on the Fells. Now and then, I stood still and shouted again; but my voice was getting choked with tears, as I thought ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell
... did not understand that there are times in life when imaginative minds seek to numb and to blunt imagination. Still less did he feel that, when we perversely refuse to apply our active faculties to the catholic interests of the world, they turn morbidly into channels of research the least ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of his wife. "She has surely been bewitched by Goody Walford, whom she met in the woods. When she first came home, she could not speak. Her breathing troubled her, but later she complained that her back was as a flame of fire and her limbs numb with cold. Goody Walford told her that she would take a long journey but would never return, and then the witch seemed to vanish in the shape of a cat. My wife has since ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... shouting, "Hello, Weary!" in a dozen different keys, and each time her blood jumped. Her eyes had not tricked her, then—though it was not the first time she had trembled to see a sorrel horse gallop down that hill, and then turned numb when came disillusionment. Would those children never start home? By degrees their shrill voices sounded further away, and the place grew still. But the schoolma'am ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... little space while they were lacing me. At the end of the first hundred hours' bout I was worn and tired, but that was all. Another bout of this duration they gave me, after a day and a night to recuperate. And then they gave one hundred and fifty hours. Much of this time I was physically numb and mentally delirious. Also, by an effort of will, I managed to sleep away ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... 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. When he came ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... tops of the highest mountains were covered with snow. It might be a week or two yet before the snow fell over the country as a whole, or it might be only a day or two; for the wind was blowing from the north, biting cold, and making us feel numb and drowsy. So my father decided that it was time to make our homes for the winter. He had already fixed upon a spot where a tree had fallen and torn out its roots, making a cave well shut in on two sides, and blocked on ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... reckon the distance: twenty-five yards away another direct hit. Crash! only twenty yards. Fifteen yards! We have only five minutes to live. Thoughts of God and home and parents rush through the mind; yet they are only numb feelings. Crash! ten yards; one more and then comes 'ours.' But no, the next boom was in the trench behind, and in the same manner that trench was ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... lay for the most part down the flat along the Chilcoot River. In fact, we crossed this stream again and again. In places there were bridges, but most of the crossings were fords where it was necessary to wade through the icy water above our shoe tops. Our legs, numb and weary, threw off this chill with greater pain each time. As the night fell we could only see the footpath by the dim shine of its surface patted smooth by the moccasined feet of the Indian packers. At last I ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... armpits in a snowdrift. He struggled out and staggered on once more. In the mad buffoonery of that cutting wind he scarce could stand upright. His parka was frozen stiff as a board. He could feel his hands grow numb in his mits. From his fingers the icy cold crept up and up. Long since he had lost all sensation in his feet. From the ankles down they were like wooden clogs. He had an idea they were frozen. He lifted them, and watched them sink and disappear in the clinging snow. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... head again upon his bosom. Hour after hour they sat, and the light swells of the sea heaved them aimlessly to and fro, and the sun burned them, and the spray drenched their limbs. At last Leonard Clare roused himself and looked around: he felt numb and faint, and he saw, also, that her strength was ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... recreation before a bite is touched. The good that such a regulation would work upon their faulty skins and pale faces, their lasting strength and health, would be incalculable. I did not want wholesome food, exhausted as I was. I craved sours and sweets, pickles, cake, anything to excite my numb taste. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... happened! I can see adoring yokels pulling their forelocks to him! He'll fit beautifully into that background!" Thus her tongue, running ripplingly on, while her heart, suddenly released from its numb depression, wired her blithe reassurance. "He's coming back,—coming back ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... the very blood sluggish with sorrow. She grew pale again, hollow-eyed, diaphanous—a prism for an unearthly ray. Her beauty took on its elfin guise; she walked a ghost. Night and day she felt for the ring; though she knew it was not there, her hand was always in her vest, her bosom always numb and cold. Sometimes her urgent need was more than she could bear. A trembling took her, an access of trembling which she could not check. At such times, if others were about her, she would sit vacant and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... the unpleasant dose, which Lorraine swallowed and straightway forgot, in the muddle of thoughts that whirled confusingly in her brain. Little things distressed her oddly, while her father's desperate state left her numb. She lay down on the cot in the farther corner of the kitchen where her father had slept just last night—it seemed so long ago!—and almost immediately, as her senses recorded it, bright sunlight was ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... men coming out to drive the cattle in to milking looked blinking up at the mountain, stood a moment before their numb minds understood what their senses were telling them, then ran shouting back to the farm houses, throwing open pasture gates and knocking down lengths of fence as they ran. Some, with nothing but fear in their hearts, ran straight to the barns and mounting the best horses fled down the roads ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... have seen the coming of death, resistless and horrible, with clearer vision than was ours as that group of savages pronounced our doom. It was by exercising the greatest effort of will that I conquered the dread sense of utter hopelessness which seemed to numb my every faculty; for, although I was to be tortured to the end, and perish at last in utmost physical agony, yet before that moment came there still remained a duty to be performed for one I loved. For that I must retain mind and strength to act ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... 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 ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... crawled out of the brook and started toward home. His little round body and his sturdy little legs were not warm now, as they had been when he sat down beneath the tree to get cool. For the mountain brook was ice-cold; and Cuffy felt quite numb from standing in it so long. But cold as he was, his face felt like fire. And for some reason, which Cuffy couldn't understand, he could hardly see to pick his way through the shadows ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... without hearing his own voice. He was trying to open the locket but his hands were numb and trembling. When at last he did open it he could not see the child face within, for now even the star-light was shut off by ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... 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 tantalization of looking ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... me, like a sea; And like an orphan, houseless, poor, unfriended, My head beneath the storm I sadly bended, Seer of the Aonian maids! I look'd for thee: Thou camest—lazy child of inspiration, My Delvig; and thy voice awaken'd straight In this numb'd heart the glow of consolation; And I was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... numb with the sudden dropping of Life's big responsibilities upon her shoulders. She could not even summon energy enough to call Vic to an accounting of his absences from the house. Until after the funeral Vic had been subdued, ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... goat, among the cliffs. Nothing so good for gout or rheumatism as to get wet through, while the thermometer keeps ranging between 60 deg. and 70 deg., three times a-day. What refreshment in the very sound—Soaking! Old bones wax dry—nerves numb—sinews stiff—flesh frail—and there is a sad drawback on the Whole Duty of Man. But a sweet, soft, sou'-wester blows "caller" on our craziness, and all our pores instinctively open their mouths at the approach of rain. Look but at those ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... moonlit passages were theirs however, who in that stormy December night first trod that pleasant shore, but rather the sternest realities of life and death, as with numb and icy fingers they struck a light and sheltered the feeble blaze loth to catch upon the wet twigs ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... first incarcerated in the wall, he should be committed to it in the presence of all the brethren, the chief reading the burial service as the live body was sepulchred. Sometimes several weeks elapsed ere the disentombment, the penitent being then usually found numb and congealed in all his extremities, like one ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... subscriber never asked any rebate, or requested a prize volume of poetry with a red cover, because he had paid for another year; but he simply warmed his numb fingers, so that he could loosen his overalls and lower one side enough to let his hand into the pocket of his best pantaloons underneath, and there he always found the smooth wallet, and inside of it there was always a $2 bill, that had been ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and her Musical acquaintances told about Shopan and Batoven he would sit back so quiet that often he got numb below the Hips. He was afraid to move his Feet for fear some one would notice that he was still in the Parlor and ask him how he liked Fugue No. II, by Bock. He had never heard of any of these People, because they did not carry Tontine Policies with ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... may believe me if you like, but when a fellow's almost starving it isn't disagreeable to keep quiet. Yes, one gets numb amidst silence; it's like an inside coating that stills the gnawing of the stomach a bit. Ah, that Chaine! You haven't a notion of his peasant nature. When he had spent his last copper without earning the fortune he expected by painting, he went into trade, a petty trade, which ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... he said to himself, in spite of the hand which held the sheet, at which the sail snatched and tugged, beginning to ache, and the other which grasped the rudder feeling numb. For the moment, too, he forgot that the sun did not always shine, and that the sea rose angrily, and that there were such things ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... from the seat of the carriage, and was so cold and numb that he couldn't walk, while Mrs. Graham had to be carried into the house by Ted and placed before ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... oncoming horde in numb despair, knowing that his nearly-paralyzed body had no chance in flight. Then, just as the hybrids were nearly upon him, he heard Ruth's ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... pretended to Prophecy by possession of a Spirit; but from the voyce of God; or by a Vision or Dream: Nor is there any thing in his Law, Morall, or Ceremoniall, by which they were taught, there was any such Enthusiasme; or any Possession. When God is sayd, (Numb. 11. 25.) to take from the Spirit that was in Moses, and give it to the 70. Elders, the Spirit of God (taking it for the substance of God) is not divided. The Scriptures by the Spirit of God in man, mean a mans spirit, enclined ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... against everything human or divine that could have any possible hand in his defeat, Leyden gathered superhuman strength out of his desperation and tore loose his knife hand. His other hand, at Vandersee's throat, had grown white and numb from its own efforts that had not changed the Hollander's expression one bit; but now, in a last swift up-stroke of the knife, the cornered rat ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... "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 ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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
... and to see that they were carried out. (60) I say he alone, for if anyone during the life of Moses was desirous of preaching anything in the name of the Lord, he was, even if a true prophet, considered guilty and a usurper of the sovereign right (Numb. xi:28) [Endnote 30]. (61) We may here notice, that though the people had elected Moses, they could not rightfully elect Moses's successor; for having transferred to Moses their right of consulting God, and ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... been hovering over me for hours closed down now and enveloped all my senses. Everything was unreal. For a time I was quite numb. But then, as I began to realize and to visualize what it was to mean in my life that my boy was dead there came a great pain. The iron of realization slowly seared every word of that curt telegram upon my heart. ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... for a winter to come, I shall be glad of a home and a crumb, When my frail form out of doors would be numb, And I in the snow-storm should die. Summer is lovely, but soon will be past. Summer has plenty not always to last. Summer's the time for the ant to make fast Her stores ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... something unforeseen Disturbs the mind that else had been serene. Joy, grief, desire or fear, whate'er the name The passion bears, its influence is the same; Where things exceed your hope or fall below, You stare, look blank, grow numb from top to toe. E'en virtue's self, if followed to excess, Turns right to ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... the whole house is alarmed, the man sits down firmly possessed by the idea that he is mortally bitten. Gradually his fears work the effect a real poisonous bite would produce. His eye gets dull, his pulse grows feeble, his extremities cold and numb, and unless forcibly roused by the bystanders he will actually succumb to pure fright, not to the snake-bite at all. My chief care when a case of this sort was brought me, was to assume a cheery demeanour, laugh to scorn the fears of the relatives, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... away from old Kentucky, surrounded by a lot of numb-skulls who couldn't mix a fancy drink to save their lives, who know nothing of that prismatic, rainbow-hued fountain ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and silent, and Nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could be no more. From these latter attacks I awoke, however, with a gradation slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure. Just ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was intended as an apology, or at least as an explanation of sorts. It was rather appealing in its boyish clumsiness, but she felt too numb, too utterly weary, to respond ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... door in time to hear the tail-end of the sentence, crept back to bed feeling numb and dazed. So even his father thought he was ...
— Native Son • T. D. Hamm
... every girl to be born under conditions which will make possible sufficient food and clothing for her natural growth and development. But scores of little girls go shivering to school every morning after a breakfast of bread and tea, they return numb with cold after a dinner of more bread and tea and they go home to a supper of the same with a piece of stale cake or a cookie to help out. Nature calls aloud for nourishment and there is no answer. The girl enters her teens, finds a "job," goes to work, ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... window-pane thinking of her lover when the stranger passed; and she opened the door to the clergyman's knock. There could be no mistaking who this girl was, and the clergyman's heart was numb as he ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... night, as soon as it was dark, I crawled out, and worked my way to the foot of the ravine. At first I was so stiff and numb I could hardly move hand or foot, but as I crawled along, the blood began to warm up, and soon I was able to walk. I crept cautiously along the bluffs until I had cleared the ravine, and then, striking out on the open ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... day of the month was kept with burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. Vide Numb. x. 10. and xxviii. 11. In imitation of the Jews, the calends, or first days of the month, and the fourth and seventh of the week, were sacred ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... to go, alas, ere he was to begin that sturdy battle for the right for which his countrymen and ours will always bless him. I gave him my hand with a better will than I had ever done anything, and we pressed our fingers numb. And his was not the only hand I clasped. And honest Jack Comyn ordered more wine, that they might drink to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... quick work for Ida's experienced hands to get them into the life-boat; and so nearly frozen were they that she was obliged to rest on her oars, at the same time rubbing their numb limbs as well as she could. Then she rowed for shore faster than she had ever rowed but once before, and, as she ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the woman been touched by the fringe of that magnetic wave of passion even as it rose to its utmost height, nearly sweeping the man off his feet, and in its final retreat leaving him with quivering nerves and senses bruised and numb? Did something of the man's suffering, of his love and of his despair appear—despite his efforts—upon his face and in the depth of his glance?—and thus made visible did they—even through their compelling intensity—cause that invisible barrier ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... shocked. It is a peculiar case. Not once in a score of years do we find such a case. Every nerve is numb, every muscle relaxed, and whether he will live or die depends on arousing him from ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... powerful goddess, but meeting a premature death by accident and descending into the dark land of shades, from which, however, after a time he returns as glorious and beautiful as before. In this poetical fancy, the land of shades symbolizes the numb and lifeless period of winter as aptly as the Waters of Death in the Izdubar Epic, while the seeming death of the young god answers to the sickening of the hero at that declining season of the year when the sun's rays lose their vigor and are overcome by the powers of darkness and cold. ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... required; for the Russians themselves were frozen, and obliged to disperse before night into the neighbouring habitations, which they durst not quit until it was completely daylight. They then recommenced their pursuit of us, but without making any attack; for with the exception of some numb efforts, the violence of the temperature was such as not to allow either party to halt with the view of making an ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... maketh ever more 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 lieth And the voice of the ghost in my heart is the voice ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... and head were released. But her hands and feet were numb. Still feeling as if she were in some dreadful dream she saw the beam of the headlights picking out the winding trail, flashing on trees by the wayside, shining on wet rocks, heard the chatter of the creek over stones and the labor of ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... to secure any great amount of sleep. Their hard resting-place prevented such a thing. After a nap of possibly half an hour Frank would awaken to find one of his legs numb under him, while his muscles fairly ached with the severe strain to which ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... little estray by the arm, and hurried her along. Poor little Jennie! her feet seemed hardly to touch the ground, they were so cold and numb. She didn't much care even if she was being taken ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... a nervous vibration seemed to seize upon her whole body. She cleared her throat sharply. It was like a premonitory click of machinery before motion, and Lois waited, numb with fear, for what she might say. Suppose she should suddenly suspect, and should cry out, "Is this ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... guided his horse close to the machine and reached down to snatch away the rug already heavy with snow. To his surprise, it was a girl's despairing face that looked up at him. She tried to rise, but fell back, her muscles too numb ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... mostly gone, and nothing to show for it but a somewhat pleasure-beaten face and a deep hatred of the crowded, scrambling East. So he suddenly bought a ticket for Green River, Wyoming, and escaped from the city that seemed to numb his ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... tea-party seemed to Adam, whose faculties were at their utmost intensity, like a terrible dream. As for poor Mimi, she was so overwrought both with present and future fear, and with horror at the danger she had escaped, that her faculties were numb. However, she was braced up for a trial, and she felt assured that whatever might come she would be able to go through with it. Sir Nathaniel seemed just as usual—suave, dignified, and ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... Numb fingers groped anxiously for the harp on his back. It still seemed intact in its leather case. He didn't care about the sodden wadmal breeks and tunic that hung around his skin. The sooner they rotted off him, the better. The thought of the silks and linens of Croy ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... sudden pain at the site of impaction of the embolus, and the pulses beyond are lost. The limb becomes cold, numb, insensitive, and powerless. It is often pale at first—hence the term "white gangrene" sometimes applicable to the early appearances, which closely resemble those presented by the limb of ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... his Intelligencer Numb. 3. has given us a vindication of Mr. Gay, and the Beggars Opera; he observes, 'that though an evil taste be very apt to prevail both in Dublin and in London; yet, there is a point which whoever can rightly touch, will never fail of pleasing a very great majority; so great that the dislikers, out ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... and command to Moses, in the choice of magistrates, supreme and subordinate; and discovers, that people are not left to their own will in this matter. It is God's direction, that the person advanced to rule, must be a man in whom is the spirit; Numb. xxvii, 18; which Deut. xxxiv, 9, interprets to be the spirit of wisdom, (i.e.) the spirit of government, fitting and capacitating a man to discharge the duties of the magistratical office, to the glory of God and the ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... 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, ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... The eyes of the whole world are upon you. It is now imperative that in the battle with our most hated foe we shall not grow numb, and that we shall at last break his arrogance. Already he is growing pliable, (muerbe.) Numerous officers and men have surrendered voluntarily, but the great decisive blow is still to be struck. Therefore you must persevere to the end. The enemy must ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... us laugh at what many would have considered the hardships of our lot. She taught us not only to accept the circumstances in which we found ourselves, but to win from them courage and strength. When we came in shivering from our work, through a snowstorm, complaining of numb hands and feet, she would say cheerily, "But it doesn't make you any warmer to say you are cold;" and this was typical of the way she took life generally, and tried to have us take it. She was constantly denying herself for our sakes, ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... to the next turn!" exclaimed Tom prayerfully. He was sitting waist-deep in water, and his teeth were chattering. He was becoming numb again, but there was no opportunity for exercise now. The old flatboat seemed ready to slide from under him at ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... of blood are mentioned in the law of Moses, Numb. xxxv. 19. In the Roman law also, under the head of "those who on account of unworthiness are deprived of their inheritance," it is pronounced, that "such heirs as are proved to have neglected revenging the testator's death, shall be obliged ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... leaving her as a suing of music unkindly smitten. If she stayed in this house her chamber would no longer be a sanctuary. Dolorous bondage! Insolent death is not worse. Death's worm we cannot keep away, but when he has us we are numb to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for the hands of the sailors were numb with cold, the ropes stiff with ice, while the wild and angry wind snatched at the tackle and ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... with her nose as he strove, with numb fingers, to repair the damage. The bells were still, and the silence of the winter night was oppressive. The dry rustle of some dead leaves that still clung forlornly to a ghostly beech by the wayside sounded loud and startling. All at once the doctor was conscious of another ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... of the 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; ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... clamber out was impossible, for every time he tried the thin ice would break afresh under his hands and submerge him again in the bitter cold of the moving stream. Over and over he tried to pull himself to safety but without success. Then suddenly he felt himself becoming numb and helpless. His teeth chattered and he could no longer retain his hold on the frail support that was keeping his head above water. He was slipping back into the river. He was not going to ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... almost numb to sensation. The coolness that had condensed round his soul last night had hardened into ice; he scarcely realised what was going on, or how great was the catastrophe into which his life was plunged. There lay the roofs before him—he ran his eye ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... men into slavery, but rather it shall call forth to the light of heaven a new, richer soul of life out of the ruins of a storm-tossed civilization. It shall, it must, it will conquer new provinces for the majesty of the noble German spirit (Deutschheit) that never will grow chill and numb, as the Roman did. Otherwise—and even though unnumbered billions flowed into the Rhine—the expense of this war would ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... reaction from the intense feeling which had possessed him that morning. When he had at first returned to his cell his mind was intensely alive, and a thousand plans were flashing through his brain, a thousand questions occurred to him which demanded an answer. Now, however, that numb, dull feeling which ever follows such experiences possessed him. After all, what mattered? Mary Bolitho could never be his wife, and if Fate had decided upon his death, die he must. Indeed, he did not seem to care very much. It seemed as if, for the time being, his nature had become almost ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... was engrossed with stifling the ache he had begun to think was dead because it had grown numb, bowed his head without speaking his assent and rose ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... damp. Then Daniel sank down. He tried to reach a hand to the water, but could not. The black veil had woven a compact mass before his eyes. There was a terrible throbbing in his head, but his arms were numb. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... last, to find her dead body lying there, cold and pale in the lightning flashes that broke against the windows. He found me alone with my dead sister, numb with sorrow, dead ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Gray, holding his numb hands to the blaze. "We left here early in the night and worked on a wrong trail till midnight. Then a train-man out at the Junction gave us a clue, and we got a couple of bloodhounds and traced Wilson as ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... delay, But give it, (I don't mean to be ironical,) A prominent position in the CHRONICLE. My wife and children cry to me for corn With feeble earnestness and chirp forlorn, My eye is dim, my heart within me pines, My claws so numb I scarce can scratch two lines, My head—no more will I your feelings harrow, But sign me, Truly yours, Till death, All Souls' ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... with every deep breath he drew, was shaking off his dizziness, was regaining his strength. The spirit within him, with all of the battering he had received, was still unbroken. And Conniston himself felt his right arm growing numb to the elbow. In a very few seconds he would be like a rag doll in the other's big, ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory |
