"Numbing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell, it was a marvel he had borne it so long. Only a numbing blow such as he had received could have stunned his faculties into acquiescence with this sleepy, uneventful existence; and now, suddenly, his soul awoke from its peaceful slumber and demanded life, ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... frost tingled in their feet. It was bitter cold, at least sixty-five below zero, and when Kama harnessed the dogs with naked hands he was compelled several times to go over to the fire and warm the numbing finger-tips. Together the two men loaded and lashed the sled. They warmed their hands for the last time, pulled on their mittens, and mushed the dogs over the bank and down to the river-trail. According to Daylight's estimate, it was around ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... his own rooms, and walked without hesitation to the window, which was still open. The fresh air was almost a necessity, for he felt himself being slowly stifled. His knees were shaking, a cold icy horror was numbing his heart and senses. A feeling of nightmare was upon him, as though he had risen unexpectedly from a bed of delirium. There in front of him, a little to the left, was the broad empty street amongst whose shadows she had disappeared. On one side was the Park, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... when Stella so far recovered from the strain which she had been undergoing, to learn that Bud was safe, although he had passed a very uncomfortable as well as perilous night tied to a tree with the cold numbing him, and wolves ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... came a rolling, ear-numbing crash. Lance, safe at a perch of a few thousand feet, grinned as his narrowed eyes beheld the sticky curtain of death-crammed gas hug over the ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... and which he regarded as the sign of a superior mind; nor was it long, indeed, before what we call "a superior mind" developed itself in the young Lucretia. All children are quick till they are set methodically to study; but Lucretia's quickness defied even that numbing ordeal, by which half of us are rendered dunces. Rapidity and precision in all the tasks set to her, in the comprehension of all the explanations given to her questions, evinced singular powers of ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... boasted independence had not been able to save her. She had paid heavily for the determination to ignore the restrictions of her sex laid upon her and the payment was not yet over. Her tired body shrank from the struggle that must recommence so soon. If he would only spare her until this numbing weariness that made her so powerless should lessen. She heard his voice at the door and her icy fingers grasped at the book that had slipped to the ground. The thick rugs deadened the sound of his movements, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... whirled her into the clouds, that gave to her will the directless energy of a chip of wood on stormy waters. But before the Grieg concerto was done, she knew that she was free. Free! All the fine ecstasy, without the numbing terror. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... no more moment than a pageant or a play to them themselves that were having their first taste of war. Though I gave and took some knocks as the others did, and shouted as they shouted, I had at the time no fear, not because of my valor, but because of a sudden numbing of my wits, which left me with no intelligence to do otherwise than charge and shout and lay ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with horror when he emerges from Charing Cross. "Can these smudgy, dirty, evil-smelling creatures compose the dominant race?" is the thought of even the most "loyal" Indian as he moves among the crowd of English workpeople. And it is only the numbing power of habit that silences the question in ourselves. Cheap as English clothing is, second-hand it is cheaper still, and I suppose that out of that quarter-million people on the Heath every fine Bank Holiday hardly one per cent. wears clothes that no one has ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... gone through these experiences more than once, and fully realised the peculiar sensation of helplessness, confusion, and brain numbing which follows. Dark as pitch is mostly a figure of speech, for the obscurity is generally relieved by something in the form of dull light which does enable a person to see his hand before him; but the blackness around, when Archibald Raystoke began to come back to his senses, would have left ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... spell of concentration on these things, Determined now, that long have wasted him, Have left him in a numbing lethargy, From which I fear he may not rouse to strength For speech with ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... through years and years during that ninety-mile journey. On all sides of him stretched the blinding white, snow-covered prairie. Not a tree, not an object to mark the trail. The wind blew straight and level directly down from the Arctic zone, icy, cutting, numbing. It whistled past his ears, pricking and stinging his face like a whiplash. The cold, yellow sunlight on the snow blinded him, like a light flashed from a mirror. Not a human habitation, not a living thing, lay in his path. Night came, with countless stars and a joyous crescent ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... faint of the starlit sky The gleaming snow-drifts lay wide and high; O'er hill and dell stretched a mantle white, The branches glittered with crystal bright; But the winter wind's keen icy breath Was merciless, numbing ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... the smoothness of the water permitted us to hale the seyne. Amongst the rest, we got here cavallies, breams, mullets, soles, fiddle-fish, sea eggs, and lobsters; and here, and in no other place, met with that extraordinary fish called the Torpedo, or numbing fish, which is in shape very like the fiddle-fish, and is not to be known from it but by a brown circular spot of about the bigness of a crown-piece near the centre of its back; perhaps its figure will be better understood when I say it is a flat fish, much resembling the thorn-back. This ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... pass? It seemed to her that the rocks, the sea and the sky had slowly sucked her vitality away from her till at last she could not eat, could not walk, could not think. All that time her mind had never thought of loneliness, the thing that was killing her had veiled itself by numbing her brain and weakening her body. But near death her mind had cleared and the great grief of desolation stood before her. Then God-sent, a form had pushed the grief aside and a hand had taken her lonely hand and a finger had moistened her lips. But ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... sorrows of mistakes, bruising, numbing; the ache of disappointments, ingratitudes, betrayals,—Nature surging on to her fulfillment sweeps them away, like fences before a flood, allowing no obstructions to Youth's kinship with Spring. So the young may not mourn long; ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Never before had he seen me for the first time any day, without giving me a kiss; never before, it seemed to me, had he spoken to me without a smile: I had been lost and was found, and he was not glad! The strange reception fell on me like a numbing spell. I had nothing to say, no impulse to move, no part in the present world. He caught me up in his arms, hid his face upon me, knocked his shoulder heavily against the door-post as he went from the ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... something that did the day's work mechanically. To toil all day in the bow or stern of a boat in the scorching heat of the pitiless sun, or walk over blistering rock and dazzling sand; to sleep at night inside a square of good British bayonets, chilled by the numbing wind from the north; to rise at the bugle-call and go at it again—that was the unvarying programme. Cataract and sand plain succeeded cataract and sand plain with such deadly monotony, that all sense of time, place, and progress was blotted out. They seemed stationary ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... that I was in did not hold fast my inner consciousness; being rather a numbing cloud surrounding me and separating me from things external—though not cutting me off from them wholly—while within this wrapping my spirit in a way was awake and free. And the result of my being thus on something ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... the service and rude work of the world. And it can be done—do not let us be afraid—it can be done without in the least degree impairing the skill of our handicraftsmen or the manliness of our national life. It can be done without blunting or numbing the practical ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... thing to be gained if still there might be the possibility of gaining her. He felt that he really loved her, and yet he was almost angry with himself for so feeling. Why had he subjected himself to this numbing weakness? His love had never given him any pleasure. Indeed he had never hitherto acknowledged it; but now he was driven to do so on finding it to be the source of trouble and pain. I think it is ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... a tangent, leaving Jeffreys, cool in body and mind, to await his return. To an ordinarily excitable person, the position was a critical one. The water was numbing; the ice at the edge of the hole was rotten, and broke away with every effort he made to climb on to it; even Julius, floundering beside him, bewildered, and at times a dead weight on his arms and neck, was embarrassing. Jeffreys, however, did not exhaust himself by wild struggles. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... inexplicable feeling of discomfort seized me. It seemed to me as if some unknown force were numbing and stopping me, were preventing me from going farther and were calling me back. I felt that painful wish to return which oppresses you when you have left a beloved invalid at home, and when you are seized by a presentiment that ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... of roses to this new home in the West. Riggs would follow her, if he could not accompany her, and to gain his own ends he would stoop to anything. Helen felt the startling realization of being cast upon her own resources, and then a numbing discouragement and loneliness and helplessness. But these feelings did not long persist in the quick pride and flash of her temper. Opportunity knocked at her door and she meant to be at home to it. She ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... she with precious vialed liquors heals: For which the shepherds, at their festivals, Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays, And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream 850 Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils. And, as the old swain said, she can unlock The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell, If she be right invoked in warbled song; For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift To aid a virgin, such as was herself, In hard-besetting need. This will I try, And add the power of some ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... ineffective violence, leapt far out of reach before turning to see what had happened. The Chief recovered himself, and the two lashed out at each other so exactly together that the great clubs met in mid-air. So shattering was the force of the impact, so numbing the shock to the hairy wrists behind it, that both weapons ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... And whither, As I wait alone where the fair was? Into the clammy and numbing night-fog Whence they entered hither. Soon do ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... attached to the terms used intimated the existence of a low intrigue, quite as much as any honourable "engagement." If Cornelia did not soon become the lawful wife of Lucius Ahenobarbus, the world would feel justified in piling scandal upon her name. The blow was numbing in its brutality. Instead of crying and execrating the liars, as Herennia fully expected her to do, Cornelia merely handed back the tablets, and said with cold dignity, "I think some very unfortunate mistake has been made. Lucius ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... surrendering himself to the sleep of death. But when I asked her again to lie down she managed to answer me, "Not in this room." The dumb spell was broken. She turned her head from side to side, but oh! how cold she was! It seemed to come out of her, numbing me, too; and the very diamonds on the arrow of gold sparkled like hoar frost in the light ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... I can figure, this is about what must have happened. Some sudden, deadly, numbing plague or cataclysm must have struck the earth, long, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Snake River he had saved Steve's life once when he was drowning. The boy had always been as close to him as a brother. That Steve should turn traitor was not conceivable. He knew all his intimate plans, stood second to himself in the company. Oh, it was a numbing blow! Ridgway's sense of personal loss and outrage almost obliterated for the moment his appreciation ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... a step forward, and before I could recover from the first numbing shock of surprise was ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... fallen asleep, and when the cold was numbing in her limbs, she stayed there, pouring forth her importunate questions—the woman begging guidance, when she knows full well what course ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... not see that my lord is in danger of his life?" she cried. "Nay, I forgot, thou hast no vision. Take it now from me and look again;" and laying her hand, from which a strange, numbing current seemed to flow, upon my head, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... coaching, namely, to sit tight and hang on. No sea that ever ran can sink a canoe. Wood is buoyant. So long as she could hold on, the submerged craft would keep her head and shoulders above water. But it was numbing cold. Fed by glacial streams, Roaring Lake is icy ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... touch her hair was so compelling that he started back, shaken; a new discordant tumult rose within him, out of which emerged an aching hunger for Rosemary Roselle; he wanted her with a passion cold and numbing like ether. He wanted her without reason, and in the desire lost his deep caution, his rectitude of conscience. He was torn far beyond the emotional possibilities of weak men. The fact that, penniless and without a home, he had nothing to ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... they strolled on to her favourite view. Down the Toulon road gardens and hills were bathed in the colour of ripe apricot; an evening crispness had stolen on the air; the blood, released from the sun's numbing, ran gladly in the veins. On the right hand of the road was a Frenchman playing bowls. Enormous, busy, pleased, and upright as a soldier, pathetically trotting his vast carcass from end to end, he delighted Shelton. But Antonia threw a single ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... galling his shoulders, Wyllard was conscious of little beyond the unceasing pain in his joints and the leaden heaviness of his limbs. The recollection of that march haunted him like a horrible nightmare long afterwards, when each sensation and incident emerged from the haze of numbing misery. He remembered that he stormed at Charly, who lagged behind now and then in a fit of languid dejection, and that once he fell heavily, and was sensible of a half-conscious regret that he was still capable of going on, ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... pictured it to be, and the experience which is common to all who take part in it for the first time defies expression. A peculiar sensation creeps annoyingly slowly along the spinal column, subtly affecting every member of the body. There's a gripping of the heart and a numbing of the brain, and the tongue persistently cleaves to the roof of the mouth, which seems as dry as powdered chalk. A choking sensation accompanies every effort to cough. You may be in the stepping-off trench or lying face-down on the ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... and held out an eleven-inch hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' good; an' this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments." A smothered chuckle on deck caught his ear. "I am very seldom mistook in my jedgments." The eleven-inch hand closed on Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "We'll put a little more gristle to that 'fore we've done with you, young feller; an' I don't think any worse of ye fer anythin' the's gone by. You wasn't fairly responsible. Go right abaout your business an' you won't ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... metal. A contempt for the lesser degrees possessed him, for a flawed or clumsy forging, for weakness of the flesh, the fatality of easy surrender. An overwhelming, passionate emotion swept him to his feet, clenched his hands, filled him with a numbing desire ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... wrists tiring him, weighing on the pit of his stomach, numbing the back of his brain, making his limbs as heavy as ponderous lead. It seemed to the wearied engineer that there was nothing in this world to be desired but a good sound sleep; he fought against it desperately, ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... of perfect bliss, which I would fain promise myself in it."[237] To pluck so gracious a flower of hope on the edge of the sombre unechoing gulf of nothingness into which our friend has slid silently down, is a natural impulse of the sensitive soul, numbing remorse and giving a moment's relief to the hunger and thirst of a tenderness that has been robbed of its object. Yet would not men be more likely to have a deeper love for those about them, and a ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... spread palms, through ardour of desire He sought to enfold me fast, but vigour none, Or force, as erst, his agile limbs inform'd. I, pity-moved, wept at the sight, and him, In accents wing'd by friendship, thus address'd. 480 Ah glorious son of Atreus, King of men! What hand inflicted the all-numbing stroke Of death on thee? Say, didst thou perish sunk By howling tempests irresistible Which Neptune raised, or on dry land by force Of hostile multitudes, while cutting off Beeves from the herd, or driving flocks away, Or fighting for Achaia's daughters, shut Within ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... first symptoms are a loss of strength in the legs, "looseness in the knees," cramps in the calves, swelling, and numbness. This, Dr. Anderson, who has studied kak'ke in more than 1100 cases in Tokiyo, calls the sub-acute form. The chronic is a slow, numbing, and wasting malady, which, if unchecked, results in death from paralysis and exhaustion in from six months to three years. The third, or acute form, Dr. Anderson describes thus. After remarking that the grave symptoms set in quite unexpectedly, and go on rapidly ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... nothing could do that," he declared earnestly. Had he been thinking of aught but her eyes he might have caught the significance of her words. But, then, the cold was numbing. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... out of hers. By day I wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul to its grave. * * * * * * * * ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... of confidence came also the revival of activity in traffic and commerce, and in all the busy intercourse of daily life. A numbing load was taken off each heart and brain, and once more men bought and sold, and formed their plans fleely, as had been done before the dire Carthaginians came into Italy. Hannibal was, certainly, still ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... may live to be a thousand years old and have nothing to tell but that one day is like another; and the history of friend Goody Twoshoes has not much more variety than theirs. Hard labor, hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all night, and gnawing hunger most days. That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, "Thank heaven, I am not as one of these?" If I were eighty, would I like to feel the hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when Mr. Bumble the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... aggrieved. An arrow had burst to pieces unaccountably in his bow, numbing his arm and wounding him on the chin, and now he was outpaced at his own game of cold silence. He grew angry and dug David in ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... anxious to start straight with the clergy, etc., and, if possible, to see something of the local life. It was a market-town—as tiny a one as England possesses—and had for ages served that lonely valley, and guarded our marches against the Kelt. In spite of the occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that greeted her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington, her senses were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove one of her innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, nor the things ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... back, but he was suffering so intensely from the icy nip of the water that he felt no disposition to talk, and simply pushed ahead for all he was worth, hoping that by dint of violent exertion he might be able to conquer the numbing sensation that ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... the handsome Miss Morton and the eldest Miss Morton, and not counting the basket for the kitten christened Epaminondas, and maintained by the youngest Miss Morton over family protests—in the Captain's household there is peace and joy, if one excepts the numbing fear of a "step" that sometimes prostrates the eldest Miss Morton and her handsome sister; a fear that shelters their father against the wily designs of their sex upon a meek and defenseless and rather obliging gentleman. So they cannot ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... years encrust her With a numbing mail of stone, Till her laugh lose half its lustre, And her truth forswear its tone, And she see God's might and mercy ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Thelema. But his father's reception of the news of last night's escapade and the few words he had said had given him pause. Life had taken on of a sudden a less simple aspect. Dimly, for he was not accustomed to thinking along these lines, he perceived the numbing truth that we human beings are merely as many pieces in a jig-saw puzzle and that our every movement affects the fortunes of some other piece. Just so, faintly at first and taking shape by degrees, must the germ of civic spirit ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... in my mind, for in a second my rapid career was interrupted. At the furthest point from help or human presence the ice gave way with a crash, and I shrieked aloud at the shock of the bitter water. Oh, how cold it was! how piercing, frightful, numbing! It was not deep—scarcely above my knees, but the difficulty was how to get out. Put my hand where I would the ice gave way. I could only plunge in the icy water, feeling the sodden grass under my feet. What sort of things might ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... His fast numbing brain refused to reconstruct clearly, and yet dimly he knew that this sentiment was not the one which he had heard a few ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... my own door after eleven years of weary wandering, of lonely agony, of God-forsaken life, waiting excitedly, yet with a numbing pain at my heart, for the meeting with my mother. Ah, how should I look her in her face when she asked me for her son; how should I withstand her withering scorn, her terrible wrath? It was eventime, and the October winds had shorn much of the foliage from the ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... woman again looked at him with a strange look. The manufacturer Whistled to himself, and giving his horse a smart cut with the whip, drove on faster than ever. The night was fast settling down; it was numbing cold; a gray fog rose from the river as they thundered over the old bridge; and tall engine chimneys, and black smoky houses loomed through the dusk before them. They were ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... to be his attitude? How had he changed? That he had not changed to her Lloyd knew in an instant. He still loved her; that was beyond all doubt. But this terrible apathy that seemed now to be a part of him! She had heard of the numbing stupor that invades those who stay beyond their time in the Ice, but never before had she seen it in its reality. It was not a lack of intelligence; it seemed rather to be the machinery of intelligence rusted and clogged from long ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... she called to mind the sacrifices Offered to her of him continually. Therefore she turned aside from Argive men The might of Aias. As a terrible storm, Whose wings are laden with dread hurricane-blasts, Cometh with portents of heart-numbing fear To shipmen, when the Pleiads, fleeing adread From glorious Orion, plunge beneath The stream of tireless Ocean, when the air Is turmoil, and the sea is mad with storm; So rushed he, whithersoe'er his feet might bear. ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... him greater disquietude than did darkness. Direct sunlight, of which, as the sun passed daily round the house, each of his rooms had now its share, was like a flame in his brain; and even diffused light was a dull and numbing ache. He began, at successive hours of the day, one after another, to lower his crimson blinds. He made short and daring excursions in order to do this; but he was ever careful to leave his retreat open, in case he should have sudden ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Brian had just passed the tall, white column disappearing into the street which leads to the Borgo Ogni Santi. Erica turned to begin her new chapter of life heavily handicapped in the race for once more that deadly faintness crept over her, a numbing, stifling pressure, as if Pain in physical form had seized her heart in his cold clasp. But with all her strength she fought against it, forcing herself to count the hateful little bits of paper, and thankful that her father was too much ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... when she could write without orthographical errors, and could play by rote a few pieces of pianoforte music, her education had been pronounced completed. In the profound moral revolution which her nature had recently undergone her intellect also shared; when the first numbing shock had spent itself, she felt the growth of an intellectual appetite formerly unknown. Resolutely setting herself to exalt her husband, she magnified his acquirements, and, as a duty, directed her mind to the things he deemed of importance. One of her impulses ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Hal for a year, and she felt an ache for her. In the shifting, unreliable, soul-numbing atmosphere of her stage career, she still looked upon Hal as a City of Refuge; and when she had not seen her for some time she felt herself drifting ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... mine to proclaim, but if it cannot be announced with certitude that Mrs. Grundy is no more, it may, at all events, be affirmed without hesitation that she is on her deathbed, and that surely, if slowly, she is breathing her last. Yes, that poisonous breath, which has so long pervaded like numbing miasma the free air of the world, will soon be out of her foolish, hypocritical old body; and though it may still linger on here and there in provincial backwoods and suburban fastnesses, from the great air centres of civilization it will ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... teeth. The dread he would not acknowledge hung like a numbing weight upon him. Somehow, inexplicably, he knew that he was nearing the end of ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... contained. It was not that he did not understand the meaning; he himself had known a line bombed out before now, the trenches rent and torn apart, the shattered limbs and broken bodies of the defenders, the horrible ripping crash of the bombs, the blinding flame, the numbing shock, the smoke and reek and noise of the explosions; but though all these things were known to him, the words "bombed out" meant no more now than nine letters of the alphabet and the maddening ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... herself to hide. (Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied). Unto her was he led, or rather drawn By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn. The nearer that he came, the more she fled, And, seeking refuge, slipped into her bed. Whereon Leander sitting thus began, Through numbing cold, all feeble, faint, and wan. "If not for love, yet, love, for pity sake, Me in thy bed and maiden bosom take. At least vouchsafe these arms some little room, Who, hoping to embrace thee, cheerly swum. This head was beat with many a churlish ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... Panthay ran up. The natives seemed to understand at once what was wrong, for both began to rub Jack's ankles and wrists briskly. Jack had to set his teeth to keep back a cry of pain. After the long numbing confinement, it was pure agony when the blood began to move freely once more, but he grinned and bore it, and soon began to ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... the thick quickset, and, gliding down, began to move across the lane to the other side, like a line of golden light. Uttering a cry of pleasure, I sprang forward, and seized it nearly by the middle. A strange sensation of numbing coldness seemed to pervade my whole arm, which surprised me the more as the object to the eye appeared so warm and sunlike. I did not drop it, however, but, holding it up, looked at it intently, as its head dangled about a foot from my hand. It made no resistance; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... concentration of will. Even then my body was numbing and prickling through the loss of circulation. I directed my will to the little toe of my right foot, and I willed that toe to cease to be alive in my consciousness. I willed that toe to die—to die so far as I, its lord, and a different ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... he got his breath again; and now began to see his own misfortune. Yet not all at once to realize it, so sudden and numbing was the stroke. He staggered on, but scarce feeling or caring whither he was going; and every now and then he stopped, and his arms fell and his head sank on his chest, and he stood motionless: then he said ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... in the northland, winter encroached greedily upon spring. The latter end of March, the weather did not moderate. Instead, the wide valley became a channel for winds that were weighted with numbing sleet. Then, April returned angrily, bringing cold rains and blows to ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... his magazines of nitric stores, Azotic charms and muriatic powers; Hail, with its glassy globes, and brume congeal'd, Rime's fleecy flakes, and storm that heaps the field Strike thro the sullen Stream with numbing force, Obstruct his sluices and impede his course. In vain he strives; his might interior fails; Nor spring's approach, nor earth's whole heat avails; He calls his hoary Sire; old Ocean roars Responsive echoes thro the Shetland shores. He comes, the Father! from ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... what was necessary for defence, all the life of the house seemed stopped. Not a woman appeared; all the doors were closed; and the numbing desolation of a great bereavement was symbolized by Don Bal-thasar's chair in the patio, which had remained lying overturned in full view of every part of the house, till I could bear the sight no longer, and asked Cesar to have it put away. "Si, Senor," he said deferentially, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... our land from Britain's numbing hold? "They who had naught to loose," the Tories say; That is—not menials in the King's sure pay, Nor mongrels, chained to guard their master's gold. They were True Men. Their spirit, young and bold, With dreams played follow-master, climbing day From deepest night, ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... cannon's mouth is trivial in its effect on the mind in comparison with the menace of a Shadow. It is the pestilence that walketh by night that is intolerable. As for myself, I confess to being pervaded with a nameless and numbing awe during all those weeks. And this feeling appeared to be general in the land. The journals had but one topic; the party organs threw politics to the winds. I heard that on the Stock Exchange, as in the Paris Bourse, business decreased ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... feeling as if the faint, sweet, overpowering perfume were a kind of anodyne, that was mercifully, during those early days, lulling her senses into lethargy. To the end of her days the scent of the white lily would bring back to her the feeling of actually living again through that first time of numbing grief. How many hours, how many days and nights she and her father had lived within that quiet sanctuary they could not have told—lived in the dark stillness, with one room, the stillest of all, containing ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... her place rigid—half frozen with a cold, numbing fear. He had sent for her, then, only to mock her. She had failed! They were not even to have the money! Speech was ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... moments, had relief. But soon the fire, which the dash of wine had lit in his bowels, revived. He threw down his napkin, returned to his study, and paced the floor. He felt as if he were under a pneumatic clock, and a numbing weakness stole from his brain through his limbs. Unable to endure it longer, he betook himself to the garden. It was the first time he had done this since his arrival at Fontenay. There he found shelter ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... he swung the weapon that the shrieks had ceased, then smiled grimly in the numbing horror as he realized that Ruth Allaire was beside him. A piece of oak was in her hands, and she was striking with desperate and silent ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... it. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades? Canst thou prevent the revival of all the forces of nature in the springtime?" and "Canst thou loose the bands of Orion; canst thou free the ground from the numbing ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... will daring Fancy stray Far in the central wastes, where Night Divides no cheering hour with Day, And unnamed horrors meet her sight; There thy form she dimly sees, And round the shape unfinish'd throws All her frantic vision shews When numbing fears her spirit freeze— But can mortal voice declare If Fancy paints thee as thou art? Thy aspect may a terror wear Her pencil never shall impart; The eye that once on thee shall gaze, No more its stiffen'd orb can raise; The lips that could thy power ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... in her saddle, and stood a moment beside her, holding her hands. The darkness seemed clearing before her eyes and the sick pain within her seemed numbing out. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... departing passengers of the Majestic looked across a little inky strip of water to a land that was cloaked with snow. It was bitterly cold on the landing-stage, and all the interest of the scene could not keep the bitter wind from whipping one's face and numbing the feet. The wooden planks resounded not more with the tramp of marching feet than with the hard stampings of people who were trying to restore circulation. There were no very poor people on the stage. The space opposite to the ship was occupied chiefly by the friends of ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... the corpse. The people came running round us, but as soon as the dreaded cry 'The pestilence! the pestilence!' was heard, they scattered and flew apart in terror. At the same moment I was seized by a dull numbing pain, and ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... for his asylum chose; Upon a couch of down in these abodes, Supine with folded arms he thoughtless nods; Indulging dreams his godhead lull to ease, With murmurs of soft rills and whispering trees: The poppy and each numbing plant dispense Their drowsy virtue, and dull indolence; No passions interrupt his easy reign, No problems puzzle his lethargic brain; But dark oblivion guards his peaceful bed, And lazy fogs hang ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... rubber was enthusiasm. I am strongly of opinion that without enthusiasm rubbing is of all occupations the most irksome, except perhaps for the quadrumana (who seem more adapted for this exercise), the most painful for the spine, the most cramping for the thighs, the most numbing for the fingers. It is a profession, Henry, demanding, above every other, enthusiasm in the operator. Now Tom's enthusiasm for rubbing as an art was ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... object to concentrate his energy, and with his work still to seek. One might wonder why he did not seriously prepare for the Decline and Fall. It must have been chiefly at this time that it was "contemplated at an awful distance," perhaps even with numbing doubt whether the distance would ever be lessened and the work achieved, or even begun. The probability is he had too little peace of mind to undertake anything that required calm and protracted labour. "While so many of my acquaintance ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... ocean's flood he fell. Then Rama, when he saw the foe Convulsed and mad with pain Neath the chill-pointed weapon's blow, To Lakshman spoke again: "See, Lakshman, see! this mortal dart That strikes a numbing chill, Hath struck him senseless with the smart, But left him breathing still. But these who love the evil way, And drink the blood they spill, Rejoicing holy rites to stay, Fierce plagues, my hand shall kill." ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... fragment of a rock, Applied each nerve, and swinging round on high, With force tempestuous, let the ruin fly; The huge stone thundering through his buckler broke: His slacken'd knees received the numbing stroke; Great Hector falls extended on the field, His bulk supporting on the shatter'd shield: Nor wanted heavenly aid: Apollo's might Confirm'd his sinews, and restored to fight. And now both heroes their broad falchions drew In flaming circles round their heads they flew; But then by heralds' ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... by burning heat; its outline was parched and stiff; the threads seemed thirsty with the constant sunshine; on either side lay the two zones proper for human life, [133] where a gentle temperance reigns; and at the extremes she drew the twin zones of numbing cold, making her work dun and sad with the hues of perpetual frost. She paints in, too, the sacred places of Dis, her father's brother, and the Manes, so fatal to her; and an omen of her doom was not wanting; for, as she worked, as if with foreknowledge of the future, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the sphere of animals, we find some curious facts having relation to this power. The electrical eel, for instance, has the faculty of overcoming and numbing his prey by this means. And among the Arabs, according to Gerard, the French lion-killer, whoever inhales the breath of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... whose name has become almost a household word. The young man, who took his degree at Oxford in the interval of his work, brought to every task he attempted an educated mind and a certain dogged obstinacy, which caused him to surmount all difficulties. He prospered amazingly. But money, instead of numbing his activities, only sharpened them, and he soon began to formulate his ideal—the Utopian dream of an entirely British Africa from the Cape ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... quiescence, numbing her from a realisation of her purpose, held until she disappeared into the huge archway of the tower and began to ascend the narrow stairs. But here her spirit failed her, and she paused. Standing motionless ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... think Ernest himself was much more pleased at finding that he had never been married than I was. To him, however, the shock of pleasure was positively numbing in its intensity. As he felt his burden removed, he reeled for the unaccustomed lightness of his movements; his position was so shattered that his identity seemed to have been shattered also; he was as one waking up from a horrible ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... hers to the ground and he saw a red stain creeping from Tenney's boot into the snow. Tenney also glanced at it indifferently. It was true that, although the cold was growing anguish to a numbing wound, he was hardly aware of it as a pain that could be remedied. This was only one misery ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the shuddering dread which had attended his recent visits to the secret recess returned with numbing chills and ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... antagonist in bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the lake and cavern danced before his eyes and vanished; and with a loud cry he sank ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... silently burying the cherished hopes that had irised her path, and now, looking steadily forward to coming years, she said to her drooping spirit: "Be strong and bear this sorrow. I will conquer my own heart." How is it that, when the human soul is called to pass through a fierce ordeal, and numbing despair seizes the faculties and energies in her sepulchral grasp, how is it that superhuman strength is often suddenly infused into the sinking spirit? There is a mysterious yet resistless power given, which winds up and sets again in motion that marvelous bit of mechanism, the human ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... it was their great love of bodily exercise, their very revels of literature that had protected them against the numbing influence of their ordinary surroundings. They never entered a cafe, they had a horror of the streets, even pretending to moult in them like caged eagles, whereas their schoolfellows were already rubbing their elbows over the small marble tables and playing at cards for drinks. Provincial ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... and calm, so that they should not be mistaken by our assailants: I have good reason to remember them, for they were the last I ever uttered on American ground as a free agent. They had hardly passed my lips, when a rifle cracked; I felt a dull numbing blow inside my left knee, and a sensation as if hot sealing-wax was trickling there; at the same instant, Falcon dropped under me—without a start or struggle, or sound besides a horrible choking sob—shot right through ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... given for the latter rather than the former effect. But Jesus 'received it not.' He will not, by any act of His, lessen the bitterness. He will drink to the dregs the cup which His Father hath given Him, and therefore He will not drink of the numbing draught. It is a small matter comparatively, but it is all of a piece with the greater things. The spirit of His whole course of voluntary, cheerful endurance of all the sorrows needful to redeem the world, is expressed in His silent turning away from the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... of Gale's trotting horses had died away; the bush lay mysterious and motionless under the silent veil of night; no sound came to him save the heavy breathing of the wounded man asleep in the hut; but through his brain, with the deadening monotony of numbing drumbeats, there throbbed the mocking, taunting words, ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... together, and from Paris Richard wrote and broke to the girl who loved him, and had been his betrothed wife, the common, vulgar, horrible little truth. Bridget-Mary had been deceived by both of them from the very beginning. Estimate the numbing, overwhelming weight of that blow, delivered by a hand so worshipped, upon so proud a heart. Those who saw her, and should have honoured her great grief with decent reticence, say that she was mad for a while; that she grovelled on the earth in her ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... hardened to danger and mighty tasks to show emotion. Robert stood under the same inverted boat that sheltered them, and he heard their words in a kind of daze, his brain still benumbed after the long and terrible test. But it was a pleasant numbing, a provision of nature, a sort of rest that was akin ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... heart. 370 Teucer had newly fitted to the nerve An arrow keen selected from the rest, And warlike Hector, while he stood the cord Retracting, smote him with that rugged rock Just where the key-bone interposed divides 375 The neck and bosom, a most mortal part. It snapp'd the bow-string, and with numbing force Struck dead his hand; low on his knees he dropp'd, And from his opening grasp let fall the bow. Then not unmindful of a brother fallen 380 Was Ajax, but, advancing rapid, stalk'd Around him, and his broad shield interposed, Till brave Alaster and Mecisteus, son Of Echius, friends ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... they dared open the door of their cabin. An hour of biting, numbing cold. Zero—on a warm summer night on the desert! Snow in the hurricane ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... weakness exercises a calming and numbing effect upon the senses. He felt no alarm at finding himself in this strange place, but after gazing about him without either recollection or comprehension, he turned round upon his bed of straw, which was by no means the worst resting place he had known in his wanderings, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... at such an angle as to rap the latter's right elbow with a numbing force that sent the pipe flying half way across the hall. The tobacco jar must have gone too, had not one of Gavin's outflung hands caught it in mid-air, as a quarterback might ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... interrupted with prodigious vehemence, "certainly; we are frozen up—I remember. That sleep should serve my memory so!" He made as if to rise, but sat again. "The cold is numbing; it would weaken a lion. Give me a hot ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... silent—standing inert as though she had received a numbing blow. Miss Leigh rose and ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... Each session was numbing. Martha could take no more than a couple of hours, after which her reading became foggy. She wanted a nap after each session and even after the nap she went around in a bemused state ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Jasmine to the hospital moved away from the station, she settled down into the seat beside the driver with the helplessness of one who had received a numbing blow. Her body swayed as though she would faint, and her eyes closed, and stayed closed for so long a time, that Corporal Shorter, who drove the rough little pair of Argentines, said to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Tommy's doing. He had invited friends aboard for luncheon, and was now daring one of them to play this joke. But my glance turned to the room, to its equipment and toilette articles which were large and curiously shaped, and the numbing truth crept into my brain that the stupid boatman had put ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... to the omnibus that was to stumble with him down Piccadilly with a. hideous, numbing sense of being under the hand of Fate. Why, at this moment, in all time, should this letter of Norah Monogue's have made its unhappy appearance? With what difficulty and sorrow had he and Clare reached once more ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... loud beating of my heart ceased. Then it seemed that boy's eyes were inside my head and not outside, while along with them an intangible something pervaded my brain. The sensation at first was like the application of ether to the skin—a cool, numbing emotion. It was followed by a curious tingling feeling, as some dormant cells in my mind answered to the thought-transfer, and were filled and fertilised! My other brain-cells most distinctly felt the vitalising of their ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... loosened his arm from the other's hold, and stood inert as though he had received a numbing blow. ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... and the poise of his strung-up figure impressed themselves indelibly on her memory. Strain was expressed in every line of his body and in his clutching hands. Then the strength and decision that was in her asserted itself, and she overcame the numbing horror that had held her powerless. Snatching up her rod, she turned ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... doubtless was not far away. We could not see clearly: all was as in a dream. There was not a sound, only the blurred outlines through the blank mist of two mighty creatures struggling for victory. One brief glimpse of this mountain drama; then they sank out of sight, and the numbing grayness and darkness once more ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... the New England hills to climb, and then he found that he tired easily, and that weariness sometimes brought on the pain. As I remember now, I think how bravely he bore it. It must have been a deadly, sickening, numbing pain, for I have seen it crumple him, and his face become colorless while his hand dug at his breast; but he never complained, he never bewailed, and at billiards he would persist in going on and playing in his turn, even while he was bowed with the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of that creeping menace came to Delamater with a gripping, numbing horror. The seconds were almost endless as he waited. Slowly, before his terrified eyes, the deck of the great ship bulged upward ... slowly it rolled and tore apart ... a mammoth turret with sixteen-inch guns was lifting unhurriedly into the air ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... that had gone before was as nothing by comparison. Why did the great white giant stand there so unconcernedly? Why did he not flee before these horrid, hairy, tree men fell upon them both and tore them to pieces? And then there came to Tibo a numbing recollection. It was none other than the story he had heard passed from mouth to mouth, fearfully, by the people of Mbonga, the chief, that this great white demon of the jungle was naught other than a hairless ape, for had not he been seen ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a similar remark about the numbing effect of Campbell's reputation upon his literary work; his deference to critics ruined his individuality. It was Scott's admiration for "Hohenlinden" which induced Campbell to publish the poem. The two men, travelling in a stage-coach alone, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... angrily, his vanity reaching inward to heart and brain through all the numbing obstacle of his drunken flesh. 'Who's brute? Brute yourself! Tell you goin' to marry Stephen, 'cos Stephen wants it. Stephen loves me. Loves me with all her red head! ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... sharp the whistle draws back the life it has given. I return to my job. My shoulders are beginning to ache. My hands are stiff, my thumbs almost blistered. The enthusiasm I had felt is giving way to a numbing weariness. I look at my companions now in amazement. How can they keep on so steadily, so swiftly? Cases are emptied and refilled; bottles are labeled, stamped and rolled away; jars are washed, wiped and ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst |
