"Silence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I cannot sufficiently express my obligations. He has put so much relating to Principal Cairns into an absolutely final form, that he seems to have left no alternative to those who come after him between passing over in silence what he has so well said and reproducing it almost in his words. It is probable, therefore, that students of the Life and Letters—and there are many who, like Mr. Andrew Lang with Lockhart's Life of Scott, ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... broke the everlasting stillness, Hyacinthus—his strong limbs too perfect for the chisel of any sculptor worthily to reproduce—was ready and eager for the climb. And when, on the mountain top, Apollo gazed in silence over illimitable space, and watched the silver car of his sister Diana rising slowly into the deep blue of the sky, silvering land and water as she passed, it was never Hyacinthus who was the first to speak—with words to break the spell of Nature's perfect beauty, shared in perfect ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... 18th instant, I had the pleasure to receive last post. Although my late long neglect, or rather delay, was truely culpable, I am tempted not to regret it, since it has produced me so valuable a proof of your regard. I did, indeed, during that inexcusable silence, sometimes divert the reproaches of my own mind, by fancying that I should hear again from you, inquiring with some anxiety about me, because, for aught you knew, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... silence while Scotty and the Brants thought over what Gordon had said. The scientist busied himself with the excellent food, and finally ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the room, and Montagu sat down beside Eric on the bed, and put his arm round him to support him, for he shook violently. There, with deep and wild emotion, and many interruptions of passionate silence, Eric told to Montagu his miserable tale. "I am the most wretched fellow living," he said; "there must be some fiend that hates me, and drives me to ruin. But let it all come: I care nothing, nothing, what happens to me now. ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... a seat at last; and for a moment there was silence in the room and throughout the old house, save that a window rattled somewhere in the night breezes. Then Mr. Literal leaned forward deliberately, his finger tips fitted together and his lips drawn into very prim lines. And ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... the reason of their leaving the tent. With this purpose, I stepped out from the entrance, and the following instant discovered them all in a clump beside the leeward edge of the hilltop. At that, I held my tongue; for I knew not but that silence might be their desire; but I ran hastily over to them, and inquired of the bo'sun what manner of thing it was which called them from their sleep, and he, for answer, pointed out into the greatness of ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... intellects will never go,—the other way[523]. It is, on the contrary, none but a very shallow wit which errs. Had it confined its speculations to the cloister, or come abroad with sorrow and shame, we should have pitied in silence, and in silence also have lamented. But when it comes insultingly abroad, and sets up a claim to intellectual superiority even while it denies the most sacred truths;—then pity gives way before indignation and disgust. Crown the whole ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... higher orders—the ladies and gentlemen, the cavaliers and senoras; shall I pass them by in silence? The truth is I have little to say about them; I mingled but little in their society, and what I saw of them by no means tended to exalt them in my imagination. I am not one of those who, wherever they go, make it a constant practice ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... cup with me in the village." Vane scrambled up and fell into step beside her. They passed Monsieur still snoring, and Madame nodding peacefully over her knitting, and crossed the deserted promenade. Then in silence they walked up into the main street of the little town in search of ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Patrick's Day that their muskets would have hurt friends more than foes if an attack had been made that night. Next evening the French crept up, hoping to surprise the place. But the sentries were once more alert. Through the silence they heard a tapping noise on the lake, which turned out to be made by a Canadian who was trying the strength of the ice with the back of his axe to see if it would bear. This led to a brisk defence. When the French advanced over the ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... his window at the retreating ships in a silence like the silence of the grave. At last ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... no resistance, and they were seized and flayed alive, and their bodies hung out upon the trees, with an inscription suspended over them, "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." At Paris all was sweetness and silence. The settlement was tranquilly surrendered to the same men who had made it the scene of their atrocity; and two years later, 500 of the very Spaniards who had been most active in the murder were living there in peaceable possession, in two ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Holy One, making mention of his wretchedness, and desire for happiness, but making no mention of his culpability, and desert of righteous and holy judgments. It is not enough for the criminal to plead for life, however earnestly, while he avoids the acknowledgment that death is his just due. For silence in such a connection as this, is denial. The impenitent thief upon the cross was clamorous for life and happiness, saying, "If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us." He said nothing concerning the crime that had brought him to a malefactor's death, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... The Shepheard's Calendar. He wrote various satirical pieces, sonnets, and pamphlets. Vain and ill-tempered, he was a remorseless critic of others, and was involved in perpetual controversy, specially with Greene and Nash, the latter of whom was able to silence him. He wrote treatises on rhetoric, claimed to have introduced hexameters into English, was a foe to rhyme, and persuaded ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... electric clock with an oversized second hand. His fingers moved nervously on the switch, then threw it to cut contact. The dynamo keened its dying note. A silence so tense that it hurt filled ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... had been run down. Then the police made Tip confess, and he was sent away to the penitentiary for a short term. Tip, however, refused to the last to name his accomplice. Dick knew that Ripley was the accomplice, but kept his silence, preferring to fight all his own ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him." ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... Lake Chiuzenji, on which a quarter of a century or so ago a European provided with a passport and having his headquarters at a neighbouring tea-house might gaze at his leisure, and meditate in a glorious silence broken only by the sound of the ripples of the water or the cry of the birds from the neighbouring woods, all are now vulgarised. The personally conducted tourist is there and very much in evidence. He wanders carelessly, often ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... wood, where upon first coming the pheasants and partridges were dusting themselves, a waggon is now passing among the corn and is being laden with the sheaves. But afar off, across the broad field and under the wood, it seems somehow only a part of the silence and the solitude. The men with it move about the stubble, calmly toiling; the horses, having drawn it a little way, become motionless, reposing as they stand, every line of their large limbs expressing delight ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... language is either too severe to a man who has been the head of the police in Holland, or not severe enough for a mere spy. But, Monsieur le Prefet," Peyrade added after a pause, while the other kept silence, "bear in mind what I now have the honor to telling you: I have no intention of interfering with your police nor of attempting to justify myself, but you will presently discover that there is some one in this business who is being deceived; at this moment it is your humble servant; ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... he muttered, after traveling several miles in silence, "that they live hundreds of miles off and that I won't have a chance to leave them for weeks or months or—years," he added in a hushed voice, and with an additional heart-throb, "but I shall never be reconciled to live in the wigwams of the ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... trotted down toward the other ford, but as before they did not like the look of the Texan rifles and turned away, after shouting many challenges, brandishing lances and firing random shots. But the Texans contented themselves again with a grim silence, and the Mexicans rode back to their camp. The disgust of the Ring Tailed Panther was so deep that he could not utter a word. But ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had reached the house, and Innocent went straight into the best parlour. Her unexpected and unknown visitor stood there near the window, looking out on the beds of flowers, but turned round as she entered. For a moment they confronted each other in silence,—Innocent gazing in mute astonishment and enquiry at the tall, graceful, self-possessed woman, who, evidently of the world, worldly, gazed at her in turn with a curious, almost quizzical interest. Presently she spoke in a low, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... There was a silence. Her nerves seemed to trouble her, for she began to pace to and fro in front of the passageway where he sat comfortably on his chair, arms folded, one ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... dregs of mankind. After despatching to Cornwallis a message asking for aid, Ferguson took up his camp on King's Mountain, just south of the North Carolina border line, in the present York County, South Carolina. Here, after his pickets had been captured in silence, he was surprised by his opponents. At three o'clock in the afternoon of October 7th the mountain hunters treed ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... room, Arthur to his, and each in his way shut himself in to darkness, silence, and the ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... last breaking the silence, "here you are, and for goodness' sake tell her not to waste them!" and into my wife's outstretched hand I carefully counted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... away," said Miss Ainslie, after a long silence, as if in continuation of something she had said before, "and I was afraid. He had made many voyages in safety, each one more successful than the last, and he always brought me beautiful things, but, this time, I knew that it was not right for ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... something had been said or done to annoy me—which never once happened, for I met with perfect good breeding even from antagonists—men who had done their best or worst to write me down. I explained to him over and over again, that my occasional silence was only failure of the power to talk, never of ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... effigy of Lion's Head, and she said that one of her boys had cut the stamp out with his knife; she now charged five cents a cake for the sugar, but her manner remained the same. It did not change when the excursionists drove away, and the deep silence native to the place fell after their chatter. When a cock crew, or a cow lowed, or a horse neighed, or one of the boys shouted to the cattle, an echo retorted from the granite base of Lion's Head, and then she had all the noise she wanted, or, at any rate, all the noise ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... journey ending at the little Arizona way-station, Stratton fumed and fretted and wondered. Even if Joe had failed to see his name amongst the missing, what must he have thought of his interminable silence? All through Buck's brief training and the longer interval overseas, the foreman's letters had come with fair regularity and been answered promptly and in detail. What had Bloss done when the break came? What had he been ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... a dust-coloured handkerchief, and Robert bathed his wounds in silence. 'Now, Squirrel,' ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... maritime provinces, yet, for the greater part, it is a stern, melancholy country, with rugged mountains, and long sweeping plains, destitute of trees, and indescribably silent and lonesome, partaking of the savage and solitary character of Africa. What adds to this silence and loneliness, is the absence of singing-birds, a natural consequence of the want of groves and hedges. The vulture and the eagle are seen wheeling about the mountain-cliffs, and soaring over the plains, and groups ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... statement: "General Grant says no human being shall pass out of Vicksburg; but the lady may feel sure danger will soon be over. Vicksburg will surrender on the fourth." A Confederate general present when this message was received, said: "Vicksburg will not surrender." But Grant was right. On July 4 silence descended upon Vicksburg. The simoon of shot and shell was over, and men and women and children crawled from their caves into the light of day. The river vessels poured in an abundance of provisions, and plenty succeeded ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... on in silence, his moccasins not making a sound on the hard snow. There was a well with a high curb a few feet behind the Fitzsimmons building and directly opposite the window through which I had shown the jack-lantern. There was now a big bank of snow as high as the well ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... trembling violently, and still looking upon the ground. And then there was silence between them ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... the whole work can be done so gradually, quietly, and systematically, that only the workers need know much about it. The sense of purity transfused through the air and breathing from every nook and corner should be the only indication that upheaval has existed. The best work is always in silence. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... at the first watch at night, filled with consternation at a crash, followed by silence; and the vessel was found to have run high upon a reef, of which the surface had presented ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... not as tactful a speech as it might have been, and was received in such freezing silence by Stella that his wife did not dare to second the invitation, and the two girls were deposited at their new abode without any promise of meeting again, as far as Stella was concerned. As for Vava, she shook hands with ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... into silence for a time, bewildered by a statement which seemed to alternate between levelling the big things down to the little ones, and raising the little ones to the level of the big. When I had chewed this hard saying as well as I could, I bolted it for further digestion, and continued ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... means of transport renders the timber of these forests perfectly valueless. From age to age these magnificent trees remain in their undisturbed solitudes, gradually increasing in their apparently endless growth, and towering above the dark vistas of everlasting silence. No on can imagine the utter stillness which pervades these gloomy shades. There is a mysterious effect produced by the total absence of animal life. In the depths of these forests I have stood and listened for some sound until my cars tingled ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... in conscience that he, the said Charles Stuart, was guilty of the crimes of which he had been accused, did adjudge him as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of the nation, to be put to death by severing his head from his body." The king heard it in silence, sometimes smiling with contempt, sometimes raising his eyes to heaven, as if he appealed from the malice of men to the justice of the Almighty. At the conclusion the commissioners rose in a body to testify their assent, and Charles made a last and more earnest effort to speak; but Bradshaw ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... swiftly-moving and rapidly-changing panorama of the midday heavens. It was his chiefest joy to dream away his peaceful days among the trees and brooks and flowers. He sometimes spent weeks at a time in the open air wandering for miles in meditative silence along the banks of some sparkling stream, or over the sand and shingle that form the dividing line between ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... little spurts of life and longer intervals of dumbness; others end with a sudden crashing of the pendulum while in its full swing, and a wild, convulsive whirr of the jarred wheels. One moment the sober tick tells that all is well, the next—silence. So was ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... Silence fell on the three, while the fire leaped and fell and crackled. Welton's face showed still a trace of stubbornness. Suddenly Baker leaned forward, all his customary fresh spirits shining ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... considerations which may be urged in explanation of the passages in question. In the first place, it must be remembered that the age was an outspoken one, and used to giving free expression to thoughts and feelings which we are in the habit of passing over in silence. Secondly, the age was unquestionably one of considerable licence, which must be held to have warranted somewhat direct speaking on the part of those who held to a stricter code of morals; and, moreover, it must be conceded that the Puritan failing of self-righteous ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Though she complained that she was slighted by the wrong of having a paramour put over her, yet, she said, it would be unworthy for her to hate him as an adulterer more than she loved him as a husband: nor would she so far shrink from her lord as to bring herself to hide in silence the guile which she knew was intended against him. For she had a son as a pledge of their marriage, and regard for him, if nothing else, must have inclined his mother to the affection of a wife. "He," she said, "may hate the supplanter of his mother, I will love ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... will easily see that used to the tumult of society and to the silence of the study I had to take advantage of both one and ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... The sheriff's face mottled with wrath. Pringle reflected swiftly: The sheriff's rage hinted strongly that he was in Creagan's confidence and hence was no stranger to last night's mishap at the hotel; their silence proclaimed their ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... night or day, and he was apparently wrapped in the profoundest slumber; but the live mice which I put into his box from time to time found his sleep was easily broken; there would be a sudden rustle in the box, a faint squeak, and then silence. After a week of captivity I gave him his freedom in the full sunshine: no trouble for him to see which way ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... 20th broke calm and the enemy did nothing to indicate that anything out of the ordinary was about to take place, but this did not deceive us, as it was known to our Command that the blow was going to fall on the following morning. Silence reigned supreme, except for the ordinary harassing artillery fire, up till midnight, but shortly afterwards the German guns opened out their annihilating fire, and drenched our forward system and battery positions ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... walked up and down the garden paths he gave her more definite details. "She did not know that she was going. There was no reason to trouble her gentle soul with fears. And so, at last, when she drifted off into the silence, she ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... was either devil or prince, or both. "Good God!" he thought. "He will do that, too. He will really kill me." Then the astounding alternative—five thousand dollars a year—came to his mind. Well, why not? His silence gave consent. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... morsel of cake. I wished to drink, but in searching the car nothing was to be seen but the debris of bottles and glasses, which my assailant had left behind him when we were about to depart. Afterwards all was so calm that nothing could be seen or heard. The silence became appalling, and to add to my alarm I began to lose consciousness. I now wished to take snuff, but found I had left my box behind me. I changed my seat many times; I went from prow to stern, but the drowsiness only ceased to assail me when I was struck by two furious winds, which ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... which I my self know not, but only that I might recite the true Process of this Arcanum. For, what can more confirm, and Patronize Verity, than the true Light of Truth it self? It is the property of Brute Animals to pass their life in Silence, and especially not to heed those things in them, which do most of all look to, and are required for the propagation of the Glory of the most Wise, and most powerful GOD our creator. Wherefore, since it is a thing unworthy, and to the Divine Majesty ungrateful, for Man, who should be ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... her wooers—so as to cull and choose only the truly meritorious lovers—experience supreme delights which are unknown to their snoring fellows. When the struggle with somnolence has been fought out and won, when the world is all-covering darkness and close-pressing silence, when the tobacco suddenly takes on fresh vigour and fragrance and the books lie strewn about the table, then it seems as though all the rubbish and floating matter of the day's thoughts have poured away and only the bright, clear, and ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... hill, the black hunter, to mislead the minds of the Indians as to the cause of the uproar, mimicked the snarling growl of a wolf. Then he lay perfectly still for several moments, not daring to venture farther till assured that his cunning device had succeeded. After a brief space of silence, which seemed to be spent in listening, the murmur of voices above him recommenced, when he likewise recommenced his stealthy approaches. When he had advanced so far as to be no longer able to walk upright without risk of discovery, he threw himself prone ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... interest to show tourists." He began to see through the plot from the hour of the so-called tragedy. How easy, with the artful guide's connivance, to cast a stone down the echoing ravine, then conceal themselves in the corridor close by, extinguish their torches, and await in silence the next coming of their assistant! He himself had been adroitly decoyed out of the way to steady the railing of the rickety bridge. The abrupt and narrow ledge had hidden them from view. The escape was easy. All was clear now, and the life of the man who had cheated him should ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... What an awe-inspiring silence! Softer calm than zephyr breathes Murmurs in the laurel foliage And the amaranthine wreaths: Thus in sacred stillness rested Air and wave—in such repose Slumbered nature, when from ocean ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... if I had been jolted all night on a rough road, though nothing could be more different from travelling than that still rock,—how still it was, and every thing else too in that early dawn, every thing gray and unsocial!—I tried to call out to break the silence; but the sound of my voice frightened me. Just then the sun began to stream over the tops of the trees, and a blue-jay pierced the air with a scream, as if from the heart of the wilderness, and yet as if he had a right there which I had not—as if he was at home while I was only ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... was a stranger to me, but the woman in whose stead she inadvertently perished I had known long and well. My wrongs to her had been great, but she had kept silence during my whole married life and in my blind confidence in the exemption this seemed to afford me, I put no curb upon my ambition which had already carried me far beyond my deserts. Those who read these lines may know how majestic were my hopes, how ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... servant. [Awed silence.] And then you think I can impose a husband on her. No, Katusha, I have to win her love ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... trembled: it seemed as if the sister spoke with a purpose, as if she knew of some difficulty, some danger that lay before her. She had been trained to ask no questions, and therefore she kept silence. But her lips trembled, and her beautiful brown ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... allow them to associate freely together. No compromise will do, short of preventing their conversing with each other. Whether solitary confinement, as practised in Pennsylvania, or public labour in silence, as in New-York, be the better mode of punishment, may admit of argument; but that either is incomparably superior to promiscuous intercourse, is unquestionable. And we do conjure magistrates and legislators in every part of the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... having mentioned two religious men, St. Paul the Hermit and Sulpitius, as having atoned for some supposed foolish garrulities, the one by a three years' silence, the other by a lifelong silence, goes on to express his dissatisfaction with a mode of rabiosa silentia so ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the explosion caused by the weak and outraged besiegers? Politicians calculate upon the number of mailed hands that are kept on the sword-hilts: they do not possess the third eye to see the great invisible hand that clasps in silence the hand of the helpless and waits its time. The strong form their league by a combination of powers, driving the weak to form their own league alone with their God. I know I am crying in the wilderness ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... the British nation would have been disgraced had it not demanded that no further alliance should be formed. It was equally the duty of the leaders of the Opposition to voice what was undoubtedly the national sentiment. To have kept silence would have been to stultify our Parliamentary institutions. The parrot cry that British interests were endangered by Russia's supposed designs on Turkey, was met by the unanswerable reply that, if those designs existed, the best way to check them was ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... The detected lover sits confounded and abashed, wishing in the depths of his soul that he could transform himself into a gnat, and make his exit through the keyhole. Meantime the new-comer seats himself in solemn silence, and for five minutes the conversation is only kept up by monosyllables, in spite of the incredible efforts of all parties to appear unconcerned. The young man in his confusion plunges deeper into the mire;—he twists ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... began his restless wanderings. I last remember urgent letters for us to come to New Milford, where he had started a barber shop. Later he became a preacher. But mother no longer trusted his dreams, and he soon faded out of our lives into silence. ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... rouse Captain Pigot's hasty, irritable temper; and, hurrying the men down from aloft, he ordered the larboard broadside to be manned, and the guns to be directed upon the audacious battery. A couple of well-directed broadsides sufficed to silence its fire, and the boats were then ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... cat, and he often lowers his head like a cock when preparing to fight, moving it from side to side, and also vertically, as if watching you sharply. In flying, it shifts from place to place "with the silence of a spirit," the plumage of its wings being so extremely fine and soft as to occasion little or ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... forests, tracked by the enemy; then disasters, discouragements, the vanishing of the last hope, punishment, the gallows, and finally a mute, feverish resignation, swallowed up in that vast solitude with which silence surrounds misfortune. After the dispersion of the band whose destinies he had followed, he ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... upon that thought-process of the whole community which is necessary for the progressive organization of Society. It is a process which is likely to spread one type of writer far and wide, which may silence or demoralize another, which may vulgarize and debase discussion, and which will certainly make literature far more dependent than it is at present upon the goodwill of advertising firms. Yet as Socialists they have no ideas whatever in this matter; their ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... There was a silence. Maria looked at Miss Slome, and, to her utter indignation, the teacher's lips were twitching, and it took a good deal to make Miss Slome laugh, too; she had not much sense ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... man, well dressed; three days before, he must have been walking the world, a man of considerable consequence. I could see his staring eyes and gleams of light on his studs and watch chain. He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there was silence. And then began a shrieking and a sustained and cheerful ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... that a disclosure of this kind only increased the interest of the scene; there was a murmur of curiosity, and when silence again reigned, the official continued in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... The establishment of habitual silence during operatic performances is only one of the beneficial changes introduced into operatic etiquette through German opera. The method of applauding has been revolutionized too. It is no longer customary to interrupt the flow of the orchestral music by applauding a ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... from the Academy of San Fernando, 1842, for a picture called "Silence." Member of the Academy. Pupil of Goya, who early recognized her talent. In 1823, when Goya removed to Burdeos, she studied under the architect Tiburcio Perez. After a time she joined Goya, and remained his pupil ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... her, since for neither man nor woman of the numerous party had she hitherto condescended to lift an unwonted eyelid; what they would have said to have seen her plunged in a strawberry-bed, gathering handfuls and raining them drop by drop into Helen Heath's mouth, to silence her while she herself might talk,—her own fingers tipped with more sanguine shade than their native rose, her eyes full of the noon sparkle, and her lips parted with laughter,—we cannot say. Roger Raleigh forgot to move, to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... smile awakened no gleam of mirth in his master's countenance. Mr. Pickwick turned abruptly round, and led the way in silence. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... nostalgia, or the Swiss malady. This disease is considered peculiar to the Swiss, and is occasioned by a desire of revisiting their own country, and of witnessing again the scenes of their youth. This desire begins with melancholy sadness, love of solitude, silence, bodily weakness, &c. and is only cured by returning to their native country. Avenbrugger says, that in dissecting the bodies of those who have died in consequence of this disease, organic lesions of the heart generally are detected. A particular musical composition, supposed to be expressive ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... when the sun was dipping below the horizon and the sea was a sheet of golden light, a smoky line appeared far away to the westward. It was that section of the Scottish coast which in future it would be the duty of these boats to patrol, and as the distance lessened those on board gazed in silence at the gigantic cliffs and black rocks, now tinged with the rays of the dying sun and encircled by the endless ripples which alone broke the peaceful surface of the sea, but one and all were picturing this forbidding coast on the stormy winter ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... so gentle that in the perfect silence of the waters one did not perceive the process of descent, and there was only an instrument capable of indicating, by a needle, the depth to which the Morse was penetrating. The vessel was advancing while at the same time it descended, but ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... weeks for a reply, but none came. Meanwhile the negroes continued to gather at his camp. He said, in regard to not receiving an answer, "I was left to the inference that silence gives consent, and proceeded therefore to take such decided measures as appeared best calculated, to me, to dispose of the difficulty." Accordingly he made ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... that they should acknowledge the king as "their singular protector only, and supreme lord, and as far as the law of Christ allows even supreme head." "Whoever is silent," said the archbishop, "may be taken to consent," and in this way by the silence of the assembly the new formula was passed.[19] At the Convocation of York, Bishop Tunstall of Durham, while agreeing to a money payment, made a spirited protest against the new title, to which protest Henry found it necessary to forward a ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... our wants expresses itself by signs whenever help in supplying these wants is needed; hence the cries of children. They cry a great deal, and this is natural. Since all their sensations are those of feeling, children enjoy them in silence, when the sensations are pleasant; otherwise they express them in their own language, and ask relief. Now as long as children are awake they cannot be in a state of indifference; they either sleep or are moved by ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... cities an' big towns," ejaculated Uncle Josh, breaking out of a long, meditative silence, "you kain't keep no dogs there ... onless they're muzzled ... and no ferrets, neither ... and what 'ud be the use if you could?... there ain't nothin' to hunt anyhow ... wisht we lived back on ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... rose, and the stars, one by one, appeared. My father had a true love for nature, and for whatever was beautiful or grand. We drove on without speaking for a time, each enjoying the evening. My father broke the silence by repeating that beautiful hymn of Addison's, ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... in silence, which his young assistant was too shy to break. The elder man finished his pipe, then he rose with an impatient gesture and shook himself like a great shaggy dog. "Come, young man," said he, "we don't want to spend the evening like this. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... sap-sucker, if he could have got enough of it together. He said no, sap-suckers were not good to eat. "Then you took its poor little life merely for the pleasure of killing it," said the father. "Was it a great pleasure to see it die?" The boy hung his head in shame and silence; it seemed to him that he would never go hunting again. Of course he did go hunting often afterwards, but his brother and he kept faithfully to the rule of never killing anything that they did not want to eat. To be sure, they gave themselves ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... producing in the Middle Ages the graces of chivalry. All these various tribes had the same peculiarities, among which reverence was one of the most marked. They were not idol worshipers, but worshiped God in the form of the sun, moon, and stars, and in the silence of their majestic groves. Odin was their great traditional hero, whom they made an object of idolatry. War was their great occupation, and the chase was their principal recreation and pleasure. Tacitus ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Romance tongues. But Christianity has lived through the deluge, and been the ark of refuge in the storm; and its claims are now tested by the young world which emerged into being when the waters of confusion had retired. The silence of reason in this interval was not the result of the abundance of piety, but of the prevalence of ignorance; a sign of the absence of inquiry, not of the presence of moral and mental satisfaction.(251) Even ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... eyes, with which alone she replied to this speech, showed how anxious Philippe's future made her; they all kept silence. The exile himself, Bixiou, and the younger Desroches were playing at ecarte, a game ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... labor in the western country?" Next year, after a visit to his birthplace, he exclaimed: "What a spectacle does our lower country present! Deserted and dismantled country-houses once the seats of cheerfulness and plenty, and the temples of the Most High ruinous and desolate, 'frowning in portentous silence upon the land,'" And in 1819 he wrote from Richmond: "You have no conception of the gloom and distress that pervade this place. There has been nothing like it since 1785 when from the same causes (paper money and a general peace) there was a ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... there almost in perfect silence, watching the ship for quite an hour; but though she was expected from moment to moment to heel over a little first to one side, then to the other, she still floated upon an even keel, and her masts with their ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... but averse from unnecessary labour. And there was really no need to row. The tide was carrying us homeward, and our position was pleasant enough. Save for the occasional drag of a block against the horse we had achieved unbroken silence and ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... aspired to conquer it. Only the friends of the Duke of Orleans, and of the Count of Armagnac, one assassinated twelve years before, and the other massacred but lately, remained sad and angry at not having yet been able to obtain either justice or vengeance; but they maintained reserve and silence. They were not long in once more finding for mistrust and murmuring grounds or pretexts which a portion of the public showed a disposition to take up. The Duke of Burgundy had made haste to publish his ratification of the treaty of reconciliation; the dauphin ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... She surveyed the state of things in silence. Matilda had been crying, she saw. She left her time to recover from that and take up her work. But Matilda sat despairing and careless, looking at it and not ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... hand or push them gently before them. There is no anticipation in their eyes; no eagerness and no impatience in their bearing. They do not hustle each other or scramble for their places. It is their silence and submission ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... superlative wickedness droned his avowal in diminishing volume as the burros pattered along the white dust of the valley road, then the curve to the west hid them, and all was silence but for the rustle of the wind in the mesquite and the far bay of Singleton's hounds circling ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... meaning in her little side-glance, which at another time would have put me on my guard. But just then I was engrossed with my own vague fears. I forgot even to remove my hand from her arm. So we were standing, when a moment later the silence was broken by the sound of a galloping horse coming fast across the marshes. We started aside. Lady Angela reined in a great bay mare a few yards away from us. Her habit was all bespattered with mud. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... turn flies aboot amang those regulars of a hall's audiences. The second nicht they were waiting for my turn, and I got a rare hand when I stepped oot upon the stage—the nicht before there'd been dead silence i' the hoose. Aye, the second nicht was worse than the first. The first nicht success micht ha' been an accident; the second aye tells the tale. It's so wi' a play. I've friends who write plays, and ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... with Mr. Macloud and myself, we will disclose later. If, then, you don't care to aid us, we must ask you to keep silence about it." ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... day," and to get her into conversation. She told him she was a princess, who, with her castle, had been from time immemorial enchanted, and that she was still waiting for her deliverer. The mode of loosing the spell was by carrying her on his back in silence to the churchyard of Wusseken and there putting her down, being careful not to look round the while; for, happen what would, he could take no harm, even if it were threatened to tear his head off. He undertook the task, and had ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... sitting in the chair, with the other directors around him, when old Mr. Bowdoin reached the bank. There was a silence when he entered, and a sense of past discussion in ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... silence, Perseus bare away Andromeda from her father's home, and when they had wandered through many lands they came at length to Seriphos. Once more Danae looked on the face of her son, and said, "My child, the months ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of peace was lighted and brought to Bent Horn. Solemnly he pointed the stem to the north, the south, the east, and the west. Last of all, he lifted it towards the sun. Then he spoke. "How—how—how," he said slowly. Then in silence he smoked it, but only to take one long whiff, after which he held it in turn to the mouths of the other chiefs, that they ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade
... straight for the cathedral and examined the quaint picture that had provided an excuse for their visit to the Near East. They were much impressed. They gazed at its brilliant coloring and stiff pose for fully a minute. Then Joan broke a silence that ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the cab, but the words would not come. Some instinct seemed to revolt at the thought of uttering any such commonplacism. She was standing on the edge of the pavement, close to the step, with her skirts in one hand, slightly raised. He held out his hand to her in silence. ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the ushering-in of Rotch, panting from his ten-mile ride in the frosty air; he made his way up the aisle, and delivered his report: the governor had refused the pass. No other reply had been looked for; but at the news a silence fell upon the grim assembly, which felt that it was now face to face with the sinister power of the king. Then of a sudden, loud shouts came from the lower part of the church, near the open door; and even as Adams rose to his feet and throwing up his arm, called out, "This meeting can do nothing ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... very desolate to be left thus alone the moment after his arrival, and it did not add to his pleasure to observe that Ricketts by no means appeared to look upon the task of seeing him to Saint Dominic's as a privilege. They walked on in silence for about half a mile, and then encountered several groups of boys strolling out along the road. Ricketts stopped to talk to several of them, and was very nearly going off with one of the party, when he suddenly remembered his charge. It was rather humiliating this, for ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... is serious, but there, really it is not worthwhile throwing oneself into the water about it. So I invite you to bury the past as soon as possible. Shun above all the solitude peopled with phantoms who would help to render your regrets eternal. Shun the silence where the echoes of recollection would still be full of your past joys and sorrows. Cast boldly to all the winds of forgetfulness the name you have so fondly cherished, and with it all that still remains to you of her who bore it. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... moment the white-robed figure stood looking at them in silence; then he raised his hand and motioned towards the high pulpit, which was almost underneath the place where Dicky and Renshaw stood. Going over, he mounted the steps, and the people followed and crowded upon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... us, outlaws of society (let other women talk of favours) a brutal gratification gratuitously as a privilege of office, they extort a tithe of prostitution, and harrass with threats the poor creatures whose occupation affords not the means to silence the growl of avarice. To escape from this persecution, I once ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... bars, striped suits, enforced silence, enforced work, enforced regularity of life—all these punish most keenly those whose first crime was lack of self-control and lack of ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... myself, had no thoughts at all at this time. I felt only the cold, heavy oppression at my heart, and I had, I remember, no curiosity as to what had occurred. We passed through passages that were strangely dark, in a silence that was weighted and mysterious. We entered the room where we had been earlier in the afternoon; it seemed now to be full of people, I saw now quite clearly, although just before the whole world had seemed to be dark. I saw our two ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... presented to the Sultan at Constantinople, each one was taken separately, and, with a courtier holding him by the arm on each side, he was led like a prisoner into the great presence in awful silence. ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... invented the fire-engine. His pupil, Hero, improved it by giving it two cylinders. There, too, the first steam-engine worked. This also was the invention of Hero, and was a reaction engine, on the principle of the eolipile. The silence of the halls of Serapis was broken by the water-clocks of Ctesibius and Apollonius, which drop by drop measured time. When the Roman calendar had fallen into such confusion that it had become absolutely necessary to rectify it, Julius Caesar brought Sosigenes the astronomer from ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... family. Though she had a cause for affliction which would have utterly broken down the heart of most women as beautiful as she and as devoid of all religious support, yet she bore her suffering in silence, or alluded to it only to elicit the sympathy and stimulate the admiration of the men with whom she flirted. As to Bertie, one would have imagined from the sound of his voice and the gleam of his eye that he had not a sorrow nor a care in the world. Nor had he. He was incapable of anticipating ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the mind, as well as the eye, to the morning mist, and the noonday glory, and the twilight-cloud, to the purple peace of the mountain heaven, to the cloudy repose of the green valley; now expatiating in the silence of stormless ether, now on the rushing of the wings of the wind. It is indeed a knowledge which must be felt to be, in its very essence, full of the soul of the beautiful. For its interest, it is universal, unabated in ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... back. They knew also that the reverberations from the direction of Meaux, that each moment grew more loud and savage, were the French "seventy-fives" whipping the gray column forward. Of what they felt the Germans did not speak. In silence they looked at each other, and in the eyes of Marie was ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... we are sure having a fine time out of this holiday," remarked Billy presently, after an interval of silence. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton |
