"Soundless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Trastevere. He was particularly fond of this part of Rome, though he could hardly have expressed the charm he found in it. As you pass away from the dusky, swarming purlieus of the Ghetto, you emerge into a region of empty, soundless, grass-grown lanes and alleys, where the shabby houses seem mouldering away in disuse, and yet your footstep brings figures of startling Roman type to the doorways. There are few monuments here, but no part of ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... across the vast array of the Battle-fleet. Obedient to the message flashed from the Flagship a few minutes earlier, the Light Cruisers that had been invisible on the quarter now emerged from behind the curtain of the mist and were rapidly moving up to a new position. Presently the same mysterious, soundless voice spoke again: ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... should they, her botch-work, turn about And stare disdain at me, her finished job? Why was the place one vast suspended shout Of laughter? Why did all the daylight throb With soundless ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... then in broad day the Swamp would fall asleep. There would be the plop of turtles falling into the creek and the slither of alligators in the mud, and all of a sudden not a ripple would start, and between the clacking of one reed and another would come the soundless lift and stir of the Swamp snoring. Then the hair on your neck would rise, and some man caught walking alone in it would go ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... itself through the sleeping house. Outdoors the wind had died down. Only the loud brawl of the river broke the stillness under the stars. But all through this silence and this vibrant song there rang a soundless menace which brought me out of bed and to my feet before I was awake. I heard Paul say, "What's the matter?" in a sleepy voice, and "Nothing," I answered, reaching for my dressing gown and slippers. I listened for a moment, my head ringing with all the frightened tales of the morbid ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... ceaseless volumes of sound, riven at intervals by a horrid scream or a thunderous roar which shook the earth; and always I was haunted by that inexplicable sensation that unseen eyes were watching me, that soundless feet dogged my trail. I am neither nervous nor highstrung; but the burden of responsibility upon me weighed heavily, so that I was more cautious than is my wont. I turned often to right and left and rear lest I be surprised, and I carried my rifle at the ready in my ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... life was very sweet, his day A pleasant one, the peopled breadths of earth Most fair, and fair the shining tracts of sea; Green solitudes, and broad low-lying plains Made brown with frequent labors of men's hands, And salt, blue, fruitless waters. But this mount, Cithaeron, bosomed deep in soundless hills, Its fountained vales, its nights of starry calm, Its high chill dawns, its long-drawn golden days,— Was dearest to him. Here he dreamed high dreams, And felt within his sinews strength to strive Where strife was sorest and to overcome, And in his heart the thought ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... "It is made of the Moon-Metal. I think I know its secret now. A vibration that defies a vacuum. I hope to perfect my work, but I may not. Here," he offered the tiny horn to his son. "Blow it if you need me. It is soundless, but it defies time and space just as my work does. I carry a ring to match it. I may not succeed. But blow it when you need me, son, and if I can ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... pretended to be a ghost, trusting to your noiseless and mysterious manner of appearing and disappearing to work on my fears and frighten me off. And, truth to tell, there is something uncanny about your peculiarly soundless and rustleless movements." ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... against his chest! Why couldn't he think without bringing himself in—get out of himself and see what he ought to do? The thought hurt him, then lost edge, as if it had come in contact with a breastplate. Out of oneself! Impossible! Out into soundless, scentless, touchless, sightless space! The very idea was ghastly, futile! And touching there the bedrock of reality, the bottom of his Forsyte spirit, Soames rested for a moment. When one ceased, all ceased; it might go on, but there'd be nothing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... could stay him, Walkyn o' the Dene laid by his axe, and, his soaked shoes soundless upon the stones, began to steal upon the unconscious singer, who yet lolled upon his spear some thirty paces away. With great body bowed forward and hairy fingers crooked, Walkyn stole upon him; six paces he went, ten—twenty—twenty-five— ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... pine-wood shiver! Above them all, in a brighter air, I lift my forehead proud and bare, And the lengthened sweep of my forest-robe Trails down to the low and captured globe, Till its borders touch the dark green wave In whose soundless depths my feet I lave. The winds, unprisoned, around me blow, And terrible tempests whirl the snow; Rocks from their caverned beds are torn, And the blasted forest to heaven is borne; High through ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... nothing, absolutely nothing—just that seemingly endless stretch of sand, circled by the blazing sky, the wind sweeping its surface soundless, and hot, as though from the pits of hell; no stir, no motion, no movement of anything animate or inanimate to break the awful monotony. Death! it was death everywhere! his aching eyes rested on nothing but ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... realized that Julie Lannes had become so much to him he felt a sudden shyness, and he let the gigantic Picard lead the way. They had made no noise in opening and closing the door, and their boots had been soundless on ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... been borne irresistibly upward on the human tide, there was one overpowering moment of fear and clamor, in which the cry of "The Prophet! The Prophet!" dominated her consciousness; then, to her, the world became suddenly and mercifully sightless, soundless, and void. ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Earl. "It was my hand." He sees that the nurse is signalling with headshakes and soundless lip-words, but has not presence of mind to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the mountains, magnificently drawn against the eastern sky. To either hand lay the fallow fields, rolled the brown hills, rose the shadowy bulk of forest trees, showed the green of winter wheat. The evening was cold, but without wind and soundless. The birds had flown south, the cattle were stalled, the sheep folded. There was only the earth, field and hill and mountain, the up and down of a narrow road, and the glimmer of a distant stream. The sunset had been red, and it left a colour that ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... - I feel not the red rains fall, Hear not the tempest at all, Nor thunder in heaven any more. All the distance is white With the soundless feet of the sun. Night, with the woes that it wore, Night is ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... said. I gave Val the blaster and slipped out of my oxysuit. "Look," I said. I pointed to my smooth, gleaming metal legs. The almost soundless purr of their motors was the only noise in the room. "I was in the Sadlerville Blast, too," I said. "But I didn't go crazy with hate when I lost ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... walk restlessly round the table. I wheeled my chair slightly round so that I could watch her. Nothing struck me particularly as I did so except the extreme grace and attraction in the moving form. The heavy silk skirt dragged backwards and forwards over the carpet almost soundless, the moonlight and gaslight alternately gleaming on its folds. Each time that she came between me and the table my eyes followed with dizzy delight the soft side curve of her breast, the lines of the exquisite waist, the white idle hand that sometimes touched the edge of my chair arm, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... hear with these very ears? Whispers, murmurs, groans, and the clinkety-clink of old Sebastian's chisel. For his sins that old slave is chained in some cavern of the mountain. Soundless! I'm no baby! I know when I'm asleep, and I know when I'm awake. That place is accursed, and I want ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... closed—he was still and fair, What sound moved up the aisles? The dead priests come with soundless prayer, Their faces wearing smiles. And this was the soundless hymn they sung: "We watch o'er you to-night; Your life was beautiful, fair and young, Not a cloud upon its light. To-morrow—to-morrow you will rest With the virgin priests ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... through you that I can keep in touch with music. We are really living here absolutely songless and soundless. The opera, with its old standbys, and its novelties dressed up to suit a little theatre, and produced at pretty long intervals, is no consolation. At the same time I am glad that the court and the city can delude themselves ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... dare such divine conflict prevail. Night after night the sweat of agony may burst dark on the forehead; the supplicant may cry for mercy with that soundless voice the soul utters when its appeal is to the Invisible. "Spare my beloved," it may implore. "Heal my life's life. Rend not from me what long affection entwines with my whole nature. God of heaven, bend, hear, be clement!" And after this ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... that room gave out on the street of the Consuls which as usual was silent. And the house itself below me and above me was soundless, perfectly still. In general the house was quiet, dumbly quiet, without resonances of any sort, something like what one would imagine the interior of a convent would be. I suppose it was very solidly ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... only animals in all their peculiar fearfulness and peculiar savagery that possessed a charm. The soundless, stealthy tread in the total darkness of night; the hidden monsters of the woods; the shrieks of a bird flying past; the wind, the smell of blood, the rumbling in space; in short, the reigning spirit of the ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... obliterated the trail. They were now well inland and mounting a perceptible grade toward the foothills: the sluggish stream they had paralleled all day ran swift here. Once, where the trail twisted near the bank, they heard the rush of rapids, and a mile farther on they came in sight of a curiously soundless waterfull. They had reached the Bogobo country but the afternoon quiet was unbroken by the sound of agongs. Fear had reached ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... wind here, for it presses the clouds and the sea. Those men who were going to fish are about to return without launching. Wait a little, is it not spring? will not the wind be quiet? this wind is only the voice of the lasting pine- trees, ready for stillness. See how the air is soundless, or would be, were it not for the waves. There now, the fishermen are putting out with ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... Instantly the soundless waste was torn with the quick staccato of guns upon every hand. Abdul and Tarzan fired only at the flashes—they could not yet see their foemen. Presently it became evident that the attackers were circling their position, drawing closer ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... staggered, but at last he choked out: "My mother taught me." Here Paddy retired from the room, doubled in a strong but soundless convulsion. ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... said, and his wife did not trouble herself to protest; Reverdy opened his mouth in a soundless laugh at the Squire's humor, and then filled it with bacon and corn-pone, and ducked his head in silence over his plate. "What ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... the Martian Princess and the searchers on the hull. He cried out in the soundless dark. The searchers had left the hull and were pursuing him through open space. Their speed far exceeded his. It was futile to run before them—and futile to leave the haven of the Martian Princess. His only chance of survival or ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... me and was ready. She gave a long slow soundless headshake, merciful only in being inarticulate. This mercy didn't prevent its hurling at me the largest finest coldest "Never!" I had yet, in the course of a life that had known denials, had to take full in the face. I took it and was aware that with the hard blow the tears had come into ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... thicker and grayer. As Wade climbed the trail up toward the mountain-basin, where he hunted most these days, he expected the fog to lift. But it did not. The trail under the hoofs of the horse was scarcely perceptible to him, and he seemed lost in a dense, gray, soundless obscurity. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... and forth, his lips forming soundless words, his big hands working as though the fingers were at the throat of the thief that had stolen into his home. His mind was going over certain words that Hagar had answered to his questions, just before Ruth's coming. He dwelt upon every slight ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... on an inferior instrument, may suggest, but cannot give: but here the suggestion is so perfect that we cease to yearn for the real music, as, reading from a score, we are satisfied with the flute and bassoons that play so faultlessly in soundless dots. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, will a gazer think: "To him this must have been a ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... on a pleasantry, whereat Moses opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest at ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... seemed to sink into a deeper stillness than before, and the dreamy surge of sound broke softer and softer upon the shores of evening, as daylight sobered down. High above the green valley, on both sides, the moorlands stretched away in billowy wildernesses—dark, bleak, and almost soundless, save where the wind harped his wild anthem upon the heathery waste, and where roaring streams filled the lonely cloughs with drowsy uproar. It was a striking scene, and it was an impressive hour. The bold, round, flat-topped height of Musbury Tor stood gloomily ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... and not a word to say, By silence overborne, until at last The young man breathed, "Look how the end of day Falls heavily, as though the earth were cast Into a shapeless soundless pit, where ray Of heavenly light never the verge has past. Yet will the late moon's light anon shine here, And then gray light, and then the sun's ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... other which they held, as far as distance and arrangement were concerned, and whether that could possibly have any intellectual significance. The nebulous conglomeration of the suns in Pleiades suggested a soundless depth of space, and he thought of the earth floating like a little ball in immeasurable reaches of ether. His own life appeared very trivial in view of these things, and he found himself asking whether it was all really of any significance or importance. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... fin—the cannon's sight—split in half as the turret opened and the coiled nose of the cannon protruded. There was a soundless flash. Then a ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... non-existence of the vast world devoid of sight and sound. What remains a vast space. Imagine the vast space to be void of ether and the subtle seeds of creation. Perfect stillness reigns supreme over the ocean of universal space, beginningless and endless. What supports it? It is supportless, soundless, cloudless. He does not see. Yet he is not blind, does not hear, yet he is not deaf. He goes beyond the feeling of time and space. Every time the true seer enters a state of dreamless sleep he enjoys the span of Ethereal ...
— The Secret of Dreams • Yacki Raizizun
... were in impenetrable shadow, the gardens that edged them were debatable ground, full of grotesque silhouettes, backgrounded by black bulks of silent houses all profoundly asleep. As for us, we also were shadows, whose feet were soundless on the sandy sidewalks. We moved in the dark like travelers in the City ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... and soundless too; For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony, And very wisely threat before ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... that my dreams should have peculiar interest for the man of science. In some undefined way it is expected that they should reveal the world I dwell in to be flat, formless, colourless, without perspective, with little thickness and less solidity—a vast solitude of soundless space. But who shall put into words limitless, visionless, silent void? One should be a disembodied spirit indeed to make anything out of such insubstantial experiences. A world, or a dream for that matter, to be comprehensible to us, must, I should think, have a warp of substance ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... vitality Engendered, in his image cast, Part of the Nature-song whereof the last Chord soundeth never in the harmony. 'Psyche'! Thy form is shadowed o'er with pain Born of intensest longing, and the rain Of a world's weeping lieth like a sea Of silent soundless sorrow in thine eyes. Yet grief is not eternal, for clouds rise ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... cottonwoods or willow thickets flowed here to stripe the dingy, yellow world with interrupting green, nor were cattle to be seen dotting the distance, nor moving objects at all, nor any bird in the soundless air. The last gate was shut by the Virginian, who looked back at the pleasant trees of the ranch, and then followed on in single file across the alkali ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... were long shadows blue as the blue lagoons of the sky among drifting snow-white moors of cloud. Three white aspens on the pastures were in a still sleep: their tremulous leaves made no rustle, though there was a soundless wavering fall of little dusky shadows, as in the dark water of a pool where birches lean in the yellow hour of the frostfire. Upon the pastures were ewes and lambs sleeping, and yearling kids opened and closed their onyx eyes among the garths of ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... that queer uncontrollable qualm that comes to every one who finds himself suddenly on the edge of a soundless deep. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... seemed to Magda as though the whole world stood still—gripped in a strange, soundless stillness like the catastrophic pause which for an infinitesimal space of time succeeds a bad accident. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... me in that sunny, solitary place, not like a spectre, but like some friend whom I had basely injured. Was the great treasure ship indeed below there, with her guns and chain and treasure, as she had sailed from Spain; her decks a garden for the seaweed, her cabin a breeding place for fish, soundless but for the dredging water, motionless but for the waving of the tangle upon her battlements—that old, populous, sea-riding castle, now a reef in Sandag Bay? Or, as I thought it likelier, was this a waif from the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... muscle; its long, slender neck, of swanlike curvature; the head, wide between the eyes, and tapering to a muzzle which a lady's bracelet might have almost clasped; its motion, step long and elastic, tread sure and soundless—all certified its Syrian blood, old as the days of Cyrus, and absolutely priceless. There was the usual bridle, covering the forehead with scarlet fringe, and garnishing the throat with pendent brazen chains, each ending with a tinkling silver bell; but to the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... voice was swept away and drowned, and a rush of people followed on the heels of the tumult. These intruders came towards him and Lincoln gesticulating. The voices without explained their soundless lips. "Show us the Sleeper, show us the Sleeper!" was the burden of the uproar Men were ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... back among the pillows, breathing heavily, the perfect picture of exhaustion. Jarvis came near on soundless feet and applied a wet ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... inclined to think nothing will——" began Major Carstairs, but he got no further, for with the extraordinary aptness of conjunction which we are wont to call coincidence, though another word might more fitly be employed, the door opened almost noiselessly and a hooded figure crept on soundless feet into the room. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... and lighted the last few miles of their journey, casting a strange amber radiance around them, flinging mysterious shadows about the kopjes, shedding an unearthly splendour upon the endless veldt. It spread like an illimitable ocean in soundless billows out of which weird rocks stood up—a dream-world of fantastic possibilities, but petrified into stillness by the spell of its solitudes—a world that once surely had thrilled with magic and ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... in truth, in these, and all other matters, except the regular routine of living, I was for a considerable time kept apart from my fellows by the deafness brought on by the explosion. I lived in a little soundless world of my own with those dearest to me,—Carette, and my mother, and my grandfather, and Krok, and Jeanne Falla, and George Hamon. And if I needed further company, I could people the grim stockade with old friends out of those four most wonderful ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... face of the scout brightened. Here was the most promising pupil who had ever sat at his feet for instruction; and now they redoubled their caution, as their soundless bodies slipped through the undergrowth. Everywhere they looked for the trail of that wild turkey. It may be said that a turkey can and does fly in the air and leaves no trail, but Henry knew that the ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the soft sandy-soil received and deadened the impact of her hoofs. Off she flew through the grey of the morning, soundless as a ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... the preceding night, pacing a winding lobby, brightly illuminated, the man who kept that watch was suddenly met by a person wearing a masque, and armed at all points. His surprise and consternation were great, and the more so as the steps of The Masque were soundless, though the floor was a stone one. The guard, but slightly prepared to meet an attack, would, however, have resisted or raised an alarm; but The Masque, instantly levelling a pistol at his head with one hand, with the other had thrown open the door of an empty cell, indicating ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of infra-bass abruptly changed to a thin whining note so high in pitch that it seemed the nearly soundless ghost of a metallic scream. With the change in sound Blake became aware of a new and astounding change in ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... they passed on at high speed through the vast realm of space. The chronometer pointed out the hours with exasperating slowness. The six hours that were to elapse before the first stop seemed as many days. They had thought of this trip as a wonderful adventure in itself, but the soundless continued monotony was depressing. They wandered around, aimlessly. Wade tried to sleep, but after lying strapped in his bunk for half an hour, he ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... where people might speak to her, she took the short cut through the sun-pavilion, which would bring her nearer to the stairs. But on throwing open the door she stood still on the threshold with a little soundless gasp. "Oh!" ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... unconscious of the change. Beneath him, in a space between the quays bridged by the gangway, a number of rowboats, a putative score, lay moored for the night and gently rubbing against each other with the soundless lift and fall of the river. For all that Kirkwood could determine to the contrary, the lot lay at the mercy of the public; nowhere about was he able to discern a figure in ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... spoke face to face with a man, he never seemed to be giving more than half his attention, for might not someone else approach if he lost himself in order to listen to any one voice? He had covered half the length of the room with that soundless step before she heard, and rose with ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... wait for proof of the follower's intentions. And the only proof would be to be attacked, and the first proof of that, since needle guns are soundless and inconspicuous, would probably be a ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... car round the corner before turning to the entrance of Troyon's, keeping his weather-eye alert the while. But when the car was gone, the street seemed quite deserted and as soundless as though it had been the thoroughfare of some remote village rather than an artery of the pulsing ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... nearer, and down upon me loomed a stagecoach, a mountainous shape that flitted by me like a phantom. A phantom? The very night seemed peopled by phantoms; I sped past phantom wains and waggons, piled high with phantom loads, that moved with no sound of hoofs or wheels; spectral horsemen flitted by, soundless; in the shadow of hissing hedgerow and raving, wind-tossed trees crawled miserable, nebulous shapes, seen but to be lost again, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... profound as death, if death Be visited by stealthy dreams; A vagrant note from soundless themes That ring the comet-paths of space, Seemed vibrant in the windless air That trembled with its presence there. Out beyond the nameless place Where neither fields nor clouds exist, Grey from the ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... mystery down the soundless valley Thunders, and dark is here; And the wind blows, and the light goes, And the night ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... seldom converse in the wastes, for there is something about the silence of the wilderness which discourages speech. And no land is so grimly silent, so hushed and soundless, as the frozen North. For days they marched through desolation, without glimpse of human habitation, without sight of track or trail, without sound of a human voice to break the monotony. There was no game in the country, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... pitch that I felt no fear: like the condemned who sleep and eat the night before execution, I was no longer able to suffer apprehension. I was past that. Just at the foot of the stairs I stubbed my toe against Halsey's big chair, and had to stand on one foot in a soundless agony until the pain subsided to a dull ache. And then—I knew I was right. Some one had put a key into the lock, and was turning it. For some reason it refused to work, and the key was withdrawn. There was a muttering ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the most silent woman I ever met. She could pass a whole day without uttering a word, and did not seem to suffer any ennui from her silence. In the house she wore always, like the other inhabitants of the village, men and women, soundless felt socks, which slipped readily into the wooden sabots used for walking out-of-doors. I was beginning to learn to walk in sabots myself, for the time was drawing rapidly near when otherwise I should ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... and here and there a curl of smoke showed that Rome was waking up. The light insensibly grew upon the darkness. A pink flush lit up the horizon. Florio stirred in his lair, stretched his dappled limbs, and as the first sun-ray glinted on the roof, raised himself, crossed the gravelled tiles with soundless feet, and ran his soft nose into Katy's hand. She fondled him for Amy's sake as she stood bent over the flower-boxes, inhaling the scent of the mignonette and gilly-flowers, with her eyes fixed on the distance; ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... air seemed to sigh along the arched roof and die away as the dark figure crossed the third streak of moonlight. A strange awe fell upon them all, and no one spoke, but stood watching for the appearance of the shape. Nearer and nearer it came, with soundless steps, and as it reached the sixth window its outlines were distinctly visible. A tall, wasted figure, all in black, with a rosary hanging from the girdle, and a dark ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... particular, its little court offers hospitality to the big buttress of the church. Another buttress, corresponding with this (the two, between them, sustain the gable of the north transept), is planted in the small cloister, of which the door on the farther side of the little soundless Rue de la Psalette, where nothing seems ever to pass, opens opposite to that of Mademoiselle Gamard. There is a very genial old sacristan, who introduced me to this cloister from the church. It is very small and solitary, and much mutilated; but it nestles with ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... half turned. There was a soundless flash beside me, a tiny level beam leaped down the corridor—that horribly intense actinic white beam. It struck the guard, and his figure fell forward in the grille doorway. When we reached him, there was but a crumpled heap of black and white garments ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... gold and green, shining on the bosom of the night. To either side, the long, dark lines of thrice-historic palaces; scarcely a poor light here and there at their water-gates; and now and then the lamps of the Traghetti.... Otherwise, darkness, soundless motion, ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... street of tombs in a buried city, and bordered on each hand by ghostly cliffs of that faint granite purple which seems, in its far-away height, as unsubstantial as the dark blue that bounds it;—the whole scene so changeless and soundless; so removed, not merely from the presence of men, but even from their thoughts; so destitute of all life of tree or herb, and so immeasurable in its lonely brightness of majestic death, that it looks like a world from which not ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... silently the length of the veranda with him. They stood there for a moment, Ken on the lower step. The step was half sunk into the earth and mint grew thickly about and over its edge. Often crushed by so many passing feet it gave out its essence freely, and the spicy odour hung round them like a soundless, invisible benediction. Ken looked up at Rilla, whose hair was shining in the moonlight and whose eyes were pools of allurement. All at once he felt sure there was nothing in that gossip about ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... bottle of blood-restorer pills, and just enough strength left to swallow several of them when she brought it. Then he boarded the phantom ship that had mysteriously appeared beside him and set sail upon the soundless sea ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... sunset he made for the camp, reaching within a mile of it as the light left the sky. He watched the camp fire burning, and made for it. Toward midnight, crawling on his belly, soundless as a snake, he crept right up beside Adams, seized the gun and the cartridge bag, and with them in his hands ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Prince consented, and she glided away from him with soundless footsteps. Close, close behind her he followed till they reached the threshold of the Cave Hall. There he tarried out of sight, yet where his eyes could still keep ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... the cross-roads. Here, concealed behind a tree, he waited patiently some five or ten minutes. At the end of that time, Chamberlain's mild and kindly face lighted up with unholy joy. He opened his mouth and emitted a soundless "haw-haw." ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... none of us. He struggled out of my clasp and disappeared over the long grasses with soundless leaps. He was no longer our tame, domestic, well acquainted Paddy. He was a strange, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was hard, under such disquieting circumstances, to hold a thought, and Billy found himself struggling in mind for equilibrium while he stood forward to the attack. He aimed a wild blow at his capering opponent, and drove into soundless air only, and before he could recover himself the capering opponent had "landed" on Billy's cheek in a most surprising but altogether ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... thy peace, O God Deep as the soundless sea, Which falls like sunshine on the road Of those who trust ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... these questions fighting in his heart, he had for the hundredth time arrived thus far, all at once it seemed as if a soundless voice in the depth ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... into its own soundless peace the outstretched forms of rough warriors and removes them from grim reality into the passing ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... expect me to say it more often than I felt it 'So we go out!' he thought. 'No more beauty! Nothing?' Sorrowful pleasure Spirit of the future, with the charm of the unknown Surprised that he could have had so paltry an idea Swivel chairs which give one an advantage That dog was a good dog. The soundless footsteps on the grass! There was no one in any sort of authority to notice him Waves of sweetness and regret flooded his soul. Weighing you to the ground with care and love What he wanted, though much, was not quite all that mattered Whole world was in conspiracy ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... shining, retreating container. It exploded with a monstrous, soundless, violence. It had been a rocket's war head. There could have been only one reason for it to be introduced into a Plumie ship. Baird ceased to be shaky. Instead, he ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... twenty alternate angles and described an unthinkable polygon, he paused to listen for any sound of pursuit. There was none; there could not in any case have been much, for the little streets were thick with the soundless snow. Somewhere behind Red Lion Court, however, he noticed a place where some energetic citizen had cleared away the snow for a space of about twenty yards, leaving the wet, glistening cobble-stones. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... suitable to the theme? What is the effect of the first sentence? Pick out a number of rather unusual words which Poe seems particularly to like; observe their effect. The adjectives are especially worth study; in the first sentence try the effect of substituting for "soundless," ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... musical efforts,—he who could not turn a tune,—he knew that Jones had himself well in hand. In his left hand the Secretary held a formal-looking paper with which he was quietly tapping the table in front of him as though keeping time to his soundless and imaginary ditty. With his chin well down, he was looking from under his heavy eyebrows with ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... was made safely in the circle of Air Guardsmen. There was a small hospital plane standing beside it in a moment, and as Arcot's ship released it, and then hung motionless, soundless above it, the people watched it in wonder and excitement. They wanted to see Arcot perform; they clamored to see the wonderful powers of this ship in operation. Air Guardsmen who had witnessed the flying game of tag between these two super-air machines had told of it through the ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... June meadow, with flower-scents and cloud-shadows and the soft, sultry music of humming-bees and singing-birds, with clear skies bending over; a deep sea the other, whereon sail stately ships, wafted by health-bearing breezes, in whose waters the sick gain strength, in whose soundless depths the coral and the precious stones repose forever, which supplies the clouds whose shadow makes ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... steered Right on the rock which she and Torquil neared. They pulled; her arm, though delicate, was free And firm as ever grappled with the sea, And yielded scarce to Torquil's manlier strength. The prow now almost lay within its length Of the crag's steep inexorable face, With nought but soundless waters for its base; 50 Within a hundred boats' length was the foe, And now what refuge but their frail canoe? This Torquil asked with half upbraiding eye, Which said—"Has Neuha brought me here to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... witnessed to a complicated history, of which few could tell anything. Here and there in the hollows between the motionless earth-billows, flowed, but did not seem to flow, what they called a brook. But the brooks there were like deep soundless pools without beginning or end. There was no life, no gaiety, no song in them, only a sullen consent to exist. That at least is how they impress one accustomed to real brooks, lark-like, always on the quiver, always ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... corridor on his way to the hydro, Sinbad at his heels. But in a moment the cat was back, leaping up on Dane's knee. He did not curl up, but rubbed against the young man's arm, finally reaching up with a paw to touch Dane's chin, uttering one of the soundless, mews which were his bid ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... cabin window. A silent shadow it was, that crept, paused, came on again. And now in the dark, had there been any eye to see, the shadow would have been identified as a barefoot man, lithe, alert, moving silently forward with the soundless stealth of an Arab versed in the art ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... of the permission. Whatever the madness of Mad Maitland, he was concerned only to profit by it. Never before had the long arm of the law stretched hungry fingers so near his collar. He went, springing down the hall in long, soundless ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... it all—about the bluish silvery half-light, the spotless floors and walls, the abnormally noiseless maid in her flamboyant cap and apron—that arrested attention and fixed it. The soundless brightness of the house was as conspicuous as the contrast between the maid's black gown and her snow-white cuffs. There was nothing subdued about anything, although the long, silvery blue curtains were drawn over the lace window hangings; no shadows anywhere, no ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... generation the Irish bards have endeavored to live in a palace of art, in chambers hung with the embroidered cloths and made dim with pale lights and Druid twilights, and the melodies they most sought for were half soundless. The art of an early age began softly, to end its songs with a rhetorical blare of sound. The melodies of the new school began close to the ear and died away in distances of the soul. Even as the prophet of old was warned to take off his shoes because ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... explosion had been extremely hurtful to the credit of many of the best houses. In a crisis like that of Black Friday the sluice-gates of passion open. Cloaked in the masquerade of genuine distrust, came forth whispers whose only origin was in ancient enmities, long-treasured spites, the soundless depths of unquenchable malignities. Firms of staunchest reputation felt the rapier-stroke of old angers. The knowledge that certain houses were large holders of particular stocks was the signal of attacks upon the shares. Despite of outside orders for vast amounts, these influences had their effect ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... inspirer of that thing that to him seemed the most perfect of its kind. His will was its will, his thought was its impulse, his breath was the breath of its existence. He felt all this confusedly, without ever shaping this feeling into the soundless formulas of thought. To him she was unique and dear, this brig of three hundred and ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... A soundless gasp, a flash of dismay rocked him, but neither was his gasp nor his dismay. That pressure snapped off; he was free. But the other wasn't! Knife still in fist, Shann turned and ran upslope, his torch in his other hand. He could see a shape now writhing, fighting, outlined against ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton |
