"Dully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... visiting their rabbit snares. In the fast gathering darkness the boy concealed himself in a bunch of willows which commanded a view of the door and window of the tiny cabin that lay half-buried in the snow. It was an old cabin evidently, rechinked by the free traders. The light shone dully through the little square window pane of greased paper. The Indian had already been admitted and Connie could see dim shadows move across the pane. The great wolf-dog crept close and, throwing his arm about the animal's neck, the boy ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... come, now, to a better professional knowledge of him. He was a man of probity, and of some ability, but a deliberate; impossible to hurry, and not easy, as it seemed, even to interest. Under him matters dragged dully through the courts, and others' nerves were worn to shreds. I remember how surprised I was one day on hearing that he had picked ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... talking about?" The Kerothi's face shone dully orange in the dim light, his bright green eyes looked steadily at the Earthman, and ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... practice makes perfect, and regardless of coming shortness of breath, the lad kept on thrusting away, so intent upon his work that he did not bear the faint smothered click as of a latch behind him, nor note a white hand from one of whose fingers glistened dully the stone en cabochon of a big ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... When everything he possessed was swept away, and with it the routine that for three years had kept him busy and content, he knew not what to do nor which way to turn. Sunk in apathy, he spent whole days in dully mourning for what he had lost. He would have starved had not Fetuao forced him to follow her into the mountains, where, under her direction, he dug tamu and climbed the trees for wild chestnuts; while she, with deft hands and a little tangled bunch of weeds, caught prawns in the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Rohscheimer stared, dully. There were times when he suspected Haredale of being studiously rude to him. He preserved a gloomy silence throughout the rest of the period occupied by his toilet, and in silence descended to ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... with its filmy veil still lay in its white box—a fairy garment that had survived the catastrophe. Dinah sat and looked at it dully. The light of her single candle shimmered upon the soft folds. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... has been making more of a lady's maid of Cora than usual," said Nan, putting a hand to her forehead, which was beginning to throb dully. "And lady's maids aren't very often seen ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... map, great Grand papapapah," he announced solemnly, and all of the other little Princes shook their heads and said dully, "Not on the map." ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... kicked something that rattled and rolled away from him. He stopped, freezing in his tracks, looking downward, trying to pierce the dully glowing gloom. The thing he had kicked was ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a look ahead, and so suddenly threw on the brake that Sam and the chauffeur tumbled awake. Across the road stretched the great bulk of a touring-car, its lamps burning dully in the brilliance of the moon. Around it, for greater warmth, a half-dozen figures stamped upon the frozen ground, and beat themselves with their arms. Sam and the chauffeur vaulted into the road, and went ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... shake the head at so long a breathing;I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us; I will, in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring signior Benedick and the lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection, the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... dully at the change in Pierre. His face had shrivelled to blackened freezes stretched upon a bony substructure, and lighted by feverish, glittering, black, black eyes. It seemed to him that his own lagging body had long since failed, and that his aching, naked soul wandered stiffly through the endless ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... slowly to the window and stared out into the fog. When he faced about an automatic shone dully in his hand. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... tossed and writhed through the hours, while Barry slumbered peacefully and breathed in new strength. Little was aware of a subtle drone and hum all around the place; he placed it to the further credit of pestiferous insects and cursed them dully. From the river crept in a rank odor of musk and mud that mingled with the sleepy sounds to lull him, yet his brain refused to rest. He sweat and twisted in the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... is done. Not a single dust-speck has soiled sky or earth; not the faintest echo of noisy labours disturbed the silences; not an alien sight has intruded. What can there be in such a scene to exhilarate? Must not the inhabitants vegetate dully after the style of their own bananas? Actually the day has been all too brief for the accomplishment of inevitable duties and to the complete enjoyment of all too ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... knew not there was such a spot, and might, perhaps, have never known, had it not been for a wizard afternoon in autumn—late in autumn—a mad poet's afternoon; when the turned maple woods in the broad basin below me, having lost their first vermilion tint, dully smoked, like smouldering towns, when flames expire upon their prey; and rumor had it, that this smokiness in the general air was not all Indian summer—which was not used to be so sick a thing, however mild—but, in great part, was blown from far-off forests, for weeks on fire, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... and again was still. It was that Washington girl then. She answered dully, groping for words, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... immediately afterwards. That would be the best thing for him. Had he not said the last time he was drunk and was crying so bitterly, "I don't suit this place. When my Sophia is a widow, will she love me more than she does now?" Yes, she would. He was quite right, and he had felt it dully in his intoxication. A monument should be erected to his memory, as beautiful a cross as could be ordered in Gradewitz, or even in Gnesen. If only he would depart, it only he would depart and leave her ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... Dully she recalled the night after Eliot had shown her he had no intention of claiming her love as a succession of interminable hours of mental and physical agony. But now she was hardly conscious of pain—only ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... came clinking along the passages, looked dully round the ballroom, and said, yawning: 'Put out the lights, Mateus, and open the windows. Where is ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... "sandy deserts of rhetoric," or struggles as if it were having a personal difficulty with Ignorance and his brother Platitude. It was capitally said of Chateaubriand that "he lived on the summits of syllables," and of another young author that "he was so dully good, that he made even virtue disreputable." Hawthorne had no such literary vices to contend with. His looks seemed from the start ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... said dully. "What's the use bucking the game after your luck is gone? Come on, let's go down-town. Yes, I ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... Sam regarded it dully. He looked around him at the natural meadow sloping gently up from the river-bank to the grassy hills behind, a rich field ready to the farmer's hand and crying for tilth, and he said to himself, "This is my land," ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... in swimmin' here every day, 'cept when it's froze over," she volunteered dully. "Hain't you skeert at the sight o' blood, ma'am? Some people air. We wuz figgerin' on whuther we'd dig a grave fer him or jest pull out yonder into the current an' drop him over. Pap said we had to git rid of him 'fore anybody come around. 'Nen the dogs begin to bark ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... feet distant from the building, dropping it at last and standing erect for the first time to fill his lungs and look about him. Looking back as he ran down the tracks toward the shed where he had left Nigger, he saw shadowy forms of men running around the courthouse, which was now dully illuminated, the light from within dancing fitfully through the window shades. Flaming streaks rent the night from various points—thinking him still in the building the deputies were shooting through the windows. Manti, rudely awakened, was pouring its population through its doors in ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... dully, resting my arm along the chimney-piece and staring down into the grate, where Jephson had lit a small fire: for the day, though ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to recall all he had said. Oh, yes, he was coming back. What did he mean by coming back? When? She dully wondered if it would be tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. Three days, perhaps, three long, interminable days to think of him and to long for him. Could she live three days? She sprang to her ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... know," she answered dully. "I wish I did. Father's illness started with sciatica, through exposure to the cold and damp. It was better during the time the Karluk was in San Francisco though he had some severe attacks. He said that Doctor Carlsen gave him relief. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... conscientiously, to read myself to sleep with it. I was under obligations to old Cal and I wanted to do him justice, but the thing was impossible. I fathomed a sort of a plot. It dealt in fratricide with a touch of adultery; a Great Moral Purpose loomed in the background. It would have been a dully readable novel but for that; as it was, it was intolerable. It was amazing that Cal himself could put out such stuff; that he should have the impudence. He was not a fool, not by any means a fool. It revolted me ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... and dully, and this, too, was a result of his illness, for in past days his voice had rung stentorian above the blows of axes in the timber. "Yes, I've heard of you. You're the millionaire hobo. When a man's got plenty of ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... arrested—it is because the sovietists want to know their actions. If the damned lack of organization, that we all are suffering from, can be noticed in our present life—it is ideally clearly seen in the Ekaterinburg circles. The Princess G. and others are of the same sort; dully thinking, believing in and hoping for marvels and miracles, trying to look busy and tired. They gossip about each other, they are ready to sink each other in a spoonful of water. Now what is their plan? They haven't any,—at least, nothing definite. ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... hesitated in his decision; and in the next moment it was out of his power to decide. For Rufe, in desperation now, met the boarders at the rail, backed by his half-dozen crazed adherents, and murderous steel glittered dully ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the side street to a quiet spot and laid his suddenly burning face against the cool iron of a lamp-post, and said dully: ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... moment at each side of the vile mouth, and the grip tightened still more upon my chin, forcing it always upwards and back. A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my eyes and little silvery bells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I heard the crack of a rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was dropped to the earth, where I lay ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the failure. He meant, anyhow, that his step no longer should be purposeless and mechanical; that his walk should hereafter have intent in it. And as he came down the porch steps he looked about him, but dully, with sick and uninforming eyes, but with a livened interest in all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... struggled with a refractory horse that refused to draw his load of brush and dead leaves. She stared at the group dully: six months ago she would have flinched at the great clambering hoofs and ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Smith, watching Clinch, who was reviving. He sat up presently, and put both hands over his head. Smith touched him silently on the shoulder and he turned his heavy, square head in a dazed way. Blood striped his visage. He gazed dully at Smith for a little while, then, seeming to recollect, the old glare began ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... arrested by a scent in the snow, scratched, whined, and drew out with his teeth a small case of brown leather. He held it up to Nello in the darkness. Where they were there stood a little Calvary, and a lamp burned dully under the cross: the boy mechanically turned the case to the light: on it was the name of Baas Cogez, and within it were notes ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... wild triumph; then suddenly, as though spent with the very fury of her passion, she turned from the river, and said dully: "You'd sure best not let her come back, sir! 'Fore God, I ain't a-wantin' ter do hit, but hit seems like I can't help myself; I can't sleep for wantin' ter fix hit so,—so's you just couldn't want ter have her no more'n you're a-wantin' me. I—I—sure ain't a-foolin' myself ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... The question was becoming urgent, for the heat of midday approached and already her head ached dully. She walked on, hardly noticing that she had passed beyond the garden gate, and it was with a start that she suddenly realised she had wandered to an unfamiliar part of the town. She was in a narrow street, where the overhanging higher ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... and a girl's first love letter, whatever blase, older people may think of it, is an event of tremendous importance in the teens. After Kenneth's regiment had left Kingsport there came a fortnight of dully-aching anxiety and when the congregation sang in Church on ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Benito. Once more he plunged down hill, seized a bucket and began the interminable passing of water. He looked about for Adrian but did not see him. He became a machine, dully, persistently, desperately performing ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... tang of the storm that had passed, lingered, giving a keen edge to the morning. "We're sure in wrong," he muttered, gazing at Chance, who stood watching him with head cocked and eyes eager for something to happen—preferably action. Sundown studied the dog dully. "Say, Chance," he said finally, "do you think you could take a little word to the camp? I heard of dogs doin' such things. Mebby you could. Somebody's got to do 'somethin' and I can't." Painfully he stooped and pointed toward the ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... illimitable wastes of death. But no such hapless lot was Shelley's as that of his own contemporaries—Keats, half chewed in the jaws of London and spit dying on to Italy; de Quincey, who, if he escaped, escaped rent and maimed from those cruel jaws; Coleridge, whom they dully mumbled for the major portion of his life. Shelley had competence, poetry, love; yet he wailed that he could lie down like a tired child and weep away his life of care. Is it ever so with you, sad brother; is it ever so with me? and is there no drinking of pearls except they be dissolved ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... occurs at a different period for the girls and for the boys; so that a Marquesan brother and sister meet again, after their education is complete, a pair of strangers. It is a harsh law, and highly unpopular; but what a power it places in the hands of the instructors, and how languidly and dully is that power employed by the mission! Too much concern to make the natives pious, a design in which they all confess defeat, is, I suppose, the explanation of their miserable system. But they might see in the girls' school ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cowboy, the pistol holster low on the thigh. But for the moment this holster was empty, and in his right hand, the hammer at full cock, the chamber loaded, the puncher flourished his teaser, an army Colt's, the lamplight dully reflected in the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... again if I rest," I thought, and meanwhile drifted out until the roar of the breakers came but dully to my ears—out where the ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... road, staring dully at the girls as they came up, were two women and a boy about seventeen years old, as well as ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... watched him, dug into the furnace of melting iron with his pole, dully thinking only how many rails the lump would yield. It was late,—nearly Sunday morning; another hour, and the heavy work would be done,—only the furnaces to replenish and cover for the next day. The workmen were growing more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... upon a dreary world, Slant to the light, one late October morn, From some rough cavern blew a tempest cold, And tearing off his garland of ripe corn, Twisted with blue grapes, sweet with delicious wine, And Ceres' drowsy flowers, so dully red, Deep in his cavern leafy and divine, Buried ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... shrill grinding of the wheels stopped at the station, which upon its leglike pillars seemed to resemble some monstrous kind of crab squatting over the street. The quick fat puffings of the engines could be heard. Down an alley there were somber curtains of purple and black, on which street lamps dully glittered like embroidered flowers. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... the men opened a briefcase and removed a large, dully gleaming band. Apparently, it was made of plastic, or some light alloy, for he handled it as though ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... thoughts or dreams of her. He had always pictured her as free, quite free, following her whims and ambitions within the limitations of a meager purse. He sat there, stunned, for a moment, and then remembered, dully, that he did not even know her name. The absurdities of his position, and the futilities of all his long aspirations and love dreams seemed magnified through the shock of sudden and bitter knowledge. In a moment of bitter disappointment, ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... you'd gone back to Eastshore," said Louisa dully, "but Sarah and Shirley said no, your brother was visiting for ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... that he would be alone. The promenade was deserted. Through the ghost-white mist of morning he saw the rows of empty chairs, and lights burning dully in the wheel-house. Asian monsoon and the drifting warmth of the Japan current had brought an early spring to the Alexander Archipelago, and May had stolen much of the flowering softness of June. But the dawns of these days ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... merchants riding small animals were moving along behind the cart, Martians in long robes, their faces hidden by sand masks. On each animal was a pack, carefully tied on with rope. And beyond the merchants, plodding dully along, were peasants and farmers in an endless procession, some riding carts or ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick
... is used to oppression—that is, he either oppresses or is oppressed—and he is dully callous to death. So the villages were not much surprised at Kettle's descents upon them, and usually surrendered to him passively on the mere prestige of his name. They were pleasantly disappointed that he omitted the usual massacre, and in gratitude were eager to accept what they ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... treated the thing. But in his heart he knew her feelings, knew them and fully understood. It was exactly as he had felt about it also. The bond that bound Dacre Wynne's life to his had not yet been snapped, the mystery of his disappearance seemed only to strengthen it. He wondered dully when he would ever feel free again, and then laughed inwardly at himself for making a farce of the whole thing, for building a mountain out of a stupid little molehill. And 'Toinette was helping him. They were ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... and for a minute the fire made the only sound in the hut. Then, "All die?" I asked dully. "There are three thousand Englishmen ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... ached dully, of that he was conscious first. As he turned, without opening his eyes, he felt the brush of softness against his cheek, and a pungent odor fill ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... breath and turned her face away; they were both silent. Then she said, dully, that she never heard any news. "Mr. Raynor sends me my accounts every three months, but he never says ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... he himself was interested purely as a spectator. He had views on the subject of tea-making which he liked to expound from an armchair or sofa, but he never got further than this. Mike, his back throbbing dully from the blow he had received, and feeling more than a little sore all over, prepared the Etna, fetched the milk, and finally produced ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... where's the man, who counsel can bestow, Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know? Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite; Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right; Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere, 635 Modestly bold, and humanly severe: Who to a friend his faults can freely show, And gladly praise the merit of a foe? Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd; A knowledge both of books and human kind: ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... last article had been transferred to the shed, and a veteran padlock had been induced to return to active service, the windows of the tenement were beginning to glow dully, and the smell of cabbage and onions spoke ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... wet ploughland he took a good pull, With the thought that the cup of his sorrow was full, For the speed of a stag and the strength of a bull Could hardly recover the ground he had lost. Right Royal went dully, ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... matters without consulting him. In the field I had seen some straw stacks. We succeeded in reaching them. At the bottom of the smallest, I hollowed out a sort of cave. The work took but a minute. Willis was looking on dully; he was on the bare ground, utterly done for with pain and weariness. At length, ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding why she should not use those words. He would have admonished her, but she struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first time he realized that she had no religion. And all this life in the forest, in the snow, with drunken peasants, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... new load, which, while it paralyzed, for the present numbed her as well. The mistress of the novices was shocked to see her white drawn face, heavily- blacked eyes, and to hear a dead voice come dully ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... moment, then flicked the horses into a swift trot. She must get him home. Perhaps he was going to be ill. The boy did not move or look up for miles. When the horses splashed through the ford at Elm Creek, he roused himself and looked dully at Jane. ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... mostly gleaned the dead from the living both of friend and foe, and were tending the hurt of either host. Through an opening in the ranks moreover could they by the bier behold the scanty band of Roman captives, some standing up, looking dully around them, some sitting or lying on the grass talking quietly together, and it seemed by their faces that for them the bitterness ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... Amasis. This reaches its acme in the description of ugly old age (vol. v. 3); in The Three Wishes, the wickedest of satires on the alter sexus (vi. 180); in Ali the Persian (vol. iv. 139); in the Lady and her Five Suitors (vol. vi. 172), which corresponds and contrasts with the dully told Story of Upakosa and her Four Lovers of the Katha (p. 17); and in The Man of Al- Yaman (vol. iv. 245) where we find the true Falstaffian touch. But there is sterling wit, sweet and bright, expressed without any artifice of words, in the immortal Barber's tales of his brothers, especially ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... first few minutes the cold struck through them with a sting like the thrust of steel. A half-moon hung low above it, coppery red with frost, and there was no sound but the crunch beneath the runners, and the beat of hoofs that rang dully through the silence like a roll of ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... hardily enough without it. Did the darkness close over it, too, or was it not the germ of the soul, the budding of that wider knowledge and finer aspiration to flower hereafter in rarer air? He did not know; he only vaguely cared, and he reproached himself dully that he cared no more. For he—his life was threatened! With the renewal of the thought he experienced a certain animosity toward the man that he should not have known enough to take better care of himself. Why must ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Americans," replied Harding, dully. "The operator evidently feels friendly toward us, for she warned me not to appeal to Villa and told me why. Even now, this minute, the man has a force of twenty-five hundred ready to march on Columbus, New Mexico. Three Americans were hanged in Cuivaca this afternoon. It's ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... like ferrets; oppressed, overborne, or cunning, with the cunning of those who must be cunning to live; imbruted often with the brutishness of apathy, consciousless of the dignity of manhood, only dully patient or viciously keen as the ox is or the hawk. Many sottish-looking, or if not sottish with the beery texture of those whose only recreation is to be bestially merry at the drink-shop. This was the impression ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... and after the first few months of observation he had aroused no interest. He had minded his business, paid his way, taken his turn in camp at greenhorn jobs, accounted for his presence on the ground of seeking health, and that was all. Life went on as usual, sluggishly and dully—but on. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... dispelled the enchanted dream into which I had fallen. Instinctively I turned and very slowly began to retrace my steps amongst the yawning pitfalls. As I did so I heard a hoarse hoot from the steamer lying below, to tell me it was about to leave, another and another resounded dully from it, warning ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... to view, where the deck had been torn away, was revealed the vessel's hold packed full, apparently, of yellow walrus ivory and among the tusks there glittered dully bars of what ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... her into the apartment, and stood dully by the table as she untied the box and lifted half a dozen exquisite white orchids from their bed of maidenhair ferns. Then, trying very hard to keep his voice steady, he ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... crouched down in its narrow cage, feeding. I saw the body stooping over a quantity of coarse-looking, piled-up substance that was evidently food. It was like a man huddled up. There it squatted, happy and contented, with the minimum of air, light, and space, dully satisfied with its prisoned cage behind the bars, utterly unconscious of the vast world about it, grunting with pleasure, purring like a great cat, scornfully ignorant of what might lie beyond. The cell, moreover, I saw was a perfect masterpiece of mechanical contrivance and inventive ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... an elder to hear him, so slim and simple, discoursing so sweetly and reasonably on a theme on which few of us at the fag end of our days are ever able to utter one sensible syllable, but Lancelot always seemed to me wise beyond his time, so I listened, although dully enough and I fear sullenly. He slipped his hand into his breast and drew forth a small object which he held shut in his hand while he ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... this something gave way within him like a lump melting in his throat. The air cleared and became radiant with dawn, and turning over on his face he began to sob dully into the pillow. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Mischief to impeach, You care as little what the Poets teach, As you regard at Church what Parsons preach. But where such Follies, and such Vices reign, What honest Pen has Patience to refrain? At Church, in Pews, ye most devoutly snore And here, got dully drunk, ye come to roar: Ye go to Church to glout, and ogle there, And come to meet more loud convenient here. With equal Zeal ye honour either Place, And run so very evenly your Race, Y' improve in Wit just as you do in Grace. It must be so, some Daemon has possest Our Land, and we have never ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... wondered—and dully thought that he couldn't see her, of course, and then suddenly knew that he must. After all, there didn't seem to be much use in saving for the sake of saving when all the saving you could possibly do didn't bring you one real ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... the squatter's throat. Then he noted that something was wrong. Teola, pale and wretched, had gradually placed a greater distance between herself and the wooden box. Tess had involuntarily drawn closer to it. She dully comprehended that Teola was ashamed of the rabbit-like body, struggling for a mere existence. Expressions of consternation, of indecision and terror swept over her face. Her eyes dropped for an instant upon the silent infant. The child gave one great yawn, and whiningly dropped the ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... his seat and put his brown hand to his forehead. He had been crying, and he had had no supper, and his head was aching violently. "Oh, what shall I do?" he thought, as he looked dully down at his big shoes. "Nils will be ashamed of me; I haven't got ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... rest of the men watched dully. The women huddled together in a corner, whimpering. They were a sorry lot after all, thought Karl. He was no longer Peter Van Dorn, and he thrilled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... assisted while they broke away the looser pieces of green rock, glowing dully, and filled their ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... as he walked back and forth hunting for the fan or bringing her the water, he looked weirdly large—like, she thought dully, a fairy giant curiously draped. But the serenity of his expression touched her. She ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... He listened dully to the voices until he heard a horse's hoofs in front of the jail. He turned back with his face to the wall, and his hat tipped over his eyes, as a man entered the jail office with a stamp of boots and ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... must find me out in time. But I had a wild hope that by then we should be so close to one another that you might find it in your heart to forgive. But I was wrong. I see it now. There are some things that no man can forgive. Some things," she repeated, dully, ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Sir Maurice?" I repeated dully—"Sir Maurice?" And in that moment she broke from me, and stood with her head thrown back, and her eyes very bright, as though defying me. But I remained where I was, my ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... more of this sort of thing and then Mr. Thomas' signature. Galusha stared at the letter dully. This—this was what he and Martha Phipps had awaited so long! This was the outcome of his brilliant idea which was to save the Phipps' home... and its owner's peace of mind... ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... seep into his slow-acting mind, and then a look of helpless bewilderment, as though the stolid Freshman just could not understand at all, came to his face; a minute John Thorwald stood, as in a trance, staring dully at the letter. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Macabebes joked with each other as they repolished stainless rifles and repacked field equipment under a zealous corporal's eye. Outside, a knot of frightened natives occluded each window facing the plaza, peering in at the laughing soldiers, dully wondering at the makeup of these men who grinned at the prospect of facing the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... to him dully and carelessly; I did not care to bring objections, which arose thick and fast, to everything he said. He tried to assure me—and did so with a great deal of cleverness—that this Tractarian movement was not really an aristocratic, but a democratic one; that the Catholic ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... hear a moan, a sob. . . . Then he recognized dully that they were his own, that he had been accompanying his reflections with groans ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... billows of vapor. Up, up, they came, like dream men, their eyes weird and unreal. Cursing the treachery of their late host, Nelson and Alden watched dozens upon dozens of hoplites come swarming up the stairs in solid, dully-gleaming ranks. Apparently intent to take them prisoners, the foremost Atlanteans made a rush, giving the American time ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... I said dully, "isn't she apt to take a shot at us or something?" Not that I'd have minded on my own account. "Or are you and her that ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... to London we had met almost every day, and when necessary I had been as dully polite as a book on etiquette. But only when necessary. At other times I had effaced myself; now, though I was keen for news of Di, I didn't care to get it from him, especially after that look. Never since the episode of the photograph in camp at El Paso had I of my ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... baize door, standing nervously on tip-toe and with the intent of retiring precipitately if there should be any sign of the Principal; others hung over the stair or gallery banisters; the domestic staff stood round their own particular door, their white faces shining dully like Chinese lanterns; no one spoke or moved. In fact they might have been posing for a photographer until those above suddenly swayed and bent this way and that, and those in the hall parted to give way ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... she sat up and stared about her, dreamily wondering how she came to be there. She felt very stiff, and the arm on which she had been leaning ached horribly. She rubbed it a little, dully conscious of the pain, and as the blood began to course through the veins again, the sharp, pricking sensation commonly known as "pins and needles" aroused her effectually, and she recollected that she had walked out to Culver Point and established herself ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... about the tree that he could go neither back nor forwards, nor so much as put down his head to browse. There he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature took hold upon me. I went up, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for though no glare, there was no economy; and, beside, he had ever year a child, and very fond of his children was he. But none of them lived above three years. And being now, on the death of the dozenth, grown as dully sober, as if he had been a real husband, his good Mrs. Thomas (for he had not permitted her to take his own name) prevailed upon him to think the loss of their children a judgment upon the parents for their wicked way of life; [a time will come, Lovelace, if ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... whom Frank addressed remained staring dully at the boy. Nearer and nearer came the attendants, for the little excitement at the head of the line ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... which Spain took in Hayti was derived from the collars and bracelets which shone dully against the skins of the caciques and native women in the streets of Seville. It did not require an exhausted treasury, and the clamor of a Neapolitan war for sinews, to stimulate the appetite of a nation whose sensibility for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... pigsty, and the floor was littered with boards on which unlocked formes of type fell about into confusion. Paul could pick his way through these blindfold, and many and many a night in the dark he raged out his verses, marching to and fro with the four big dim windows staring dully at him, wall-eyed with countless paper patches, seen as darker blots on ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... rhodomontade. When spurred by wine there was wont to awaken in Baldry a certain mordant humor, a rough wit, making straight for the mark and clanging harshly against an adversary's shield, a lurid fancy dully illuminating the subject he had in hand. The wild story that he was telling caught the attention of the more thoughtless sort at table; they leaned forward, encouraging him from flight to flight, laughing at each sally of boatswain's wit, ejaculating admiration when the Star and ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... though in a dream, Dan's voice bore upon her ears. For a moment she gazed at him dully, and ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... but he had lost all interest, all sense of personal connection, with the proceedings. He dully watched Ottinger draw back, tenderly fingering his damaged features; he saw Em breathing stormily, empurpled. Jake, with the crimson flames in his long, pallid mask, the white saliva flecking his jaw, hung over him with ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... a number of beatings, but always given better than he had received. His arms were akimbo, his feet planted as firmly as if he were a particularly stubborn brand of tree. He glared down at them, his face expressive of anger, hatred—and, Forrester thought dully, a complete lack ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... please," he said dully. "I don't justify myself, however. I have ruined her life and now I ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... had died away on the surrounding sea the red light ceased to revolve. It was still, glaring dully. Then, as the boat touched the beach beneath the tower, Fion commanded Bechunach to throw his knotted cord and ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... him, a paper brought the last word. He read it calmly upon the train, wondering at himself that there was such a thing as calm left to him. A man, looking over his shoulder, commented on the news lightly. Drennen didn't answer. He was visualising the final episode dully; the great, masterful body of his own father in the Paris morgue, the ignominious grave, even the cowardly ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... yesterday, and Lebeau and his colleagues were in the House of Lords. We had been promised a good day there between Londonderry and Brougham and Plunket, but the former made a tiresome, long speech; the latter spoke civilly and dully; and Brougham not at all, so it ended in smoke. In the other House on Monday the Ministers got a good majority (102) on the wine duties, to their great delight, but the Opposition were not only mortified at the defeat, but disgusted and enraged at the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... the still, sparkling moonlight looked as if chiselled out of iron, and the veldt lay spread out all white and misty; but what one thought most of was the presence of these dark-faced, slouch-hatted irregulars, sitting free and easy in their saddles, with the light gleaming dully on revolver and carbine barrel. A fine thing is your first ride with ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... care what I do," she answered dully. "I hated that, but I shall hate everything now that ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been brought and stored in the boat before Hickson returned. By the flickering light of a native fire in a house close by I could see that something was the matter with him. His face was drawn, and his black eyes gleamed out like dully burning coals from the thick wavy hair that ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... dully in her. Yet she seemed then, as she always appeared to be, free from any action that should set the machine of penalty going against herself. She was inexorable, but she had never, knowingly, so much as slashed the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... each of those four pictures wore her face, idealised and illumined, but still unmistakably her face; and he did not know it, could not perceive it though she stood by his side! The futility of her errand was proved to her. She drew on her gloves and looking towards the easel inquired dully, "What ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... but the great majority had been crushed down and down in the mass of submerged proletariat, losing liberty, degenerating in character, becoming more and more servile in status and wretched in estate, so forming a huge, inarticulate, dully ebullient mass, cut off from society, cut off almost ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... at the man across the table as if he had suddenly gone mad before her eyes. She was frightened; she heard distant voices—the cook speaking to Jed—she wanted to call out; meant to—but instead she asked dully: ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... I looked dully at Speed, who sat by the window, brooding over the little woollen skirt on his knees, stroking it, touching the torn hem, and at last folding it with ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... but Renwick somehow gained the idea that his own death whether by shooting, poison, or other sudden device was a matter with which Herr Windt could have the least possible concern. Renwick sank into a chair and smoked a pipe, trying to think what he could do, listening dully meanwhile to the Austrian's dictated messages to the wire, delivered rapidly and ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... upon it—or is it too late—or do you think it needs none? Don't reject those verses in one of your Watchmen—"Dear native brook," &c.—nor, I think, those last lines you sent me, in which "all effortless" is without doubt to be preferred to "inactive." If I am writing more than ordinarily dully, 'tis that I am stupified with a tooth-ache. 37, would not the concluding lines of the 1st paragraph be well omitted—& it go on "So to sad sympathies" &c.? In 40, if you retain it, "wove" the learned Toil is better ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Peace held even its erring Church, as Adam dully saw. The streets were darkening, but full even yet of children crowding in and out of the shops. Not a child among them was more busy or important, or keener for a laugh than Adam, with his basket on his arm and his hand in his pocket clutching the money ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... arm I threw my rifle-frock, looked dully about to find my belt, discovered it at my feet. As I buckled it, from the hatchet-sling something fell; and I stooped to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... eager were they for each other's blood that they did not notice that the sky, gray in the morning, then blue at the opening of battle, had now grown leaden and somber again. The leaves above them were motionless and then began to rustle dully in a raw wet wind out of the north. The sun was quite gone behind the clouds and drops of cold rain began to fall, falling on the upturned faces of the dead, red and white alike with just impartiality, the ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mask was only caused by the effort she was making after thought, after understanding. She pressed her feet upon the ground, and the toes inside her worn shoes curved themselves inwards. What had Valentine said? What—what? She stared dully at the doctor under her ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens |
