"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strong sublime the page of Accius glows; Menander's comic robe Afranius wears, Plautus as rapid in his plots appears, As Epicharmus; Terence charms with art And grave Coecilius sinks into the heart. These are the plays to which our people crowd, 'Till the throng'd playhouse crack with the dull load. These are esteemed the glories of the stage From the first drama to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... 219) thus writes of his own style:—'The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect.' See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... has ever been the case, with all his family, but he has a broad chest and wide shoulders to carry off these excrescences, and on the whole his figure is good. His countenance, however, is not specially prepossessing. His hair is lank, and of a dull pale reddish hue. It is always formed into three straight lumpy masses, each brushed with admirable precision, and cemented with much grease; two of them adhere closely to the sides of his face, and the other lies at right angles above them. He wears no whiskers, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... added Pao-shu sadly, "have worked like a slave at my counter and found it just as dull as you have found your books. My master treats me badly. It seems good, indeed, to get beyond ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... report, and found 30 recorded postmortem examinations in which there was absence of the testicle, and in eight of these both testicles were missing. As a rule, natural eunuchs have feeble bodies, are mentally dull, and live only a short time. The penis is ordinarily defective and there is sometimes another associate malformation. They are not always disinclined toward ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... it seemed, before the gleam of the blaze had faded from my eyes—there was a dull, dead sound, as of some heavy body falling upon the floor, which shook beneath me as I lay. I sprang to a sitting posture and groped at my side for my gun; my notion was that some wild beast had leaped in through the open ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... bloodthirsty anecdotes that one wonders how other countries exist without the excitement of the vendetta. Then the intercourse with noted murderers and assassins makes a mere ordinary man whose hands are not stained with the blood of his fellow-beings seem dull and tame. Our eagerness pleased our friend and we adjourned to the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... sorrowfully dull of all dull subjects. It is difficult to repress a yawn when the word is mentioned. Yet we owe everything to it that we value most. Through it we become emancipated citizens of the world. Through it we are able to appreciate what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is right and what ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... air in the ravine were relaxing. His brain grew so dull and heavy that he fell asleep, and when he awoke the twilight was coming. And yet he had lost nothing. He had gained rather. The time had passed. His body had been strengthened and his ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... country; she's naturally high strung and responsive to that sort of thing, as I told you, and she fairly soaked in all that nonsense. To make it worse, when I sent them to her I wrote that—that—" a dull red surged up under the tan skin—"that as long as the fire in the stones burned blue for her my heart would be all hers. Now the necklace is gone. You can imagine the effect on a woman of that temperament. And you can see the result." He pointed with a face of misery ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... had not been so busy puzzling over why it had been sent, she would have seen a dull red creep into Pink's face, as he recognized it as a line from Kathleen Mavourneen, the song which he told Mary the night before ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tried energetically, and not unsuccessfully, to improve his mind, but he never quite surmounted the weakness of the self-educated man, and had no special literary talent. His writing, in fact, is dull and long-winded, though he has the merit of judging for himself, and ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... followers, just escaped from the dull prison of their ships, were intent on admiring the wild scenes around them. Never had they known a fairer May-day. The quaint old narrative is exuberant with delight. The tranquil air, the warm sun, woods fresh with young verdure, meadows bright with flowers; the palm, the cypress, the pine, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... suffered terribly, without making any complaint. He had sunk into a dull distrust, imagining that he was still being watched, and that if they seemed to leave him at peace it was only in order to concoct in secret the darkest plots. His uneasiness increased, even, and ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... prying loose of a single stem often brought several others crashing to earth in unexpected places, keeping us running and dodging to avoid their terrific impact. The fall of these great masts awakened a roaring swish ending in a hollow rattling, wholly unlike the crash and dull boom of a solid trunk. When we finished with each clump, it stood as a perfect giant bouquet, looking, at a distance, like a tuft of green feathery plumes, with the bungalow snuggled beneath as a toadstool ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... under his pale-colored eyes. Then he would be delighted to see her. He was not blind though, for Mr. Wood said he was not. He said he had probably not been an over-bright horse to start with, and had been made more dull by ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... from the critics of the period, that he ought to look for it, and that it is the proper thing nowadays to pitch into every journal which does not, in every part, please every body, whether they be smart or dull; those quick of appreciation, or those slow gentlemen who always come in with their congratulations upon the birth of a joke at the time its funeral is taking place. And so, PUNCHINELLO will do as ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... by. September gave place to October, and the circus season neared its close. Already the performers were casting about for employment during the long, dull winter that must elapse ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... stone replied with assurance, "why are you so excessively dull? The dynasties recorded in the rustic histories, which have been written from age to age, have, I am fain to think, invariably assumed, under false pretences, the mere nomenclature of the Han and T'ang dynasties. They differ from the events inscribed on my block, which do ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a dull, hoarse, murmuring sound was heard in the distance, like the heaving of the waves when thunder is in the air, and the Lady Matzke's maid rushed in exclaiming—"She's coming! she's coming!" Then Diliana trembled and turned pale, but still advanced to the balcony ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... even brilliant, it is not easy either to trace its rise or connect its development with other events in India. Its annals are an interminable list of names and doctrines, but bring before us few living personalities and hence are dull. They are like a record of the Christian Church's fight against Arians, Monophysites and Nestorians with all the great figures of Byzantine history omitted or called in question. Hence I fear that my readers ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... dull and sad because you feared to grieve me! Poor Cesare!" she said, in child-like caressing accents, such as she could assume when she chose. "But now that you see I am not unhappy, you will be cheerful again? Yes? Think how ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... conservative understands the real delicacy of these instruments, and the difficulty of remodelling them while still forced to use them. For nothing puts so great a strain on society as progress. It tends to destroy its rigidity, to dull its edge, and to spoil the fine adjustment without which so complex an organization cannot function. There could be no human life whatsoever, and still less a progressive life, were not the great mass of men content to remain steadily ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... door. Again he listened. There was no sound except the steady heart-beats of the great engines below. He sat down sidewise, took out the chamois bag which hung around his neck, and poured the contents out on the blanket. Blue stones, rather dull at first; but ah! when the sun awoke the fires in them: blue as the flower o' the corn, the flame of burning sulphur. He gathered them up and slowly trickled them through his fingers. Sapphires, unset, beautiful as a woman's eyes. He replaced them in the chamois bag; and for ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... four cleared fields—whereon I once saw snow lie five feet deep on the tenth day of April—and an old barn; and thence we looked back through the cold gray gloom of an autumnal morning, three hours at least before the rising of the sun, while the stars were waning in the dull sky, and the moon had long since set, toward the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... felt a dull, painful stupor. Then objects assumed distorted shapes, with wildly variegated tints, shrouded by ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... tone changed very much when she spoke again, and there was a dull and angry light in her eyes. Her long lips were still parted, and showed her gleaming teeth, but the smile ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... oars and the sounds from the neighboring shores and vessels. Madame Bernier was plunged in a sidelong scrutiny of her ferryman's countenance. He was a man of about thirty-five. His face was dogged, brutal, and sullen. These indications were perhaps exaggerated by the dull monotony of his exercise. The eyes lacked a certain rascally gleam which had appeared in them when he was so empresse with the offer of his services. The face was better then—that is, if vice is better ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... fail to stimulate us sufficiently. If our fellows were not so reticent, if they would talk to us and tell us their stories with the freedom and the brightness of a Stevenson, or if their lives were so fresh and vivid that we never found them dull, perhaps we should not read at all. But, as it is, we can satisfy our craving for knowledge of life only by extending our social world through fiction. Fiction may teach us, edify us, make us better men—it may ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... and unalienable rights of a black man fallen among a family of thieves. I went to the court house. Outside it was belted with chains. In despotic Europe I had seen no such spectacle, save once when the dull tyrant who oppressed Bavaria with his licentious flesh, in 1844 put his capital in a brief state of siege and chained the streets. The official servant of the kidnapper, club in hand, a policeman of this city, goaded to his task by Mayor Bigelow and Marshal Tukey,—men congenitally ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... to their imagination as wearing a neutral tint not assimilable to any of the hues with which nature tinges her atmospheric or paints her organic creations. There are certainly extensive desert ranges, chiefly limestone formations, where the surface is either white, or has weathered down to a dull uniformity of tone which can hardly be called color at all; and there are sand plains and drifting hills of wearisome monotony of tint. But the chemistry of the air, though it may tame the glitter of the limestone to a dusky gray, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... adopted child. Johnnie was not allowed to see it till all was done, then she was led triumphantly in. It was pretty—and queer—perhaps queerer than pretty. The walls were green-gray, the carpet gray-green, the furniture pale yellow, almost white, with brass handles and hinges, and lines of dull red tiles set into the wood. Every picture on the walls had a ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... that mean?" asked his daughter, leaning forward. She was staring at Joanna's forearm and from that to a dull-red patch on the woman's ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... does it amount to?" said Satan, with his evil chuckle. "Nothing at all. You gain nothing; you always come out where you went in. For a million years the race has gone on monotonously propagating itself and monotonously reperforming this dull nonsense—to what end? No wisdom can guess! Who gets a profit out of it? Nobody but a parcel of usurping little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel defiled if you touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... humanity. Nostrils—no nose; a mouth, lipless, but red like a curved gash with upturned corners to make the travesty of a grin; a triangle of watery eyes, goggling. Senselessly, it stood watching Elza with a dull, vacant curiosity. Not human, this thing! Yet monstrously repulsive in its hideous ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... for one," I said, and I wanted to be amicable; "but being without cap and gown last night is not a very awful offence, is it? The proctors would have a very dull time if they did ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... herself in the affairs of her friends, as of old. She tried to return to her old whimsical routine of living alone in her Cloud Cote, but from being a little nook of laughter and love, it became ineffably dreary and dull. And Eveley was suffering not only because her love had been slighted and her hospitality abused, but because everything she had undertaken had failed. Americanization—what was it? For to Marie she had given every good thing in her power—and Marie had used her as long as she ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... came on shore upon the country where he lived; that is, as he explained it, was driven thither by stress of weather. I presently imagined that some European ship must have been cast away upon their coast, and the boat might get loose, and drive ashore; but was so dull, that I never once thought of men making their escape from a wreck thither, much less whence they might come: so I only inquired after a description of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... to Harry as his guardian was tall, loosely put together, with a sharp, thin visage surrounded by a thicket of dull-red hair. He came forward as Harry jumped to the ground after descending from the elevated perch, and said: "I reckon ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... Clear and truculent rang out the challenge of the Gallic cock in the dawn, warning his wild neighbour to keep to the wilds. So the French trumpets challenge the shrill, barbaric fanfares of the Hun, warning him back into the dull and shadowy wilderness from whence ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... development of history, by our geographical position, and the lesser degree of cohesiveness, which until now has characterized the German nation in comparison with others. God has placed us where we are prevented, thanks to our neighbors from growing lazy and dull. He has placed by our side the most warlike and restless of all nations, the French, and He has permitted warlike inclinations to grow strong in Russia, where formerly they existed to a lesser degree. Thus we are given the spur, so to speak, from both sides, and are compelled to exertions ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... wallaroo, and, catching him by the collar and waist-belt, lifts him clean off his feet as if he'd been a child, and brings him agen the corner of the wall with all his full strength. I thought his brains was knocked out, dashed if I didn't. I heard Moran's head sound against the stone wall with a dull sort of thud; and on the floor he drops like a dead man—never made a kick. By George! we all thought ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... that he in whom his disciples came to recognize a divine nature began his earthly life in the utter helplessness and dependence of infancy, and grew through boyhood and youth to manhood with such naturalness that his neighbors, dull concerning the things of the spirit, could not credit his exalted claims. He is shown as one in all points like unto his brethren (Heb. ii. 17). Two statements in Luke (ii. 40, 52) describe the growth of the divine child as simply as that of his forerunner ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... that anxious, weary night on their feet. While standing in column we could hear to our left the rumble of the wheels while the artillery and the wagons were pulling out, and much of the time could be heard the dull tread of many feet and the clicking of accoutrements that told of the march of a column of troops along the pike, but there was no other sound—not even the shout of a teamster to his mules or the crack of a whip. All the surroundings were so impressive as to subdue the most boisterously ...
— The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee - read after the stated meeting held February 2d, 1907 • John K. Shellenberger
... sighed: "'Tis sorrow makes ye dull; Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern, Or the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... To modern readers it very often seems a little dull. Horace long ago pointed out that it is inevitable that a long poem should flag; even Homer nods sometimes. Some of the episodes are distinctly wearisome, for they are invented to give a place in this national Epic to lesser heroes who could hardly ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... saw none of the magic round her. Her dull, boiled-looking eyes gazed through the soft sunlight without seeing it. In her lap lay a thin foreign letter and a telegram, together with a copy of "Anna Lombard" that she was reading with the strongest disapproval. She picked up the letter and glanced through it ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... he added, when the move meant their last counter in the game of mountain life or death. The Piedmont "hundred," to McCloud's mind, were after that day past masters in the art of track-shifting. Working in a driving cloud of grit and snow, the ignorant, the dull, and the slow rose to the occasion. Bill Dancing, Pat Mears and his foreman, and Stevens moved about in the driving snow like giants. The howling storm rang with the shouting of the foremen, the guttural ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... Bobolink build their simple little nest of grasses in some field. It is hard to find on the ground, for it looks just like dry grass. Mrs. Bobolink wears a dull dress, so she cannot be seen when she is sitting on the precious eggs. She does not sing a note while caring for the eggs. Why do you ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... promotion see That must amaze even prostituted thee! Shall not thy sons, incurious though they are, Raise their dull lids, and meditate a stare? Thy sons, who sleep in monumental state, To show the spot where their great fathers sate. Ambition first, and specious warlike worth, Call'd our old peers and brave patricians forth; And ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... assay them first! I say to you, fair queen, this fact is foul. Let not provoking words whet dull-edg'd swords, But try if we can blunt sharp blades with words. Fitzwater's nephew, Bruce, I see thee there, And tell thee it is shame for such a boy To lead a many able men to fight. And, modest-looking maid, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... away from her brother impatiently, and seated herself at her piano. She played a few bars of a waltz with a listless air, while the captain lighted a cigar, and stepped out upon the little balcony, overhanging the dull, foggy street. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... still more quickly had it not been for the trouble in sharpening the drills. These were heated in the small blacksmith's fire Dias had brought. They were first placed in the fire, but this was not sufficiently hot to raise them beyond a dull red glow. When this was done a shovelful of glowing fragments was taken from the fire and placed on the hearth, and among these the small bellows raised the ends of the drills to a white heat, when of ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... balm can soothe my wounded heart? Far rather hide me: I have said too much. My madness has burst forth like streams in flood, And I have utter'd what should ne'er have reach'd His ear. Gods! How he heard me! How reluctant To catch my meaning, dull and cold as marble, And eager only for a quick retreat! How oft his blushes made my shame the deeper! Why did you turn me from the death I sought? Ah! When his sword was pointed to my bosom, Did he grow pale, or try to snatch it from me? That I had touch'd it was enough for him ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... of Oriental cloth richly embroidered with silk flowers. Leaning her elbows on the mantelpiece, and breathing heavily, she was waiting. Her maid came in, bringing a second lamp. The additional light displayed the rich warm hangings of ruby plush embroidered in dull gold. The bed ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... like a most wicked and obstinate sinner, Then sat in my chamber till folks came to dinner: I dined with good stomach, and very good cheer, With a very fine woman, and good ale and beer; When myself having stuffed than a bagpipe more full, I fell to my smoking until I grew dull; And, therefore, to take a fine nap thought it best, For when belly full is, bones would be at rest: I tumbled me down on my bed like a swad, Where, oh! the delicious dream that I had! Till the bells, that had been my morning molesters, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... The dull stagnant world, shaken awake by this Liege adventure, gives voice variously; and in the Gazetteer and Diplomatic circles it is much criticised, by no means everywhere in the favorable tone at this first blush of the business. "He had written an ANTI-Machiavel," ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Lavender, bending laboriously over the Psalms, nevertheless kept her dull gray eyes in movement. She saw the misconception, and fearing that Martha did ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... much for me," returned the baron; "I have had many a fear lest our country life should seem petty and dull to you, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... ascending the stairs. Just as Alexis flung himself before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young man's outstretched arm and wrenched something from his hand. The next second he had hurled it into a far corner where stood the great fireplace. There was a blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke. As it cleared they saw that the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the builder of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole had been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-room.... ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... wit; 320 Where rude, untemper'd license had the merit Of liberty, and lunacy was spirit; Where the best things were ever held the worst, Lothario was, with justice, always first. To whip a top, to knuckle down at taw, To swing upon a gate, to ride a straw, To play at push-pin with dull brother peers, To belch out catches in a porter's ears, To reign the monarch of a midnight cell, To be the gaping chairman's oracle; 330 Whilst, in most blessed union, rogue and whore Clap hands, huzza, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... constant, deliberate intention that she succeeded in entertaining him, in amusing him, as much as she did her friends and acquaintances; if he had thought that she had made up her mind that never, while she had power to prevent it, should he come into his own house and find it dull. And ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... position to be touchy upon slight points of social precedence. Most of all, he liked Beatrix Dane, herself. In the gay, chattering multitude among whom she moved, her own steadfast quietness stood out in bold relief, and it answered to certain traits of his own Puritanism. It was not that she was dull, or overfreighted with conscience. She frisked with the others of her kind; but her friskiness was intermittent and never frivolous. To Beatrix Dane, pleasure was an interlude, never the sole end and aim of ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... the tower-room idle and heartbroken, reproaching herself that she had betrayed her lover and praying God to forgive her and send him back to her. And the roses faded from her cheeks and her eyes grew dull and the people about the Court began wondering why they had ever thought her the most beautiful ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... approaching Rosa, whispered in her ear a few words which brought a paleness like that of death over the young girl's countenance. In her turn, Rosa gazed earnestly at the stranger, the contraction of whose features, and the dull glaze that overspread his eyes, betrayed the highest degree of exhaustion. His ashy-pale complexion, sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes, bespoke long privations and severe suffering; he looked more like a corpse thrown up by the waves, than a living ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the ground, while his companion caught the reins of his horse. Two or three bounds on foot, with the sword clutched in both hands, and he was close behind the elephant. A bright glance shone like lightning as the sun struck on the descending steel. This was followed by a dull crack, the sword cutting through skin and sinew, and sinking deep into the bone about twelve inches above the foot. At the next stride the elephant halted dead short in the midst of his tremendous charge. The Aggageer who had struck ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the same tree of course," said the Koala. "If they lived in different trees, and never quarrelled, they wouldn't like it at all. They'd find life dull, and they'd get sulky. There's nothing worse than a sulky 'possum. They are ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... December sun; and the shining calm of Southampton water, and the pleasant and well-beloved old shores and woods and houses sliding by; and the fisher-boats at anchor off Calshot, their brown and olive sails reflected in the dun water, with dun clouds overhead tipt with dull red from off the setting sun—a study for Vandevelde or Backhuysen in the tenderest moods. Like a dream seemed the twin lights of Hurst Castle and the Needles, glaring out of the gloom behind us, as if old England were watching us to the last with careful eyes, and bidding us good speed upon ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... and travels ample proof of the truth of the remark, that different people see the same object in very different lights. Frequently I had heard persons declare that nothing is more dull and stupid than a long sea voyage—that there is nothing on the ocean to afford interest—nothing to look at, or think about—nothing to do. I have every reason to assert the contrary of this to be the case. Of course I had plenty to do in learning my profession; I did ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... arterial journey, bright red and rich, laden with life-giving qualities and properties. It returns by the venous route, poor, blue and dull, being laden down with the waste matter of the system. It goes out like a fresh stream from the mountains; it returns as a stream of sewer water. This foul stream goes to the right auricle of the heart. When this auricle becomes filled, ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... and the rest of it covered with close-cut brown hair. His black clothes fitted him very closely, their extreme tightness suggesting that they had shrunken in the course of wearing, or that he had grown much plumper since he had come into possession of them; and their general worn and dull appearance gave considerable distance to the period of their first possession. But there was nothing worn or dull about the countenance of the man, upon which was an expression of mellow geniality which would have been suitably consequent ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... silent. His eyes were dull, his forehead creased with wrinkles. He seemed to be reflecting and did not appear to reck that Suzanne was there so close to him, her arms clinging ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Matre Houlbrque had of finding or of not ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... dull hue, somewhat lighter than that of lead, and were of a convenient shape for handling. Each cake had its weight, and value, and result of assay stamped upon it, and I was told that it was assayed again at St. Petersburg ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... greenwood is the note of horn and hound, And dull must be the heart of him that leaps not to their sound; Merry from the stubble whirrs the partridge on her wing, And blithely doth the hare from her shady cover spring; But merrier than horn or hound, or stubble's rapid ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... all, of the constant and crying omission, throughout these delicately written sheets, of any mention whatever of Fenwick's wife and child? But of course for the two correspondents whom these letters implied, such dull, stupid ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dull, cold, dreary day. The snow ground and squeaked under the sledge runners. Now and again a confusion of shore ridges rendered the hauling bad and the ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... the roads were heavy and ofttimes dangerous, he was obliged to forego his visits. His mother would then suggest some recreation for him, for she well knew that all work and no play would tend to make him dull. ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... brigades of light cavalry. The first, composed of the 23rd and the 24th regiments of Chasseurs, was commanded by General Castex, an excellent officer on all counts. The second was formed of the 7th and 20th Chasseurs and the 8th Polish Lancers, commanded by General Corbineau, a brave but dull-witted officer. These brigades were not combined into a single division, but were employed wherever the Marshal ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... big cold walls around him—of the huge locks which kept him—the austerity and discomforts of prison discipline, and all the miseries of confinement; but yet even there, in gaol and committed to take his trial for life—though doomed to the monotony of that dull cell for six months—still he felt infinitely less wretched than he had done whilst sitting in Andy McEvoy's cabin, wondering at the torpidity of its owner. The feeling of suspense, of inactivity, the dread of being found and ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... serve to justify her interest. "Nothing at all, only—she's a friend of mine, a great friend of mine. Oh, yes!" Then, in an instant, the look of relief vanished, as once again the terrible reality hammered on her consciousness, and an overwhelming dejection showed in the dull eyes and in the drooping curves of the white lips. There was a monotone of desolation as she went on speaking in a whisper meant for the ears of no other. "It's awful—three years! Oh, I didn't understand! It's awful!—awful!" With the final word, she hurried off, her head bowed. She was still ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... Wulf," the former said, "how warm is the affection Guy has for you, and he will look very eagerly for your visits. Just at present he has very few pleasures in life, and chief among them will be your comings. We are all dull here, lad, and Agnes ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... her hands lay idly in her lap. He had expected to find her weeping, surrounded by women, but her eyes were tearless and the news of Shine's arrest was not yet known in the township. Harry fell on his knees by her side and clasped her about the waist. There was a sort of dull apathy in her face that awed him. He did not ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... to look at them as mere instruments of sport, and overlook their more spiritual teaching? Does not all the excitement of personal adventure and the noisy apparatus of guides, and ropes, and axes, and tobacco, and the fun of climbing, rather dull his perceptions and incapacitate ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... it seemed as if he saw before him the sorrowful Mother of God—and to-morrow would be Christmas. Wounded pride was silent, he forgot the insult he had sustained, and cried in a voice as loud, as if he wished every word to reach the ear now growing dull in death: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... untutored children start forward in learning with rapidity: they seem to acquire knowledge at the very time it is wanted, as if by intuition; whilst others, with whom infinite pains have been taken, continue in dull ignorance; or, having accumulated a mass of learning, are utterly at a loss how to display, or how to use their treasures. What is the reason of this phenomenon? and to which class of children would a parent wish his son to belong? In a certain number of years, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... was surprised and somewhat shocked at this recital; but she was good-natured, and her sense of wrong had been growing dull so many years that she failed to understand ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... religious festival, Augustin intrepidly spoke against "the Joy-day." They interrupted the preacher. Some of them shouted that as much was done at Rome in St. Peter's basilica. At Carthage, they danced round the tomb of St. Cyprian. To the shrilling of flutes, amid the dull blows of the gongs, mimes gave themselves up to obscene contortions, while the spectators sang to the clapping of their hands.... Augustin knew all about that. He declared that these abominations might have been tolerated in former times so as not to discourage ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... but the thing helped his purpose afterwards. Now it was his craft in this matter that first awakened in the deeper observers a suspicion of his cunning. For his skill in a trifling art betokened the hidden talent of the craftsman; nor could they believe the spirit dull where the hand had acquired so cunning a workmanship. Lastly, he always watched with the most punctual care over his pile of stakes that he had pointed in the fire. Some people, therefore, declared that his mind was quick enough, and fancied that he only played the simpleton ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... edges of the great saddles where it had churned into foam, dried into white powder, like frostwork amid the hair. Gradually with the change, their breathing became audible, louder and louder, until in unison it mingled with the dull impact of their feet on the heavy sod like the exhaust of many engines. No horseman who values the life of the beast between his legs, fails to heed that warning. Landor did not, but at the first dawdling prairie creek that offered water and, with its struggling fringe of ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... away from speculating and reflecting about the possible meanings of life by the people who say that no one under the degree of a Bachelor of Divinity has any right to tackle the matter; and, on the other hand, I would implore them to believe that a quiet life is not necessarily a dull life, and that the cutting off of alcohol does not necessarily mean a lowering of physical vitality; but rather that if they will abstain for a little from dependence upon excitement, they will find their ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was thronged with knights and nobles—stern hard men in dull gleaming armour. Luther, in his brown frock, was led forward between their ranks. The looks which greeted him were not all unfriendly. The first Article of a German credo was belief in courage. Germany had had its feuds in times ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... make some sort of a start. Such a neophyte in the long voyage—a voyage not without its reefs and shoals—will be much more stirringly provoked to steer with a bold firm hand, even by the angry reaction he may feel from such suggestions, than by a dull academic chart—professing tedious judicial impartiality—of all the continents, promontories, and islands, marked ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... once tasteful grounds of that mansion, debouched by a narrow pass cut through the bank to the water's edge. As we did so, some shells thrown at the mounted officers of the Regiment passed close to their heads and exploded with a dull sound in the soft ground of the bank. With a steady tramp the troops crossed, scarcely the slightest motion being perceptible upon the firm double pontoon bridge. Another column was moving across upon the bridge below. Gaining the opposite bank, the column filed to the left, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... sad calls, and then the whole population were seen hurrying toward the porch. The gleam of the lighted tapers shone through the trees in Monsieur Bonnet's garden; the chants resounded. No color was left in the landscape but the dull red hue of the dusk; even the birds had hushed their songs; the tree-frog alone sent forth ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... may be in great peril, but his volume or chapter will be easily written. Ridicule and censure run glibly from the pen, and form themselves into sharp paragraphs which are pleasant to the reader. Whereas eulogy is commonly dull, and too frequently sounds as though it were false. There is much difficulty in expressing a verdict which is intended to be favorable; but which, though favorable, shall not be falsely eulogistic; and though ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... man in the hall so dull that this did not penetrate! Dan had given to his last words a weird, mournful intonation whose effect was startling. He jumped lightly to the floor and was in his seat before the deep boom of his voice had ceased reverberating. Then instantly ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... showing no sign of her slavery to the will of another. We may go yet a step further and assert that men and women, visible and invisible, are constantly psychologizing each other, although we only use the term "sensitive" when the effect is visible to our dull senses. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... look. And Farmer Denny declared, if the roses in the gardens had been in bloom, he could have thought she had been stealing some for her cheeks—for already there was certainly more colour in them than when she had arrived. So the time passed very happily, and Lena did not feel the least dull either by ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... a dull man the knowledge of his lover's heart. I had come to humble myself and pray pardon for my presumption; but what I ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Peggy. For some inexplicable reason, as the girl spoke, a chill ran through her. She felt a dull sense of foreboding. But the next minute she shook it off. After all, why shouldn't Mr. Harding and Mortlake be driving to the farm? Mr. Harding's financial dealings comprised mortgages in every part of the island. It was quite probable that the farmer was in some way involved ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... the imagination can be enfeebled by starvation and neglect. It can be depressed by dull and sordid surroundings. It is apt to grow, like other living things, by what it feeds on, and is stronger ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... of gold which is inevitable in the spendthrift and profligate, he had gone near to cheat her out of both name and fortune. Yet she so commanded herself as to receive him with a friendly air when he arrived at the Dolphin, on a dull grey autumn afternoon, after she had waited ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... iron clubs just as rigorously as he restrained himself from the brassy when he was practising drives only; but when the driver and the brassy are doing well, he may go forward with the cleek. He will not find this learning such dull work after all. There will be something new in store for him every week, and each new club as it is taken out of the bag will afford an entirely new set of experiences. After the driver and the brassy it will be like a new game ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... which abounds in that neighborhood, probably like a red ferruginous limestone found in Tennessee, which gives a splendid, fast color; when the clay is baked and ground it gives a fine, artistic, dull red. Purple dye comes from cedar tops and lilac leaves; brown from an extract ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... sum in the rule-of-three in a minute, and who could add up a column of six figures abreast while I was just making a beginning at the right-hand bottom corner. But stupid-looking beings are often good at other things besides arithmetic. I have seen doctors, with very dull faces, who knew all about castor-oil and mustard-plasters, and above you see a picture of a Donkey who ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... of my Persecutors. All was hushed, and all was dreadful! I had been thrown upon the bed of Straw: The heavy Chain which I had already eyed with terror, was wound around my waist, and fastened me to the Wall. A Lamp glimmering with dull, melancholy rays through my dungeon, permitted my distinguishing all its horrors: It was separated from the Cavern by a low and irregular Wall of Stone: A large Chasm was left open in it which formed the entrance, for door there was none. A leaden Crucifix was in front of ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... left behind them only their sepulchre. She was in agony at her powerlessness, disarmed, like a Christian of the Primitive Church overcome by original sin, as soon as the aid of the supernatural had departed. In the dull silence of this protected corner she heard this evil inheritance come back, howling triumphant over everything. If in ten minutes more no help came to her from figurative forces, if things around her ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... and sheen. Bright carpets and rugs are sometimes bought in preference to more delicately tinted ones, because the purchaser knows that the latter will fade quickly if used in a sunny room, and will soon acquire a dull mellow tone. The bright and gay colors and the dull and somber colors are all affected by the sun, but why one should be affected more than another we do not know. Thousands of brilliant and dainty hues catch our eye in the shop ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... fancies, and a slight palpitation of the heart, I have been reading the Chronicle of the Good Knight Messire Jacques de Lalain—curious, but dull, from the constant repetition of the same species of combats in the same style and phrase. It is like washing bushels of sand for a grain of gold. It passes the time, however, especially in that listless mood when your mind is half on your book, half on something else. You catch something ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... no play, makes Jack a dull boy, We were not made to be delving forever with tools in close rooms. The fresh air is good for us. Come, William, you will feel better for a little recreation. You look pale from confinement. Come; I cannot go ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... camp, In great boots of Spanish leather, Striding with a measured tramp, These Hidalgos, dull and damp, Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... sensuality and affectation, was in high favor with the later Silesians. 6: Brief, in allusion to the sensual Heldenbriefe of Hofmannswaldau. 7: Philomuschen, 'poetaster' (lover of the Muses). 8: Weisianer, partisans of the dull and trivial schoolmaster-poet, Christian Weise. 9: Hbneristen, mechanical rimesters; Hbner was the author of a dictionary of rimes. 10: Odermusen; 'muses of the Oder' and 'tongues of the Sudeti' are both names for the later Silesian poets. ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... took possession of Seymour Michael. He knew that one of the ladies was Anna Agar, the woman who hated him almost as much as he deserved. He was afraid of her; for it is one consolation to the wronged to know that the wronger goes all through his life with a dull, unquenchable fear upon his heart. But this was not sufficient, this could not account for the mighty terror which clutched his soul at that moment, and he knew it. He felt that this was something beyond that—something which could not be reasoned ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... was dull, and she spoke—or he fancied so—rather mechanically. He remembered all she did not know and was conscious of her false position. In their intercourse she had so often, so generally, been the enthusiastic sympathizer. More than she knew she ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... we did not do our dull work for nothing in last lecture. I define what we have gained once more, and then we will enter on ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... long to the Master as, flanked by Leclair, "Captain Alden," and the major, he peered curiously at its smooth, dull-yellow walls all chased with geometrical patterns picked out in silver and copper, between the dull-hued tapestries, and banded with long extracts from the Koran inlaid in Tumar ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Summer's step will be, Save to those beside whose door Doleful birds sit evermore Singing, "Never comes he here Who made every season's cheer!" Dull the June that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... were really at hand, as it seemed likely, that I should die without seeing my parents and friends again, and that they probably would never know how and where I had died. One is naturally at all times reluctant to leave a world in which one has barely had a dull moment, but, after all my wretched experiences, sufferings and excitement, I did not realise my peril so much as I should have done had I, for instance, been dragged from my comfortable London flat direct on to the execution-ground, instead of first having ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... with others in an overgrown nursery row where it stood. In one known case where there are grafted trees of bearing age, the nuts are regularly destroyed by weevils. Such nuts as have been seen by the writer have been of a dull brown color and have had surface ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... her long with a dull, unintelligent, unseeing expression. When he spoke he was like a man who tries to get his wits together after delirium or unconsciousness. "Do ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... in all to me. You know it. Oh, very well do you know and abuse your power, you adorable and lovely baggage, who have kept me dancing attendance for a fortnight, without ever giving me an honest yes or no." He gesticulated. "Well, but life is very dull in Deptford village, and it amuses you to twist a Queen's adviser around your finger! I see it plainly, you minx, and I acquiesce because it delights me to give you pleasure, even at the cost of some dignity. Yet I may no longer shirk the Queen's ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... our own position with respect to Ireland,) we see silver alloyed with lead. In the "repeal of such union," where the silver has every thing to gain and the lead every thing to lose, it is remarkable at what a very dull heat ('tis scarcely superior to that by which O'Connell manages to inflame Ireland) the baser metal melts, and would forsake the other, by its incorporation with which it derives so large a portion of its intrinsic value, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... thought she knew,—that she must refuse him, and in doing so would simply be making fresh trouble. Would it not have been better for her to have remained at Loring,—to have put herself at once on a par with her aunt, and have commenced her life of solitary spinsterhood and dull routine? But, then, why should she refuse him? She endeavoured to argue it out with herself in the railway carriage. She had been told that Walter Marrable would certainly marry Edith Brownlow, and she believed it. No doubt it was much better that he should do so. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... but to read a novel, and then go to bed. She rose and angrily pushed a chair or two out of the way to make a clear space, and then paced the floor up and down, up and down, like some stately caged animal of the feline kind, her lustrous eyes and dry pale lips showing the dull rage in her heart. When eleven struck she rang the bell violently for the servants to turn off the gas, and went to her room, slamming the doors after her. After partly undressing she sat pondering for some time, and then rose suddenly with a little laugh, and got her writing-case ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... past nine o'clock; her mother wouldn't be back for a long while, and she was too restless and unhappy to sit quietly above. Instead, she continued down to the floor where there were various games in the corridor leading to the billiard-room. The hall was dull, no one was clicking the balls about the green tables, and a solitary sick-looking man, with inky shadows under fixed eyes, was smoking a cigarette in a chair ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in a little while, that the nonsense of the lawyer had not even the solitary merit—if such it be—of being extemporaneous; and in the slow and monotonous delivery of a long string of stale truisms, not bearing any analogy to the case in hand, he perceived the dull elaborations of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... a deck chair, was taking a sort of siesta. His eyes were closed, and he had let his cigar go out. Whether it was due to the light through the colored awning, I was not sure, but I was suddenly attracted by a dull vacancy that seemed to be forming in his countenance. It stole upon the features as if they were being slowly sprinkled with fine dust, blotting their expression into a flat lifelessness. Then the rush of a train passing over the bridge disturbed him. With a fleeting ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... short time everybody in the town knew of the old gray horse and his owner. I furnished a splendid topic for humorous conversation during the dull ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... mind, unalterable courage, and invincible character, which Fabius afterwards displayed, they then imagined had lain concealed under the apparent contrary qualities. The boy of genius may indeed seem slow and dull even to the phlegmatic; for thoughtful and observing dispositions conceal themselves in timorous silent characters, who have not yet experienced their strength; and that assiduous love, which cannot tear itself away from the secret instruction ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... to his master, that is to his mistress, about it, and she got her father to go and see about him and bring him home. They'd had a big storm. The houses were in bad shape. The fences was blown down. The plows was broken or dull and needed fixin'. And they were so glad to see Isom that they didn't whip him nor nothin' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... "Be not dull of heart, taka taina.[1] A ship will soon come—it may be to-morrow; it must be soon; for twice have I heard the cocks crow at midnight since I was last here, three days ago. And when the cocks crow at night-time ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... politics. When he speaks on those subjects, he loses his vivacity, and betrays in his thinking a tendency to old-fashioned Democracy far beyond that of Mr. Bryan. He becomes in his opinions eminently respectable and tolerably dull, which is, as the late Mr. Alfred Hodder could have told him, quite out of keeping with the part of ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... who was called in Mantes "Father Saval," had just risen from bed. He was weeping. It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were falling. They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain. M. Saval was not in good spirits. He walked from the fireplace to the window, and from the window to the fireplace. Life ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... intrinsically superior to that of France, may readily be admitted; but this is not enough to account for all the circumstances of the case. It does not explain why some of the very passages in Corneille and Racine, which to us appear dull and prosaic, are to the Frenchman's apprehension instinct with poetic fervour. It does not explain the undoubted fact that we, who speak English, are prone to underrate French poetry, while we are equally disposed to render to German poetry even ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... better, in exploring a county, to begin with its least interesting districts and to end with the best, I have made a mistake in the order of this book: I should rather have begun with the comparatively dull hot inland hilly region of the north-east, and have left it at the cool chalk Downs of the Hampshire border. But if one's first impression of new country cannot be too favourable we have done rightly in starting at Midhurst, even ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... may remain, perchance, to chime With reason, and what's stranger still, with rhyme; Even this thy genius, CANNING! may permit, Who, bred a statesman, still was born a wit, And never, even in that dull house, could'st tame To unleaven'd prose thine own poetic flame; Our last, our best, our only Orator, Ev'n ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... never have adopted it, but that he had too many brothers for all to take to the water on the Thames, and their mother was too poor to apprentice them, and needed the small weekly pay the Dutchman gave him. He seemed a good-natured, dull fellow, whom no doubt Hansen had hired for the sake of the strong arms, developed by generations of oarsmen upon the river. What he specially disliked was that his master was a foreigner. The whole court swarmed with foreigners, he said, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Camp 53. Dull morning, cloudy, wind south-south-west. A vast number of galahs, corellas, macaws, cockatoo parrots, hawks, and crows here. Started on bearing of 310 degrees over alternate plains and through belts of small timber. At seven ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... the knights whom he sought, and who rode before him. Since he was upon their track he had risen long ere 'twas day, and now came thither with the sun-rising. He brought forth also clear wine, two good bottles full. He was not altogether dull in that he had so well bethought him, and brought food with him lest peradventure he have need thereof. 'Twas right welcome to them who now partook of it; and through these good victuals forgat they all their tribulation, ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... frivolity, the latter shall be fraught with sorrow and desolation. Do not count on the charms of youth, it is a flower that shall very soon fade, and like a bird on the wing, shall leave no trace behind it. The lustre of your eyes now beaming delight shall soon grow dull; the bloom shall depart from your cheek; the bright hopes that now fill your soul shall give place to sad souvenirs; and your heart which is now the abode of delight shall then be harrowed with sorrow and woe. To-day you are flattered and praised, then you shall be a castaway, abandoned. ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... of these sufferings of our mortal nature, while the seraph soars on its flight to heaven, the poet may awaken in us the most fervent emotion. In Polyeucte, however, the means employed to bring about the catastrophe, namely, the dull and low artifice of Felix, by which the endeavours of Severus to save his rival are made rather to contribute to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... tells me to loathe myself for being so. Even as I loathe you—both of you—and all your howling pack! Make me no answer or, by the head of Odin, you shall feel my fangs! You say that my will is like the wind's will. Can you not see why, dull brutes that you are? Because it is not my will, but yours,—now Rothgar's beast-fierceness, now your low-minded craft. Because I am not content with myself, I listen to you. And you—you—Oh, leave me, leave me, before I lose ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... make search rather for the original experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. These experiences we can only find in individuals for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever rather. But such individuals are "geniuses" in the religious line; and like many other geniuses who have brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of biography, such religious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instability. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... this animal is briefly as follows. Size and shape, of the opossum. Colour, yellowish white with brown spots. End of the tail, deep red: prehensile. Eyes, reddish brown: red when irritated. No visible ears. Used its paws in feeding: five nails to each. Habit, dull and slothful: not savage. Food, maize, boiled rice, meat, leaves, or any thing offered. Odour, very ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... so keen in their sense of what is right and just, should be so dull on this question of giving woman her due share of independence, I can not comprehend. Is not this the land where foreigners flock because they have heard the bugle call of freedom? Why then is it that your own children, the patriotic daughters of America, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the most beautiful peaks and romantic forms are thus produced. The colored strata vary in thickness from a sheet of paper to several yards; are now purely white, black, red, or yellow; then brown, blueish, or dull green,—alternating in a surprizing manner with each other, or blending into every hue: and many of the tints so vivid, yet so delicate, that they are justly compared to the variegations of a tulip, or to the shades of silk. "Alum Bay," says an eminent geologist, "is so extraordinary a ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... at one and the same moment that Harry Lant saw what was wrong, and that a cold dull chill ran through me, for I saw Lizzy clasp her hands together in a sort of thankful way, and it seemed to me then, as Harry ran up to the elephant that he was always to be put before me, and that I was nobody, and the sooner I was out of the way ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... shall I compare the picture of my youthful years? All that it, and many other such family pictures exhibit, is unclear, indefinite, in one word, blotted as it were in the formation. It resembled a dull autumn sky, with its grey, shapeless, intermingling cloud-masses; full of those features without precision, of those contours without meaning, of those shadows without depth, of those lights without clearness, which so essentially distinguish ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the sea; over against us in the sky was the dull threatening glow of the volcano; about us were mysterious noises of crying birds, barking seals, rustling or rushing winds. I felt the thronging ghosts of all the old world's superstition swirling madly behind us ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... positively six nights only, in Pompeii, previous to his departure for Herculaneum,") charging around the stage and piling the agony mountains high—but I could not do it with such a "house" as that; those empty benches tied my fancy down to dull reality. I said, these people that ought to be here have been dead, and still, and moldering to dust for ages and ages, and will never care for the trifles and follies of life any more for ever—"Owing to circumstances, etc., etc., there will not be any performance ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... were dead white cashmere and dull black satin, with a very little lace and jet. The under gown, or the gown itself, more strictly speaking, fell from the shoulders in a long, loose robe. In the front there was a center trimming of black satin and lace and a heavy ruffle of lace ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Ruby was in a class by herself. No spit curls or French rolls for her! She sticks to the plain double braid, wound around her head smooth and slick, like the stuff they wrap Chianti bottles in, and with her long soup-viaduct it gives her sort of a top-heavy look. Sort of dull, ginger-colored hair it is too. Besides that she's a tall, shingle-chested female, well along in the twenties, I should judge, and with all the earmarks of bein' an ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford |
