"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is Art, young sir? Why should I not heed you? Why should I not answer you? What artificial barriers, falsely called convention, shall force me to ignore the mute eloquence of your questioning eyes? You ask me what is Art. I will tell you; it is this!" And the poet, inverting his thumb, pressed it into the air. Then, carefully inspecting the dent he had made in the atmosphere, he erased it with a gesture and folded ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... this glittering drop of vital essence, attracts birds of all degree. It is a liqueur that none can resist, and which seems, so noisy and demonstrative do they all become, to have a highly exhilarating effect on their nerves. Birds ordinarily mute are vociferous, and the rowdy ones—the varied honey-eater as an example—losing all control of their tongues, call and whistle in ecstasy. The best of the fig-tree's life is given for ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... honor—if you think that necessary," replied Patterson, following the direction of the other's glance, and then looking inquiringly at Brush, as if to ask whether there was any danger to be apprehended from talking before the servant. "Pooh—nonsense!" said Brush, readily understanding the mute appeal. "Nonsense! You could not make him comprehend what we are talking about in six weeks, if you should do your prettiest. Why, the fellow has not two ideas above ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... the house "this way" of the "two jam up against one and 'tother." A large slab from an oak log in the front yard near a woodpile bore mute evidence of many an ax blow. (Stove wood is generally split in the rural South—one end of the "stick" resting against the ground, the other ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... well?" cried Lamond, still waking something. Count Victor only looked at him in wonder, and led the way to the door where Mungo drew back the bars and met his master with a trembling front. A glance of mute inquiry and intelligence passed between the servant and his master: the Frenchman saw it and came to his own conclusions, but nothing was said till the Baron had made a tour of investigation through the house and come at last to join his guest in the salle, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... shining upon him, and that she probably had no cause for expecting to find him here, Thurstane believed that she had discovered who he was and that her mute gesture confirmed his rejection. Under this throttling of his last hope he made no protest, but silently wished himself on the battle-field, falling with his face to the foe. For several minutes they remained thus ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the reins, and the dear girl turned half round on the cushion of the seat, gazing at me in mute astonishment! I had been cursing in my heart the lank locks of the miserable wig I was compelled to wear, ever since I had met with Mary Warren, as unnecessarily deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a becoming as a horridly unbecoming ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... been said, were now obliterated by the disorder of his person, and his humiliating position. His hat had been lost in the conflict, and his long hair fell about his face. The soldiers as he was led along stood in mute compassion at this sight. Among those who thus looked upon this unfortunate man was his son, Lord Boyd, who was constrained to witness, without attempting to alleviate, the distress of that moment. When the Earl passed the place where his son stood, the youth, unable to bear ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... went by. They were fraught with an ever-increasing joy for the two who were learning to understand each other through the mute, though irresistible teachings of a common tutor. Each succeeding hour had its exquisite compensation; each presented the cup of knowledge to lips that were parched with the fever of impotence, and each time it was returned empty by the seekers after wisdom. There were days ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Miss March!" was the only answer her mute appeal received, and too proud to cry or beseech, Amy set her teeth, threw back her head defiantly, and bore without flinching several tingling blows on her little palm. They were neither many nor heavy, but that made no difference to her. For the first time in her ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... possession as one of her chiefest treasures. I express the thanks of the Commonwealth for the priceless gift. And I venture the prophecy that for countless years to come and to untold thousands these mute pages shall eloquently speak of high resolve, great suffering and heroic endurance made possible by an absolute faith in the over-ruling ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... promptly threw it off and once again closed his eyes and feigned sleep. Hsi Jen distinctly grasped his idea and, forthwith nodding her head, she smiled coldly. "You really needn't lose your temper! but from this time forth, I'll become mute, and not say one word to you; and what ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... first the name had disappointed him. So many folk wear titles, as syllables in certain tongues wear accents—without them being mute, unnoticed, unpronounced. Nonentities, born to names, so often claim attention for their insignificance in this way. But this woman, had she been Jemima Jones, would have made the name distinguished and select. She was a big and sombre personality. Why was it, he wondered ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... also, gloom and dejection ruled the hour for the first time; and while, when the army had heretofore gone forth, the question had been, "When shall we receive the first intelligence of victory?" there were now only mute, inquiring glances bent on ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... she, 'I ben't no sinner, William Daddo, but a staid woman that likes her sleep and means to have it.' 'Why, missus,' says Billy, 'you'll surely lev' a man ask a blessing on his labours!' 'Ask quiet then,' she says, 'or you'll get slops.' Since then they be all as mute as mice." ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in on the smug recital. She caught Lad protectingly by the ruff and stared in mute dread at the lanky and red-whiskered officer. Lad, reading her voice as always, divined this nasal-toned caller had said or done something to make her unhappy. His ruff bristled. One corner of his lip lifted in something which looked like a smile, but which was not. And, very far ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... effect of enchantment upon me, he extended a sceptre of massive gold, decorated with emeralds and sapphires. Immediately there rose up a MIRROR of gigantic dimensions, around which was inscribed, in fifty languages, the word "TRUTH." I sat in mute astonishment. "Examine," said my Guide, with a voice the most encouraging imaginable, "examine the objects reflected upon the surface of this mirror." "There are none that are discernible to my eyes," I replied. "Thou shalt soon ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... his name. I plead for the glory of Athens. When strangers from Ethiopia, Egypt, Phoenicia, and distant Taprobane, come to witness the far-famed beauty of the violet-crowned city, they will stand in mute worship before the Parthenon; and when their wonder finds utterance, they will ask what the Athenians bestowed on an artist so divine. Who among you could look upon the image of Virgin Pallas, resplendent in her heavenly majesty, and not blush to ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... and had answered briefly that she found Anthony lying in the Rookery. That she should have been walking there just at that time was not a coincidence to raise conjectures in any one besides Mr. Gilfil. Except in answering this question, she had not broken her silence. She sat mute in a corner of the gardener's kitchen shaking her head when Maynard entreated her to return with him, and apparently unable to think of anything but the possibility that Anthony might revive, until she saw them carrying away the body to the house. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... of Milton so acute as these two. But of less ingenious readers I would ask, if any single word can be found equal to "monumental" in its power of suggesting to the imagination the historic oak of park or chase, up to the knees in fern, which has outlasted ten generations of men; has been the mute witness of the scenes of love, treachery, or violence enacted in the baronial hall which it shadows and protects; and has been so associated with man, that it is now rather a column and memorial obelisk than a ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... spot was reached where the forest-bred boys paused. They looked back at those who were following, and beckoned them silently forward. So quietly had the party moved that the stillness of the forest had scarce been broken. Mute and breathless, John and his companion stole up. They found that they had now reached the edge of a deep ravine, so thickly wooded as to appear impassable to human foot. But just where they stood there were traces ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... ring twice out of the brose. While all this was going on, unbounded mirth prevailed, and before the company broke up, dreaming cakes or bannocks were prepared, that every one might take one and place it under his or her pillow. To make the cakes of any avail, the baker had to remain mute when preparing them, and the receivers had, immediately after obtaining them, to slip off quietly to bed, when, if all the preliminaries had been duly observed, the sleeper's future companion in life appeared in a vision ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... with bowed heads, covered with drapery, are represented as sitting around in mute despair. The idea meant to be conveyed by the whole group is that of utter desolation and abandonment. All is over; there is not even heart enough left in the mourners to straighten the corpse for the burial. The mute marble ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... with such careful dissembling, and had borne to live through so long a span of life without utterance or any intercourse of talk, so as to let men think him utterly incapable of speech, and a born mute. He replied that he had been hitherto satisfied with the protection of his father, that he had not needed the use of his own voice, until he saw the wisdom of his own land hard pressed by the glibness of a foreigner. The king also ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... one of the mangers, and there the child was. The lantern was brought, and the shepherds stood by mute. The little one made no sign; it was as others ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... meaner people then seem to have sat below, as they now sit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were sometimes gratified by a mimical and mute representation of the drama, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... by the King and Saba. This was sufficient, but the King, who received only a tenth of the water he needed, trumpeted for it until sunrise, and Saba, with hanging tongue, turned his eyes towards Stas and Nell in mute appeal for even one drop. The little maid wanted Stas to give him a mouthful from a rubber flask left by Linde, which Stas carried with a string across his shoulder, but he was saving this remnant for the little one in the ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... blame, and walked out. Knowing they were close friends we were content. Possibly, in a humorous mood, he went straight to his friend, for shortly they both came back, the first asking for his boots; he would receive no explanation (while the cause of the trouble stood mute), and with vile epithets, using a heavy cane, again and again assaulted my partner, who was compelled tamely to submit, for had he raised his hand he would have been shot, and no redress. I would not have been allowed to attest to "the deep ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... side might not be very faithfully performed. The ceremony of their homage was grateful to a people who had long since considered pride as the substitute of power. High on his throne, the emperor sat mute and immovable: his majesty was adored by the Latin princes; and they submitted to kiss either his feet or his knees, an indignity which their own writers are ashamed to confess ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... her story and once she mentioned The Oskaloosa Kid as the murderer of the unnamed victim. The two men who had come last pricked up their ears at this and Bridge felt the boy's hand just touch his arm as though in mute appeal for belief and protection. ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and that in these lakes were fish of various beautiful colours, who were once the inhabitants. If I recollect right, when the fish were caught and put into the frying-pan, they jumped up and made a speech; (so would fish now-a-days, if they were not mute;) and the story is told by a prince, whose lower extremities are turned into black marble, very convenient, certainly, if he dined out every day, as he had only his upper toilet to complete. This coincidence appeared to me to be very curious, and had I had time and opportunity I certainly should ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... decimated condition.... Over a large part of the island, in some sections a hundred acres in a place, that ten years ago were thickly inhabited by albatrosses not a single bird remains, while heaps of the slain lie as mute testimony of the awful slaughter of these beautiful, harmless, and without doubt beneficial inhabitants of the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... how hard his sister's eyes could be. The news that Barbara was lost had reached Miss Sarah hours before Allison's private car brought the girl and her father and Hardwick Elliott back to Morrison. Thereupon, with her first glimpse of Barbara's wanly mute and suffering face, she had pieced the details together; she had told herself, with sorrow and understanding in her heart, that she must no longer interfere. And now, though she did summon Barbara to her, the end of the ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... amazed, we beheld the lone vastness of it all and were mute. Rising out of the flat wilderness over which we had travelled was a mammoth vertical barrier of rock rearing its head to the skies above. The whole face for five miles was one magnificent series of organ-pipes. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the fauns first dance in joyousness and then tremble in fear, and the buds to blossom, and the stags to bellow in their lordship of the hills. When he ceased, it was as though a tensely-drawn string had broken, and all the earth lay breathless and mute. And Pan turned proudly to the golden-haired god who had listened as he had spoken through the hearts of reeds to the ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... into the king's face, at the same time, with a countenance in which the expression of confidence and hope was mingled with a certain instinctive infantile fear. The heart of the king was so touched by this mute appeal, that he took the child up in his arms, dismissed at once all prudential considerations from his mind, and, in the end, delivered the boy to the queen, Beroa, directing her to bring him ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... mouth to ear, with a singular instinct of secrecy, approaching that island underhand like eavesdroppers and thieves; and even Davis from the cross-trees gave his orders mostly by gestures. The hands shared in this mute strain, like dogs, without comprehending it; and through the roar of so many miles of breakers, it was a silent ship that approached ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... worthy of Tamoszius, the other two members of the orchestra. The second violin is a Slovak, a tall, gaunt man with black-rimmed spectacles and the mute and patient look of an overdriven mule; he responds to the whip but feebly, and then always falls back into his old rut. The third man is very fat, with a round, red, sentimental nose, and he plays with his eyes turned up to the sky and a look of infinite yearning. He ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... wills, unless their intention is declared in writing;[65] and in Louisiana a deaf man is incapable of acting as a witness to a testament.[66] In several states, as New York and Massachusetts, there have been enactments in regard to deaf-mute immigrants together with other classes who might be likely to become a public charge, with the exaction of bond as security.[67] In Georgia[68] there is an enactment in reference to various itinerant concerns which might leave deaf persons, ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... he might otherwise have been; he would now be free to carry out any plan for escape that he might devise, and by his being addressed in Italian it was evident to him that his knowledge of Turkish was unsuspected. When among the other slaves he had always maintained his character of a mute; and it was only when alone in his master's family that he had spoken at all. He had no doubt that his betrayal was due to one of the gardeners, who had several times shown him signs of ill will, being doubtless jealous of the immunity he enjoyed from hard labour, and who ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... belligerent spirit of animosity, but a profound melancholy had settled down upon her like a pall. Gradually it became noised about in school that Mary Raymond and Mignon La Salle were no longer on speaking terms. Why this was so, no one knew. Mary was mute on the subject. For once, also, the French girl had nothing to say. As it happened, she believed that no one of the guests had witnessed the scene between herself and Mary, and to try to relate it, ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... copious, than the Latin, was a want of taste that I should think could not be applauded even by a Frenchman born in Provence. But what a language is the French, which measures verses by feet that never are to be pronounced; which is the case wherever the mute e is found! What poverty of various sounds for rhyme, when, lest similar cadences should too often occur, their mechanic bards are obliged to marry masculine and feminine terminations as alternately as the black and white squares of a chessboard? ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... of the busy world dies upon the ear, and the still small voice of the present God deepens the silence, and hushes the heart. Be quiet, and you will hear Him speak—delight in Him, that you may be quiet. Let the affections feed on Him, the will wait mute before Him, till His command inclines it to decision, and quickens it into action; let the desires fix upon His all-sufficiency; and then the wilderness will be no more trackless, but the ruddy blaze of the guiding pillar will brighten on the sand a path ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and falling collar. But even through the disguise of a studio 'costume,' the finely-perceptive genius of Reynolds has managed to suggest much that is most appealing in his sitter's nature. Past suffering, present endurance, the craving to be understood, the mute deprecation of contempt, are all written legibly in this pathetic picture. It has been frequently copied, often very ineffectively, for so subtle is the art that the slightest deviation hopelessly distorts and vulgarizes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... ship shriek and tremble, threw us all from our lockers; and gathering myself up, bruised and sore in every fibre, I lay down again and became sensible of a blissful, blissful lull; the machinery had stopped, and with the mute hope that we were all going to the bottom, I ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... endeavour At yonder old wall. With the Bourbon we'll gather At day-dawn before The gates, and together Or break or climb o'er The wall: on the ladder, As mounts each firm foot[dh], 140 Our shout shall grow gladder, And Death only be mute[235]. With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er The walls of old Rome, And who then shall count o'er[di] The spoils of each dome? Up! up with the Lily! And down with the Keys! In old Rome, the seven-hilly, We'll revel ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... shadow, began to whistle. "The Heaving of the Lead" was my air—no very tragic piece. With the first note the conversation and all movement ceased; silence accompanied me while I continued; and when I passed that way on my return, I found the lamp was lighted in the house, but the tongues were still mute. All night, as I now think, the wretches shivered and were silent. For indeed, I had no guess at the time at the nature and magnitude of the terrors I inflicted, or with what grisly images the notes of that old song ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tell you that during the last thousand years there has not been born a man capable of so much as copying them." I then, not caring to deprive them of so eminent a reputation, kept silence, and admired them with mute stupefaction. It was said to me in Rome by many great lords, some of whom were my friends, that the work of which I have been speaking was, in their opinion of marvellous excellence and genuine antiquity; whereupon, emboldened by their praises, I revealed that I had made them. As they would ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... made her inwardly cry out, "Oh, what does he mean?" The packet was moving—the wind filled the blowing sails—the hoarse crying of the sailormen blended with the "good-byes" of the passengers—and the Earl, aware of the sad and silent parting within his sight—moved away as Cornelia again waved a mute farewell to her lost lover. Then the ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... larger than they are now. The shoals of the mackerel glittered in the dark nights, and indicated where they were swimming; the gurnards snarled, and the crabs gave forth pitiful yells when they were chased, for fish are not so mute as people say. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... looked into my eyes in mute appeal. She appeared anxious to say something to me in private. At least that was ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... assembly. A triple round of applause hailed every speech uttered by the generous Spartan. The painter of the Sabines, of Brutus, of the Horatii, of the Coronation, seemed to heed neither the noisy acclamations nor the deep silence that succeeded each other. Mute, motionless, transfixed, he heard not the plaudits: it was not Talma he saw, not Talma he was listening to. He was at Thermopylae by the side of Leonidas himself; ready to die with him and his three hundred heroes. Never had he been so deeply moved. He had talked ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... month afterwards, along the Strand, I chanced to stumble up against him. The shock seemed equally unexpected on both sides; but my tailor (as being a dun) was the first to recover self-possession; and, with a long preliminary hem!—a mute, but expressive compound of remonstrance, apology, and resolution—opened ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... fixed unconsciously upon mute inanimate objects that, if they had a voice, could utter a tale of passionate remembrances—and to some eye perhaps do utter such a tale![2] This was the very room from which—about four-and-twenty years ago he, who now stood at the door, had been borne by the cruel nurse, who ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... he read, he made exhortations and expositions, which led to animated discussion, in which the Advocate expressed himself with so much fervour and eloquence that all present were astonished, and the preacher sat mute a half-hour ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... we been in some corner of the earth all alone by ourselves, I should not have been astonished at him flogging me almost to death—not a bit of it. But what surprised me was his daring to do so there and then. Ever since Brace had thrashed him, he had been as mute as a mouse—morose enough with me, but never offering any insult that might be resented by ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... She remained mute for some seconds. A feeling of desolation came over her, and it seemed to her that she welcomed it, trying to intensify it, and yielding her features to it. "How do I know?" she muttered ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... listened, Paddy also. All three were mute as the great blazing shield touched the water ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... her without offence, holding himself mute and motionless. She rose from her seat, and approached ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... that father, bent and heavy-eyed with unceasing toil, flung back the charge with the bitter reproach that we gave him no other choice, that it was either the street or the shop for his boy, and that perjury for him was cheaper than the ruin of the child, we were mute. What, indeed, was there to say? The crime was ours, not his. That was seven years ago. Once since then have we been where we could count the months to the time when every child that knocked should find a seat in our schools; ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... box, fastened the door, that he might not be followed, shot the President, then—waving his pistol shouted "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (so be it always to tyrants), and leaped to the stage in front As he jumped, the American flag draped before the box—mute avenger of the nation's chief—caught his spur and, throwing him heavily, broke his leg The assassin, however escaped from the house in the confusion, mounted a horse which was waiting for him, and fled into Maryland He was at length overtaken ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... found that these were no other than penguins which had gone down on all fours, and were crawling among the bushes on their feet and wings, just like quadrupeds. Suddenly one big old bird, that had been sitting on a point very near to us, gazing in mute astonishment, became alarmed, and, scuttling down the rocks, plumped or fell, rather than ran, into the sea. It dived in a moment, and, a few seconds afterwards, came out of the water far ahead, with such a spring, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... which brought the Frau Wirthin to the scene of confusion, where in mute agony, she looked from servant to servant, until, with hands clasped, and eyes full of tears, she implored, "Marie, take the higher place for the day, and with God's help, ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... Brindisi seemed an endless one. He seemed to have lost his earlier tendency to be a "mixer." He became more morose, more self-immured. He found himself without the desire to make new friends, and his Celtic ancestry equipped him with a mute and sullen antipathy for his aggressively English fellow travelers. He spent much of his time in the smoking-room, playing solitaire. When they stopped at Madras and Bombay he merely emerged from his shell to make sure if no trace of Binhart were about. He was ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... have savoured of the tortures of Tantalus, for many of the men were groping after the enemy in a doubled-up fashion and under a shower of lead, along farms and gardens, while hens clacked, pigs grunted, goats offered milk, and potatoes and other edibles smiled a mute invitation. When the Boers were routed, however, these delicacies at last became the reward of their labours, but of the niceties of the culinary operations it is best not to speak. Our gallant Highlanders needed the services of no Vatel—an ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... had been mechanical, and the success about as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. The poor child had sat in mute amazement and patiently imitated everything her teacher did; but now the truth began to flash upon her; her intellect began to work; she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... kitchen" of Kawurmah. About midday the crowd retired to sleep; my companions followed their example, and I took the opportunity of sketching and jotting down notes. [21] Early in the afternoon the Bedouins returned, and resumed their mute form of pleading for tobacco: each man, as he received a handful, rose slowly from his hams and went his way. The senior who disliked the gun was importunate for a charm to cure his sick camel: having obtained it, he blessed us in a set speech, which lasted at least half an hour, and concluded ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... face over which the heavy braids of long black hair had fallen, then with a shudder he again strained Fanny to his heart, saying, "Thank God, thank God, I escaped her in time!" Then turning to the minister, who all this time had stood looking on in mute astonishment, he added, in an authoritative manner, "Go on with the ceremony, sir, and make her my wife." But a new thought entering his mind, he released Fanny, and said, "Pardon me, dear Fanny; sorrow has well nigh bereft me of my senses. ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... commencing to assemble. Billy knew them all, and nodded to them as they passed him. He noted surprise in the faces of several as they saw him standing there. He wondered what it was all about, and determined to ask the next man who evinced even mute wonderment at his ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Allied Europe. They sat sedately against the walls, Montenegrins, Serbians, Russians, Italians, Sicilians, Roumanians, Poilus, Alsatians, Tommies,[C] a strange medley, correctly but cheaply dressed. At little tables, mute records of disreputable nights, sat women stitching, and outside the streets of Montmartre were as ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... of him—shining-faced, well-brushed little boys in dark Eton suits and gleaming collars, and dainty white-dressed little girls with gay hair ribbons. William sat in the back row near the window, and next him sat Joan. She gazed at his set, expressionless face in mute sympathy. He listened to the ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... noiselessly and lightly threading its way among the vessels. All at once, they emerged from the labyrinth of ships, and the sea, boundless, mute, shining and rhythmically breathing, lay open before them, stretching far into the distance, where there rose out of its waters masses of storm clouds, some lilac-blue with fluffy yellow edges, and some greenish like the color of the seawater, or those dismal, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... structural change in the brain and spinal cord. Smyly of Dublin reported a case of suppurative disease of the temporal bone, in which the hair changed from a mouse-color to a reddish-brown; and Squire records a congenital case in a deaf mute, in whom the hair on the left side was in light patches of true auburn and dark patches of dark brown like a tortoise-shell cap; on the other side the hair was a dark brown. Crocker mentions the changes which have occurred in rare ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... ball-room door, His moighty Excellincy was, He smoiled and bowed to all the crowd, So gorgeous and immense he was. His dusky shuit, sublime and mute, Into the door-way followed him; And O the noise of the blackguard boys, As ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ungainly, hairy paws behind him, stood mute, like the great pitiful elephant he was, and looked at the tucks and the rest—stupidly. "Where before did y'ever see such tucks and frills and lace on a night-shirt? Why, you'd think 't were for goin' to picnics in, 'stead o' goin' to bed with. Here, too! here's a pair of brand ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... ready for the modeling. The marble waits: how beautiful, how pure, That gleaming substance, and it shall endure, When dynasty and empire, throne and king Have crumbled back to dust. Well may you pause, Oh, sculptor-artist! and, before that mute, Unshapen surface, stand irresolute! Awful, ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... never done that for me," he said sadly. "There is some defect in my nature—some want. I have no such relation to nature; it is speechless to me—mute, and I never needed more what I fail to find in myself. The war and its duties gave me the only entire happiness I have had for years." Then he added, in a curiously contemplative manner, "It does seem as if a man had a right to some undisturbed happiness in life. I must ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the new morrow stole up out of the rosy gray. The wings of the morning stirred and trembled; and in the darkness and chill and mysterious awakening, eyes looked into other eyes, hand sought hand, and cheeks touched each other in mute caress. ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Paradise—gleaming aslant his shoulder, the Fighting Nigger sallied from his cabin, completely armed and rigged for war. Giving a loud, fife-like whistle, he was instantly joined by a huge brindled dog of grim and formidable aspect. As he passed by the door where his mistress sat, in her mute, tearless, motionless grief, he turned to her for a moment, cap in hand, and with terrible sublimity said: "Miss Jemimy, you see me come back wid Bushie, or you neber see ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... The oaken chair, the cheerful blaze, invite Calm meditation, while the flickering light Casts strange, fantastic shadows on the wall, Where goodly tomes, with ample lading fraught Of gold of wit and gems of fancy rare, Poet and sage, mute witnesses of all, Smile gently on me, as, with sober care, I reach the pipe and thoughtfully prepare ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... lords to roam? O had I stayed, and said my pray'rs at home! 'Twas this the morning omens did foretell, Thrice from my trembling hand the patchbox fell; The tott'ring china shook without a wind, 80 Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind! See the poor remnants of this slighted hair! My hands shall rend what ev'n thy own did spare: This in two sable ringlets taught to break, Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck; 85 The sister-lock now sits uncouth, alone, And in its fellow's fate ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... quite illegible, and when I found myself at this romantically situated cabin, I was thankful to find that they could give me shelter. The scene was a solemn one, and reminded me of a description in Whittier's Snow-Bound. All the stock came round the cabin with mute appeals for shelter. Sheep dogs got in, and would not be kicked out. Men went out muffled up, and came back shivering and shaking the snow from their feet. The churn was put by the stove. Later on, a most pleasant settler, on his way to Denver, came in his wagon having ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... the panting breath which issues from the nostrils of a tired horse, in the tension of their muscles, and the prodigious efforts of their loins, which gives us, in a high degree, the idea of strength; but the mute resignation of these animals, when we know them to be overladen, inspires us with pity, and makes us regret the abuse ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... absolute, though quite unconsciously so; but she is likewise kind, with an affection at once abrupt and constant, whose sincerity you cannot doubt. It was delightful to sit near her in the evenings and hear her converse, myself mute. She speaks with what seems to me a wonderful fluency and eloquence. Her animal spirits are as unflagging as her intellectual powers. I was glad to find her health excellent. I believe neither solitude nor loss of friends would break her down. I saw some faults in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... is Percy. But Percy is a man of imagination. He can realize that Olga is more than a mere type. He agrees with me that she's a sort of miracle. To Terry she's only a mute and muscular Finnish servant-girl with an arm like a grenadier's. To Percy she is a goddess made manifest, a superhuman body of superhuman vigor and beauty and at the same time a body crowned with majesty and robed in mystery. ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... mute expectancy, Beneath a stunted sycamore, She added darkness utterly, To the dim light, the shrouded tree, By her ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... you black and battered hulk That slumbers on the tide, There is no sound from stem to stern, For peace has plucked her pride. The masts are down, the cannon mute, She shews nor sheet nor sail; Nor starts forth with the seaward breeze, Nor answers shout nor hail. Her merry men with all their mirth, Have sought some other shore; And she with all her glory on, Shall rule the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... O intemperate king! Wilt thou not see me? Come, come, show your face, Your grace's graceless, king's unkingly face. What, mute? hands folded, eyes fix'd on the earth? Whose turn is next now to be murdered? The famish'd Bruces are on yonder side, On this, another I will name anon; One for whose head this garland I do bear, And this fair, milk-white, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... without a word until she was quiet and then suggested that they go and find Rush and Sylvia. And until they were upon the point of joining the other pair nothing more was said that had any bearing on what had happened in the apple tree. But in that last moment he made a mute appeal for a chance to say ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... silence. Mum for that; I shall be silent as to that. As mute as Mumchance, who was hanged for saying nothing; a friendly reproach to any one who ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... party in the two Houses heard the paragraph read without surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemen on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to be comfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute, apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading of the Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The House was very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of the Opposition;—but from the Government benches hardly a sound was heard, as a young gentleman, from one ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... firm which made components. Of what, no one said, no one asked. Components, Inc., the firm was called. He knew that the finished products were small, heavy and very complicated. Their names were mute combinations of letters and numbers, joined by hyphens or separated by virgules. Some said that these components performed no functions. Others said that they worked, but their operations corresponded to no known human need. It was known that some of the finished products themselves ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... this figure in the profound slumber in which it lay enchained, and so motionless were they in their increasing suspense and expectation, that time seemed to have come to a standstill in this little room. There was one break. The lips which had hitherto remained mute opened in a quiet murmur, and Mr. Harper, watching his client, saw him clutch the headboard in sudden emotion before he finally rose and, with looks still fixed on the bed, approached him with the ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... Mr. Barker's as mute as a fish in the sea, Mr. Miles never moves on a journey, Mr. Gotobed sits up till half after three, Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney. Mr. Gardener can't tell a flower from a root, Mr. Wild with timidity draws ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... she relapsed into a silence so deep it could be felt, responding only with a wan smile when the child's lively chatter seemed to force an answer of some kind. But to-day when Georgina came to the table she was strangely silent herself, so mute that Belle noticed it, and found that she was being furtively watched by the big brown eyes opposite her. Every time Belle looked up she caught Georgina's gaze fastened on her, and each time it was immediately transferred to ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... have remembered picnics on the Isis, Bonfires and bumps and BOFFIN'S cakes and tea, Nor ever dreamed a European crisis Would make a British soldier out of me— The mute inglorious kind That push the beastly war on ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... later, when Edith was sleeping again, Mrs. Gray came into the room with a mute, haggard expression on her kind, homely face which Sylvia never forgot, and put her ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... mute questioning. He made no attempt to approach her, but in leaning across the upholstered arm of his seat he seemed to overcome some of the distance ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... crescent-shaped niche of the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked him up, looked at him for a moment, and put him back into the little stream. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... terrible sky which canopied us. The stars were hid. Suddenly a frightful noise was heard from the west, and all the waves of the sea rushed to founder our frail bark. A fearful silence succeeded to the general consternation. Every tongue was mute; and none durst communicate to his neighbour the horror with which his mind was impressed. At intervals the cries of the children rent our hearts. At that instant a weeping and agonized mother bared her breast ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... of pious awe made the whole band halt as they had before Alush, and every man, from the first rank to the last, in mute devotion raised his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mute, casual, they tramped out of the house together, and down the hill to a region of shabby old brown houses like blisters on the hillside. They had little to say, and that little was a polite reminiscence of incidents in which ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... a crash of musketry from the Iroquois knocked the bottom out of the canoe. The Algonquin fell dead with two bullet wounds in his head and the canoe gradually filled, settled, and sank, with the young Frenchman clinging to the cross-bar mute as stone. Just as it disappeared under water, Radisson was seized, and the dead Algonquin was thrown into ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... myself on the earth's bosom in holy solitudes, with fasting and great prayer, and send my soul forth in one great mute, hungry demand for light. I, a man, with some of the Father God stirring the awful mysteries of my nature, go yearningly naked, empty, and alone, and clamor to know the way. And sometimes deep, sweet, hollow voices answer in murmurs, which I feel rather than hear; but I cannot interpret ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... one of the grandest spectacles that Nature can offer to the gaze of man. Below them, the tempest; above them, the starry firmament, tranquil, mute, impassible, with the moon projecting her peaceful rays ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... therefore with all the zealous impulses of our heart endeavor to attain the very majesty of eloquence, than which the immortal gods have not imparted anything better to mankind, and without which all would be mute in nature, and destitute of the splendor of a perfect glory and future remembrance. Let us likewise always make continued progress toward perfection, and by so doing we shall either reach the height, or at least shall see many ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... mute, with staring eyes, Like a lay-figure for surprise, At last this stammered out, "How now? Woman—where, woman, is your ticket, That ought to have let you through our wicket?" Says woman, "Where is David's Cow?" Said Mr. H—— with expedition, "There's ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... observer of the stupendous spectacle that spread out around and above me the most sublime feature in this imposing scene appeared to be the silence which reigned supreme over all. The heavens were as mute as the sea. It looked as if the earth had been engulfed by a second deluge, and all living nature had perished utterly from ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... production of which would have enabled the bridegroom to claim the youth in question as his slave—it could not be found; a certain devil had carried it off, and refused to say where he had hidden it. In vain did his master cause him to be beaten with iron clubs, he remained obstinately mute. At length ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... knife in hand, staring at her and mute for wonder, she pulled off the close-fitting seaman's bonnet she wore and scowling up at me shook down the abundant ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... on the pavement of a quiet street stands a mute and gloomy man with an armful of what appears to be paper-money. He is holding it out in ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... reform for me in words? The leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset, with the blue east for their back-ground, and the stars of the dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stubble rimed with frost, contribute something to the mute music. ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... bank, the loss of a law-suit, or some dire disaster of that sort, parents have seen themselves compelled to abandon the home of their fathers, endeared to them by many gentle recollections, perhaps to embark for some far distant land; they stifle their sighs, and bid a mute farewell to each stone and each tree, familiar to them as household words; they depart with reluctance, and often turn to cast a lingering look behind at objects so dear to their memory. Not so the children; they issue from the door ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... me, O Lord, and it is as I would have it. But there is another thing at which I greatly marvel—how it is that when the soul is faint from desire of the sweetness of Thy presence, Thou art wholly mute, and dost not utter a single word that can be heard. And who, O Lord, would not be grieved, when Thou showest Thyself so strange, so silent, to the soul that loves ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge |
