"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spirit still and his jocund voice now mute, he sleeps soundly under the sighing trees of Hollywood—that populous "city of the silent" at Richmond. It was his corps of which such wild and ridiculous stories of bowie-knife prowess were told at the Bull Run fight. They, together ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... 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 new ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... fact; and so it is that the French Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic comedy of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and which would never have been enacted without the intervention of this august mute personage. It was he that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley. It was he whose arrival in his capital called up all France in arms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust him. While the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... could get for dear father with the checks that will surely be coming in to me, within the next two or three weeks, I felt so utterly broken-hearted that I could do nothing but cry." The child put her arms tenderly around the neck of her beloved aunt, and gave her message of sympathy in mute kisses. ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... and as independent of one another as two stakes of an espalier. There had not been a word gone amiss between them, nor even a thought the wrong way of the grain; but the pressure of fear and of prickly expectation was upon them both, and kept them mute. The lad was afraid that he would get "nay," and the lass was afraid that she could not ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... John Joram. In a sensational cause the leading barrister for the defence is always the hero of the plot,—the actor from whom the best bit of acting is expected,—the person who is most likely to become a personage on the occasion. The prisoners are necessarily mute, and can only be looked at, not heard. The judge is not expected to do much till the time comes for his charge, and even then is supposed to lower the dignity of the bench if he makes his charge with any ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... answered the woman as she drew the baby close against her bosom and gazed down upon its pitiful face, and into the large brown eyes that were lifted to hers in mute appeal. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... at ten, and, in spite of the mute appeal of Marjory's eyes, stole off on tiptoe and left ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... another, drifted far away from the breath of life, even as their pigeons were far from earth; at this moment they are merely children, knowing neither envy nor anger; free from everything, they are near to one another, they are mute, judging their feelings by the light in their eyes—and they feel as happy as the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... been drinking, those magnificent brutes, there is wine firing their blood and weighing down their heads. But here all is different, in this so-called Bacchanal of Mantegna. This heavy Silenus is supine like a mass of marble; these fauns are shy and mute; these youths are grave and sombre; there is no wine in the cups, there are no lees in the vat, there is no life in these magnificent colossal forms; there is no blood in their grandly bent lips, no light in their wide-opened eyes; it is not the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... so while dozing. During such moments this man sitting there so mysteriously silent, almost hid in a cloud of heavy-scented smoke, filled me with a sort of unearthly terror. He seemed to be some grim, mute, but relentless tyrant, possessing over me a supernatural power which he used to drive me on mercilessly to exhaustion. But these feelings came very rarely; besides, he paid me so liberally I could forget much. There at length grew between ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... health To loveliness most heavenly, yet most sad? Her cheeks, where youth once summer'd into roses, Glow now with faint exotic loveliness, Not native to this harsh and gusty earth; And from her large dark eyes there seems to gaze Some angel with mute, melancholy looks, As from a ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... from the trembling string When wizard fingers sweep Dreamily, half asleep; When through remembering reeds Ancient airs and murmurs creep, Oboe oboe following, Flute answering clear high flute, Voices, voices—falling mute, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the same time, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him. Had he counted upon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence which would lighten the veil over the future? It must have been so, otherwise why this sense ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bread was made, though I had no tools; and no one could say that I did not earn it by the sweat of my brow. When the rain kept me indoors, it was good fun to teach my pet bird Poll to talk; but so mute were all things round me that the sound of my own ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... baronet's incredulous exclamation; but as it was he was so confident of his success—so gratified and triumphant altogether—that he could afford to be not only forgiving but actually tolerant. He therefore replied to Sir Reginald only with a mute smile of amused compassion for the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Great Pyramid is mute, but we find in other pyramids inscriptions of some hundreds of lines. The author of the story, who knew how much certain kings of the VIth dynasty had laboured to have extracts of the sacred books engraved within their tombs, fancied, no doubt, that his Kheops had done the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... at once, go where they will. Poor Miss Lydia was afraid of her quick speech and brusque ways and decided opinions, and spent more hours than usual upstairs alone in her own little room, and wore her best cap whenever she appeared below, as a sort of mute appeal to the young lady's indulgence. But Gerald, in her robust health, had no sympathy whatever with invalids as a class, and for "chronic nerves" she had an absolute contempt, unmitigated by even the best cap's gay ribbons. "It's altogether a matter of will," she asserted. "People needn't be ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... without saying a word. Chwen Hih (Fu-kiu) explains this point in unequivocal terms: "Night after night I sleep with Buddha, and every morning I get up with Him. He accompanies me wherever I go. When I stand or sit, when I speak or be mute, when I am out or in, He never leaves me, even as a shadow accompanies body. Would you know where He is? Listen to ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... their Infants had no need of Christ, of Baptism, or of Renewing by the Holy Ghost. And I asked them whether they durst say that their Children were saved without a Saviour, and were no Christians, and why they baptized them, with much more to that purpose, and afterwards they were ashamed and as mute ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... quite kept his word, though there was a moment in every case when he seemed to imagine doing what he said, and he took with mute patience the rakings which the ladies gave him when ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... hill, our horse stopped; in vain Picton jerked at the rein, and shouted at him: not a step further would he go, until Robbut himself came down to the rescue. "Get along, Boab!" said his master; and Bob, with a mute, pitiful appeal in his countenance, turned his face towards salt-water. At the foot of the next hill he stopped again, when the irascible Picton jumped out, and with one powerful twitch of the bridle, gave Boab such a hint to "get on," that it nearly ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... obstinately refused to plead. Whereupon he was told from the Bench that such behaviour was not a proper method to excite the mercy of the Court, that it was not in their power to comply in any degree with what he desired, but that on the contrary they should proceed to pass sentence upon him as a mute, by which be would be subjected to a much greater and more grievous punishment than if he were found guilty of the crime of which he was accused. All this made no impression upon the criminal; he said he could but die, and the manner in which he died was indifferent to him. And so sentence, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... studding the rolling sapphire distances, and the girl's breast rose involuntarily to meet the untold miles of sparkling motion and the free, fresh, sunlit air. Her hands clasped together, and Jacob Johnson watched her white face with its wide eyes and mute lips. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... the cypresses, the belated crickets and katydids droned in the hedge, but no sweet voice of sympathy soothed Margie's strained ear. For, wrought up as she was, she almost listened to hear some response from the lips which death had made mute forever. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... whisper 'Quietness,' Then quietly itself was gone: Yet echoes of its mute caress Were with me as the ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... twelve o'clock we reached the summit of the great Uinta range, and I, being a little in advance of my still mute companion, halted to take a survey of the field before me. The top of the range here is bare of timber and there was no snow. When Field came up I broke the silence which had lasted since the little unpleasantness of the ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... related to a group of servants rumors they had heard of the insurrection in that city. A fearful gloom oppressed all, and Peter was in such a state of terror that he feared to ask any questions. As they were standing thus mute with confusion and dismay, a countryman rode up, and making a profound bow to the tzar, presented him with a note. Peter ran his eyes hastily over it, and then read it aloud. It communicated the appalling intelligence which we have ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... be so mightily timorous about, for, according to my calculation, two smaller or whiter feet didn't leave their prints in the sand that day, though I do make that assertion with my own lips, that ought to be mute. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... pause, spent in determined looking, the girl bowed her head in mute farewell; and turned her back perhaps courageously, perhaps unwisely and somewhat faithlessly, upon the mountains, and the rare mysteries of their untrodden snows. She went across the sparse turf, starred with tiny clear, coloured flowers, her ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... lessons given by my father in our own house, in preparation for confirmation. I heard them used also in all sorts of ways, so that my mind almost unconsciously constructed some sort of explanation of them. Secondly, I was often a mute witness of the strict way in which my father performed his pastoral duties, and of the frequent scenes between him and the many people who came to the parsonage to seek advice and consolation. I was thus again constantly attracted from the outer to the inner aspects ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... his hand in mute acquiescence. Her sneers had stung him to the quick, but her appeal to his manhood for help in her distress moved ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... to the Yerl; It was true what was said by the dying girl; It was Sir Peregrine's horn they heard, And they both sat mute, nor whispered a word, For they wondered much, and were sore afraid Of mysteries working about the maid, Who, as she lay in her ecstasie, Kept muttering slow an Ave Marie: "Oh, Lady sweet! the sign hath come, Happy the maid whom her knight calls home; It is the nightingale that ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... astonishment of his faithful people had been mute and passive: they suddenly rose with unanimous and irresistible fury. Theophilus escaped, but the promiscuous crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners was slaughtered without pity in the streets of Constantinople. [50] A seasonable earthquake justified the interposition of Heaven; the torrent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... The table was still set for supper. Two places, side by side, bore mute witness that the King had been ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... had visited him on Saturday night. She had determined to essay her powers of mute persuasion once more ere she finally arranged with the bandit for his rescue. But that arrangement was not to take place; for on the Sabbath evening she was carried away, in the manner already described. And it was now, also, on that Sabbath evening that Wagner was pacing his dungeon—pondering ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... representations in which the affliction of Mary is a prominent part of the tragic interest of the scene. She is sometimes sinking to the earth, sustained by the women or by St. John; sometimes she stands with clasped hands, mute and motionless with excess of anguish; sometimes she stretches out her arms to her Son, as Jesus, sinking under the weight of his cross, turns his benign eyes upon her, and the others who follow him: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... of her relations with Balzac coincided with his temporary abandonment of authorship for business. It was in 1825 that he resolved to embark on publishing,[*] partly urged by the mute reproaches of his parents and partly allured by the prospect of rapidly growing rich. He had likewise some intention of bringing out his own books, both those previously written and those in preparation. Of these latter there were a goodly number sketched ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... of Squires—if they'll only be mute— And array their thick heads against reason and right, Like the Roman of old, of historic repute,[3] Who with droves of dumb animals carried ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... was swept against the streaming window pane, and a gust of wind shook the frame in its sockets. The watcher turned away from the window with a mute gesture of despair. No eye could pierce that black chaos. He sank again into his seat, and looked around shuddering. The high, vaulted chamber was lit by a pair of candles only, leaving the greater part of it in gloom. Grim, fantastic shadows lurked in the corners, and lay ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was dim, but Matilda's eyes were keen, and she saw two large tears roll from under the closed lids and down upon the thin cheeks. Because of her understanding of boys, Matilda did not interfere with those mute tokens of weak surrender. Better the traces on the dirty skin than a later misunderstanding, but as the tears took their way a childless woman's pity and tenderness was ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... follow the young orator from the bar, and watch his motions to his own house? With what importance does he appear to the multitude! in the courts of judicature, with what veneration! When he rises to speak, the audience is hushed in mute attention; every eye is fixed on him alone; the crowd presses round him; he is master of their passions; they are swayed, impelled, directed, as he thinks proper. These are the fruits of eloquence, well known to all, and palpable to ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... good-morning; and without need to watch him, they knew that he had walked no farther than Rachel's cottage. The girl, on leaving it, had neglected to close the door, and the old maid had not dared to rise. He stood in the open door-way, and it gave him a mute invitation to enter, though he had not courage to accept it. He knocked faintly once or twice, and by-and-by was aware of a movement in the parlor. He turned towards the door and saw it open slowly, and Rachel looked out at him, trembling from head to foot, with signs ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... did so peck, clapperclaw, and maul one another all that time, that there was the devil and all to do, and the island was in a fair way of being left without inhabitants. Some stood up for this pope-hawk, some for t'other. Some, struck with a dumbness, were as mute as so many fishes; the devil a note was to be got out of them; part of the merry bells here were as silent as if they had lost their tongues, I ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... speculation would be managed. Mr. Yancy on his part believed that if Murrell went to bed reasonably drunk he would sleep late and give him the opportunity he coveted, to quit the tavern unobserved at break of day. Gradually the ice of silence which had held them mute at supper, thawed. At first it was the broken lazy speech of men who were disposed to quiet, then the talk became brisk—a steady stream of rather dreary gossip of horses and lands and negroes, of speculations past and gone ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... the mysterious recesses in which were deposited the mummies that had been brought from the catacombs of the ancient Pharaohs. Of these she ordered several to be taken. From thence she resorted to a gallery, where, under the guard of fifty female negroes, mute, and blind of the right eye, were preserved the oil of the most venomous serpents, rhinoceros horns, and woods of a subtle and penetrating odor, procured from the interior of the Indies, together with a thousand other horrible rarities. This collection ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the signal for silence, and every scout became mute. At least they had learned the value of obedience, and that is one of the cardinal virtues ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... a word; she quailed under dread of the report being correct. Newton and his father looked at each other; their mute anguish was expressed by covering up their faces with ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to Silvere's, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of approaching death had excited her; she no longer felt herself blushing, but hung upon her love, while he in faltering voice repeated: "I love you! I ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the defeated Candidus and Antony's messenger like a heroine. But afterwards——Her raving did not last long; but the mute, despairing silence! Ere she had fully recovered her self-command she sent us all away, and I have not seen her since. But all the thoughts and feelings which dwell here"—he pointed to his brow and breast—"have left their abode and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not wholly without some mingling of pleasure. A husband finds a strange sense of protection and safety in the presence and sympathy of an affectionate wife in the hour of his calamity. She can, perhaps do nothing, but her mute and sorrowful concern and pity comfort and reassure him. Cornelia, however, was able to render her husband some essential aid. She resolved immediately to accompany him wherever he should go; and, ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... was, indeed, a smoking-room of a novel sort, the invention of an unknown shade, who had sold all the rights to the club through a third party, anonymously, preferring, it seemed, to remain in the Elysian world, as he had been in the mundane sphere, a mute inglorious Edison. It was a simple enough scheme, and, for a wonder, no one in the world of substantialities has thought to take it up. The smoke was stored in reservoirs, just as if it were so much gas or water, and was supplied on the hot-air furnace principle from a huge furnace ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... defend and screen them as they go, And fight a rearguard action with the brute, Who cares not for their agony or woe, But only for the blood-streams and the loot. And now she sees us watching one poor little mute: 'Ah! this one?' and she pointed to the dot Who sat alone, and smiled to vacant space, 'Waits for her mother; very hard her lot; For years now has she waited in her place. "Where is her mother?" I can never trace Somewhere beyond across "the no man's ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... Not even when a low, half-strangled cry came to them across the water, out of the blackness that brooded upon the harbor, did any of the four give sign of excitement. The Babu started, and rose to his feet shivering; the others still squatted, mute and motionless as statues of ebony, neither by gesture nor murmur betraying their consciousness that at any moment, by tocsin from the fort, a thousand fierce and relentless warriors might be launched like ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... he spoke, rested with a mute reproach in their gaze on the form of a virgin, who had just paused in the choral dance, and whose looks were bent obdurately on the ground. Her luxuriant hair was drawn upward from cheek and brow, braided into a knot at the crown of the head, in the fashion ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... him, that Mars and Mercury fell at variance whose servant he should be; and there is an epigrammatist that saith that Art and Nature had spent their excellences in his fashioning, and, fearing they could not end what they had begun, they bestowed him up for time, and Nature stood mute and amazed to behold her own mark; but these are ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... upturned to the moonlight, and his eyes wide and glassy gazing upwards. She drew near, and stooped to close those eyes; but she could not. For they gazed straight into her own. They pierced her soul with the mute reproach of a silence that could never ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... who professed to be able to explain the whole ten stages of Yoga. He had established himself on a street near Times Square, just off Broadway, and there we found several automobiles and taxicabs standing at the curb, a mute testimony to the wealth of at least ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... shell-holes and craters. Old tanks lay embedded in the mud, their sides pierced by shot and shell, and worst of all by far were the trees. Mere skeletons of trees standing gaunt and jagged, stripped naked of their bark; mute testimony of the horrors they had witnessed. Surely of all the lonely places of the earth this was by far the worst? The ground looked lighter in some places than in others, where the powdered bricks ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... haste to tell her, while Sam stood mute. But when she heard all, the maiden made it exceeding clear how she felt on the subject and turned upon ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... struggling on the surface of the sea. The strongest cried like very devils in their despair, whilst the women and children, the weak and the helpless, gasped vainly for breath, and worn out by their efforts to sustain themselves above the water, sank at last to the bottom with a look of mute agony I shall never forget. Among the whole number, we did not see one of the ship's crew. Like desperate men, they had sunk with their vessel. We fished up about one half of the unhappy blacks, but the direst necessity compelled us to leave the rest ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... interrupted him. Forrester stood mute as she stripped the stranger with a voice like scalding acid. "Listen, you," she said, pointing a finger at the man. "Who do you think you ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... The register of the dots and dashes cannot be all reproduced here, though a very long record of them, indeed almost complete, was made by myself. During the whole time that the register moved hardly a word of conversation escaped our lips. We were fixed in mute amazement. We were full of unexpressed imaginings, which were told, however in my father's face, so flushed with eagerness, as with half-parted lips he bent over the instrument or interrupted his attention by walking to the window and gazing far ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Such a foolish thing (Pure girls' play!) As a mere mute heart, Was it worth a kiss, a ring, This? for ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... considered, it would seem as if Christian nations might, with some reason, interfere in this horrible traffic, by the side of which ordinary slavery seems but a trifle. When we further consider that, in some instances, the child is also made mute by the excision of part of the tongue,—as mute or dumb eunuchs are less apt to enter into intrigues, and are therefore higher prized,—the barbarity, cruelty, and extremes of inhumanity that these poor children have ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... The dry rasp of a dragon-fly's wings was loud in the grass. The stream beneath the beeches darkened and grew moody as the light neared its noon intensity; the beech-leaves hung limp and silent; a catbird settled near me with dropped tail and head drawn in between her shoulders, as mute as the leaves; the Maryland yellowthroat broke into a sharp gallop of song at intervals,—he would have to clatter a little on doomsday, if that day fell in June,—but the intervals were far apart. The meadow shimmered. No part of the ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... the farm labourers careless in their work and the bailiff give notice at New Year; it made the mute hard-working animals grow lean, the sheaves disappear from the barn and the corn from the granary; it made off with the reserve cart-wheels and harnesses, pulled the padlocks off the buildings, took planks out of the fences, and on dark ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... timid and too audacious, too tremulous in their consciousness of guilt, too hardy and reckless in their mutual devotion, to carry through so difficult a game. Mertoun falters and stammers in his suit to Tresham; Mildred stands mute at her brother's charge, incapable of evasion, only resolute not to betray. Yet these same two children in the arts of politic self-defence are found recklessly courting the peril of midnight meetings in Mildred's chamber with the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... pearly tones which painters adore. Her broad and finely modelled brow caught lovingly the light which played on its polished surface. Her eyes, of a turquoise blue, shone with unequalled sweetness; the soft lashes, and the slightly sunken temples inspired the spectator with I know now what mute melancholy. The nose, which was aquiline and thin, recalled the royal origin of the high-born woman. The pure lips, finely cut, wore happy smiles, brought there by loving-kindness inexhaustible. Her teeth were small and white; ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... when by speaking out she might benefit us, proves to me that some awful secret, which she dares not reveal, weighs on her mind. It may also be that she believes it better for us, as well as for herself, that she should remain mute in a way otherwise ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... wound, though not dangerous, was enough to disable him and get him a furlough, and he determined to take his son's body home, which the captain's influence enabled him to do. Between his wound and his grief the old man was nearly helpless, and accepted Darby's silent assistance with mute gratitude. Darby asked him to tell his mother that he was getting on well, and sent her what money he had—his last two months' pay—not enough to have bought her a pair of stockings or a pound of sugar. The only other message he sent was given at the station just ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... alike on her close attention to her domestic duties, and on her privileged communications with angels and spirits. She would hold long colloquys with the spirit of her dead husband before anybody who happened to be present—colloquys which struck the simple spectators mute with terror. To her mystic view, the love union between Mary and me was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried by the mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when we met and when we parted, ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... thither was on this wise. When he had farewelled Kamar al-Zaman, he went to his shop and thence going home, laid his hand on the door whereupon it opened and he entered and found neither his wife nor the slave-girl, but saw the house in sorriest plight, quoting in mute speech his saying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... more pretentious town of San Luis. The only ones awake on the Warrenia were those whose duties required them to be alert, and Captain Winton, knowing that General Bambos was absent, held the whistle mute as he went by. ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... as mute as mice, when in her presence," says one of Washington's companions; and common report makes her to have been very much such a woman as her ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... homestead once more. The motif was still as far beyond his grasp as ever; but there were other things in life besides elusive motifs. The increasing blackness above his head was one of them; his hunger was another, and he quickened his pace. His piano might be awaiting him in mute reproach; but then, so did Eulaly's doughnuts await him, and there was no reproach in those, at least, not until some time later. He fell to whistling a strain of his overture, as he rode swiftly along, quite unconscious ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Locke's face as he read this; the expression was unmistakable, and the investigator leaped to his feet. But the mute uttered a strange parrot-like cry—evidently the same that Edyth heard that night in Christie Place—and Ashton-Kirk saw his hand go swiftly to a button at one side of the work-bench. Instantly the investigator paused; once more a gesture bade him ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... satisfactorily arranged. Unluckily, however, as I was strolling, about a 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
... last sigh. They did not leave her side for fear that she would make a will in favor of the convent of Beguins belonging to the town. The sick woman kept silent, she seemed dozing and death appeared to overspread very gradually her mute and livid face. Can't you imagine those three relations seated in silence through that winter midnight beside her bed? An old nurse is with them and she shakes her head, and the doctor sees with anxiety that the sickness has reached its last stage, and holds his hat in one hand and with ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... clinging to her husband's side. There were tears in her eyes and her hands squeezed mute messages upon his arm, for she knew that his many-wounded heart was now more bitterly hurt than in all his knowledge of Wakefield. He was a prisoner in disgrace gazing through the bars at ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... and had the effect of bringing all the boys together from their various amusements, just as chickens run from a hovering hawk. Together they crowded for a moment in mute dismay, unable to speak, to even hide, waiting the ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... tone of his spirits. At his dinner-table, where heretofore such a cloudless spirit of joviality had reigned, there was now a melancholy silence. It disturbed him to see his two dinner companions conversing privately together, whilst he himself sat like a mute on the stage with no part to perform. Yet to have engaged him in the conversation would have been still more distressing; for his hearing was now very imperfect; the effort to hear was itself painful to him; and his expressions, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... was soon made, the kettle on, and everything in preparation, when the dreadful discovery was made that the whole of the fresh mutton had been forgotten! Words cannot paint our consternation at this discovery. Poor Mrs Bain sat in mute despair, thinking of the misery of being reduced again to salt pork; while her husband, who had hitherto stood aghast, jumped suddenly forward, and seizing a bag of fine potatoes that had been given to the men, threw it, in a transport of rage, into ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... window near which he sat. He could never study when a fly buzzed on the window-pane; he was always standing on the toes of his bare feet, trying to locate and understand the buzz that puzzled him. The book was a mute, soulless thing that had no relation to his inner world of thought and feeling. He turned ever from the dead seven-times-six to the mystery of ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... North Fork towards my outfit, the attached herd was in plain view across the river. Arriving at my own wagon, I saw a mute appeal in every face for permission to go to town, and consent was readily granted to all who had not been excused on a similar errand the day before. The cook and horse-wrangler were included, and the ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... shall dive from the Threshold into the sea to see if it be there, and coming up when the fishermen draw their nets shall find it not, nor yet discover it among the sails. Limpang Tung shall seek among the birds and shall not find it when the cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go Umborodom to seek among the crags. And the hound, the thunder, shall chase the Eclipse and all the gods go seeking with Their stars, but never find the ball. And men, no longer having light of the golden ball, shall pray to the gods no more, ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... game. Nathless her guardian's secretary was of no more importance in the rich heiress's sight than that mute row of nine-pins at the end of the alley, nor was there, mayhap, in her mind much social distinction between the hollow-eyed lad who set them up stolidly from time to time, and the silent young student who wrote those letters which ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... most gruesome details of cannibalism, of diabolical appearances, of tortures that cannot be named. The only refuge seemed to be within the walls of the churches, where the shivering congregations gathered, mute in a palsied supplication like the stone figures carved upon the walls above them. At last the terrible year passed by, and the stars fell not, nor did the heaven depart as a scroll when it is rolled together, and the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... her fine countenance, and gave one of the mute caresses that Theodora liked from her, though she could have borne them from ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... about us, where nothing else was, a line of motley humanity—Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian, Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and ecclesiastical, and no hats at all—half circled us with mute and mostly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... equipment—who had evidently been shot down during a most determined and pertinacious attack upon the house. The other half of the front portion of the garden presented a similar sight, the whole bearing mute but indubitable testimony not only to the implacable determination of the savages but also to the resolution of the defenders. Yes, the worst had happened: the house had been attacked and finally destroyed, notwithstanding the desperate nature of the defence ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... was the signal that freed the feminine Madigan tongue. Usually they all broke into conversation at once; but on this evening there seemed to be some agreement which held them mute till Irene spoke. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... rose and tottered to him, and fell on his neck. She saw it was the death-bed of their love, and she kissed his eyes, and clung to him. They moaned over each other, and clung to each other in mute despair. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... the sewer's channel. The old Aydelot sense of humor had saved Thaine many a time. And he wondered afterward if he had not seen by chance the ludicrous picture of himself in a huge mirror, if his heart would not have burst with grief when Pryor Gaines came toward him, mute and ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the balance wavered; then slowly, steadily it dipped into position. The tragedy would be no less a tragedy, because a new hero took the stage for the final acts. He tried to find words to say; but they refused to come at his bidding. He could only stand mute and look down at her, as she sat in her old place by the table, with her ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... very rudely.' 'Madame,' said he, 'it is he.' 'Who?' 'The young man we met in the garden, and who followed us home.' She turned toward me and said, 'Monsieur, I beg of you to go.' I hesitated; I wished to speak, but my words failed me. I remained motionless and mute, gazing at her. 'Take care, monsieur,' said the servant, sadly; 'you will force her to fly again.' 'Heaven forbid!' cried I; 'but how do I offend you, madame?' She did not reply; insensible, mute, and cold, as though she had not heard me, she turned, ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... valley — all these give the beholder an irresistible impression that it is truly a world into which he is looking, a world akin to ours, and yet no more like our world than Pompeii is like Naples. Its air, its waters, its clouds, its life are gone, and only a skeleton remains — a mute but eloquent witness to a cosmical tragedy without parallel in the range of ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... street once, that shell-pocked thoroughfare, its cobbles piled awry, its curbing bitten out as though by the teeth of a stone-crunching giant. Scarcely one of the houses that lined it but had gaping shell-holes in walls, piles of clattered-down bricks before it, heaps of dust—all mute tokens of the devastation wrought by the enemy airmen during the raid of the night before. But, in the middle of that pathetic and ruined apology for a street the children were playing away, as merrily as if nothing at all had happened, ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... them all by coming into the room. She carried a writing-case. Edwin introduced her to Auntie Hamps and Clara. Clara blushed and became mute. Auntie Hamps adopted a tone of excessive deference, of which the refrain was "Nurse will know best." Nurse seemed disinclined to be professional. Explaining that as she was not able to sleep she thought she might as well get up, she took a seat near the fire ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... modest, reserved, appeared indifferent to the mute questioning of the hundreds of eyes focussed on him. Our journalist wore Corporal Vinson's uniform. He had begged the authorities to let him appear in civilian clothes: demands and entreaties had ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... of outcry Dan had stood breathless while a tide of feeling swept over him that held him mute, motionless. Dud! It was Dud who had been swept over into those foaming, seething depths. Dud, whose stinging words were still rankling in his thoughts and heart; Dud, who hated, scorned, despised him; Dud who could not swim, and—and there ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... sudden leap. Again, far from it! My friend and I had been undergraduates, and very proud of ourselves into the bargain, long ago in England. But we had travelled since then, in more senses than one. We had known comfort and we had known the mute impressive numbness of despair. We had made "scoops" at times and celebrated them with joyous junketings. Once we had dined at Delmonico's, a meal of which the memory is still an absurd chaos. We had, moreover, confronted America with a blank wall ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... the lawn at Fulham, Ralph Newton walked into Neefit's shop during the hour of Mr. Neefit's absence, and ordered,—three pair of breeches. Herr "Bawwah," the cutter, who never left his board during the day for more than five minutes at a time, remained, as was his custom, mute and apparently inattentive; but the foreman came down from his perch and took the order. Mr. Neefit was out, unfortunately;—in the City. Ralph Newton remarked that his measure was not in the least altered, gave his order, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... pitiful, trembling, beseeching—and he had brought a clergyman"—again her hands covered her eyes—"and, ere I was aware of it, frightened, stunned in the storm of his passion, he had his way with me. The clergyman stood between us, saying words that bound me. I heard them, I was mute, I shrank from the ring, yet suffered it—for even as he ringed me he touched me not with his hand. Oh, if he had, I think the spell ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... melody of Mendelssohn, is a musician, though he never composed a bar. The man who recognises and feels the grandeur of the organ music of 'Paradise Lost' has some fibre of a poet in him, though he be but 'a mute, inglorious Milton.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... 'Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear In all my griefs a more than equal share! Here, where no springs in murmurs break away, Or moss-crown'd fountains mitigate the day, In vain ye hope the green delights to know, 25 Which plains more blest, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... darling," said Mr. Halberg, as Jennie made an effort to say something to him, "but put your arms around my neck, and let me feel by this mute expression that the past is forgiven; I am not yet able to bear one word from the child ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... They were mute; not a breath was drawn; they scarcely dared move their eyes lest he should be disturbed. Cochrane touched the lock lightly and then rubbed his fingertips vigorously back and forth on the carpet— anything to stimulate those fine nerves which are as valuable to some criminals ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... occasionally had a fire, choosing to keep warm rather than to eat. But the second winter, the stove stood mute with its rust, adding a chill to the room, standing there like a cast-iron gravestone. And what took the life out of their limbs, what above all utterly crushed them was the rent. Oh! the January quarter, when there was not a radish ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... upon by Mistress Headley, who, after standing in mute consternation, fell on them in a fury. She understood the device now! All had been a scheme laid amongst them for defrauding her poor fatherless child, driving him away, and taking up this beggarly brat. She had seen through the little baggage ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... us who are men, having been more or less pretty fellows in our time, have had our triumphs, concerning which we are, as a rule, becomingly mute, but occasionally, in the confidences of the smoking-room, undesirably loquacious. For this fault there is no excuse, unless such a one as justifies the practice of inflicting reprisals in international quarrels; it being quite certain ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... rule with the English to go once a day at least to houses of this sort, where they talk of business and news, read the papers, and often look at one another without opening their lips. And 'tis very well they are so mute; for were they all as talkative as people of other nations, the coffee-houses would be intolerable, and there would be no hearing what one man said where there are so many. The chocolate-house in St. James's Street, where I go every morning to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... these pages, as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the blank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I remember seeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we had one day at our boarding-house. This child was a deaf mute. But its soul had the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacity which through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it had to talk with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid alternations of feeling and shifting expressions of thought as flitted over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... cruel, and the end Of every joy is sorrow and distress. And when immortal creatures lightly bend To kiss the lips of simple loveliness, Swords are unsheathed in silence, and clouds rise, Some God is jealous of the mute caress . ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... not entirely free from accidents. I discovered that fact when I was concluding the first part of the Adagio in Liszt's great Fantaisie in the beautiful Victoria Hall in Geneva. The pipe which brought in the water burst and the organ was mute. I have always thought, perhaps wrongly, that malice had something to do ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... down her watch, with a whole bunch of charms against the evil eye. She cast before her, by a movement full of mute grace, a shagreen bag, which she carried in her belt. The brigand opened it with the eagerness of a custom-house officer. He drew from it a little English dressing-case, a vial of English salts, a box of pastilles of English mint, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... anticipate the dawn? Still sleep and silence wrap the weary world; The stars in mid career usurp the pole; The Grecian bands, the winds, the waves are hush'd; All things are mute around us; all but you Rest in ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... there they fancied they saw vast seas, scarcely kept together under so rarefied an atmosphere, and water-courses emptying the mountain tributaries. Leaning over the abyss, they hoped to catch some sounds from that orb forever mute in the solitude of space. ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... hope and sorrow without tongue: The human lilies, sprung Out of the ooze, and trodden, Even as they breathed and clung! Lost lilies, bruised and sodden; Lost faces, gleaming there, Where misery blasphemes the sacred young! Mute outcry, most, of those Small suffering hands defrauded of their rose; Faces the daylight shuns; Ruinous faces of the little ones,— Pale witness, unaware. Starved lips, and withering blood— O broken in the bud!— Blank eyes, and ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... had so crushed and broken looked up at him with all its motherhood, mute yet vibrant, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... for a moment, except to run for fresh, cool water; and he did not eat. The fever broke on the fourth day and left her spent and shrunken, a slip of a girl with life only in her eyes. They hung upon Venters with a mute observance, and he found hope ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... lap spoke them so quietly, her face was in such a sweet rest of assurance, and one little hand rose and fell on the window-sill with such an unconscious glad endorsement of what she said, that the lady was mute. ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... of crying over it again, and his honest, manly face bore mute witness to his words. Though addressing himself to Miss Hemingway, his eyes were more often fixed on Grace Sinclair, and it was plain that it was her good opinion he valued most. But she was as merciless as Dolly, and showed not the least ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... over, all's well? Gad, my head begins to whim it about. Why dost thou not speak? Thou art both as drunk and as mute as a fish. ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... combine these two things which so monstrously contradicted each other—the bright day, the odor and taste of cabbage—and the fact that two days later he must die. He did not think of anything. He did not even count the hours, but simply stood in mute stupefaction before this contradiction which tore his brain in two. And he became evenly pale, neither white nor redder in parts, and appeared to be calm. Only he ate nothing and ceased sleeping altogether. He sat all night long on a stool, his legs crossed under ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... have wrought in me the dangerous ecstasy which was to prove so cruel a requital of it; for it is of the nature of love to be inflamed by the least hint of a neighbouring, answering fire. I believe that I could have been for ever Aurelia's mute, adoring, unasking slave, but for the fact that she had sighed, and whispered me "Checho," and twice suffered me to kiss her hands. Fatal benevolence that lifted suddenly the meek! Fatal wealth bestowed that made the ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... soul! Not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and silent ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... persist, hussy, in talking ambiguously to me? "I do know;" "I don't know;" "he has gone off;" "I have heard;" "I wasn't there." Don't you mean to tell me plainly, whatever it is? The girl in tears, with her garments torn, is mute; the Eunuch is off: for what reason? What has happened? ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... turn into a pumpkin and my coachman into a big rat. Twice or thrice Pierrot sat up for me until two o'clock in the morning, but presently he took offence at my conduct and went to bed without waiting for me. I was touched by this mute protest against my innocently disorderly way of life, and thereafter I regularly returned home at midnight. Pierrot, however, proved hard to win back; he wanted to make sure that my repentance was no mere passing matter, but once he was convinced that I had really reformed, he deigned to restore ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... window did not waste his time in this way. Judith was gone, and with her the spell that had held him mute and helpless, and he was a man of affairs once more. He was not a very cheerful man of affairs to-night. He was not singing or whistling to himself, as he usually did, but he moved competently ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... mute and motionless, his gray nose between his forepaws, his eyes half closed. A rock could have appeared scarcely less lifeless than he; not a muscle twitched; not a hair moved; not an eyelid quivered. Yet every ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... from my hair, while the fingers of the other still lingered among my curls, she pointed to the plant, and looked wistfully at Johnny. The good German was not usually quick of comprehension; but he understood the mute appeal now, and he asked in a voice even more husky than ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much expected by the best judges, for surprize—but there was great joy. Mr. Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry to see him before. John Knightley only was in mute astonishment.—That a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile to another man's house, for the sake of being in mixed company till bed-time, of finishing ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... too retired a shade,—the coolness of a meditative habit, which diffuses itself through the feeling and observation of every sketch." But no such charge can be laid at the door of "Rab and his Friends." The very dumbness of Rab, his mute yearning to help, his brave and loyal ministries in the hospital, doubly affecting because wordless and impotent, lend an appeal to this sketch that few sketches of men and women can be said ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... silence was prolonged, a latent, ill-defined uneasiness took hold of us more and more. Yet we were far from anticipating that in the space of a few days we should be driven into the midst of a diplomatic maelstrom, in which, after a week of intense anguish, we should look on, mute and helpless, at the shipwreck of European peace and of all ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... how deeply he felt the transition of his fate, that no person might be permitted to enter or depart by the gate of the Alhambra, through which he had sallied forth to surrender his capital. His request was granted; the portal was closed up, and remains so to the present day—a mute ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Then he sought the Master and exclaimed angrily: "If you can do anything, help him!" "Take heed that we do not all suffer because of him," the prophet said, and then made the child whole. And they told yet more. On the other side of the lake He had made a deaf-mute to speak, and at Bethsaida had made a blind man to see. But, above all, every one knew how at Nain He had brought back a young man to life who had already been carried out of the house in his coffin! A wine-presser was there who told something ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... tremulous arm. It was for her now to take the hand of that wronged man more helpless than a child. But where could she lead him? Where? And what was she to say to him? What words of cheer, of courage and of hope? There were none. Heaven and earth were mute, unconcerned at their meeting. But this other man was coming up behind her. He was very close now. His fiery person seemed to radiate heat, a tingling vibration into the atmosphere. She was exhausted, careless, afraid to stumble, ready to fall. She fancied she could hear his breathing. A wave ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... nothing but a vast basin of water miles deep to catch them, and there would not be one chance in a thousand that they would survive. This, surely, was no place and no time for engines to fail or steering apparatus to go wrong. Yet each flyer was ready for such a mishap—attested by the mute evidence of an inflated rubber tube about his waist. Even Bob and Paul slumbered on the ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... of the palace gateway, before them stood the mother of Mindon, the Lady Dwaymenau, pale as wool, having heard the shout of her boy, so that the two Queens faced each other, each holding the shoulders of her son, and the ladies watched, mute as fishes, for it was years ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... labors of those who had cast their fortunes on the success of the enterprise, that it was not difficult for the imagination of Elizabeth to conceive they were enlarging under her eye while she was gazing, in mute wonder, at the alterations that a few short years had made in the aspect of the country. The points on the western side of this remarkable plain, on which no plant had taken root, were both larger and more numerous than those ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he was looking at some half-healed ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... with an oath. 'He didn't know what to say. Same, sir, if he wasn't as mute as a poker. But you know what ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... ocean, which met their view, was unruffled, and the beach was lined with hundreds, standing on their carpets, spread upon the sand, with their faces turned toward the east. As the sun rose in splendour above the horizon, they all prostrated themselves in mute adoration, and continued in that position until his disk had cleared the water's edge; they then rose, and throwing a few flowers into the rippling wave, folded up their ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his metals were metamorphosed into a human heart. When he was satisfied with his day's business, he would rub his hands; his inward glee would escape like smoke through every rift and wrinkle of his face;—in no other way is it possible to give an idea of the mute play of muscle which expressed sensations similar to the soundless laughter of Leather Stocking. Indeed, even in transports of joy, his conversation was confined to monosyllables; he ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... forced to promise that she will not go outside of its walls, or she is afraid to do so. I will bring home this monstrous crime. I will release this lovely young woman who dares not speak, yet so plainly appeals to me." Already he saw in fancy her starlike eyes raised to his in mute gratitude, her white hand laid ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... manner born, could not suppress a broad smile. It answered our purpose, however, and as the populace was evidently accustomed to such florid display, we did not anticipate being mobbed; but during the entire trip that harlequin of a driver, who was as sober as a mute at a funeral, shared our admiration with the pleasing and varied scenery. He was a thorough native. It would have been of no use to attempt to talk with him, for the foreigner who can speak the Basque tongue ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... whose poison has befouled the River Jumna, is dancing in triumph on its sagging heads. The snake's consorts plead for mercy—one of them holding out bunches of lotus flowers, the others folding their hands or stretching out their arms in mute entreaty. The river is once again depicted as a surging flood but it is the master-artist's command of sinuous line and power of suffusing a scene of turmoil with majestic calm which gives the ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... long had liv'd, In mansion prudently contriv'd; 400 Where neither tree nor house could bar The free detection of a star And nigh an ancient obelisk Was rais'd by him, found out by FISK, On which was a written not in words, 405 But hieroglyphic mute of birds, Many rare pithy saws concerning The worth of astrologic learning. From top of this there hung a rope, To a which he fasten'd telescope; 410 The spectacles with which the stars He reads in smallest characters. It happen'd as a boy, one night, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... behind her a note to the effect that she intended to drown herself in the Thames. Her family and friends were distracted. The river was dragged, but no trace of the missing girl was found. On the river bank, however, were discovered her bonnet and shawl, mute witnesses to the fate that seemed to have overtaken her. Her father alone refused to believe that his daughter had ended her life tragically. He persisted in his search for her, and was soon rewarded by a clue which ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... pinion, 'tis doubtfullish whether A "mot" might be made which should happily hit The "gold" of desert; and Love, aided by Wit, Though equal to eloquent passion's fine glow, Might both be struck mute by the Muse of Dumb-Show. That "actions speak louder than words" we all knew; But now we may add, "and more gracefully, too." Performances fine Punch has praised in his day, But how few take the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... writing. I believe in correctness, but it is a fact that when a writer becomes a purist he conforms but does not create. After all, I believe that what's within a man will come out regardless of his training. There may be mute, inglorious Miltons, but Art struggles for expression. The German woman worked in a field and had no books, but she brought tears to the eyes of the Empress, with a little poem, dug up out ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... interpretation to his lordship's civility, and have considered it as personal to myself; but the philosophy of my vanity did not in this case appear to be quite so sound as that of the reverend Enoch, and I was mute. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Fritz dived, leaving his brothers without, mute with astonishment. In another moment he emerged, leading by the hand a slight, handsome youth, by his dress apparently a young English naval officer. The pair advanced to meet us; and Fritz, with a countenance radiant with joy, briefly introduced ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the coming night, little Perrine seemed to feel more impressed with the talk that she had had with her mother, and leaning her head against her donkey's, she let the tears, which she had kept back so long, flow silently, and Palikare, in mute sympathy, bent his head and licked ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... muddy. Bouvard, attributing this accident to the rinsing of the bottles, got them to try three others without more success; then he poured out some St. Julien, manifestly not long enough in bottle, and all the guests were mute. Hurel smiled without discontinuing; the heavy steps of the waiters resounded ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... rigid, his face dead white—only his burning eyes and twitching mouth told of the baffled fury that was beyond all words. Twice he essayed to speak and could not—once he turned to look at us with an expression of such hopeless misery and mute appeal as moved even me to pity. As for the highwayman, he began to whistle and swing his ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... 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 presence what was ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of Nature and radiates to the circumference. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun—it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman? How much tranquillity ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... it!" he murmured, as his sister tucked her arm in his in mute understanding. "Think of the architect that ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... was embellished with blossoms Like to the patriarch hoary, the sage of his kith and the hamlet, Who on his birthday is crowned by children and children's children, So stood the ancient prophet, and mute with his pencil of iron Marked on the tablet of stone, and measured the time and its changes, While all around at his feet, an eternity slumbered in quiet. Also the church within was adorned, for this was the season When the young, their parents' hope, and the loved-ones of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... face, upon which the red firelight played brightly, but could not read what was in his mind. However, she thought that the request showed a sign of yielding, and was a mute confession that he knew he was in her power. "I give you three days," she ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... the happy summer vacations to come, but it is doubtful if brighter memories will ever dim the cherished wealth of affection they feel for the faded pennant, the scarred and battered paddles, and the water soaked log book, which now hangs on the boathouse wall—mute mementoes of the time the Jolly Rovers paddled down the ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... he was a man who delighted in conversation, Desmond gradually gave the talk a personal turn. But willing as Mortimer showed himself to discuss the war generally, about his personal share he was as mute as a fish. Try as he would Desmond could get nothing out of him. Again and again, he brought the conversation round to personal topics; but every time his companion contrived to switch it back to ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams |
