"Numbness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Muzell has described for us [Muzell's "Medical and Surgical Considerations."], breathed slowly and with difficulty, had no inclination to eat and drink, nor to the natural functions; the pulse was slow, all bodily movements slumberous and indicative of weariness. The mental numbness which is the result of terror or wonder is sometimes accompanied by a general suspension of all natural physical activity. Was the mind the origin of this condition, or was it the body which brought about this torpid ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... distressing remembrance. Despite the cold, we advanced briskly enough until noon. Then the wind grew stronger, whilst we got weak from the exposure. The cold increased. A numbness of mind and body was creeping over us, and our limbs were heavy to move. At about three we stopped, and in what shelter we could find, built a great fire; and heating the coffee as hot as we could swallow it, drank nearly all that remained, and ate a dinner. That strengthened ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... of a cavern and looked into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth, steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness of fear that cannot move. The two sparks of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at once lifted themselves up as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and I had a certain numbness or stiffness, as one does from the first trial of long-disused limbs. I had always limped a trifle since that accident beside the trout-brook; and, as I staggered to my feet, ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... out the letter, but speaking with great effort, for the room was growing very dark, and a strange numbness seemed stealing over heart and brain, "this tells that I was stolen from the side of my dead mother who was killed in a wreck—" She could get no farther, and she knew nothing of his reply. A thick darkness seemed to envelop her, fast shutting out all sense even of life ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... over again and again. And the numbness began to pass away. And the anger was dead. Always she had felt as if she had been led to Africa for some definite end. Did not the freed negroes, far out in the Desert, sing their song of the deeper mysteries—"No one but God and I knows what is in my heart"? And ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... the descending snow made a numbness steal over him, and his feeble limbs being incapable of carrying him farther, he sat down in the middle of an open field. He did ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... himself revived amidst the glow of common hopes. His worry of the morning had only left a vague numbness behind, and he now once more began to discuss his picture with Sandoz and Mahoudeau, swearing, it is true, that he would destroy it the next day. Jory, who was very short-sighted, stared at all the elderly ladies he met, and aired his theories on artistic work. A ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... in myself the extreme sensibilities I felt before the fiery trial, so that I might describe for you the colours and the aspects of the drama we have passed through. But just now I am in a state of numbness, pleasant enough in itself, yet apt to hinder my vision of things present and my forecasts of things to come. I have to make an effort to keep hold of eternal and essential things; perhaps I shall succeed ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... of her numbness and the tension she was feeling, though controlled by her firm will, there came the memory of the red, crying baby, for whose life her own sweet mother had paid so dear a price. And Mabel and Ethel—noisy, merry little girls!—she had thought of ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... delight, and streaming over, surrounded Mose, who stood at bay not far from his horse in the darkness—a sudden numbness in his limbs. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... plunging through the blow. She had not long to wait after that, for the approaching launch was a lean-lined speeder, powerfully engined, and she was being forced. Stella supposed it was one of the Abbey runabouts. Even with her teeth chattering and numbness fastening itself upon her, she shivered at the chances the man was taking. It was no sea for a speed boat to smash into at thirty miles an hour. She saw it shoot off the top of one wave and disappear in a white burst of spray, slash through the next and bury itself deep again, flinging ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... with a perfunctory bow, but recollect little else, for now that my time was so near, a numbness seemed to cloud my brain and I could think only that this little copse, full of the grey mist of dawn, was perhaps the last object ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the way it used to rise above "Old Peaky Top," just back of the cabin on Hiawassee. He straightened himself to obtain a better view. A sharp report rang out behind him from the vessel, and he felt a numbness under his shoulder. ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... altogether, and yet I am almost ashamed to add, it really has set me to thinking; yes and to feeling. Just now, somehow, I feel as it were trustful and genial. I don't know that ever I felt so much so before. I am naturally numb in my sensibilities; but this ode, in its way, works on my numbness not unlike a sermon, which, by lamenting over my lying dead in trespasses and sins, thereby stirs me up to ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... other would prove true. When the cloth was raised, the collapsed and pallid features of one in whom life was unequivocally extinct were exposed to view. Unlike most of those that perish of cold, who usually sink into the long sleep of eternity by a gradual numbness and a slowly increasing unconsciousness, there was an expression of pain in the countenance of the stranger which seemed to announce that his parting struggles had been severe, and that he had resigned his hold of that mysterious ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... oblivious to things present as if already in the sleep of death. It is a common belief that sleep is nature's provision for restoring tired muscles and jaded nerves, and for building up new tissue in cell and corpuscle. Excessive exertion produces a numbness and exhaustion so that the body becomes "dead tired," and sleep brings back life and elasticity. And yet some parts of the body, some muscles and some organs, do not stop work during sleep, and apparently ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... struck with a dryness, a numbness, that appalled her. She tried still to soothe and comfort, but nothing that she said went home—took hold. Between the feeling in her heart which might have reached and touched this despair, and the woman before her, there seemed to be a ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... few minutes to work the numbness out of my legs. How they ached! I stepped out of the tent-door like a drunken man ... fell on my face in some bushes and bled from several scratches. The blare of what was full daylight hurt my eyes. I had been writing ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... mud from heel to head, and with a numbness in his brain Barnabas rides, stooped low in the saddle, for he is sick and very faint. His hat is gone, and the cool wind in his hair revives him somewhat, but the numbness remains. Yet it is as one ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... an easy spot to lie on. You are always worse before storms. After sitting a little while you stiffen up, feeling much better after moving about. The tendons of your legs have a drawing sensation, and feel as if too short. There is more or less of numbness and paralysis, and a wooden sort of feeling of the leg when walking. You also have lightning-like shocks of pain through the limb, now and then. Your attacks come on every few weeks, and it is the left limb that is affected. ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... me.' They lay stark at his feet, and he knew that he would soon join them. The last heart that loved him had ceased to beat in Jonathan's noble breast, and his own crimes had slain his sons. Who can paint the storm of contending passions in that lonely black soul? or were they all frozen into the numbness of despair? ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you for the shame of a fearful heart Who left me alone till I saw you again in an hour When I seemed to be turned to a tree with trunk and branches Growing indurate, turning to stone, yet burgeoning In laurel leaves, in hosts of lambent laurel, Quivering, fluttering, shrinking, fighting the numbness Creeping into their veins from the dying trunk and branches! 'Tis vain, O youth, to fly the call of Apollo. Fling yourselves in the fire, die with a song of spring, If die you must in the spring. For none shall look On the face of Apollo and live, and choose you ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... fire and the wine. There was a man with a huge belly and a jovial face, noisily kissing a woman of the town, thickset and brawny. There was a sort of sham soldier, a "naquois," as the slang expression runs, who was whistling as he undid the bandages from his fictitious wound, and removing the numbness from his sound and vigorous knee, which had been swathed since morning in a thousand ligatures. On the other hand, there was a wretched fellow, preparing with celandine and beef's blood, his "leg ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... every joint, a drowsy numbness settling on his pulse. He had faith in his driver: he ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... his breath was an obstructed struggle as though the mountain upon which he lay were lying instead upon his breast. Through him went hot waves of pain under which he clenched his teeth until he swooned again into a merciful numbness. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... and his throat burned so that it was necessary for him to take a swallow of water every little while. He began to suffer considerable pain, which increased as the hours went by and then gave way to a numbness. From that time on he had need of his great strength and endurance. Gradually he lost his steadiness and his keen sight; and he realized that if he were to meet foes, or if pursuing outlaws should come up with him, he could make only a poor stand. So he turned off ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... thankful afterwards for the merciful numbness, that was like an anaesthetic in a painful operation. She had a feeling that she would awaken soon and realise fully the terrible calamity that had befallen, but just now, if she kept still it ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... he observed, as he twisted his arm about with pain. "If a little thing like that hurts one so much, I should think a whale or a dolphin would be enough to poison a whole regiment." By the next day, however, he had recovered, and only felt a slight sensation of numbness, which in two ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... a forced-on numbness of spirit. The long, long stress of a gale does it; the suspense of the interminably culminating catastrophe; and there is a bodily fatigue in the mere holding on to existence within the excessive tumult; a searching ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... to lure his friend to such a deed, As made self-hatred on the conscience lay That heavy weight she never moves away? O! where the good man's inner barriers close 'Gainst the world's cruel judgments, and his foes Enfolding truth, and prayer, and soul's repose, Thine is a mournful numbness, or a din, For many strong ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... obliged to fall back a dozen paces; but, as the glittering drizzle cleared away, he saw an enormous brown beast standing upon its hind legs, with widely distended jaws. He was conscious of no fear, but of a curious numbness in his limbs, and strange noises, as of warning shouts and ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... member of the royal family. I have walked up and down these dismal chambers for hours at a time, staring at the daubs on the walls, and picking up little odds and ends of ornaments, and gazing vacantly at them, till I felt a numbness steal all over me, accompanied by a vague presentiment that I was imprisoned for life. The progress of time is a matter of no importance in Norway. To an American, accustomed to see every thing done with energy and promptness, it is absolutely astounding—the indifference of these people ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... start when Mr. Fullarton's words caught her ear, but a heavy, chill faintness stole over her, till she felt all her limbs benumbed, and every thing before her eyes grew misty and dim. The numbness passed away almost immediately, but still the figures around her appeared distorted and fantastically exaggerated; they seemed to be tossing and whirling round one steadfast centre, as the dead leaves in winter eddy round the marble head ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... to harden themselves, and to accustom themselves to the cold, which was not so severe as what yet awaited them; he advised them to expose their skin gradually to this intense temperature, and he himself set the example; but idleness or numbness nailed most of them to their place; they refused to stir, and preferred ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... the ferns, curled up in a corner against the soft walls covered with reeds, then closed her eyes. Before long she felt a soft numbness creeping over her. She jumped to her feet, fearing that she might drop off to sleep and not awake before it was time for her to go to ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... The numbness had become a prickling agony when he heard the Mexican splashing through the river to begin his search. Ford's field of vision was limited by the car trucks, but he kept the man in sight as he could. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Peter lived. There were very few people abroad, and no one noticed or spoke to him as he went creeping along, every step sending a pain from the hurt ankle to his heart. Faint with suffering and chilled to numbness, Andy stumbled and fell as he tried, in crossing a street, to escape from a sleigh that turned a corner suddenly. It was too late for the driver to rein up his horse. One foot struck the child, throwing him out of the track of the sleigh. He was insensible when taken up, bleeding and ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... had become sodden, sullen, stupefied, and when they were in a condition little better, did they permit him to leave them. How Hilda got him home she scarcely knew, for she, too, had all but lost command of her senses. There were moments when she fought unavailingly against a mental numbness, a stupor that rolled upward and suffused her like a cloud of noxious vapors, leaving her knees weak, her hands clumsy, her vision blurred; again waves of deathly illness surged over her. Under and through it all, however, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... had marched quite thirty miles, over slippery roads, and through the chilling cold, and I saw some of them stumble (as they charged), with fatigue and numbness, but the brave boys rushed in as if they were going to a frolic. The Second Kentucky dashed over the ravine, and as they emerged in some disorder, an unfortunate order was given them, to halt and "dress." There was no necessity for it—the regiment was within fifty yards of ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... befallen Omar and Said. It was not that he did not care, but that, for the moment, he was too tired and listless to do more than lie still and endure his own discomfort. His side throbbed painfully and there was something curious about his left arm, a dead feeling of numbness that made him wonder whether it was there at all. He glanced down at it with sudden apprehension—he had no fancy for a maimed existence—and was relieved to find it still in place but bent stiffly across his chest wrapped in a multitude of bandages—broken, presumably. ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... he was gone, she felt, as at first, a painful numbness of exaltation. Almo was now certainly ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Palsy, is no uncommon punishment of this transgression. There are, however, several forms of this disease. Sometimes, a slight numbness of a single toe or finger is the first symptom of its approach; but at others a whole hand, arm, or leg is affected. In the present case, the first attacks are not very violent, as if to give the offender ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... suppose that to see him with his arms free augmented the influence of his strength: I mean by this, the spiritual influence that with ignorant people attaches to an exceptional degree of bodily vigour. In fact, he was no more to be feared than before, on account of the numbness of his arms and hands, which ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... my load to yours? I seem always to impose myself upon you, first my hopes, and now my—no, it isn't despair; it is only a kind of brutal numbness. You must have the fatal gift of sympathy, or you would never ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... not unlike them, were caught with hook and line. On these fish most of the officers, and some of the petty officers, dined the next day. The night following, every one who had eaten of them was seized with violent pains in the head and bones, attended with a scorching heat all over the skin, and numbness in the joints. There remained no doubt that this was occasioned by the fish being of a poisonous nature, and having communicated its bad effects to all who partook of them, even to the hogs and dogs. One ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... boots and stockings, and chafed my feet in her hands, to bring back a little warmth. Lastly, she hospitably brought me what she thought the best thing she had to offer, a hot whiskey toddy. To please her, and also to relieve my numbness, I tried my best to drink what seemed to me a horrid mixture, but I could not manage it, and could not explain why, and the poor woman remained lost in sorrowful bewilderment at my rejection of the steaming tumbler. Just then my husband came back, and after thanking the keeper's ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... a part there is always danger of applying the bandage too tightly, especially if the parts swell under the bandage. If this happens, there is increase of pain which may be followed by numbness of the limb and, what is still more significant, coldness and blueness of the extremities below the bandage, particularly of the fingers and toes. In such cases the bandage must be removed and reapplied with less force. If the ankle or knee ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... succession of commonplace remarks, expressed with frigid formality: but this might be more my fault than hers, for I really could NOT converse. In fact, my attention was almost wholly absorbed in my dinner: not from ravenous appetite, but from distress at the toughness of the beefsteaks, and the numbness of my hands, almost palsied by their five-hours' exposure to the bitter wind. I would gladly have eaten the potatoes and let the meat alone, but having got a large piece of the latter on to my plate, I could not be so impolite as to leave ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... her alleged crime. A mole or wart on any part of the body was a sure sign of commerce with the devil. It was believed that on the body of every witch was a spot insensible to pain. To discover this she was stripped, pins were run into the body, and when excess of pain had produced numbness, some such spot was pretty certain to be found. Men regularly took up with this work in both England and Scotland, and their fame as 'prickers' depended upon the number of witches they unearthed. If a suspected witch kept a black cat, did not shed tears, or could not repeat ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... relatives who have twice called to see him it was learned that his mental trouble came on very suddenly, although his memory and faculties have been failing for some time past. They say that he complained of sleeplessness, numbness and tingling sensations in the arms and legs, headache, and a peculiar itching of the skin, for months before any distinct symptoms of insanity appeared. They attribute it all to self-abuse, which he has admitted ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... thee in my veins: I go with such a will to find my lord, That we shall quickly meet. A heavy numbness creeps through every limb, And now 'tis at my head: My eye-lids fall, And my dear love is vanished in a mist. Where shall I find him, where? O turn me to him, And lay me on his breast!—Caesar, thy worst; Now part us, if thou canst. [Dies. [IRAS sinks down at her ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... for a few seconds. The old numbness had come over his mind again. But he determined to let his daughter know ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... down-stairs like one walking in her sleep, without feeling, without consciousness, save of a dreadful numbness which seemed to envelop her, body ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... Ruth strangely quiet, with a manner which was not indifference to her imminent marriage, but which seemed more like numbness. ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... shaken off the numbness caused by the blow that he had received, and he managed to stagger to where Dick was lying, and knelt beside him and begged the Malays to bring water. They had evidently received orders to do all they could to revive the two young ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... miles, Penellan prepared to encamp. The tent was erected against an ice-block. Marie had not suffered seriously with the extreme cold, for luckily the breeze had subsided, and was much more bearable; but the young girl had several times been obliged to descend from her sledge to avert numbness from impeding the circulation of her blood. Otherwise, her little hut, hung with skins, afforded her all the comfort possible under ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... there for a long while; the numbness became painful; the tension a dull endurance. Fatigue came, too; she rested her head wearily on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. But the tall clocks ticking slowly became unendurable—and the odour of ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... now befell me: I lost my boots. They were strong laced boots, without elastic sides, or any such weak points about them. I had observed before that one was getting loose, but was unable to do anything to it from the numbness of my hands; and after struggling out of a deep drift previous to reascending the hill, I found that I had left this boot behind. There was nothing for it but to go on without, and as my feet were perfectly ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... occur in lesions other than dislocations, due weight must be given to them in making a diagnosis. Loss of function is complete as a rule. Pain is much more intense than in fracture, usually because the displaced bone presses upon nerve-trunks, and from the same cause there is often numbness and partial paralysis of the limb beyond. Swelling of the soft parts due to effused blood is usually less marked in dislocation than in fracture, but is often sufficiently great to interfere with diagnostic manipulations. The displaced bone, and sometimes ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... again to the gambler and touched his arm. He could not tell why he was so interested in these two. He had witnessed many such scenes before, and they had not affected him in any way except to make him move out of hearing. But the same dumb numbness in his head, which made so many things seem possible that should have been terrible even to think upon, made him stubborn and unreasonable over this. He felt intuitively—it could not be said that he thought—that the woman was right and the man ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... that his feet were as heavy as logs—that they were benumbed, that they had fallen asleep, and were filled with the sharp pricking of thorns. Yet he had no control over them; he could not move them, could hardly even think of them as belonging to himself. This sensation of numbness began slowly to crawl upward like some gigantic insect. He knew it would reach his knees and then pass on to his waist, but the knowledge gave him no power to prevent its coming, and when he tried to will his hand to move, it refused to obey the action ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... the undergrowth the pain in his shoulder spread rapidly and a heaviness made itself felt in his limbs. What if the creature hurling shafts of fire that could wound him so sorely should pursue? With the intense agony of his hurt, and the first signs of a coming numbness, he could not hope to give battle or even to escape further injury. No! At least not until he had had time to recover from the surprise and the confusion of the onslaught; until he had quenched his burning thirst, and until the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... found them rolled away; of one who had been passing through a delirium which was gone. I seem to care for nothing—to grieve for nothing. Sometimes you know that happens to people who are very ill. A numbness comes upon them.—But I am not numb. I feel everything. Perhaps, Father'—and she turned to him with her old sweet instinct—of one who loved to be loved—'perhaps you ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hungry, and his lunch was tied to his saddle. He looked eagerly down the coulee, in the faint hope of seeing his horse grazing somewhere along its length, until the numbness of his arms and hands reminded him that forty lunches, tied upon forty saddles at his side, would be of no use to him in his present position. His hands he could not move from his thighs; he could wiggle his fingers—which he did, to relieve ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... whether she were still alive. And she looked back at him, heavy-eyed and half subjected. He smiled slightly at her, rose, and left her. And she turned her face to the wall, feeling beaten. Yet not quite beaten to death. Save for the fatal numbness of her love for him, she could still have escaped him. But she lay inert, as if envenomed. He wanted to ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... work at his carpenter's bench, the old man sent Star out to loose the cow and lead her to the water; and when she was gone, he tottered to his old chair and sat down heavily. There was no pain now, only a strange numbness, a creeping coldness, a ringing in the ears. If it might "seem right" to let him wait till the Huntress came by! "It's nearly time," he said, half aloud. "Nearly time, and 'twould be easier ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... the Resurrection. Last night, being with the community, I heard one [1] of them singing how hard it is to be living away from God. As I was then suffering, the effect of that singing on me was such that a numbness began in my hands, and no efforts of mine could hinder it; but as I go out of myself in raptures of joy, so then my soul was thrown into a trance through the excessive pain, and remained entranced; and until this day I had not felt this. A few days previously I thought that ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... numbness passed off as I worked, but now the wind grew cold, and the clouds were working up from the southwest quickly, with wind overhead that was not felt here yet. I knew that I must make some haven soon, or it was likely ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... numbness on that side, instead of pain. But granting that he loved Emilia ever so deeply, was he a man to surrender his life and his ease and his fair name, in a hopeless effort to remove the ban that the world would place on her. Hope knew he would not; knew that even the simple-hearted and straightforward ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... with hand and mouth I silently renewed my oath to perform. I now intend to keep it."—"What did you swear, lady?" Tristan asks simply, without effect of defiance. "Vengeance for Morold!" she hurls at him. He seems to wonder. A sort of numbness has been creeping over him; an atmosphere of dream has closed around him; her neighbourhood, her voice, no matter what words she is saying, even these angry and cruel ones, have an effect of lulling, of making the real world seem unreal. "Are you concerned for that?" he asks, with the sincerity ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... where the Colonel was sitting just as he had sat the morning before, when Jake's letter and Eloise's note were brought to him. He had not slept at all during the night, and was in a trembling condition, with a feeling of numbness in his limbs which he did ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... used she was to action. She seemed to be standing alone in the big field: the rest was a picture with which she had nothing to do. There was a busy group near the fence, some men came running with a door, and then the sound of a shot broke through her numbness. The mare had been put out of her pain; ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... unusual sensation of numbness in Steve's arms as he climbed back on to the wooden spells, and he knew that he had been motionless quite long enough; and he could not help feeling that if he had remained there another hour clinging to the icy shrouds he would not have ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... delusional, hypochondriacal; paralysis very much improved. Complains at times of quiverings in the right extremities and a numbness ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... of a deeper night or the coming of the day—he knew not which. His brain felt like a stopped watch; it did not seem to be working at all. Even the power to suffer seemed to have left him. He felt curiously indifferent, strangely submissive to circumstances,—like a man scourged into the numbness of exhaustion. He knew at the back of his mind that as soon as his vitality reasserted itself the agony would return. The respite could not last, but while it lasted he knew no pain. Like one in a state of coma, he was ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... and faces dim. In the mines; in the mills Where the ceaseless thunder fills Spaces of the human brain Till all thought is turned to pain. Where the skirl of wheel on wheel, Grinding him who is their tool, Makes the shattered senses reel To the numbness of the fool. Perisht thought, and halting tongue (Once it spoke;—once it sung!) Live to hunger, dead to song. Only heart-beats loud with wrong Hammer on,—How long? ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... door to escape the great numbers of people who were waiting in front of the hotel to pay their respects to the Champion of Israel. About two o'clock we were all much alarmed by Lady Montefiore being suddenly taken seriously ill, with a numbness of her hand and arm, and a dizziness and great pain in the head, which almost deprived her of speech and motion. She was just able to ask for the Prayer Book. Gradually she recovered from the attack, which Sir Moses hoped was only spasmodic, though ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... took the oars and toiled for a few more centuries. He never knew six longer and more excruciating miles. A snappy little breeze blew up the inlet and held him back. He had a gone feeling at the pit of the stomach, and suffered from faintness and numbness. At his command, the man took the bailer and threw salt water into ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... had finished the first sentence, a curious dull feeling came over him, and he found that he could not understand what he was reading; he must go over the passage again. But as he re-read it the same numbness and impossibility of comprehension came over him; and yet the words ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not respond with alacrity, they showed improvement. His nervous system, which transmitted the orders of his mind to his body, seemed asleep—or broken like the telegraph lines they had torn down along the route of the raid. But slowly his nerves awoke, and strength replaced the numbness. ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... was numbness of mind and body. Then, with every heart-beat and throb by throb, came unbearable agony. A trembling old hand strayed across her face and her father's voice, deep with love and longing, whispered: "Barbara, my darling! Does it hurt ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... endure a great strain of mental anguish long. A merciful numbness usually seizes it, in which everything grows hazy and unreal, and consequently painless. Agatha felt convinced she was half-asleep, and that she should wake up in her own room at Thorn-hurst or at Kingcombe, and find out everything to be a dream. Or even granting its reality, she seemed ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... a peculiar sensation (the "aura") just before a fit. This warning takes many forms, the two most common being a "sinking" or feeling of distress in the stomach, and giddiness. The character of the aura is very variable—terror, excitement, numbness, tingling, irritability, twitching, a feeling of something passing up from the toes to the head, delusions of sight, smell, taste, or hearing (ringing, or buzzing, etc.), palpitation, throbbing in the head, an impulse to run or spin around—any of these may warn a victim that a fit ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... had been over a stretch of yielding bunch-grass, and not, as might have been the case, over the ragged tufa. As it was his shirt hung from his back in shreds, and he felt that his overalls were not all that their name implied. The numbness of his abrasions and bruises was wearing off. The pain quickened his senses. He realized that his hat was missing, that one spur was gone and the other was half-way up his leg. He was not pleased with his appearance, and determined to "make ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... covered his mortal sky, and when he refused to stare up into their leaden pinions, they stooped to him and buffeted and smothered him, until he was such a mass of bruised suffering within that he could almost believe his body also was quivering into the numbness of acquiescent misery. And here were the wings again. They were even lower, in spite of this clear air. They did not merely shut it out from his nostrils, but the filthy pinions swept his face and roused in him the uttermost revulsion ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which, after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves upon me ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... there, embracing the empty box that had brought him to his death; and for many minutes I sat within a yard of him, detained by the fascination and grim mockery of the picture no less than by physical weakness and a numbness of my brain. My body refused to act, and my mind hardly urged its indolent servant. I was in sore distress for Marie Delhasse,—my vehement cry witnessed it,—yet I had not the will to move to her aid; will and power both seemed to fail me. I could fear, I could shrink with horror, but ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... earth's delight Withered from mine! O for a desert sea, The cold sun flashing on the sailing icebergs! Where I might cry aloud on God, until My soul burst forth upon the wings of pain, And fled to him. A numbness as of death Infolds me. As in sleep I walk. I live, But my dull soul can hardly keep awake. Yet God is here as on the mountain-top, Or on the desert sea, or lonely isle; And I should know him here, if Lilia loved me, As once I thought she did. ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... interrupted the silence; the sea did not break upon the shore; no bird or any living thing was visible; the midnight sun, by this time muffled in a transparent mist, shed an awful, mysterious lustre on glacier and mountain; no atom of vegetation gave token of the earth's vitality: an universal numbness and dumbness seemed to pervade the solitude. I suppose in scarcely any other part of the world is this appearance of deadness so strikingly exhibited. On the stillest summer day in England, there is always perceptible an under-tone of life thrilling through ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... to kiss her, when suddenly the DUCHESS turns aside—an odd numbness creeping over ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... she was folding her robes to die with what dignity she could. Lethargy, sloth, sleep—a dead, dull, dreary sleep—fell like a leaden pall upon her spiritual life, darkening the light that shone but vaguely through the storied panes of her mediaeval windows, while a paralysing numbness crippled her limbs and quenched ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... he would leave me at my house. I accepted gratefully, and sat down near him. A few minutes afterwards he asked me to rub his left arm, which, he said, was so benumbed that he could not feel it. I rubbed it with all my strength, but he told me in a sort of indistinct whisper that the numbness was spreading all along the left side, and that ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... sister, sometimes the figure of a person who for the last twenty-four hours had been continually in his thoughts, who seemed at one moment to be sympathising with him and at another to be playing upon his face with a garden hose. Then it all faded away, and a sort of numbness crept over him. He made a desperate struggle for consciousness. There was something cold resting against his cheek. His fingers stole towards it. It was the flask, drawn from his own pocket and placed there by some unseen hand, the top already unscrewed, ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boys, for a race!" cried Tom: "it's the only hope of putting a little life into us, and of keeping off the rheumatism—let us see who will be the first at The Grange!" They accordingly started, running as fast as the numbness of their feet would allow, and soon arrived at the house; but what remarkable objects were Tom and George, when they presented themselves before the eyes of their astonished aunt and cousins! Their dress, soaked with water, was now perfectly stiff, like a coat of armor, and the edges ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... reason, had torn the past from me at a single stroke. I could not have forgotten. When I reached my lodgings I sent the anxious Banks about his business and threw myself in a great chair before the window, the chair she had chosen. Strange to say, I had no sensation save numbness. The time must have been about two of the clock: I took no account of it. I recall Banks coming timidly back with the news that two gentlemen had called. I bade him send them away. Would my honour not have Mrs. Marble cook my dinner, and be dressed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... stabbed through his numbness. He thought, "Corpse! Viewing the corpse! Obscene and horrible phrase! Corpse! Effie!" He made ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... upon my knees beside her bed; All agonies within my heart were wed, While to the aching numbness of my grief, Mine eyes refused the solace of a tear,— The tortured soul's most merciful relief. Her wasted hand caressed my bended head For one sad, sacred moment. Then she said, In that low tone so like the wind's refrain, "Maurine, my own! give ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... describe. A sort of numbness. Sometimes it's as though there was a heavy iron cap—a helmet on my head. And sometimes it—I don't know it seems as if there were fog, or something or other, inside. I'll take a good long rest this summer, as soon as we can get away. Another ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... endeavoured to drag him out of bed. He awaked in horror, and still felt the cold dead grasp of a corpse's hand on his right wrist. It was a minute before he discovered that his own left hand was in a state of numbness, and with it he had accidentally ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... "Intoxicating liquor," says another man; "My own hard heart," says another man. Do you realize this? Then I come to tell you that the omnipotent Christ is ready to walk across this battle-field, and revive, and resuscitate, and resurrect your dead soul. Let Him take your hand and rub away the numbness; your head, and bathe off the aching; your heart, and stop its wild throb. He brought Lazarus to life; He brought Jairus' daughter to life; He brought the young man of Nain to life, and these are three proofs anyhow that he ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... expose ourselves to the first shocks of a very large and strongly irritated gymnotus. If by chance a stroke be received before the fish is wounded or wearied by long pursuit, the pain and numbness are so violent that it is impossible to describe the nature of the feeling they excite. I do not remember having ever received from the discharge of a large Leyden jar, a more dreadful shock than ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... cases of distress in which a well may become a place of refuge, a well is not at all calculated for a prolonged residence—so thought Jack. After he had been there some fifteen minutes, his teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled; he felt a numbness all over, and he thought it high time to call for assistance, which at first he would not, as he was afraid he should be pulled up to encounter the indignation of the farmer and his family. Jack was arranging his jaws for a halloo, when he felt ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... of him. It suggested and seemed to propose to Clara's mind the divineness of separation instead of the deadly accuracy of an intimate perusal. She tried to look on him as Miss Dale might look, and while partly despising her for the dupery she envied, and more than criticizing him for the inhuman numbness of sentiment which offered up his worshipper to point a complimentary comparison, she was able to imagine a distance whence it would be possible to observe him uncritically, kindly, admiringly; as the moon ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... yearning after this man fills my soul. For his steps are secure. His feet are scarcely lifted, yet quietly does he fare down the chasms and up the heights. I want to rush to meet him but a great numbness holds me back. ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... man, "may not amulets or charms, by their secret influence, produce the effects ascribed to them? Who can comprehend by what impenetrable means the bite of a mad dog produces hydrophobia? Why does the touch of a torpedo induce numbness? When these causes and effects are explained," he concludes, "so may the virtue of amulets be accounted for." Ancient philosophers laid it down, as a proof of ignorance, the condemnation of a science not easily understood. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... slight unsteadiness, often not troublesome except in the dark or with closed eyes, sharp stabbing pains here and there, numbness of the feet, girdle-sense in the region of chest, waist, or belly, some recurrent difficulty in emptying the bladder, a fugitive partial palsy of the external muscles of the eye, are the chief or, perhaps, the only complaints, it would not be justifiable to put the patient to bed at complete rest. ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... even on the sunny quay of the Saone, where in spite of a fine southerly exposure I extracted little warmth from the reflection that Alphonse de Lamartine had often trod- den the flags. Macon struck me, somehow, as suffer- ing from a chronic numbness, and there was nothing exceptionally cheerful in the remarkable extension of the river. It was no longer a river, - it had become a lake; and from my window, in the painted face of the inn, I saw that the opposite bank had been moved back, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James |
