"Wordless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... does?" The eyes of the son were steady in their wordless accusation. "It's this way, father: If you never married this woman Maria, it ought to be easy ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... length of the long street, she strode between them, wordless, and then suddenly halted and held her ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... whirling vapors and when the palm-trees bend like coryphees, tossing their arms to the galloping hurricane. But whatever the time of day or the season of the year at which you visit it, the Yumuri will render you wordless with delight, and you will vow that it is the happiest valley men's eyes have ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... Crevel alone was exempted from the rule —Crevel, the master of the little "bijou" apartment; and he displayed on his countenance an air of really insolent beatitude, notwithstanding the wordless reproofs administered by Valerie in frowns and meaning grimaces. His triumphant paternity beamed in ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... almost bursting with happiness as she clung to him. Here, in the home she had prepared, he had brought her his success, and their love glorified both. Her emotion left her wordless. Another moment, and his eyes swept ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Lazy A, and went on up the grass-grown path to the house. She had the preoccupied air of one who meditates deeply upon things apart; as a matter of fact, she had glanced down the coulee to its wide-open mouth, and had thrilled briefly at the wordless beauty of the green spread of the plain and the hazy blue sweep of the mountains, and had come suddenly into the poetic mood. She had even caught a phrase,—"The lazy line of the watchful hills," it was,—and she was ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... fire, and he looked up to see why she did not finish. She was sitting on the edge of the old watchman's rude bed, bowed low over the sleeping child, and again sobs were shaking her like an ague fit. There was something heartrending in this silent, wordless anguish; but there was nothing to be said, and Tom went on making the fire. After a little she sat ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... his people though he was, Zachook was no spendthrift of speech. But surly he never was; his silence was a pleasant silence, a companionable interchange of unspoken thoughts. Nor did he need words as I needed them, his eyes, his hands, his wordless lips could convey whole volumes of meaning, with lights and shades beyond the power that prisons thought. Not often did he speak at length, even to me, unless, as it came to be, he was moved by some hap or mishap of camp ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne
... told him in that wordless tongue, "and we are almost arrived. The invisible arms of our anchorage have us now and will ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... in.... One day the men of our tiny clearing were but a score. We huddled about our dying fire of bones and stray logs. We said nothing. We just sat, in deep, wordless, thoughtless silence. We were the ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker
... my arrival. I shall call her Miriam, for Miriam was the name I loved her by. If it were merely difficult to describe the charm of women, I would describe Miriam. But how describe emotion in words? The charm of woman is wordless. It is different from perception that culminates in reason, for it arises in sensation and culminates in emotion, which, be it admitted, is nothing else ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... thickly with stars, and more fell to their appointed places as the moments passed. A bull-frog boomed out his guttural note, and Fido began to whine and gnaw at the rail just below my feet. He was getting hungry, and I acquiesced to his wordless plea to go home. Night had now come, and the air was chilly, so I buttoned my coat close up to my chin, and moved briskly. We were some distance from home, but the lights of the city were reflected in the sky, and besides, it was not dark, ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... to intelligence—secret intelligence, the wordless incalculable intuition of the Cat. It was, indeed, the cat for the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... scurried out on their missions—evidently their Emir was accustomed to have her orders carried out with promptness—and for long enough Wenlock stood wordless in front of the divan, far more like a criminal than a prospective bridegroom. The lady, with the tube of the water-pipe between her lips, puffed smoke and made no further speech. She had stated her will: the result would follow ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... away, lest, in the turbulent whirl of life, the Curse should craze, and not slay her. For sleep had vanished with wordless moans and frighted aspect from her pillow,—or if it dared, standing afar off, to cast its pallid shadow there, still there was neither rest nor refreshing in the troubled spell. Nor could the thirst that consumed her quench itself with red wine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... him, and a sudden wave of terror passed across her face. She made no movement towards him. He himself was wordless, struck dumb by her appearance. She gave a little cry. What the word was that she uttered, he could not tell. Then suddenly ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have come forth alive from the land of purple and poison and glamour, Where the charm is strong as the torture, being chosen to change the mind; Torture of wordless dance and wineless feast without clamour, Palace hidden in ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... sitting as vice-president opposite Fraulein, joined occasionally, in solo and chorus, and Miriam noted with relief a unanimous atrocity of accent in their enviable fluency. Rapid sotto voce commentary and half-suppressed wordless by-play located still more clearly the English quarter. Animation flowed and flowed. Miriam safely ignored, scarcely heeding, but warmed and almost happy, basked. She munched her black bread and butter, liberally smeared ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... toward them, each felt already repaid for any loss of freedom they might experience hereafter, and gave unanimous consent. Upon receipt of which Sylvia felt inclined to dance about the three and bless them audibly, but restrained herself, and beamed upon them in a state of wordless gratitude pleasant to behold. Having given a rash consent, Mark now thought best to offer a few obstacles to enhance its value and ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... her, Frederik caught up the torn blue letter. Tossing it in a metal ash tray he struck a match. Peter Grimm, divining his intent, sprang forward with a wordless cry to stop him. The Dead Man's hands tore at the wrists of the Living; sought by main strength to snatch the paper out of his reach; with pitiful helplessness tried to thrust back the hand ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... No more than any general! No—" But he paused in his argument. Conviction must come to her from within, not from without. He stood graven and wordless, while she was tortured in the hell ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... ultimatum she could hear the soft, wordless murmur from the other compartments, the undertone of anxiety like a dark thread through it. In every compartment parents and children, brothers and sisters, were seeing one ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... nodded his head, and then he laughed. Mercedes had seen through him in one swift glance. Her white hand touched his in wordless sympathy and thrilled him. This Spanish girl was all fire and passion and love. She understood him, she was his friend, she pledged him what he felt would be the most ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... cried. And he saw, perplexed, that Adelaide had risen with a faint, wordless cry, and was gazing at him as though she were puzzled and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Michael was wordless, he could only kiss her. "That is what made him so delicate—my wretchedness and rushing about," she went on, "and so I was punished because, after three months, God took him back again—my dear little one—just when I was beginning to grow comforted and ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... think a quiet milk run out to Saturn would have its brighter side," Frank muttered to Tom when he came back inside the ship. Tom grinned at him in wordless understanding. ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... breathed the pure air and walked soundlessly along the narrow paths and looked across the unflecked, untrodden snow up to the vast and silent dome, he shuddered in wordless delight. He hungered to share it with Ida. It was like fairy-land—so far removed from daylight reality; and yet the sound of sleigh-bells, the occasional shouts of coasters, and the laughter of girls added a familiar human quality to it all, and ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... would escape. From that world-wide theatre of nodding heads and buzzing whisperers, in which she now beheld herself unpitiably martyred, one door stood open. At any cost, through any stress of suffering, that greasy laughter should be stifled. She closed her eyes, breathed a wordless prayer, and pressed the weapon to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of wordless horror went up from the wreckers. For a moment they stared at the thing rocking and sidling in their midst, with grotesque motions of life and the face and hands of a terrific death; and then, as one man, they started to splash, ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... supernatural gift, belonging to but few souls among those who love harmony, to understand and accept its meaning. She could not play or sing; she looked often in the dog's eyes, wondering if its soul felt as dumb and full as hers; but she could not sing. If she could, what a story she would have told in a wordless way to this man who was coming! All she could do to show that he was welcome was to make crackers. Cooking is a sensual, grovelling utterance of feeling, you think? Yet, considering the drift of most women's lives, one fancies that as pure and deep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... "unconscious inferences" from being naturalized in the physiology of the senses and the theory of perception, it would be advisable, since "instinctive" and "intuitive" are still more easily misunderstood, to say "wordless." Wordless ideas, wordless concepts, wordless judgments, wordless inferences, may be inherited. To these belong such as our progenitors often experienced at the beginning of life, such as not only come into existence ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... and touching sight to witness the meeting between Wylie and his friends. Affection's strongest ties could not have produced a more affecting and melting scene—the wordless weeping pleasure, too deep for utterance, with which he was embraced by his relatives, the cordial and hearty reception given him by his friends, and the joyous greeting bestowed upon him by all, might well have put to the blush those heartless calumniators, who, branding the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... McClean the old hag came out into the sun again and blinked at the Rajput, very much afraid of him. Mahommed Gunga saluted Miss McClean—swore at the old woman—pointed a wordless order with his right arm—watched her shuffle half a hundred yards up-street—followed her, and growled at her for about five minutes, while she nodded. Finally, he drew from the pocket of his crimson coat a small handful of gold mohurs—fat, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... came back into the room, carrying in his hands a glass and a pistol, and double-locked the door behind him. Terrified at this spectacle, the marquise half raised herself in her bed, gazing voiceless and wordless. Then the abbe approached her, his lips trembling; his hair bristling and his eyes blazing, and, presenting to her the glass and the pistol, "Madame," said he, after a moment of terrible silence, "choose, whether poison, fire, or"—he ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... intercourse— some congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural sequel would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of communication—there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... my fighting-blood rising, and I swear with a mighty wordless oath that I'll be avenged for that laugh. "The day is young yet. If, before night, I don't wipe both your eyes, and wipe ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... spring. He was adventure for ever, and His courage and adventure flowed into and submerged and possessed the being of the man who beheld him. And this presence of God stood over the bishop, and seemed to speak to him in a wordless speech. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... long and too intimately to disregard them now, uninfluenced by their varying moods. He watched them in sunlight when they were all shining white and violet and soft purple, with great shadows spread over their slopes where the forests stood deepest; and they heartened him, gave him a wordless promise that better times were to come. He saw them swathed with clouds, and felt the chill of their cold aloofness; the world was a gloomy place then, and friendship was all false and love a mockery. He saw them at night—then ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... to let me slip out the back door here, put my saddle on Selim, and go home, quiet, without tellin' the old folks. I was goin' home by daylight in the mornin' anyhow, to get the boys' breakfast," as the girls stared at her in wordless surprise. "I've got a reason why I'd ruther go now—and I'd ruther the old folks didn't know. Will ye ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... welcomed him. Left to his own devices, he had promptly laid his arms upon his desk and his head upon his arms. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Isidore's brilliant head still rested on his folded arms and Teacher felt that she must make some effort to comfort his wordless misery. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... bleating of lambs. Near at hand, throned among the purple flowers above their heads, a thrush was pouring out the rapture that thrilled his tiny life. The whole world pulsed to the one great melody—the universal, wordless song. Only the man and the woman were silent as ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... the crucial hour was striking, and his prayer for help was the wordless outreaching of every atom of his consciousness for that One more powerful than weak humanity, to guide, to ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... was in a state of wordless delight. "It's just as well I wasn't for scoldin' Bugsey for cryin' over his suit," she said at length; "for if it wasn't that I'm feart o' spottin' some of these, I'd be for doin' a cry myself. I've got such a glad spot here in me Adam's apple. Reach me yer apron, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... at her visitor, and the visitor smiled his most winning smile. He recognized Leslie's ribbon, and noted the wondrous beauty of the small white face, now slowly flushing the faintest pink with excitement. Still clinging she smiled back. Wordless, Douglas reached over to pick up the doll. Then the ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the gate of the little house on Bayou Road the next day, there floated out to their ears a wordless song thrilling from the violin, a song that told more than speech or tears or gestures could have done of the utter sorrow and desolation of the little old man. They walked softly up the short red brick walk and tapped at the door. Within, M'sieu Fortier was caressing the violin, ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... Scotty died he had fought a vague, disquieting sense of her need of him. There had been times when it seemed almost as though she had called to him across the distance; that she wished to see him. To-day he had obeyed the wordless call. He still felt her need of him, but since she was not at the school he hesitated. The schoolhouse was in a measure neutral ground. Riding over to the Douglas ranch was another matter entirely. Too keenly had ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... such as I have whenever I stand before a certain sixteenth-century portrait in the National Gallery: a sense or an illusion of being in the presence of a living person with whom I am engaged in a wordless conversation, and who is revealing his inmost soul to me. And it is only the work of a genius that can affect you in ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... color crept over Julia's tintless face as she told Pellet he might go. I almost wished that I might be dismissed too; but it was only a vague, wordless wish. We then drew near to the window, from which we could see Sark so clearly, and Julia drew out of her pocket a very large envelope, which was bursting ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... thither, with a slow, waltz-like movement, similar to that with which he had begun his own mad dance; and as they moved, gradually widening their circles until they were strung out all along the face of the motionless regiments, they hummed a low, weird, wordless song that was somehow inexpressibly suggestive of vague, nameless horror. As for Machenga, after watching his assistants for a minute or two, he stalked slowly toward the king and seated himself at His Majesty's feet, where, after a time, he seemed to lose all consciousness ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... The others sat in wordless enthralment as Pete stood pat and the dealer, with a smile, laid down the pack untouched. The betting proceeded cautiously at first, then by leaps and bounds as Pete lost his head and ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... groups over the green, dawdling in talk and breathing happily the June-scented air. The stolid man and his placid wife who had sat near the rear had already started for the Colonel's house, following the foot-path across the fields. They walked silently side by side, as if long used to wordless companionship. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... her tormentor from her arm. For one moment the wordless young man looked into her eyes; then she staggered toward him. He faced ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... reporting, no observation; and also because the physical ailments of many of them were aggravated or induced by mental anxieties. Then it was that he imposed himself; as it were, fought the deceiver and his deceit, or the ignorant one and his ignorance; and numbers of people, under his sympathetic, wordless inquiry, poured their troubles into his ears, as the girl-wife ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sketch out a plan so simple, and yet so seemingly efficient, that the rest of us gazed at him with wordless admiration. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... keep near her and guard her. It cried out strongly to do this, but Vanno would not listen. He sang to himself as he walked up the mule path among olive trees; and peasants coming down from the mountains, their nailed boots rattling on the cobblestones, were singing, too, strange wordless songs without tune, songs neither French nor Italian, but with a wild eastern lilt leaping out of their monotony, reminiscent of the days when Saracens ruled the coast. Some faces, too, were like the faces of eastern men, high featured, with enormous, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... leaders should be more than merely explanatory: they should have genuine dramatic value—just as much as an important speech would have in a "legitimate" dramatic production. In the pictured drama the leader really fills in a significant part of the plot which could not be portrayed by wordless action. ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... me! Through thy complaint I hear the wordless blow Of two high-throned, who rule without restraint Of Pity. Heaven ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... a prayer from the depths of her soul—a wordless invocation. She is close to the jungle now, and the pleasant shade of the foliage cools ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... step as I descended from the chaise. And, while I stood there, the Postilion came with two white-faced ostlers, who, between them, bore a heavy burden through the crowd, stumbling awkwardly as they went; and, as men saw that which they carried, there came a low, deep sound —wordless, inarticulate, yet full of menace. But, above this murmur rose a voice, and I saw the Postilion push his way to the steps of the inn, and turn there, with hands clenched and raised ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... The wordless cry of affright came from Mrs. Carl Walraven. Dr. Oleander stood paralyzed, his eyes starting from their sockets, his face like the face of a ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... close-mouthed and of a virtuous taciturnity, sat up all night with Senator Hanway in his study—the night before the caucus. There was none present but Senator Hanway and the wordless telegraphic one; the former, deeming the occasion one proper for that cautious rite, drew ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... knowing it? Suspiciously he watched the two soldiers, the grizzled colonel, the slim lieutenant. They were talking together in low tones, at least the colonel was talking, eagerly, energetically, and with much gesticulation. The junior listened wordless to every word. What had he meant by "the bird had flown?" Why should Nevins "skip?" An unpleasant fear seized upon Sancho. He knew Nevins, at least a Nevins, a captain whom everybody knew, in fact, and few men trusted. What had Nevins been doing? or rather, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits and vistas, again to peace restored; To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond—to the south and the north; To the leavened soil of the general Western World, to attest my songs, To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of war and peace, To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi, To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the woods, To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie spreading wide, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... Once again there came the thought of God, and a feeling of gratitude for this lovely friendship in his life. If he knew where God was he would like to thank Him. Lying so and looking up to the star he breathed from his heart a wordless thanksgiving. ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... day's floral offerings. A sweet and crushed mixture they were, pansies, clove-pinks, mignonette, bleeding hearts, bachelors' buttons, all short stemmed and minus any saving touch of green, but true love offerings for all that. Wordless gifts most of them, prim little bunches, hot from tight clasping in chubby hands, shyly and swiftly deposited on "Teacher's desk" when the back of that divinity was turned. The blue bowl took kindly to them all, and as the girl's clever fingers settled and arranged the glowing ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... out as far as he could reach. There was nothing there. He moved the arm down; reached with his hand beneath him—and still there was nothing tangible! Through his mind swept a gripping fear, a wordless, incoherent terror of something he could not name. Desperately he wanted to touch something firm and solid; lay his hands upon something he knew was real; and he flung out arms and legs in a paroxysm of ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... with a ceremonial politeness unusual in him towards men. Raut went out, and then, after a wordless look at her, her husband followed. She stood motionless while Raut's light footfall and her husband's heavy tread, like bass and treble, passed down the passage together. The front door slammed heavily. She went to the window, moving slowly, and stood watching—leaning forward. The ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... conscious, receptive. She read three or four sacred verses, a throb of tender longing from the very Christ-heart, "Come unto me ..." The words stole about the room like tears. Then she would ask "all present," she said, to engage for a moment in silent prayer. There was a wordless interval, only the vague street noises surging past the door. A thrill ran along the benches as Laura brought it to an end with sudden singing. She was on her feet as the others raised their heads, breaking ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and sweetness of his magic verse Will mock the envious years for centuries! Since youth, on hearing them, for glory burns, The wordless sorrow comfort in them sees, And careless joy to wistful ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... or game or grand scenery, or any adventure by night or day, is the wordless intercourse with rude Nature one has on these expeditions. It is something to press the pulse of our old mother by mountain lakes and streams, and know what health and vigor are in her veins, and how regardless ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... sing these words. The tune he hummed was a wordless one, and, for that matter, not even much of a tune. But he afterwards declared very positively that he sang the sense of them, being challenged by the birds calling in contention louder and louder as the road dipped towards the ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... knew her his as hers he was, and loved her with passion. The sea is vast and wondrous, but it is alien. It holds you apart; it is not of you. But the gentle earth with her undulating form and the growing life in her lap, soothes with wordless harmonies. It was then that he forgave the fate which deformed him. A twisted oak, that is all—no less a tree and no less beautiful in the landscape! And it was sufficient to live. In the bosom of so much beauty sufficient also to die. As he stood, thinking it out, feeling the wonder ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... told me that you would go you did not tell me you meant to take baby. You have the best right to him, dear, he is all yours, but oh! remember—remember that I will be very lonely—very lonely—O Angel." There were a few moments of wordless moans and sobs, but she went on clearly enough, "I want you to know, Angel, that I never was disappointed in you—never disappointed in you, dear; and about my lack of faith—it would have been no use to tell you ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... muddled and "squared," though, for her own ideal, the so much more banal comrade. Yes, he could keep it up now—that is he could hold out for his real reply, could meet the rather marked tension of the rest of their passage as well as she; he should be able somehow or other to make his wordless detachment, the tribute of his ostensibly deep consideration of her request, a retreat in good order. She was, for herself, to the last point of her guileless fatuity, Amy Evans and an asker for "lifts," a conceiver of twaddle both in herself ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... Woman's gift, this failure of herself must cease now that peace has come!" The cry broke wordless from me. I understood the reality of my fear. I knew the peril to the future. It is the problem of unstable woman, clamorous and devouring, that ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... commanding the foredeck look-out, keeping it awake and its units from quarreling. The rest of us found no joy in life, and not too much hope even when Fred's concertina lifted the refrain of missionary hymn-tunes that even the porters knew, and most of us sang, the porters humming wordless melancholy through their noses. (When that happened Lady Saffren Waldon's scorn was something the arch-priests of Babylon would have paid ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Rathburn had gone to town for supplies. Then came the day when a great joy came into Stub's life—his master spoke to him. It was not the old fond greeting, to be sure. It was a command, and a sharp one; but in Stub's opinion it was a vast improvement on the snarling oaths or wordless glowerings which had been his portion for the past weeks, and he responded to it with every sense ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... sang all the time she worked, and the gay, pretty, wordless songs floated across the water and across the fields, and woke some old people in their beds as they lay with their windows open, and they turned and crossed themselves, and said, "Dear heart!—this is the eve of the Ascension, and the angels are ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that estranged the past from the present, there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... her, and for hours together she sat in silence reasoning it all out, while Mowbray's men dipped the shining blades and here and there the voyageurs and Indians who wore no feathers sang snatches of song, now a chanson of the trail and rapid, again a wordless monotony ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... a second thought. The next moment the long-haired Mr Helder was bowing over Claire's hand, and professing his delight. The little group in the corner were pressing forward to obtain a point of vantage, and throughout the company in general was passing a wordless hum of excitement. Mr Helder was seating himself at the piano, a girl in a white dress had ascended the impromptu platform and now stood by his side, a pretty girl, a very pretty girl, a girl who acknowledged the scattered applause with a smile ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... slipping down, And the maple in the hazel glade Throws down the path a longer shade, And the hills are growing brown; To-ring, to-rang, to-ringleringle, By threes and fours and single The cows are coming home; The same sweet sound of wordless psalm, The same sweet June-day rest and calm, The same sweet scent of bud and balm, When ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... as if irresolute or uncertain how to treat her. Then, with a wordless sound that needed no interpretation, he pushed back the sleeve from the place whence he had sucked the poison. It showed only a little red now. He bent very low until his lips pressed it again. Then for one burning moment they neither moved ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... up the hill toward the corral where he had left his horse, he was filled with a wordless disgust of the town and its people. The night was still and cool, almost frosty. The air so clear and so rare filled his lungs with wholesomely sweet and reanimating breath. His head cleared, and his heart grew regular in its beating. The moon ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... said to Miss Bruce-Drummond who had met up with them for a week-end at Stirling, "those poor children are so pitifully what Gelett Burgess calls 'the gagged and wordless folk'; it would be so much easier—and safer—for them if they belonged to his 'caste ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... ye shall come, ye spirits girt with light That falls o'er heaven's hills from dawn to be; Ye warders in the planet house of night, Gliding to unguessed doors with prophet key, And out where dim paths stir with minstrelsy Wordless and strange to man until your clear Doubt-shriven strain interprets to the clay. Oh, might I hear ye as the world shall hear, Nearer, a poet's ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... could not be comforted, even by the children, who were out of school at three. He wanted his "Wawa," and no one else. It was really pathetic to see how the little fellow clung to her, hiding his pretty wet eyes in her neck, and lovingly patting her shoulder, as he crooned his wordless reproaches in her ear, and Mrs. Hoffstott, looking on, thought this must indeed be a good sister to win such hearty affection, and felt her own motherly heart warm to the forlorn little orphaned brood. But, as Sara ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... over his son's silence; he would rather have had stormy argument than a wordless acceptance of the situation. Chaffering in these sorts of bargains means that a man can look after his interests. "A man who is ready to pay you anything you ask will pay nothing," old Sechard was saying to himself. While he tried to follow his son's ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... looked up to the stars. No words came. The cry of her heart was, "O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me." But she was too ignorant to weave it into a prayer. When human hearts look up to God in wordless agony, the Intercessor translates the attitude into the words ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... a perfunctory, "Good work, old man!"—and that was all. They housed the two ships, closing the great doors to keep out the arctic cold; and then Chet Bullard threw himself exhausted upon a cot, while he stared, still wordless, at the high roof overhead. But his hands that gripped and strained at whatever they touched told of the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... these great subjects the Court's thinking has altered at times—on a few occasions to such an extent as to transcend Tennyson's idea of the law "broadening from precedent to precedent" and to amount to something strongly resembling a juridical revolution, bloodless but not wordless. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Charles must make another arrangement and must in fact, in point of fact, he unctuously told her, ask her forthwith to take a minute to the establishment, bidding them obtain for him another secretary. The bitterness of that moment swept back to Henry now across the years. She remembered how, wordless, sullen, and fighting that dizziness that attacked her in moments of stress, she had stood before him, loathing his smooth voice, his lofty choice of words, his whole arrogant, pompous presence. Then he ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... grumbling about the waste where there was none, peering into bread boxes, prying into corners never meant for masculine eyes. Etta, the girl, was like him, sharp-nosed, ferret-faced, stingy. The mother and the boy turned to each other. In a wordless way they grew very close, those two. It was as if they were silently matched against the ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... cheeks of Beatrice grew red as healthy young blood could paint them; Keith's were the same, only that his blood showed darkly through the tan. What question had been on her tongue she forgot to ask. Indeed, for the time, I think she forgot the whole English language, and every other—but the strange, wordless ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... yesterday, I stopp'd to watch a man near by, ploughing a rough stony field with a yoke of oxen. Usually there is much geeing and hawing, excitement, and continual noise and expletives, about a job of this kind. But I noticed how different, how easy and wordless, yet firm and sufficient, the work of this young ploughman. His name was Walter Dumont, a farmer, and son of a farmer, working for their living. Three years ago, when the steamer "Sunnyside" was wreck'd of a bitter icy night on the west bank here, Walter went out ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... rail and looked back and said a wordless little prayer that if there was trouble it come to his boat and not to the other. Which might very considerably have disturbed the buyers had they known of ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... from the window-panes, all had gone except one, a woman who sat patiently, her eyes upon the floor, and her hands folded in her lap, until the footsteps of the last of the others to depart had ceased to sound upon the pavement below. Then, with a wordless exclamation, she sprang to her feet, pulled the window-shade carefully down to the sill, and, when she had done that, struck a match on the heel of her shoe—a soiled white canvas shoe, not a small one—and applied the flame to a gas ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... for the fourth time, and then the way came to him. He knew what to do, and he drew himself together, a compact mass of muscles, and tense like steel wire. Then, while the clear song from the forest still sang in his ear, he glanced up once more at the beneficent heavens, and uttered his wordless prayer: ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... each he has caught to his breast, And clasped them, and kissed them with fervent caress; Then wordless and tearless, with hearts running o'er, They part who have never been parted before: He springs to his saddle,—the rein is drawn tight,— And Beechenbrook Cottage ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... for the life he was too old to follow and many cynical injunctions about "skinning the skunk" and "knocking the head off anything that stood in my way" and "always profiting from the follies of other men"—"mind, have none yourself,"—parted from us. Here, too, Eric gripped my hand a tense, wordless farewell and left our party for the Hudson's Bay brigade ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... after Prescott's tour of guard duty began three wild wails, wordless, smote the air, one after the other. Dave, Tom ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... What's kept you?" and I rushed forward but quickly checked myself; for Hamilton turned slowly towards me and instead of erect bearing, clear glance, firm mouth, I saw a head that was bowed, eyes that burned like fire, and parched, parted, wordless lips. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... big wagon-box filled with our things and Olie sitting there waiting, viewing me with wordless yet respectful awe. Olie, in fact, has never yet got used to me. He's a fine chap, in his rough and inarticulate way, and there's nothing he wouldn't do for me. But I'm a novelty to him. His pale blue eyes look frightened and he blushes when I speak to him. And he studies me ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... above; Paradise means peace to so many of us—surcease of care and sound and the brazen trample of nations—not the quiet of palace corridors or the tremendous silence of a cathedral, but the noiselessness of pleasant sounds, moving shadows of trees, wordless quietude, simplicity. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... is a lofty desire, but hard to attain through an ignobly definite creed. Dealing with the highest, most wordless states of being, the simians will attempt to conceive them in material form. They will have beliefs, for example, as to the furnishings and occupations in heaven. And why? Why, to help men to have religious conceptions without themselves being seers,—which in any true sense of "religious" is ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... and folded her closely; his face bowed down to hers. There was a wordless moment, then the sound of a distant whistle, of nearer shouts of "T-r-a-i-n." The dark mustache, the unsinged side, was sweeping very, very near the soft curve ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... before coming to the point, but, although through nervousness he had lost some threads of his rehearsed plea, it seemed to him that he was getting along well and putting his case with some distinction and power. He was surprised and hurt, therefore, to hear his father utter a wordless shout in a ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... mocking smile, she felt an odd certainty that to Rankin there was also a glamour about their doings. It was as though the occasional contact of their bodies as they moved along the narrow path were a wordless communication. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... perfectly concentrated Meditation, the spiritual man comes into more complete mastery of it, he grows able to hear and clearly distinguish the speech of the great Companions, who counsel and comfort him on his way. They may speak to him either in wordless thoughts, or in perfectly definite ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... image, of course,—not his. It was not a simile that was in his mind, or is in anybody's at such a moment,—it was a pang of wordless passion, and then a ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... suppress, smother, gag, strike dumb, dumfounder; drown the voice, put to silence, stop one's mouth, cut one short. stick in the throat. Adj. aphonous^, dumb, mute; deafmute, deaf and dumb; mum; tongue-tied; breathless, tongueless, voiceless, speechless, wordless; mute as a fish, mute as a stockfish^, mute as a mackerel; silent &c (taciturn) 585; muzzled; inarticulate, inaudible. croaking, raucous, hoarse, husky, dry, hollow, sepulchral, hoarse as a raven; rough. Adv. with bated breath, with the finger on the lips; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... fearless ones went through the days and weeks in twofold terror of themselves and each of the other, and the slow, wordless tragedy was acted before eyes that saw but did not understand. Still Gianluca refused to go away, and still Veronica refused to send for the syndic. She would not yield to the Duchessa, who found herself opposed both by her son and ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford |
