"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as to the special difficulties in the way of speech. Some experience most trouble with the vowel sounds, more find the consonants the worst obstacles. Patient practice in forming the sounds soon produce some results; the pupil must be taught, like the deaf mute, to watch and imitate the movements of the lips ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... writer of letters,— Did not [v]embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases, But came straight to the point and blurted it out like a schoolboy; Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly. Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with wonder, Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned and rendered her speechless; Till at length she exclaimed, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... history is so often darkened—forming pictures, as they do, too shocking to be exhibited in full detail. The calm composure of Seneca, was contrasted on the one hand with the bitter anguish and loud lamentations of his domestics and friends, and on the other with Paulina's mute despair. When the veins were opened, the blood at first would not flow, and various artificial means were resorted to, to accelerate the extinction of life; at last, however, Seneca ceased to breathe. ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... appetite in wrong, Silenced that lyre harmonious, and still'd The sacred chords, that are by heav'n's right hand Unwound and tighten'd, flow to righteous prayers Should they not hearken, who, to give me will For praying, in accordance thus were mute? He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief, Who, for the love of thing that lasteth not, Despoils himself forever of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... The wish is in my mind That I had fired the jungle, And left no leaf behind,— Burnt all bamboos to ashes, And made their music mute,— To save thee from the magic ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... and so on are sound and entire or not. Attributes of the body are superimposed on the Self, if a man thinks of himself (his Self) as stout, lean, fair, as standing, walking, or jumping. Attributes of the sense-organs, if he thinks 'I am mute, or deaf, or one-eyed, or blind.' Attributes of the internal organ when he considers himself subject to desire, intention, doubt, determination, and so on. Thus the producer of the notion of the Ego (i.e. the internal organ) is superimposed on the interior Self, which, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... eyes encountered a direct and steady glance from the girl. There was much meaning in that mute exchange. For answer Jacky rose and rang ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... tumble and dart; The whippoorwill is coming to shout And hush and cluck and flutter about: I hear him begin far enough away Full many a time to say his say Before he arrives to say it out. It is under the small, dim, summer star. I know not who these mute folk are Who share the unlit place with me— Those stones out under the low-limbed tree Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. They are tireless folk, but slow and sad, Though two, close-keeping, are lass and ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... we looked at one another, mute, as though deep down in the unfathomable darkness below the surface and present reality of things dumb meanings strove to be. She made to ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... after she was so possessed with Satan, that he persuaded her (by his delusions, which she listened to as revelations from God) to break the neck of her own child, that she might free it from future misery. This she confessed upon her apprehension; yet, at her arraignment, she stood mute a good space, till the governour told her she should be pressed to death, and then she confessed the indictment. When she was to receive judgment, she would not uncover her face, nor stand up, but as she was forced, nor give any testimony ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... fascination invested this dark daughter of the earth. The liquid dark eyes lifted themselves in mute appeal to the great lady's face, and then the proudest woman in England opened her arms with a sudden impulse and took ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... Whitman about, he would occasionally throw himself upon it, carefully pointing out each time the pretty significance of his act. Behind the Bosom was a large and weighty desk covered with a multitude of personal letters, belonging for the most part to Mrs. Norris, a cheque-book open and face down in mute obeisance to the blotter, newspaper clippings, spectacle cases, scissors, and ash trays. In a neighbouring corner stood a table with imperfectly stacked current magazines, a work basket filled with knitting, and a lamp crowned by a broad shade of silk with threads ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... lioness, or of the bull and cow. Almost all male animals use their voices much more during the rutting-season than at any other time; and some, as the giraffe and porcupine (1. Owen, 'Anatomy of Vertebrates,' vol. iii. p. 585.), are said to be completely mute excepting at this season. As the throats (i.e. the larynx and thyroid bodies (2. Ibid. p. 595.)) of stags periodically become enlarged at the beginning of the breeding-season, it might be thought that their powerful voices must ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... a little and accentuated the swell of her bosom. It was a vivid, a staccato attitude; it expressed a temperament, a character, fifty other things; but especially it epitomised the restraints and the licenses of a world of drawing-rooms. In that first brief mute instant of disclosure she was all that she presently, by voice and movement, proclaimed herself to be—so dazzling and complete that Stephen literally blinked at the revelation. He made an effort, for a moment ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... space the two feet of raw hide allowed him, the slow, sure, desperate man with a mute appeal to his God, sought and caught the iron ring in ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Having taken the seal from his writing-case he came down again, and once more opened the door of the study. No one was speaking when he entered—they were evidently awaiting his return with the mute impatience of hunger, and he put the seal in Rainer's reach, and stood watching while Mr. Grisben struck a match and held it to one of the candles flanking the inkstand. As the wax descended on the paper Faxon remarked ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... were fraught with an ever-increasing joy for the two who were learning to understand each other through the mute, though irresistible teachings of a common tutor. Each succeeding hour had its exquisite compensation; each presented the cup of knowledge to lips that were parched with the fever of impotence, and each time it was returned empty by the seekers after wisdom. There were days in which Love went harvesting ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the common law chiefly, which does not constitute one half of the qualification of a really learned lawyer, much less that of a Professor of law for an University. And as to any other branches of science, he must have stood mute in the presence of his literary associates, or of any learned strangers or others visiting the University. Would this constitute the splendid stand ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... sleeping, but awoke as she entered, and probably refreshed by the short repose he had enjoyed, stretched forward his arms to his daughter with an expression of confiding fondness, which, in the then state of Constantia's feelings, but added to the agony she endured. She could not resist the mute appeal; falling on her knees, she buried her face amid the drapery of his robe. In this posture she continued for a few minutes: her lips uttered no word, but her bosom heaved as if in mortal struggle, and her hard breathings were almost groans. At length, still kneeling, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... would have been intelligible. But the voice which in general led to such solemn service—so thrilling in its sweetness, that the most indifferent could not listen to it unmoved—now lay hushed and mute, powerless even to breathe the sobs that crushed her heart. And when the psalm ceased, and the prayer for the dying followed, with one mighty effort Henriquez raised himself, and clasping his hands, uttered distinctly ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... Nora. That mute look was his only answer, and it was eloquent; it said plainly what his lips forbore to speak: "I have won her love, and I ought to marry her; for if I do not, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... formidable and broken-nosed collection of the most cumbrous, the most incredible, and the most hideous instances of sculpture the family of Puysange had been able to accumulate for, as the phrase is, love or money. Amid these mute, gray travesties of antiquity and the tastes of his ancestors, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... (whom I mark "Ich") LOQUITUR: "Major-General Graf von Gortz," whom Fromme keeps strictly mute all day, is a distinguished man, of many military and other experiences; much about Friedrich in this time and onwards. [Supra, 399.] Introduces strangers, &c.; Bouille took him for "Head Chamberlain," four ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... restrain his ardor, and let himself be vaguely regarded as the possible leader of the enterprise if it were to take place, but without giving it, until further notice, his name and co-operation. He was called the mute captain. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... point the narrative is only a record of facts, or the description of a divine work. Though the works of God are not mute but eloquent witnesses, and present to our vision the will of God, a still greater comfort is vouchsafed when God links to the works the Word, which is not manifest to the eye but perceptible to the ear and intelligible to the heart through the promptings of the Holy ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... reached the rear storm-door, and their fur-hooded, fur-mantled charges were safely within, Schuchardt excused himself, Miriam Arnold's eyes following with a mute message that he felt, if ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... man sends a girl or a female servant to any woman under some pretext or other, and places a letter in her bouquet of flowers, or in her ear ornaments, or marks something about her with his teeth or nails, that girl or female servant is called a mute go-between. In this case the man should expect an answer from the woman ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... their hill The murdered Caesars make no sign; Their myriad subjects, too, are still,— Mute as the voiceless Palatine; Yet overhead the fixed stars shine, And bid ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... edge of the ocean the rising diadem of the sun sent great bubbles of colour up through a low bank of pale green cloud to the gray night sky and the sulky stars. And, under the shadow of the cacti and palms, in rapt mute worship, knelt the men and women the priest had come to save, their faces and clasped hands uplifted to ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... for some time mute with astonishment and vexation, and when he recovered, ordered the ferrymen to get ready their boats to pass him over the river; but Human dissuaded him from that measure, saying that they could only convey a few troops, and they would doubtless be received by a large force of the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... his black charger when he reached the middle of the courtyard, but made no motion to dismount. The lady came slowly down the broad stone steps, followed by her feminine train, and, approaching the Elector, placed her white hand upon his stirrup, in mute acknowledgment of ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... room, her hair in disorder, her eyes shining, her cheeks white, her bruised lips a vivid red; she was tired, indifferent, mute, happy and lovely, seeming to guard beneath her cloak, which she held wrapped about her with both hands, some remnant of warmth ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... cables forward, the huge rusty anchors, the piled-up machinery of structure and funnel and mast, weird in the blue darkness. A lantern on the wharf cast a bobbing golden gleam deep into the oily water at her side. Gun-grey, perfectly mute, she ceased to move, coming to rest against the wharf. And then, with a shiver, I saw that something clung round her, a grey film or emanation, which shifted and hovered, like the invisible wings of birds in a thick mist. Gradually to my straining eyes that filmy emanation ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... by, and still he was as much a stranger as on the evening of his arrival. He never voluntarily addressed any one. To all remarks or even questions he replied in the fewest words and curtest phrases possible. A smile was never seen on his face. He sat at the table like a mute at a funeral, ate without lifting his eyes, and silently rose as soon as his own meal was finished. He had soon selected his favorite seat in the kitchen. It was on the right-hand side of the big fireplace, in a corner. Here he sat all through ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the day directed to Orlando. In that order it was stated that they looked upon the plebiscite of October 30, 1918, as an indestructible, historical and legal fact. Grossich exposed the situation and was then for some instants mute. His voice was trembling when he spoke: "The sacrifice which circumstances may demand is tremendous, but if it is required by the supreme interests of Italy we will know how to support it. More than a citizen of Fiume, I feel myself an Italian" ("Primo che fiumano mi sento italiano"). At this point ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all. The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, That rotting ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... our mental sight Dear forms whose tuneful lips are mute, Bright, sunny eyes long closed in night, Warm hearts now silent as the lute That charm'd our ears; It thrills the breast with feelings deep, Too deep for language to impart; And bids the spirit joy and weep, In tones that sink into ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... over the child's face, and the sound of quiet and regular breathing, told them that the danger was past. Then each encouraged the other by an inclination of the head. Once again had their love triumphed; and every time the mute caress grew more demonstrative their hearts drew ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... with the blackness of the sky outside, and Jeannie could see Daisy but indistinctly. Then with a wicked flare of lightning it leaped into light, and the thunder rattled round the eaves. But in that moment's flash Jeannie saw Daisy's face again, mute, white, and appealing, and it was intolerable to her. Besides, anything was better and less dangerous than a tete-a-tete with Daisy. At any moment she might tell her about Lord Lindfield and the offer she expected. That would ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... Nancy before leaving to bring the Erskines back with him were these: "You are to look your very best; I desire the Hon. Mrs. Erskine struck mute with admiration," and when she came down the stairs I could but think that she had taken his counsel to heart, whether because she was to meet "her rival," as she laughingly called Isabel Erskine, or ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... mile from the enemy's lines, and well into the province of death and desolation. We passed the last ploughman. He was a mute, impotent figure, a being in rags, guiding his share, and turning up little strips of earth on his furrowed world. The old home, now a jumble of old bricks getting gradually hidden by the green grasses, the old farm holed by a thousand shells, the old plough, (p. 061) ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... grace for that leavetaking. But the officer had his orders. He was no more than a machine. The Baron raised his clenched hands in mute protest to the heavens, then ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... hopelessly adored Miss Dombey. The Captain also related how the intelligence of Walter's supposed fate had first made him acquainted with Mr Toots, and how there was solemn treaty and compact between them, that Mr Toots should be mute upon the subject of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote," and the poor fellow was mute during the remainder of the evening. "Favor me with your company on Wednesday evening, you are such a lion," said a weak party-giver to a young author. "I thank you," replied the wit; "but on that evening I am engaged to eat fire at the Countess of ——, and stand upon ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... course of it he one day came to a large pond, on the edge of which he noticed three fishes which had got entangled in the reeds and were gasping for water. Though fish are generally supposed to be quite mute, he heard them grieving aloud at the prospect of dying in this wretched manner. Having a very kind heart he dismounted and soon set the prisoners free, and in the water once more. They flapped with joy, and stretching up their heads ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... that hapless lady of the South, Sweet Isabella! at that dreary part Of all the passion'd hours of her youth; When her green Basil pot by brother's art Was stolen away; so look'd her pained mouth In the mute patience of ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... ashes in the air, Thrice sit thou mute in the enchanted chair, Then thrice-three times tie up this true love's knot, And murmur soft "She ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... 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
... the God, who first Sent him to light, a miracle was wrought: For Jove, the deep-designing Saturn's son, Turn'd him to stone; we stood, and wond'ring gaz'd. But when this prodigy befell our rites, Calchas, inspir'd of Heaven, took up his speech: 'Ye long-haired sons of Greece, why stand ye thus In mute amaze? to us Olympian Jove, To whom be endless praise, vouchsafes this sign, Late sent, of late fulfilment: as ye saw The snake devour the sparrow and her young, Eight nestlings, and the parent bird the ninth: So, for so many years, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... sense, includes any form of expression by which thoughts and feelings are communicated from one individual to another. Words may be spoken, gestures made, cries uttered, pictures or characters drawn, or letters made as means of expression. The deaf-mute converses with his fingers and his lips; the savage communicates by means of gesticulation. It is easy to conceive of a community in which all communication is carried on in sign language. It is said that ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... "No, they are mute. Why is your land so mournful? It is almost a week since I've seen my shadow. It is impossible! I don't see ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... so-called, but Milton uses the word (Paradise Lost, x. 525) for the dumb serpent or serpent which gives no warning of its approach by hissing or otherwise. (Greek, ellops, "mute or dumb.") ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... that she could use her limbs freely. But an unusually long and vigorous bound chanced to loosen the little one's grasp. It fell off with a pitiful shriek, and, with an imploring upward look on its miserable countenance, clasped its little hands in mute despair. ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... teacher of the high And holy mysteries of Heaven! How turned to thee each glazing eye, In mute and awful sympathy, As thy low prayers were given; And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while, An ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Fool of Nature stood with stupid Eyes And gaping Mouth, that testify'd Surprize, Fix'd on her Face, nor could remove his Sight, New as he was to Love, and Novice in Delight: Long mute he stood, and leaning on his Staff, His Wonder witness'd with an Idiot Laugh; Then would have spoke, but by his glimmering Sense First found his want of Words, and fear'd Offence: Doubted for what he was he should ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and dumb. The dusty day is done, The night begun; While prayerful watch I keep, Sleep, love, sleep! Is there no magic in the touch Of fingers thou dost love so much? Fain would they scatter poppies o'er thee now; Or, with its mute caress, The tremulous lip some soft nepenthe press Upon thy weary lid and aching brow; While prayerful watch I ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... crushed hearts, heavy footsteps, no word amongst them, a shadow upon all. The shadow was in Asgard, too —had walked through Frigga's hall and seated itself upon the threshold of Gladsheim. Odin had just come out to look at it, and Frigga stood by in mute despair ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... asked greedily. "Before thy departure thou wast mute, stricken as a dumb man, neither wouldst thou speak in response ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... the boys is starting their choir practice and its good night and some times I wished I was a deef and dumb mute and couldn't hear nothing. ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... the grounds to interview the gardener, so that they might come to an understanding about the evergreens to be used. She glanced at Dudley as she made this proposal. He glanced back at her; and in his black eyes she fancied for a moment that she saw a mute protest, a plea. ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... ways to fame than even Horace suspected. The road to immortality is not one but manifold. A man can but do what he can. As the poet writes and the painter fills with his inspiration the mute and void canvas, so doth the Cook his part. There was formerly apopular work in France entitled "Le Cuisinier Royal," by MM. Viard and Fouret, who describe themselves as "Hommes de Bouche." The twelfth edition lies before me, a thick octavo volume, ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... through the slumbering suburb without exchanging a word, but enjoying the mute delight of their warm embrace. Their hearts were heavy; the joy which they felt in being side by side was tinged with the painful emotion which comes from the thought of approaching severance, and it seemed to them that ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... (I mean abstract reason, derived from inquiries a priori) be not alike mute with regard to all questions concerning cause and effect, this sentence at least it will venture to pronounce: That a mental world, or universe of ideas, requires a cause as much as does a material world, or universe of objects; and, if similar in its arrangement, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... replace? Those loving eyes! That fond, confiding face! Those dear, dumb touches! Therefore I was dumb. From word of mine could any comfort come? A bitter sorrow 'tis to lose a brute Friend, dog or horse, for grief must then be mute,— So many smile to see the rivers shed Of tears for one poor, speechless creature dead. When parents die there's many a word to say— Kind words, consoling—one can always pray; When children die 'tis natural to tell Their mother, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... miss—oh, how we miss!—his face,— With trembling accents speak his name. Earth cannot fill his shadowed place From all her rolls of pride and fame. Our song has lost the silvery thread That carolled through his jocund lips; Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled, And all our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... and from the mute and moveless frame A radiant spirit arose, All beautiful in naked purity. 110 Robed in its human hues it did ascend, Disparting as it went the silver clouds, It moved towards the car, and took its seat Beside the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... physical inability to utter another word, and, sinking upon his knees, stretched forth his quaking hands in a mute appeal for mercy. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... except the Dairyman's dog, keeping a kind of mute watch at the door; for he did not, as formerly, bark at my approach. He seemed to partake so far of the feelings appropriate to the circumstances of the family, as not to wish to give a hasty or painful alarm. He came forward to the little wicket-gate, ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... are common enough. It's no trick at all to go into the average Rube village, 'steen miles from a railroad, and get 'em thrilled with the notion of being connected by trolley with Jaytown, umpteen miles south. Why, they'll hand you anything in sight! A deaf-mute could go out and get that sort of franchise. But to prospect through the whole cotton belt, locate opportunities where the dividends will follow the rails, pick out the cream of them all, get in right with the board of trade, fix things up with a suspicious ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... south—the truth of what had happened on the Gray Loon—and that this travel-worn stranger wore under his caribou-skin coat the badge of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. For that instant it was almost a terror that possessed him, and he stood mute. ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... still gazing on the spot where this fearful tragedy was enacted, transfixed and mute with horror, when the shark again rose to the surface, bearing in his jaws the lifeless body of the English sailor; and for a brief period we beheld the voracious fish devouring ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... to the utmost. It has been supposed that the art of the old Roman pantomimi was then revived, to add to the attractions of court-dances. Under the Roman empire the pantomimi had represented either a mythological story, or perhaps a scene from a Greek tragedy, by mute gestures, while a chorus, placed in the background, sang cantica to narrate the fable, or to describe the action of the scene. The question is whether mute pantomimic action, which is the essence of modern ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... gone by then, only a few shining metal huts in the Siberian tundra giving mute evidence that they had been anything ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... business ignorantly. The girl died in fearful pain. Hindu women are inured to sickening sights, but this girl's death was so terrible that the elder sister has never recovered from the shock of seeing it. There she sits, they tell me, all day long, crouching on the floor, mute. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... she was so glad and excited, and she ran around the table and laid her cheek against Mr. Raymond's shoulder in mute entreaty. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... lettered fop now takes a larger scope, With classic furniture, design'd by HOPE. (HOPE, whom upholsterers eye with mute despair, The doughty ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... light popular air in which all would vocally join, he would soon glide like a spirit of melody to the unprofaned height of the music masters. Bach was his favorite. And when, with the mute, to soften the waves from unfriendly ears, he would interpret some symphony of the soul, we would forget our grim surroundings and dream we "dwelt ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... still; so it is evident that the friction or rubbing of the legs against the wings causes the sound. I rub the thigh of this specimen I hold in my hands against the wing. You distinctly hear the shrill sound. It is the males only who make the noise; the females are mute. Some people have described another organ which seems to increase the sound. I have sometimes placed both field-crickets and grasshoppers under a tumbler, and supplied them with moist blades of grass; it is curious to see how ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... their lives. They were kept seated in their tent while the fanatics discussed the subject. The travellers sat in silence. At last Mr Richardson exclaimed: "Let us talk a little. We must die. What is the use of sitting so mute?" For some minutes death seemed really to hover over their heads. Mr Richardson proposed trying to escape for their lives, when the kind-hearted Sliman rushed into the tent, exclaiming in a tone of sincere sympathy: "You are not to die." The Merabetin were content instead to receive a heavy ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... her tiny black-gloved hand, and then, also in silence, raised it passionately to my eager lips. Her soft, dark eyes—those eyes that spoke although she was mute—met mine, and in them was a look that I had never seen there before—a look which as plainly as any words told me that my wild fevered passion ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... drag it down to his lair, and Slid 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, ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... is not on the watch," resumed the boatswain, "that savage leans all the time with his elbows on the side, as motionless as he is mute. His right place would be at the end of our bow, where he would do for a figurehead to the Halbrane, and a very ugly one at that! And then, when he is at the helm, Mr. Jeorling, just observe him! His enormous hands clutch the handles as though they ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... delicate; Her household duties are beyond her strength; I want a slave, and therefore I will give A price proportioned to the woman's skill And temper; nor will I o'erlook her youth And beauty. What you think is fair and right, That will I pay." Struck dumb with grief, the king Stood mute, nor answered aught. And then the priest, Tying the price in the king's garment-hem— His bark-cloth garment—roughly grasped the queen, And dragged her off. But when the loving child Beheld his mother led away, he seized Her by her garment. ...
— Mârkandeya Purâna, Books VII., VIII. • Rev. B. Hale Wortham
... heart, the trembling hands of the great battle of the time. Even those who try to stand aloof share the common anxiety. They too are revolutionists like the others, but they oppose human stupidity, and their mute ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... countries we had just passed through, between the Meta, the Arauca, and the Apure, there were found, at the time of the first expeditions to the Orinoco, in 1535, those mute dogs, called by the natives maios, and auries. This fact is curious in many points of view. We cannot doubt that the dog, whatever Father Gili may assert, is indigenous in South America. The different Indian languages furnish words to ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... and ominously dark. She had never known a night since she came to Japat when the birds and insects were so mute. A sombre, supernatural calm hung over the island like a pall. Far off, over the black sea, pulsed the fitful glow of an occasional gleam of lightning, faint with the distance which it traversed. There was no moon; the stars were gone; the sky was inky and the air somnolent. The smell ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... not move to meet her, merely stood motionless, nearly knee-deep in the bog-myrtle, and waited for her, the white roses in one great, clenched hand. And she, as if compelled, moved towards him, till at last she reached and stood before him, white, mute, passive as ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... varieties of one voice. It was an endless monologue, like that we sometimes hear from inanimate nature in deep secret places where water flows, or where ivy leaves flap against stones; but by degrees she was convinced that the voice was Winterborne's. Yet who could be his listener, so mute and patient; for though he argued so rapidly and persistently, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... appearance. He grew impatient of being alone, when a companion was so near at hand; the place was strange, and there were no well-known objects to stand in the place of friends, supplying by the thousand associations they conjure up, and their mute appeals to memory, the ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... was chanted, they diverted her thoughts to the choice of mourning dresses. While the coffin was placed in the huge, black and white, wax-besprinkled catafalque that does duty for some three thousand dead in the course of its career—so I was informed by a philosophically-minded mute whom I once consulted on a point over a couple of glasses of petit blanc—while an indifferent priest mumbling the office for the dead, do you know what the friends of the departed were saying as, all dressed in black from head to foot, they sat or stood in the church? (Here is the picture you ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... was about to answer Prince Alphege, who had heard all, came forward and said, 'It is from me you must ask an explanation, brother.' He spoke with such grace and dignity that everyone gazed at him with mute surprise. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... yet uttered, every one seeming rooted to the spot on which he stood, and regarding in mute wonder the place this ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... solitary mullions, and pendent fragments of tracery hoary with age, and in parts half concealed by the negligent profusion of ivy, entranced the mind by their suggestive and melancholy beauty; while the huge remnant of a massive tower seemed to plead with mute dignity against the violence which had rent and marred it, and against the encroaching vegetation, which was climbing higher and higher, and enveloping its giant stones in a fantastic ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... poet takes words, and out of their rhythms finds the harmonious vehicle for ideas. The scientist sees the apple fall and has the revelation of a universe moving in a symphony before which the mind stands mute and awestruck. The cook takes the pig from the stye and the apple from the tree and makes a pretty lyric for the dinner-table. The Great Adventure, in short, is just this passionate pursuit of the soul of harmony in things, great and small, spiritual and material. We are ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the ladies, not comprehending what had occurred, had sat as mute as stones; but now having so far recovered themselves as to find a voice, the younger of the two fell to screaming, at which the Sieur Simon called out to her to be still, for these were friends ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... under his arm, emerge through the half-open door of the boudoir, and with a peculiar gliding motion advance towards her. A curious feeling, with which she was totally unfamiliar, compelled her to remain mute and motionless; and in this condition she awaited the approach of the stranger. Who was he? she asked herself, and how on earth had he got there, and what was he doing? As he drew nearer, she perceived that his face was all one hue,—a ghastly, livid ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... this scene the war cry is heard. The enemy has again broken into the country and has already taken and burnt the fortress of Belforad. All crowd round Diaz, beseeching him to save them. While he stands mute and deprived of his invincible sword, Chimene, mastering her own grief at the sight of her country's distress, lays down Tizona at Fernando's feet. Ruy Diaz now receives his sword back from the hands of the King, and brandishing it ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... thinks that "upon this platform was reared a capacious temple, within whose walls the high-priests gathered from different quarters at stated seasons, celebrated their mystic rites, while the swarming multitudes below looked up with mute adoration." Mr. Breckenridge, whose writings we have already referred to, at the time of his first visit, "everywhere observed a great number of small elevations of earth, to the height of a few feet, at regular distances apart, which appeared to observe ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... reflection on its bosom to its own tint. A belt of brown dead timber on a gravel scar, showed, upside down, like sombre cypresses rising from green turf and the reflected snows were pale green. In summer many tourists go there, but we saw nothing except the wonderworking lake lying mute in its circle of forest, where red and orange lichens grew among grey and blue moss, and we heard nothing except the noise of its outfall hurrying through a jam of bone-white logs. The thing might have belonged to Tibet or some unexplored valley behind Kin-chinjunga. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... 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
... his own home, which he finds prepared for him as soon as he enters the society. He may be in close company with others outside his home, but he cannot dwell elsewhere. Again, in somebody else's apartment one can sit only in his own place; seated elsewhere he becomes frustrated and mute. And it is remarkable that on entering he knows his own place. This is as true in temples he enters and in any companies in which ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... But mute that noise, nor all the crowd Could show her like, or soothe my care; So, calling her dear name aloud, I waved my sleeve in ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... up with a jerk, the flashing grey eyes begging in mute helplessness an explanation ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... ovation. It is a reparation. Be it so. We will be there to see. Haynau was cursed and hooted at the brewery of Barclay and Perkins, he will receive bouquets at the brewery of Saint-Antoine. The Faubourg Saint-Antoine will receive an order to conduct itself properly. The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, mute, motionless, impassive, will see them pass, triumphant and conversing together, like two friends, through its old revolutionary streets, one in French, the other in Austrian uniform,—Louis Bonaparte, the murderer of the boulevard, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... government of myself. This was variously framed thus:—It is not usual to do this; it is usual to do that; if you proceed so and so, it will seem singular; people will talk about it; you will offend people's usages and habits; you will seem singular and odd. Against such cautions I rebelled with a mute, indignant impulse, which I was not old enough to enounce or to argue. It was, however, the result of two characteristics;—one, the natural lack of instinctive desire for the good opinion of others; and the other, a corresponding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... could not regret his obeying the call of duty and of honour; or like her lover the worse, when crowned with victory in the cause of his country. To these and similar assurances, Rosalie could only reply with the mute eloquence of tears; and nothing could divest her of the apprehension with which she ever regarded an enterprise which she seemed to consider from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... from the reputation of genius; and hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the ease of carelessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and those accomplishments which mortals of the common fabrick obtain only by mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He tried this scheme of life awhile, was made weary of it by his sense and his virtue; he then wished to return to his studies; and finding long habits of idleness and pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... necessary to make a poet, any more than colors to make a painter. And what if Moore did say the same thing twenty years ago? I am sure any writer would consider himself lucky to have an idea which has been anticipated but once. I am tired of being a "mute inglorious Milton," and, like that grand old master of English song, would gladly write something which the world would not willingly let die; and having made that first step, as witness the above verses, who knows ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... looked as dejected as possible; but as he fell he was succeeding he became so self-satisfied that he began to strut. A pleased expression crossed his face, and instead of allowing his head to hang dismally, he put it well back. Sometimes, when we wanted to please him, we said he looked as glum as a mute at a funeral. Even that, however, defeated his object, for it flattered him so much that he smiled ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... produced so remarkable an impression on me. The finest building is unquestionably the venerable cathedral. In Italy I had already seen numbers of the most beautiful churches; yet I remained standing in mute admiration before this masterpiece of ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... shivering, with rigid features and compressed lips, she looked an entirely altered being from the soft and timid creature she had been hitherto. She moved cautiously along the entry, paused one moment at her mistress' door, and raised her hands in mute appeal to Heaven, and then turned and glided into her own room. It was a quiet, neat apartment, on the same floor with her mistress. There was a pleasant sunny window, where she had often sat singing at her sewing; there a little case of books, and various ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... drunken good time— Until the houses became helpless And the mute city passed Into the broad fields, Which ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... 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 cliffs! all ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... eldest daughter; Browne, be it observed, with an e, as his name (I beg his pardon for having misspelt it) was Thomson without the p; there being I know not what of dignity in the absence of the consonant, and the presence of the vowel, though mute. We soon found that both he and Mr. Browne lent these illustrious names to half a score of clubs, from the Athenaeum downward. We also gathered from his conversation that he resided somewhere in Gloucester ...
— The London Visitor • Mary Russell Mitford
... Burgundy was supplied. It was 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 over ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... of his art is the necessary vehicle of expression for his thoughts and emotions, and determines, even, the nature of the thoughts and emotions he shall express. But while the technical accomplishment of an artist is the most necessary part of his art, without which his imagination would be mute, it is not the highest or the most significant part of it. I have tried to show that Saint-Gaudens was a highly accomplished artist, the equal of any of his contemporaries, the superior of most. What made him something much more than this—something infinitely more important for us—was the vigor ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... shrine from the sea. O earth, O sun, turn back [Str. 3. Full on his deadly track Death, that would smite you black and mar your creatures, And with one hand disroot All tender flower and fruit, With one strike blind and mute the heaven's fair features, 180 Pluck out the eyes of morn, and make Silence in the east and blackness whence the bright songs break. Help, earth, help, heaven, that hear [Ant. 3. The song-notes ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... backs upon the guilty man. Even the girl drew away after one long, agonized look at the lover to whose embrace she had so lately submitted. He raised his arms to her in mute appeal as she moved away, then dropped ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... fell, and no revenge, No torments of foes, appease them in the land of spirits; No shoutings of brother warriors Gladden their shades; The camp of their nation is mute; They are forgotten by their women; The bright eyes of their maidens Have no tears in them: They sleep ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Still Deacon Enos remained mute; and Uncle Jaw, after waiting a while, recommenced with, "But, railly, deacon, I should like ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... empire formed and fit to rule the rest; Whether with particles of heavenly fire The God of nature did his soul inspire, Or earth, but new divided from the sky, And pliant, still retained the ethereal energy. Thus while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... mind by a certain force, deadened the ear to words implying the contrary. Mysie stood fixed to the spot, as if she were trying to realize some certainty she dared not think was possible, her lips apart, her eyes riveted on the face of the lady—mute as that kind of picture which a certain ancient calls a silent poem, and motionless as a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... inside, the modern surveys the work of the ancient, the remnants of time. And no less curious and no less remote do the old tapestries seem than the atelier where the high looms rear their cylinders and mute men play their colour harmonies on the warp. It all seems of other times; it all seems dead. And it is ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of winter passed slowly away. April came in with long bright days and abundant sunshine, but still the frost-king held sway, and all the earth was snowbound, the rivers were mute, and the waterfalls existed only in name. The men in the store were saying one night that some Indians had got through from Thunder Bay by way of the Albany River with mails; but as this meant about four hundred miles on snowshoes, Katherine ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... I choose to know the secret— Thee, and yonder wordless flute; Dragons watch me, tender Lily, And thou must be mute. ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod |
