"Noiseless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accomplish what the fierce blustering of the tempest has in vain essayed. Above all, it is ever to be kept in mind, that not by material but by mental power, are men and their actions governed. How noiseless is thought! No rolling of drums, no tramp of squadrons or immeasurable tumult of baggage-wagons, attends its movements; in what obscure and sequestered places may the head be meditating which is one day to be crowned with more than imperial authority; for kings and emperors will ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... threw more wood on the blaze, which burned up so brightly that the reflection reached far out on the grassy plateau. Then, with a single glance at the prostrate figure, the hunter turned away, his footsteps as noiseless as if he were ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... he settled forward on his knees and raised his musket, turned his head aside and spat. "Derned old fog always gits in my throat!" A branch of elder was cutting Billy Maydew's line of vision. He broke it off with noiseless care and raised to his shoulder the Enfield rifle which he had acquired at Winchester. There loomed, at thirty feet away, colossal ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... refused to stir, he suddenly dropped his hold, and with an "Avance done!" gallantly slushed his way into the water alongside, in his Sunday trousers, lifted the gunwale and started her afloat, amidst a shower of final "Au revoirs," and the rose chaloupe moved with noiseless smoothness down the current. ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... of the big round harvest moon fell through the warm air, which scarcely moved above the graves of the almost forgotten dead in the country churchyard. The low headstones cast long shadows over the long grass that merely trembled as the noiseless ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... speak further on the subject, the like of which has vexed many great minds, the world over, but they sat there hushed and quiet, and with awe-stricken hearts, as though they heard or felt the noiseless approach of the coming king, who passed them by, and went into the room where the pale mother watched and prayed beside the ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... against the dry, cloudless, star-dotted sky that bordered the eastern horizon. The sentry, slowly pacing his beaten path along the acequia that conducted the cool waters of the Yavapai, from the northward hills to the troughs in the corral, moved noiseless, dim and ghostly, and Loring, listening for a moment to the faint sounds of revelry at the shack, turned away to the north, passed the rude shelters which had been built by the labor of troops for the accommodation of the officers and the few families there abiding, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... No prisoners were reported, no boasting was published by the British fishers of men; U boat after U boat vanished into a chilling mystery.... Only later did Mr. Britling begin to hear whispers and form ideas of the noiseless, suffocating grip that sought through the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... cascades, making its own music to the accompaniment of the singing voices of the trees. Now and again the creek comes to a quiet, pastoral stretch, where it becomes absolutely "still water". Not that it is motionless, but noiseless, covered over with trees and vines, that reflect upon its calm surface and half hide the trout that float so easily and lazily through its clear, pure, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... hallway, blotching like some misshapen toad in the shadowy light, lurching in his walk, that was, nevertheless, almost uncannily noiseless. Mechanically she followed him. She was trying to think; striving frantically to bring her wits to play on this sudden and unexpected denouement. It was obvious that he was taking her to Danglar. She had striven desperately last night to run Danglar to earth in ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... the procession; and the mutes closed in behind them. Down endless polished corridors they passed with noiseless steps over the spotless boards. The only sound was the rustling of silk garments. To closed eyes they might have seemed like the arrival of a company of dowagers. The women, who had at first received them, were still fluttering around them like humming-birds escorting ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... received no response to her gentle tap, she ventured to open the door softly and to step within her mistress's room. The lightest sleeper could scarcely have been awakened by her entrance, as noiseless as a shadow or the slow swaying of a curtain. She stood near the foot of the bed, in the dim and fragrant room, looking at the beautiful head upon the pillow, the dark, abundant hair, the half-open lips relaxed from the control of the mind, revealing now more clearly ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's texture. Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. among sea-commanders, the old greybeards ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... the negro, when he had seen the cabin door close on Bess and her lantern; and they stole across the clearing. Reaching the bayou side they began a noiseless search for the dugout, which they quickly found, and Carrington turned to George. "Can ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... was one week old. This afternoon she lay partially dressed on the cot while Andy was plying his noiseless way about the kitchen. He stopped a moment on the journey to the stove and ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Harding, the archdeacon's father-in-law, and would thank them tenderly for their care and love. Now he lay sleeping like a baby, resting easily on his back, his mouth just open, and his few gray hairs straggling from beneath his cap; his breath was perfectly noiseless, and his thin, wan hand, which lay above the coverlid, never moved. Nothing could be easier than the old man's passage from this ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... light, noiseless step, Zarah, obeying the directions of her newly-found parent, and keeping his form in sight, crossed the first court which they had to traverse. It was paved, surrounded by pillars, and open to the sky, of which the deep azure ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... a half has elapsed since the date of my last chapter. Two Englishmen were—the one seated, the other reclined at length—on one of the mounds that furrow the ascent of Posilippo. Before them spread the noiseless sea, basking in the sunshine, without visible ripple; to the left there was a distant glimpse through gaps of brushwood of the public gardens and white water of the Chiaja. They were friends who had chanced to meet abroad unexpectedly, joined company, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and unique weapon," said he, "noiseless and of tremendous power. I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years I have been aware of its existence, though I have never before had the opportunity of handling it. I commend ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... given, I can only say that something is sent almost every day even to the hospitals near Washington and the great cities, and that the amount bestowed increases just in proportion to the distance of the hospital from the great Government centres of supply. This is a noiseless and unostentatious charity,—sometimes, I am tempted to think, too noiseless and unostentatious. A few weeks ago, a lady friend visited one of the hospitals near Washington, carrying with her for distribution some Sanitary goods. She gave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... which had hidden them and Helen stood in a circle of echoing sound. Often, as a child, she had waked at such a clamour, and pictured homeless people walking on the road, and now, though she heard no footsteps, she seemed to feel the approach of noiseless feet, bringing the unknown. For her, youth's delights of strength and fleetness were paid for by the thought of the many years in which her happiness could be assailed. Age might be feeble, but it had, she ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... admitted universally that the only escape from the anomalous situation in which the nation found itself lay in a restoration of the legitimist monarchy, in the person of Don Alfonso, son of Isabella II. The collapse of the republic was as swift and as noiseless as had been its establishment. The principal agency in it was the army, which, in December, 1874, declared definitely for Alfonso, after he had pledged himself to a grant of amnesty and the maintenance of constitutional government. December 31 a regency ministry under ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... and infatuous brightness, Grew lost and dreaming in a vacant splendor; The rainbow lustre of his lengthening folds Faded to harmless green, till, prone, he lay, A floating dream of dread, upon the deep; Then, with the noiseless current drifting on, I passed your subtle guardian swiftly by; While only one faint sparkle, green and gold, Broke from his sluggish sides ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... lake in uneven confused country, as something very bright and skylike, and discontinuous with all about it. The faded quality of the very sunshine of that season, the mellow discoloured palaces and places, the huge, time-ripened paintings of departed splendours, the whispering, nearly noiseless passage of hearse-black gondolas, for the horrible steam launch had not yet ruined Venice, the stilled magnificences of the depopulated lagoons, the universal autumn, made me feel altogether in recess from the teeming ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... again left the lad, and whenever he tugged on the wire Joe answered with the agreed signal, and by this simple means Slippery had not only forced a harmless boy to do dangerous outpost duty, and was assured that he was always on guard, but what was most important, he had a noiseless danger signal that, even should the boy fail to kill somebody, he would thus notify the robbers that all was not well and give them plenty of time and a far better chance to make their getaway than ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... to begin the repast; but the plates remained untouched, and the happy noises which had to that moment filled the cabin ceased; for the Angel of Silence, with noiseless step, had suddenly entered the room. There's a silence of grief, there's a silence of hatred, there's a silence of dread; of these, men may speak, and these they can describe. But the silence of our happiness, who can describe that? When the heart ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... or making calls, but she had been a little bit out of humor with all these things of late, and hence was alone in the great, silent house. The rain was falling heavily outside, and in the library there was a great coal fire. Now and then a noiseless maid ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... walls. Alice courtesied and the small cavalier, still with the old rapier in hand, bowed low. Kris stood at the door and listened to the patter of little feet upon the stair; then he closed it with noiseless care. In a few minutes he had put out the candles, resumed his cloak, and left the house. The snow no longer fell. The waning night was clearer, and to eastward a faint rosy gleam foretold the coming of the sun of Christmas. Kris ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... and gray death, whose footstep is as noiseless as the fall of snow; death, the silent one, as the Indian ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... voiceless, Can create Both form and fate, As Petrarch could a sonnet That, taking flesh upon it, Spirit-noiseless, Doth the same inform and fill With a music sweeter still! Lives and breathes and palpitates, Moves and moulds and animates, And sleeps not from its duty Till the maid in whom 'tis pent— From a mortal rudiment, From the earth-cell And the love-cell, By ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... she was sitting without her hat and jacket, and with a pair of noiseless house-slippers on her feet, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... the loveliness of the season, the calmness and the golden light of the hour, accessories, that, by their influence, gave a solemn beauty to its very desolation. It reminded one somewhat of the light which coming death throws upon the cheek of youth when he treacherously treads in the soft and noiseless steps of decline—or rather of that still purer light, which, when the aged Christian arrives at the close of a well spent life, accompanied by peace, and hope, and calmness, falls like a glory on his bed ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... who occupies lodgings immediately opposite one of the city armories, writes to us asking whether the drum corps that practice there two or three evenings in the week should not be supplied with noiseless drums, as PUNCHINELLO has suggested regarding the street organs. PUNCHINELLO thinks the suggestion a good one. He would like to see the beating of drums after night-fall abolished altogether In fact, it is the only kind of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... small village just outside of St. Cloud (pronounced San Cloo). It is given up to the manufacture of porcelain. You go to St. Cloud by rail or river, and then drive over to Sevres by diligence or voiture. Some go one way and some go the other. I rode up on the Seine, aboard of a little, noiseless, low-pressure steamer about the size of a sewing machine. It was called ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... events of moment, the marriage of Beatrice and Daventry, the definite establishment of Robin as a power in his world, and the beginning of one of those noiseless contests which seem peculiar to women, and which are seldom, if ever, fully comprehended in all their bearings ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... to Hardenberg, bent once more with a searching glance over the couch of his patient, drew with his hands a few circles over her head, and left the room with noiseless steps. The chancellor ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... society, quietly repaired to a house in the Rue St. Jacques, almost under the very shadow of the Sorbonne, where the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to be administered according to previous appointment. Their coming together had not been so noiseless, however, as to escape the attention of some priests, residing in the College du Plessis, on the other side of the way, whose suspicions had for some time been fixed upon the spot.[632] The reformed were not disturbed during the exercise ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... my breast I love to roam leisurely among the green hills; or sometimes, sitting on the brink of the murmuring Missouri, I marvel at the great blue overhead. With half-closed eyes I watch the huge cloud shadows in their noiseless play upon the high bluffs opposite me, while into my ear ripple the sweet, soft cadences of the river's song. Folded hands lie in my lap, for the time forgot. My heart and I lie small upon the earth like a grain of throbbing sand. Drifting clouds and tinkling waters, together ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... the lyre, and the innumerable croud was noiseless and silent as the chambers of death. They did not now wait for the pleasing tale of a luxuriant imagination, or the pathetic and melting strain of the mourner. They composed their spirits into the serenity of devotion. They called together their innocent thoughts for ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... association with his veteran chief, of which he was so proud, and retired in 1817 to private life. He resumed his study of the profession that was interrupted by the war, married, and settled down on his patrimonial possession at the confluence of the Kentucky and Ohio rivers, in the noiseless but arduous vocations of civil life. The abode which he had chosen made it peculiarly so with him. The region around him was wild and romantic, sparsely settled, and by pastoral people. There are no populous towns. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... of clamps, that it will resist any degree of pressure. Then they drill holes in the door, and into these fit jack-screws worked by means of levers. The tremendous force thus exerted soon cuts the safe literally to pieces, and its contents are at the mercy of the thieves. The whole process is noiseless and rapid, and so complete has been the destruction of some safes that even the most experienced detectives have been astounded at the sight of the wreck. Such an operation is never undertaken without a knowledge on the part of the thieves of the contents of the safe, and the chances of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... state Of some mean things which here below reside, Where birds like watchful Clocks the noiseless date And Intercourse of times divide, Where Bees at night get home and hive, and flowrs, Early as well as late, Rise with the Sun, and set in the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... all have been 'squeezed,'" said Dolphin, "and nothing's easier if you've got the knack—noiseless, bloodless, traceless, the only scientific ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... floor. Mr. Peck recognised Mr. Gates, who stood with his wrists caught in either hand across his middle, and looked round with a quizzical glance before he began to speak. Putney lifted his hand in playful threatening toward Colonel Marvin, who got away from him with a face of noiseless laughter, and went and joined Mr. Wilmington where he sat with his wife, who entered into ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... sound, she glided toward the cabinet, and noiselessly adjusting the key, turned it gently in the lock. The white, delicate finger stole softly about the first smoothly polished drawer, to find it empty. Then one and another underwent, in quick succession, the same noiseless inspection, till the fourth and last drawer was reached; and that one yielded up the coveted treasure. Hastily placing it in her bosom, she closed the drawer, and then glided out as softly as she had glided into the room. On the threshold she cast back ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... cracked stone sarcophagus: an unusual sight in this part of the world. It was without its lid. But one god now brooded hereabouts—Silence. Not a sound anywhere, not even from the near-by trees. She saw a noiseless lizard slide jerkily across a patch of moonshine and dissolve into the purple ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long, drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... considered our own prescriptive right—though not by rules—who came upon us unawares, was apt to be credited with rather unofficer-like ideas of what was becoming, and suspected of the not very gentlemanly practice of wearing noiseless rubber shoes. That intimation of his approach was conveyed by us from room to room by concerted taps on the gas-pipes was fair war; nor did our opponents seem to mind what they could not but clearly hear. Indeed, I think most of them were rather glad ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... between us two, Noiseless as the silver dew; Hearts that had no need of speech In the silence spoke to each; And along the sapphire blue, Shot with shafts of sunset through, Fell a voice, a bodiless breath— "True, ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... never obtruded herself on others. Very often her sisters were invited to the feast of the people without her. It took time for her quality to be known: she was so still and silent. Her step, too, was noiseless, and her delicate feet left ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... other methods of work than purely mechanical; methods more noiseless and gentle, but not less effective, as the victories of peace ate no ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... chosen Chinese servant who enters the household of a foreigner, is a being to whom, as suggested above, his master often becomes deeply attached, and whom he parts with, often after many years of service, to his everlasting regret. Such a servant has many virtues. He is noiseless over his work, which he performs efficiently. He can stay up late, and yet rise early. He lives on the establishment, but in an out-building. He provides his own food. He rarely wants to absent himself, and even then will always provide a reliable locum tenens. He studies his ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... all the other angers that had scourged and torn the surface of her life; they had been storms, all clamor and confusion and blinding flashes, with more or less indifference to resulting ruin. But this anger, which could not be recognized as anger, was a noiseless cataclysm in the very center of her being; a tidal wave, that was lifting and lifting, moving slowly, too full for sound, in the resistless advance of an absorbing purpose of ruin. "I am not angry," she said to herself; "but I think ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... between invisible and noiseless forces, but none the less deadly because neither could see nor hear his foe. Yet each knew that the other was always there. It was the slight waving of a bush or the flutter of a leaf, stirred by a moccasin, that told ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fish it is," said Browne, "with his pallid, corpse-like skin, and noiseless motion; he has no resemblance to any of the rest of his kind, that I have ever seen. You know what the sailors would say, if they should see him dogging us in this way; Old Crosstrees, or Spot, would shake their heads ominously, and set us down as a ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... rocking, Silent, peaceful, to and fro, Like a mother's sweet looks dropping On the little face below, Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow; Falls the light of God's face bending Down and watching ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... cast their gaunt shadows on the tide. During a greater portion of the day the wind, which blew furiously and incessantly, seemed possessed with a spirit of fierce disquiet and unrest. Toward nightfall the sea-fog crept with soft step through the portals of the Golden Gate, or stole in noiseless marches down the hillside, tenderly soothing the wind-buffeted face of the cliff, until sea and sky were hid together. At such times the populous city beyond and the nearer settlement seemed removed to an infinite ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... him, and when caught must guess who the player is. If the guess be correct, they change places. If not correct, or if the blind man has pointed at an empty space instead of at a player, the circle continues and the game is repeated. The player who is called into the circle will naturally try, by noiseless stepping, dodging, etc., to give the blind man some difficulty in catching him, but when once caught must submit without ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... invisible particle, instead of dropping into the crystal receptacle, seemed to fall on my naked heart like the mountain rock. O my God! there are only two or three sands left, and my mother's life hangs on the last sinking grain. Some one rises with noiseless ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... noiseless carriage sped along I turned toward Blackana, who, in strange muteness still tarried at my side. "I command you, O Black Interpreter, to tell me of the origin and management of this College of Literature." As ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... himself seated in a narrow canoe of metal, immediately behind the pilot, who sat at a small control panel in the bow. Propelled by electro-magnetic fields above a single rail, upon lightly touching and noiseless wheels, the terrestrial pilot saw with keen appreciation the manner in which switch after switch ahead of them obeyed the impulses sent ahead from the speeding car. The streets were narrow and filled with monorails; pedestrians pursued ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... flourished in luxuriant beds and pastures, not breathed on by even a naturalist's breath; the rocks that they had clothed for ages, no one disturbing. The very cloud shadows that now and then swept over the ravine and the hillside, meeting nothing less free than themselves, scarce anything less noiseless, seemed to assert the whole scene as Nature's own. Since the days of the red men nothing but cloud shadows had travelled there; the nineteenth century had made no entrance, no wood-cutter had lifted his axe in the forest; the ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... night; the stars look brightly down Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow. No light gleams at the window save my own, Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me. And now with noiseless step sweet Memory comes, And leads me gently through her twilight realms. What poet's tuneful lyre has ever sung, Or delicatest pencil e'er portrayed The enchanted, shadowy land where Memory dwells? It has its valleys, cheerless, lone, and drear, Dark-shaded by the lonely cypress tree. And ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... executed without a superfluous movement, and a panther could not have been more noiseless. But the man was breathing heavily when he had finished, as hard as though he had been exercising violently. He stepped to the washstand to blow out the candle, but before he did so he gave a final rapid survey of his work. His eyes glittered with sinister satisfaction. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Some of these mysterious beings placed themselves in a stooping position on the margin of the streams, with their faces bent close to the water. Others, divesting themselves of their garments, entered, with hurried and noiseless stops, a neighbouring field of oats, and there concealed themselves. Some of the strangers were astonished at what they saw, and could not resolve in their own minds whether or not these were, indeed, phantoms that ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... and illuminated the apartment. It was a little room innocent of windows, and lit as all the rest of the basement was by cornice lamps. In one corner was a grey-painted iron door. This Fall pushed aside on its noiseless runners. There was another elevator here. The two men stepped in and the lift sunk and sunk until it seemed as though it would never come to the end. It stopped at last, and the men stepped out into a ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... tree-tops upon the snow-clad slopes, and over hollows where the enemy were massing. But now, as the enemy cannonade died down a little, and that torrent of shells which had been hurtling upon the French trenches ceased a trifle, the din of the German bombardment was rendered almost noiseless, was shut out, as it were, was eclipsed, by the demoniacal rattle of those French 75's casting shell at the advancing enemy. The massed ranks marching from the cover of the trees, heads of columns appearing at the summit of many a ravine which ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... of which they were ashamed, like in travelling honey-moons amongst ourselves. But at certain hours of the day the bridegroom may be seen gliding about like a spectre in the dark streets, alone and with noiseless tread. He usually is dressed in gayest colours of blue and scarlet, with a fine long stave of brass, or a bright iron spear in his hand. When he is met by any one he instantly vanishes: he does not utter a syllable, and no person attempts ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Andrew Zane. "As long as that tigress accompanies him he has expiation to make. Voluptuous, jealous, restless, and, like a snake in the tightness of her folds and her noiseless approach, she will smother him with kisses and sell him to ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... upon the homeless pack And paling stream arose a noiseless wind Out of the yellow west awhile, and stirred The branches down the valley; then blew off To eastward toward the long gray straits, and died Into the ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... dipped his springy oar into the water, and, with a few vigorous strokes, sent his canoe to the shore, and, having moored it to a root, he glided into the thickets, and disappeared with a tread so noiseless as to leave Claud, for many minutes, wholly in doubt whether the man was standing still in the bushes or ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... order to let those silvery vibrations occupy his whole consciousness. Then, staring before him, he went swiftly across the wainscotted hall with his lithe, noiseless step, escaping before that other voice ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... with noiseless dry sobs; but he was fuming and fretting too much to notice her distress. He bit his thumb with rage at the mere idea. A window ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... oval mirror whose gilded carvings reflected the light of the candle. She held it above her head with one rounded arm. He stood in deep shadow and the girl had been too absorbed in the play to note his coming. He took one noiseless step toward her, but then through the curtained doorway by which she had come he saw a ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... for Dr. Henderson again, and obtained permission to look upon her child. Bitter as the physician knew the experience would be, it might be salutary. With noiseless tread she crossed the threshold, and saw Marian's pure, pale profile; she drew a few steps nearer; the young girl turned and bowed gravely, then ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... about eighteen years of age. Her eyes were black, her face was black, and her hair was black, standing out from her head in short, thick curls, which gave to her features a strange witch-like expression. From her mother she had inherited the same sweet, cooing voice, the same gliding, noiseless footsteps, which had led some of their acquaintance to accuse them of what, in the days of New England witchcraft, would have secured their passport ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... festive scene we have portrayed in a former chapter, when one morning Ella, on entering her mother's chamber, which adjoined her own, was surprised to find, for the hour was unusually late, that she had not yet risen. With noiseless step she approached the couch, and with gentle hand drew back the curtain, thinking to wake her by a kiss, when, terrible spectacle to her affectionate heart, she beheld her idolized mother, not sleeping as she had expected, but every lineament ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... massive balcony of wood ran round it, upon and beneath which in its heavy shade was an impenetrable gloom, while the twisted wooden pillars ran upward to the gallery, loggia-like. With rapid perception and intuition he divined rather than saw these things, and, swinging himself up with noiseless lightness, he threw himself full-length down on the rough flooring of the balcony. If they passed he was safe, for a brief time more at least; if they found him—his teeth clinched like a mastiff's where he lay—he had the strength in him still to ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... room, nothing loth, for I longed to be alone with my treasure. I could not get enough of it in grannie's presence even. Noiseless as a bat I crept down the stair. When I reached the door at the foot I stood and listened. The kitchen was quite silent. I stepped out. There was no one there. I scudded across and up the other stair to my own room, carefully shutting the door behind me. Then I sat down on the floor on the other ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... over the ocean in mid air. And now the wind drew round to the northward and it blew almost a gale. The vessel felt its power and bent before it. It was beautiful to watch the process of hand-reefing topsails and making the vessel snug—the ready obedience to the word of command and the noiseless discipline with which each duty was fulfilled. First had the men clustered on the rigging like bees; then at the word to lay out they fearlessly extended themselves along the yard-arm, and whilst they took in the reefs the ship pitched and rolled so heavily that one ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... husband's stood the money drain; but how about the golden hours? She was losing her youth and wasting her soul. Yet the administration gave her a warning; they did not allow the irretrievable hours to be stolen from her with a noiseless hand. At All Souls' College, Oxford, in the first quadrangle, grave, thoughtful men raised to the top story, two hundred years ago, a grand sundial, the largest, perhaps, and noblest in the kingdom. They set it on the face of the Quad, and wrote over the long ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... appropriated it as a peltry magazine. To the dynasty of traders had succeeded the spiritual rule of a Jesuit Mission; then miners kindled camp fires in the deserted excavations, as they probed the mountain for ores; and more recently the noiseless feet of a band of holy celibates belonging to an austere Order, went up and down the face of the cliff, with cross and bell and incense exorcising haunting aboriginal spectres; while holy water sprinkled the uncanny, dismal precincts of a circular room ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... housekeeper stood by his side. The Archdeacon, his hands behind his back, paced the noiseless Turkey carpet. "I hope," said he, "your doctor will not be long ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... may be swing seats, stools, or chairs. The swing seats are noiseless and easily put out of the way, but are uncomfortable and unsteady, so that the pupils are inclined to prop themselves by placing their elbows on the table. The stools and chairs are noisy and occupy ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... from her chair, and putting up her finger. He saw her by the dull light of the fire, and closed the door without a sound. Clara then crept into the back-room and he followed her with a noiseless step. 'She did not sleep at all last night,' said Clara; 'and now the unusual excitement of the day has fatigued her, and I think it is better not to wake her.' The rooms were large, and they were able to place themselves at such a distance from the sleeper that their low words could ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... dropped his hands and lifted his eyes in speechless despair. As they fell again upon Sidonie, her own met them. She moaned, covered her face in her hands, burst into tears, ran to her desk and threw her hands and face upon it, shaking with noiseless sobs and burning red to the nape of her perfect neck. All Grande Pointe rose ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Not one word more of the consumed time. Let's take the instant by the forward top; For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of time Steals ere we can effect them. You remember The ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... own self-reproaches as a naughty child runs away from a scolding, and was soon at the parlor entrance with a noiseless tread, a grace of motion, and a motive that suggested the lithe panther stealing on its prey. The door was ajar, and a hasty glance revealed that the object of her designs was alone. Her stealthy manner changed instantly, and ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... above me, and been amazed at its rapid evolutions; and admired the wisdom of that Providence which had so adapted this little animal for the part it was to act on the great stage of the universe. So light, that it had no difficulty in maintaining a prolonged flight, with its noiseless wing, making its sweeps to greater or lesser distances, and seeming never to require rest. The habit of this Goat-sucker is to lie under any tree or brush during the day, from which it issues in great alarm on ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... back into the narrow way with his hands. "Wait here!" he said, and gave her the flame-thrower. "I've an idea!" He stepped softly out into the broad passage and on naked, noiseless feet, moved ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... a bright light above the sun—a mock sun which shone more fiercely than a fire in daylight. She heard wild voices singing; on still days she saw the trees in Knapp Forest bent to a furious wind. When Mabilla crept up the fell on noiseless feet to spy for Andrew King, Bessie Prawle heard the bents hiss and crackle under her, as if ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... that week; and they had opened to him like palaces ruined, like cemeteries laid waste by God. They were forbidding with their veiled images, their crucifixes wrapped lozenge-wise in purple, their organs dumb, their bells silent. The crowd flowed in, busy, but noiseless, along the floor over the immense cross formed by the nave and the two transepts, and entering by the wounds of which the doors were figures, they went up to the altar, where the blood-stained head of Christ would lie, and there on their knees eagerly kissed the crucifix ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... from the grate, of the monotonous ticking of the clock, of the soft, almost imperceptible rustle of something on the floor close beside them. A figure had emerged from under one of the benches; with snake-like, noiseless movements it crept closer and closer to the two young men, not breathing, only gliding along the floor, in the inky blackness of ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... of the same description as the first. Each of these four portions (the two compartments and their pouches) was in constant but independent motion, distending and contracting alternately; and by carefully examining the noiseless play of this singular machine, (the walls of which were, by the magic power of the fairy, rendered transparent to the bystanders,) the learned assembly were very soon enabled to convince themselves, that ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... existence in the peacefulness of the night, filled the clear darkness with a silent restlessness. Great birds fled silently through the air like shadows; the humming of invisible insects could be heard, and noiseless races took place across the dewy grass or along the quiet sandy roads. The short monotonous croak of the frogs was the only sound that ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... closed something snapped within Bernice. She sprang dynamically to her feet, clinching her hands, then swiftly and noiseless crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing, Then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfulls of lingerie and stammer dresses. She moved quietly. but deadly ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in on tiptoe through a noiseless door, over Persian carpets, and came upon her adorer, standing lost in amazement—in the stupid amazement when a man's ears tingle so loudly that he hears nothing but that ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and yells to which reference has been made had naturally attracted the attention of that wily savage when he was in the cave. Following the sounds with quick, noiseless step, he soon found himself within a few paces of the deliberating trio. The savage did not make much of the conversation, but he gathered sufficient to assure himself that his hiding-place had been discovered, and that plans were being laid ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... from the arsenal of them in his breast-pocket, and with it was beating a noiseless tattoo on his open left palm. With an effort ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... continued its noiseless course, with the sprite-like movement peculiar to that description of boat. Gino, who, as superior over his fellow, stood perched on the little arched deck in the stern, pushed his oar with accustomed readiness and skill, now causing ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Johnnie, who was flying down-stairs with joyous though noiseless bounds, his whole person radiant with good tidings. 'Papa is asleep! grandpapa. Papa ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in history's page, Up to the clouds seemed scaling, stage by stage, Noiseless their streets; their sleeping inmates lie, Their gods, their chariots, in obscurity! Like sisters sleeping 'neath the same moonlight, O'er their twin towers crept the shades of night, Whilst scarce ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... placed her father's evening meal before him, she cautiously gazed down the narrow alley, and perceiving no one stirring, sallied forth. The stars gave a faint light, and she hurried on toward the bridge: swift was her step, yet noiseless, and she glided on like a being from another world, so stealthy were her movements. The bridge was gained at length and almost passed, when she descried in the surrounding gloom a dark figure approaching from the opposite direction. Closer she drew the ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... relieved when he turned abruptly and left the apartment. When the maid came in she found Miss Garrison asleep on the couch, her cheeks stained with tears. Tired, despairing, angry, she had found forgetfulness for the while. Sleep sat lightly upon her troubled brain, however, for the almost noiseless movements of the maid awakened her and she ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... thus impressed with the idea of his remembering so much, the person who best knew how little he had learned.] Richard did not, and could not forget what he once knew, but his path to knowledge was his own,—his steps were noiseless,—his progress was scarcely felt by himself,—his ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... seem to attract their notice; but how great was my astonishment on observing that my bearers were carrying me, in unvarying circles, round the market place, though at every turn they contracted the space they traversed—and that the usual heavy-sounding tread of the chairmen was changed for a noiseless, gliding pace. I looked out to see whether they had not drawn off their boots, but I was soon convinced by the evidence of my eyes that their heavy boots were in unison with the rest of the customary apparel ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... Theodore, trembling in every limb so that he dropped rather than sat down in his chair, again watched and waited. A shadow fell between him and the light and his raised eyes met the doctor's. He had come in through the room where Jim was waiting. He came with noiseless tread to the bedside, and the instant his practiced eyes fell on the sleeping face they lighted up with a quick, glad look. Moving silently back to the door again he signaled Theodore to come to him, while as ...
— Three People • Pansy
... has no bonne!" Parbleu! It has become a household phrase in Pont du Sable. It is so difficult to get a servant here; the girls are all fishing. As for Tanrade's maid-of-all-work, like the noiseless butler of the marquis and the femme de chambre of Alice de Breville, they are all from Paris; and yet I'll wager that no larder in the village is better stocked than Monsieur le Cure's, for every housewife vies with ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... blazed with lights; councillors and ambassadors were walking about in noiseless shoes carrying gold dishes. It was enough to make one nervous! His boots creaked dreadfully loud, but he ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... also paid his rare formal calls—calls throughout which he always preserved the gravity of an Indian, though having a disconcerting way of suddenly tip-toeing across the room to some unfamiliar object, such as a peacock screen or a vase, feeling it gently with one forefinger, and returning with noiseless gait to his chair, unmoved, and making no comment. On the morning of a hunt he would always appear on a stout horse, clad in a long linen duster, a huge club in his hand, and his trousers working half-way up his legs. He hunted everything on all possible occasions; ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... his hand a weapon that none but a Hillsborough cutler would have thought of; yet, as usual, it was very fit for the purpose, being noiseless and dangerous, though old-fashioned. It was a long strong bow, all made of yew-tree. The man fitted an arrow to this, and running lightly to the first turn, obtained a full view of Little's retiring ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... and locked the door behind her; and then downstairs they went, and out-a- doors by a little wicket at the stair-end. The dawn drew on apace now, and Birdalone saw at once the other twain lurking in the wall- nook hard by. No word was spoken between them, and with noiseless feet they went forth into the orchard, where the blackbirds and thrushes were beginning their first morning song, and ere they came out on to the meadow the full ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... other speech than music. He started to his feet and looked around him for the singer. There was no one visible. The amber streaks in the sky were leaping into crimson flame; the Fjord glowed like the burning lake of Dante's vision; one solitary sea-gull winged its graceful, noiseless flight far above, its white pinions shimmering like jewels as it crossed the radiance of the heavens. Other sign of animal life there was none. Still the hidden voice rippled on in a stream of melody, and the listener stood amazed and enchanted at the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Harding, with Miller before and Swenson behind her, had taken up the march behind the loot-laden party seven dusky, noiseless shadows had emerged from the forest to ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of a shabby rooming house in Thirty-ninth Street. And this was the dream: By the time he was—well, long before he was thirty—he would have a bachelor apartment with a Jap, Saki. Saki was the perfect servant, noiseless, unobtrusive, expert. He saw little dinners just for four—or, at the most, six. And Saki, white-coated, deft, sliding hot plates when plates should be hot; cold plates when plates should be cold. Then, other evenings, alone, when he wanted ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... some breath of humor seeming to stir in him unbidden, the true meaning was given to his face. Each feature helped to make a smile that was the very soul's life of the man expressed. It broadened, showing brilliant teeth, and grew into a noiseless laugh; and then I saw before me Dosso's jester, the type of Shakespeare's fools, the life of that wild irony, now rude, now fine, which once delighted courts. The laughter of the whole world and of all the centuries was silent in his face. What ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... have, inevitably, to slacken speed as the wheels of our carriage sink into the sand. Around us still are some stray ramblers, who presently assume the air of ghosts, with their long black or white draperies, and noiseless tread. And then, not a soul; nothing but the ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... its rivers know there is but one Florida, with its bearded oaks and fronded palms; its dusky woods, carpeted with glassy waters; its cypress bays, where lonely cranes pose, silently thoughtful (of stray polliwogs); and its birds of wondrous plumage that rise with startled splash when the noiseless canoe ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... depict it. It was a gulph of darkness, where the baneful animal crept, where the cold, gliding serpent maddened the sinner with his envenomed tooth, and hissed the dirge of horror, while the lion prowled along with his noiseless paw, and hungry wolves devoured those whom for their crimes on earth the Druids (unable to conquer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... Death steps noiseless nigh, Hist to the dirges o'er the sleeping sea! Dim funeral trains pass melancholy by And monotone their mournful minstrelsy. It is the grave that opes by Heav'n's decree, And steeps each thing in its sepulchral breath, The self-same grave that soon must yawn for thee, The grave ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... the announcement of the noiseless gun invented in New York comes the news that they have now invented some sound-proof bacon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... of Cecil Rhodes back to Oriel. Everywhere, balanced against the Town Hall or the Parliament House, will be the great university buildings and art museums, the lecture halls open to all comers, the great noiseless libraries, the book exhibitions and book and pamphlet stores, keenly criticized, keenly used, will teem with unhurrying, incessant, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... of other days,—two old and wrinkled men,— Beyond the dreams of boyish hours and all we fancied then,— And as we talked our hearts grew warm, and down the noiseless night We romped again with golden feet and hearts ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... parent, who gathered her to her bosom, covered her with noiseless kisses, and murmured love over her like a cushat ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... behold it was as he had suspected, a hall leading straight through to the front door, and Shorty, with his full length profile cut clear against the morning, standing on the upper step keeping lookout! He dodged back and caught his breath, then made a noiseless dart toward those stairs. If Shorty heard, or if he turned and saw anything he must have thought it was the reported ghost walking, so silently and like a breath passed Billy up the stair. But when he was come to the top, he held his breath again, for now he ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... them to be of the guard; while in the lofty barracks, numerous lights flashing to and fro, and moving with rapidity, attested the alacrity with which the troops off duty were equipping themselves for some service of more than ordinary interest. So noiseless, too, was this preparation, as far as speech was concerned, that the occasional opening and shutting of pans, and ringing of ramrods to ascertain the efficiency of the muskets, might be heard distinctly in the stillness of the night at a distance ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable movement the whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ever-present caress, she may recollect that these are often the first fruits of a passion whose early way-side harvest will be scorched and shrivelled as soon as the sun is high; while the seed which bringeth forth a hundred, nay a thousand fold, of true grain, sleeps in long silence, and grows up noiseless and slow. ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... person at a time. On entering we were jealously scrutinized by the Amazonian guard, and a "high private" questioned the propriety of admitting my boy; whereat a general tittering, and we passed on. We advanced through the noiseless oval door, and entered the dim, cool pavilion, in the centre of which the tables were arranged for school. Away flew several venerable dames who had awaited our arrival, and in about an hour returned, bringing with them twenty-one scions of Siamese royalty, to be initiated into the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... steps paused upon the threshold, but only for a second. Almost immediately they came on into the room, and as they passed from the wood to the carpet Shorthouse noticed that they became wholly noiseless. He waited in suspense, not knowing whether the unseen walker was on the other side of the room or was close upon him. Presently he stood up and stretched out his left arm in front of him, groping, searching, feeling in a circle; and behind it he held the pistol, cocked and pointed, ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... they kept at a respectful distance. However, seeing it motionless, by degrees they took courage, and sought to familiarise themselves with it. Now this familiarity was precisely what it was necessary to avoid. Our arms, which were noiseless, could only produce a moderate effect on the savages, who have little respect for aught but blustering things. The thunderbolt without the reverberations of thunder would frighten man but little, though the danger lies in the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... the New South Wales black butt and tallow wood were the most durable and noiseless woods ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... guide checked him. Wary and noiseless he waited while she stole forward to those stairs, peering up into the gloom, attentive for any sound from above.... Apparently satisfied, she went on towards the barred gate, and bent down over a spot of darkness which Ryder had ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... wounded man from his couch to the comfortable bed in the dugout. The young Indian took his place in the stern of the ticklish craft, and with a single shove of his long pole sent it far out into the stream. The captain, with Chris, followed a few yards behind, paddling with soft noiseless strokes. A few yards in their wake came the last canoe containing Walter and Charley, and quickly the outline of the point was ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... who had suffered for a time, and escaped the Siberian Ice-Hell. The fanaticism of his race and temperament flamed into his cold eyes as he sat and brooded, and he hardly noticed that Arithelli had slid into the room in her noiseless fashion, ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... I loved the school and could hardly be wrested from it even for a day. I bent to my books with eagerness, I joined a debating society, and I took a hand at all the games. The days went by on golden, noiseless, ball-bearing axles—and almost before I realized it, winter was upon the land. But oh! the luxury of that winter, with no snow drifts to climb, no corn-stalks to gather and no long walk to school. It was sweet to wake each morning in the shelter of our little house ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... brings a flower so lovable Of such a meditative restfulness As this, with all her roses and carnations. The morning hardly stirs their noiseless bells; Yet could I fancy that they whispered "Home," For all things gentle, all things beautiful, I hold, my mother, for ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... that notwithstanding man's vast number of scientific aids, animals are still invaluable. The innumerable mechanical and electrical devices unknown ten years ago, such as enormous rapid-firing guns, walking "Willies," wireless machines, traction engines, smokeless and noiseless powder, silent-sleepers and tear-bombs, all of these have greatly increased man's power of offence and defence, yet with all these ultra-modern improvements, animals are absolutely essential ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... she would slip off the nest for a few minutes every day, very stealthily, to feed and stretch and take a noiseless dip in the shallow water among the reeds; but as time went on she left the eggs only once in two days. Twice a day she would turn the eggs over carefully, and at the same time change their respective positions in the nest, so that those which ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a little cylindrical key. Then went to a brass wall plate beside the outer door, inserted the key, and turned. The sliding door to my cell opened on noiseless machined slides. ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Had she been removed to the noise and the whirl of city life, she would very probably have known how to define what she had lost, she might even have made others feel what she herself had so keenly felt. But in the silent towers of her home, or amidst that noiseless, ever- growing life that belongs to undisturbed nature, all she could have wished to express was expressed for her, in a grander language than that of man. She had no need of spending long hours in reverie and contemplation, as people do who are not used to their surroundings, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... is daintily conceived. Nothing is choicer in that sort of writing than to bring in some remote, impossible parallel,—as between a great empress and the inobtrusive, quiet soul who digged her noiseless way so perseveringly through that rugged Paraguay mine. How she Dobrizhoffered it all out, it puzzles my slender Latinity to conjecture. Why do you seem to sanction Landor's unfeeling allegorizing away of honest Quixote? He may as well say Strap is meant to symbolize the Scottish nation before the ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... calf-bound law books; piles of japanned deed-boxes, some marked in white letters 'Trustees of,' or 'Executors of' and pigeon-holes full of papers seem to quite hide the walls. The floor is covered with some material noiseless to walk on (the door, too, is double, to exclude noise and draught); the furniture is solid and valuable; the arm-chair you occupy capacious and luxurious. On the wall hangs a section of the Ordnance ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... centre of which lies a Bible; he hears the sound of the opening of prison doors behind which free-thinkers are suffering for the crime of having thought bold thoughts for the benefit of the sluggards; he listens to the noiseless footfall of the hotel porter who is coming with ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... with him here a few days before the Easter recess. To-night the MacCailean Mhor, on his way to his last resting-place in the Highlands, sleeps amid the stately silence of Westminster Abbey, unawakened by the noiseless footsteps of the ghosts of great men dead. Thus in Plantagenet times the coffined body of the wife of Edward I., brought from Lincoln to Westminster, halted by the way, Charing Cross being the last of the nine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... the approaching figure. It was coming on at a great pace, and in the twilight could be seen looming taller and taller as it crossed the road and turned in across the lawn, making a short cut according to Barnes's own fashion, so that the coming footsteps were noiseless, even to the moment when the ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... two days to deliberate on what course they ought to pursue. Then in the middle of the night, when they were all soundly asleep in fancied security, the gates of the city were thrown open, and a strong body of young men poured forth with great speed, creeping on with noiseless steps and drawn swords, till they entered the camp of the unsuspecting enemy, where they slew numbers of sleeping men, without ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... fortunately, at that time deserted by these beasts; or if they were in the neighborhood, the quiet, steady, noiseless stroke of the swimmer did not reach ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... vast water-privileges. His water-power seems proof against all floods, while the corn of all nations must come to his door. Standing under these drooping elms, by this lazy stream, we hear none of the clatter of the great mill, and we cease to dream of affixing a period to its noiseless and effective work. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... swift evening, I saw the silver crescent of the moon, falling out of the Southern sky, toward the West. The evening seemed to merge into an almost instant night. Above me, the many constellations passed in a strange, 'noiseless' circling, Westward. The moon fell through that last thousand fathoms of the night-gulf, and ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... afforded, without shedding any warmer or brighter tints upon the wet house-tops, and dreary streets. There appeared to be nobody stirring in that quarter of the town; the windows of the houses were all closely shut; and the streets through which they passed, were noiseless ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... laughed old Quinto Lalli with a quiet, almost noiseless laugh; "it is very well and shrewdly said, bambina mia. But between the two times of interference, my Bianca, there is a happy medium; an intervening space, a high table-land, we may say, after the dominion of fathers and uncles has been escaped from, and before that of sons and nephews begins—a ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... There, profuse She wept, and thus the sacred bard bespake. Phemius! for many a sorrow-soothing strain Thou know'st beside, such as exploits record Of Gods and men, the poet's frequent theme; Give them of those a song, and let themselves Their wine drink noiseless; but this mournful strain 430 Break off, unfriendly to my bosom's peace, And which of all hearts nearest touches mine, With such regret my dearest Lord I mourn, Rememb'ring still an husband praised from side To side, and in the very heart of Greece. Then answer thus Telemachus ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... at the mounting masses that rolled into the heavens and blossomed bodefully over the wooded hills. Fat clouds of the smoke hung high and motionless. From the earth went up to them whirls and spirals and billowing discharges like smoke from noiseless artillery. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... and heath. No sound rose, no light was visible, on either shore. The black lines of the topmost masts of the wreck looked shadowy and faint in the darkening mystery of the sky; the land breeze had dropped; the small shoreward waves fell noiseless: far or near, no sound was audible but the cheerless bubbling of the broken water ahead, pouring through the awful hush of silence in which earth and ocean waited for ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... comfortable in his chair, the ladies seemed so entirely at leisure, such a noiseless calm brooded about them, unbroken by any new arrival, that two hours went by insensibly, and with lingering reluctance the visitor found it time to take his leave. On reviewing the afternoon, Harvey concluded that it was probably as void ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... his electric drive and the boat began to forge ahead again, but with all the stealth of a tiger in the jungle. The operation of its machinery was noiseless, and only the gentle slap of the waves against the bow gave audible evidence of its passage. For a considerable time they rode in silence. In the thick darkness the shore was almost invisible while the glowing street lights that shone here and there served only to ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... a consistent Barbizonian; et ego in Arcadia vixi; it was a pleasant season; and that noiseless hamlet lying close among the borders of the wood is for me, as for so many others, a green spot in memory. The great Millet was just dead, the green shutters of his modest house were closed; his daughters were in mourning. The date of my first visit was thus ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pike, and seizing his own cross-bow, Rene slipped quickly through the gate (which swung to behind him), and with noiseless footsteps fled swiftly across the bridge that spanned the moat, and disappeared in the black ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... listened, but she heard nothing more, and then her reason began to assure her that a snake's movements on a bare floor would be absolutely noiseless; but in a moment all thoughts of serpents were driven from her head. Outside of the cabin she heard a sound that could be nothing less than the footsteps of some living creature—a wild beast, perhaps a panther. The door was shut and ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... nearest and dearest might have been pardoned for shrinking. But Eunice never faltered; she never left her post. Sometimes she dozed in a chair by the bed, but she never lay down. Her endurance was something wonderful, her patience and tenderness almost superhuman. To and fro she went, in noiseless ministry, as the long, dreadful days wore away, with a quiet smile on her lips, and in her dark, sorrowful eyes the rapt look of a pictured saint in some dim cathedral niche. For her there was no ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... corn, in shy gazelles Running the sand where no man dwells; In horses scared at the prairie spring; In the dun deer noiseless, hurrying; In fish in the dimness scarcely seen, Save as shadows shooting in a shaking green; In birds in the air, neck-straining, swift, Wing touching wing while no wings shift, Seen by none, ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... palaces of the higher courts wherein broad stairways, paneled mahogany, stained glass, and soft noiseless carpets giving an air of repose and refined culture, are not altogether consistent with the modern spirit. The man on the street does not understand whether the marble statues on the roof are symbols of justice or late presidents of the United States. The usual courthouse of twenty years ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... but they slunk off, as if alarmed at his appearance. The monk had now gained the garden, and was shaping his course swiftly towards the ruined Conventual Church. Determined to overtake him, I quickened my pace; but he gained the old fane before me, and threaded the broken aisles with noiseless celerity. In the choir he paused and confronted me. When within a few yards of him, I paused, arrested by his fixed and terrible gaze. Nicholas, his look froze my blood. I would have spoken, but I could not. My tongue clove ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth |
