"Benumbed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I believe is either the first point in the Lowlands or the last in the Highlands. It is a large village on the river Teith. We stopped here to dine, and were some time in getting any warmth into our benumbed bodies; for, as I said before, it was a very cold day. Looking from the window of the hotel, I saw a young man in Highland dress, with bare thighs, marching through the village street towards the Lowlands, with a martial and elastic step, as if he were going forth to conquer and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of Polydorus thrown up on the shore, and the great wounds made by the Thracian weapons. The Trojan women cried out aloud; with grief she was struck dumb; and very grief consumed both her voice and the tears that arose within; and much resembling a hard rock she became benumbed. And at one moment she fixed her eyes on the ground before her; {and} sometimes she raised her haggard features towards the skies; {and} now she viewed the features, now the wounds of her son, as he lay; the wounds especially; and she armed ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... resist; his arm, benumbed by the violence of the blow which had broken his gun, refused its service. In an instant Pepe had untied the woollen scarf which was wound several times round his body, and bound with it the limbs of his enemy. Diaz could offer no assistance, for he had himself ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... face him. By so doing he placed himself between the fire and his friend Tom. Two or three of the others followed his example, though not from the same motive, and thus, when the fire burnt low, the prisoner found himself lying in deep shadow. By that time he had freed his benumbed hands, chafed them into a condition of vitality, and was considering whether he should endeavour to creep quietly away or spring up and make ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... are forced to stay a certain time by the eccentricities of trains, and in whose presence you grope about after common interests and shrink back into your shell on finding that you have none. Then a frost slowly settles down on me and I grow each minute more benumbed and speechless, and the babies feel the frost in the air and look vacant, and the callers go through the usual form of wondering who they most take after, generally settling the question by saying that the May baby, who is ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... sorcerers within these four last years are marvellously increased within Your Grace's realm; Your Grace's subjects pine away even unto the death; their color fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. I pray God," continues the courtly preacher, "they never practise further than upon the subject." The petition of the polite prelate appears to have been answered. The virgin queen resisted inexorably the arts ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... his respects to current architectural criticism—a straining at gnats and a swallowing of camels, by minds "benumbed by culture," and hearts made faint by the tyranny of precedent. He complains that they make no distinction between was and is, too readily assuming that all that is left us moderns is the humble privilege to select, ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... His brain benumbed beyond further capacity for astonishment, he accepted without demur this latest and most astounding of the chain of amazing coincidences which had thus far enlivened the night's earlier hours; and stood rapt ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... standing apart on some grassy eminence. When night fell the waters grew louder, a stinging wind swept the woods, and the carriage, staggering from rut to rut, seemed every moment about to land them in some invisible ravine. Fear and cold at last benumbed the little boy, and when he woke he was being lifted from his seat and torches were flashing on a high escutcheoned doorway set in battlemented walls. He was carried into a hall lit with smoky oil-lamps and hung with ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... hers—perhaps the warmth would flow back into the cold arm, the chill heart; perhaps he could give her some of his vitality. The possibility afforded him a meager comfort, instilled a faint glow into his benumbed being. His hand closed upon that covered by the linen like a shroud. He sat rigid, concentrated, in his effort, his purpose. The light flickered again from the fiery ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the opposite bank my situation is really quite critical; in a few moments my garments are frozen stiff; everything I have with me is wet; my leathern case, containing the small stock of medicines, matches, writing material, and other small but necessary articles, is full of water, and, with hands benumbed, I am unable ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... lives. This aged Chinaman for whom there was no future except to join his ancestors in another life, was now a pauper notwithstanding all his quest for the treasures of the mines; and his chief solace, if it be comfort indeed to have the senses benumbed periodically, or daily, and then wake up to the consciousness of loss and with a feeling of despair betimes, was in his opium pipe, which he smoked fifty times a day at the cost of half a dollar, the offering of charity, the dole received from his pitying countrymen ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... outline of its lofty walls and ponderous gates, as they swung open, grating upon their hinges, to engulf a fresh supply of misery within that sepulchre of the living. We were now thrust into a building, reeking wet and benumbed with cold. All was in total darkness, and we were in dread of breaking some of our limbs, should we undertake to explore the limits or condition of our prison. As it was, we were fain to lie down upon the stone pavement which formed the floor of our abode. In this state we passed ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... Drenkova without accident, but completely benumbed: we hurried into the inn built by the steamboat company, where we found capital fare, a warm room, and tolerably comfortable beds. This was the first place we had reached since leaving Pesth at which we could ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... day nothing could happen that would surprise me. I was benumbed. The man who was lifted through the window was clad in white linen to his feet. He was a Hebrew, a poor, thin, weak, pale Hebrew. He wore his white funeral dress. He shivered from cold, trembled, seemed almost unconscious. The ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... came into view. He speaks of "the interesting group upon the deck" of the little vessel. The very word suggests that we are to have a very commonplace account of the landing, and the circumstances which followed it. In an instant, however, we are made to "feel the cold which benumbed, and listen to the winds which pierced" this "interesting" group; and immediately after, the picture is flashed upon the imagination of "chilled and shivering childhood, houseless, but for a mother's arms, couchless, but for a mother's breast,"—an image which shows that the orator had not only ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... as if her sensations were suddenly benumbed. She felt nothing but a horrible surprise. Her lover—her platonic lover—that other half of her mind and heart—with whom she had been in such tender sympathy, in unison of spirit, so subtle that the same thoughts sprang up simultaneously in the minds of each, the same language leapt to their ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... the hummock and whipping their arms about them the prisoners succeeded in getting some warmth into their benumbed bodies. To their surprise the noise they made did not attract any notice from the Indians or Callack. As it happened, the Alaskans were all so wearied with their day's labor that they ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... infallible, perhaps because it is automatic, regard for its own comfort and well-being—it cannot be induced to tie itself into a knot. It is in mind that once in the old country a very long and very cold lethargic boa constrictor became benumbed and forgot the primal instinct of the family, and paid for its absent-mindedness with its life. But the ordinary snake under extraordinary conditions, whatsoever its length, is most careful to disentangle ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... now see the Naestone; and there they saw two objects—one standing, earnestly watching the efforts of the Darlings to reach them, the other lying helplessly on the rocks, apparently benumbed. ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... in Spain. The peninsula had for its ruler a prince who sought his glory in smothering free thought among his own people, and in wasting his immense resources in vain efforts to repress it also outside of his own dominions through all Europe. From that hour, Spain became benumbed and estranged from all the advances of science and art, by means of which other nations, and especially England, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... little step had he not virtually lifted her up. He took her directly to the library and laid her on the sofa. The fire, owing to the absence of McVay, had gone out. It took Geoffrey some time with his benumbed hands to build a blaze. When he turned toward her again she ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... coat collar up to disguise himself, the Colonel climbed the narrow stairs. Peeping through the door at the whisking dancers he skulked along the side of the room until he reached the big, open wood fireplace. The warmth was very grateful to his benumbed frame. He had not the assurance to look around at the dancers; while his front side was thoroughly warmed, the rear of his anatomy was still numb. About the time he had determined to about face, the dance ceased. He heard several remarks not ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... cup of whiskey, smiling vaguely, yet with a certain terror in their eyes. Their hands were cold; the cards slipped from Uncle Billy's benumbed fingers; when he had shuffled them he passed them to his partner to shuffle them also, but did not speak. When Uncle Jim had shuffled them methodically he handed them back fatefully to his partner. Uncle Billy dealt them ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... a friar of San Marco. Amadeo was speechless; and, if he had not been so, he never would have made a promise he intended to violate. She retired from him. After a time he arose, less wounded than benumbed by the sharp uncovered stones in the garden-walk; and, as a man who fears to fall from a precipice goes farther from it than is necessary, so did Amadeo shun the quarter where the gate is, and, oppressed by his agony and despair, throw his ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... he was not looking for this; he had not thought of praying; he was in such distress that it had benumbed the out-goings of his spirit towards the source whence alone sure comfort comes. He went out into the storm; and the uproar in the outer world was in harmony with the tumult within his soul. Suddenly a clear space in the sky makes him feel—he has no time to ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... toward the letter v. The general frowned at the interruption, and, after a moment's silence, took the card, put on his pince-nez and, groaning from pain in his loins, rose to his full height, rubbing his benumbed fingers. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... Swinton, and she sighed with unspeakable weariness. It had been one of those dull, monotonous, clerical days, replete with platitudes, the tedium of custom, and all the petty ceremonies and observances that she hated. She returned home worn out physically, and mentally benumbed. Netty, who had remained away, on pretence of a bad cold, met ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... the valley it melted off our clothes, but higher up on the open, windy heights it froze to a cake of ice, and before long our clothes on the windward side were converted into a thick cuirass which prevented every movement. At last we were practically frozen fast in the saddle. Our hands were benumbed, the reins fell on the horses' necks, our eyes were sore from the snowstorm which dashed straight into our faces. I was so stiff that I lost all feeling in my arms and legs, tumbled off my horse, and went on foot, but I had to ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... twentieth century was to be thrust back into the ancient barbarism of a general war? It was like a dreadful nightmare. There was the head of the huge dragon, crested, fanged, clad in glittering scales, poised above the world and ready to strike. We were benumbed and terrified. There was nothing that we could do. The monstrous thing advanced, but even while we shuddered we could not make ourselves feel that it was real. It had the vagueness and the horrid ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... what Mary Phillips said. Perhaps my senses were benumbed. Perhaps the wind was carrying away her words. That it was blowing from me toward her soon became too evident. The steamer was receding from the Sparhawk. The instant I became aware of this my powers of perception and reasoning returned to me with ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... slippery with black mud and blacker ice, a yellow halo surrounds the gas lamps, even the Bude lights look quenched and uncomfortable; cabmen, peevish at the paucity of fares, curse with triple intensity the wood pavement and the luckless garrons that slide and stumble over it; the blue and benumbed fingers of Italian grinders can scarcely turn the organ handles; tattered children and half-starved women, pale, shivering, and tearful, pester the pedestrian with offers of knitted wares, and of winter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... began to read it while he was standing with his arm leaning against a chimney-piece. It seized his attention so strongly, that, not being able to lay down the book till he had finished it, when he attempted to move, he found his arm totally benumbed. The rapidity with which this work was composed, is a wonderful circumstance. Johnson has been heard to say, 'I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting; but then I ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... his chest. A common cabin lamp with its globe missing, brought up from below, had been hooked to the wooden framework of the awning; the side-screens had been lowered all round; Captain Whalley filling the depths of the wicker-chair seemed to sit benumbed in a canvas tent crudely lighted, and used for the storing of nautical objects; a shabby steering-wheel, a battered brass binnacle on a stout mahogany stand, two dingy life-buoys, an old cork fender lying in a corner, dilapidated deck-lockers ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... however mistaken, in supposing he could excite the benumbed faculties of the Doctor, by provoking a discussion. From that time, henceforth, he was never known, except on one occasion, to utter a word that indicated either the species, or the genus, of the animal. He obstinately ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... set, the tongs fell from the steward's hands. He did not stop to finish his errand, but ran as if the devil or justice were at his heels. He made such leaps, he uttered such groans, he was so blackened, scorched, and benumbed, that every one in the village was afraid of him, thinking that he was mad. The boldest tried to speak to him, but he fled without answering, and hid himself in his house, more ashamed than a wolf that has left his paw in ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... half-dead with cold, hunger, and fear, the snow nearly up to her knees, saw ere long, to her intense horror, a savage bear approaching; and Catharine, making a frantic effort to escape, found her limbs so benumbed and her weakness so great that she ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... Lord bids us give our coat and our cloak to him who would take them from us; whereas the knight's part is to strip all that remains from him from whom he hath already taken his coat and his cloak. These contradictory principles benumbed sometimes the courage of this man so full of propriety; but when the declaration of Pope Urban had assured remission of all their sins to all Christians who should go and fight the Gentiles, then Tancred awoke in some sort from his dream, and this new opportunity ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... daily expense amounted to one shilling and eightpence; so that, on entering the metropolis, all we possessed was five shillings and a few pence. It was the dead of winter, and nearly dark, when we were passing down St. John Street, Clerkenwell. I was benumbed, my wife was fainting, and our poor child was blue and speechless. We entered a public-house near Smithfield, where two pints of warm porter and ginger, with a crust of bread and cheese, operated as partial restoratives. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... The horrors of such visitations are beyond description, and can scarcely be imagined. For a time, attempts were made to collect and bury the dead. Wagons would pass through the streets at night collecting the victims. The drivers, benumbed with drink, frequently failed to ascertain whether death had occurred. Living patients, desperately ill, were piled into the wagons with corpses beneath, about, and on them. These gruesome loads were dumped pell-mell into huge pits hastily dug for the purpose. In some ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... every grasp with interest, the less vigorous hands of the professor were fairly benumbed by such constant shaking, but his eyes sparkled with joy, though a tear was stealing down his cheek; but—and the phenomenon was certainly well worthy the attention of ophthalmologists—the tear ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... without water when they reached here they certainly looked most pitiable objects. Whilst searching for water the weather was most favourable, although sometimes freezingly cold when travelling at night; so much so that to keep ourselves from getting benumbed Mr. Bourne and I often walked. Being able only to take a small quantity of water with us Jemmy, who was suffering very much from his back, injured by the burning, felt often very thirsty but, poor fellow, we could only spare him a small quantity. The country we saw on this ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... burn, and burnt for three days until all the wood was consumed, and when the flames had burnt out, the Frosty One was standing amid the ashes, trembling like an aspen leaf, and saying, "I never felt such a frost during the whole course of my life; if it had lasted much longer, I should have been benumbed!" ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... the Soul does not see well thro' purblind Eyes. The Ears hear not clearly when stopped with Filth. The Brain smells not so well when oppressed with Phlegm. And a Member feels not so much when it is benumbed. The Tongue tastes less, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... is a man that hath no God but his belly, nor any religion but that by which his belly is worshipped. His religion is always, like the times, turning this way and that way, like the cock on the steeple; neither hath he any conscience but a benumbed and seared one, and is next door to a downright atheist; and also is one of the many that "will seek to enter in, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... down briskly, trying to shake off the cold which benumbed him. Every now and then he paused to look at the lights on the receding French coast, at its gray phantom line sweeping southward under the stormy moon, or disappearing to the north in clouds of rain. There was a roar of waves and a dashing of spray. The boat, not a large one, was pitching ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... suffering what man had never suffered before; perhaps of at last emerging from this load of wretchedness triumphant over my enemies. So long and ardently did my fancy dwell on this picture, that my mind at length acquired a heroism which Socrates himself certainly never possessed. Age had benumbed his sense of pleasure, and he drank the poisonous draught with cool indifference; but I was young, inured to high hopes, yet now beholding deliverance impossible, or at an immense, a dreadful distance. Such, too, were the other sufferings of soul and body, I could ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... The sea broke heavily and dangerously over the vessel. But the Captain, finding shelter for several hours under the lee of a headland, saved both the ship and the passengers. When at last we landed, my foot was so benumbed and painful that I could move a step only with greatest agony. Two meetings, however, were in some kind of way conducted; but the projected visit to Dingwall and other places had to be renounced, the snow lying too deep for any conveyance to carry ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... strangely benumbed. She thought of rousing Harriet to fetch the doctor, but she could not move. All feeling was suspended except the sensation of waiting. This lasted awhile, then a lump began to mount in her throat, and she had to gulp it ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... hurried forward in the alley to meet the procession. But he did not use that revolver. Benson took quick aim and fired, and coincident with the report the nickel-plated weapon left his hand, whirling high in air before falling overboard. Billings whinnied in pain, and, rubbing his benumbed hand, backed ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... succeeded in making the ascent. In the snowy wastes near the summit they came upon five bodies, lying upon their sides in a reposeful attitude which suggested that possibly they had fallen asleep there, while exhausted with fatigue and hunger and benumbed with cold, and never knew when death stole upon them. Couttet moved a few steps further and discovered five more bodies. The eleventh corpse—that of a porter—was not found, although diligent ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wherewith I was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter grew feller in the bite, and I became in a manner almost helpless. The mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up, and about the dawn of morning I walked in a willess manner, the blood in my veins not more benumbed in its course than was the fluency of my spirit ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... twenty theatres are needed to satisfy the amusement seeking crowd of New York, in addition to the half dozen which offer art. This mad race to outdo one another and this hunting after pleasures which tickle the senses have benumbed the social mind and have inhibited in it the feeling for deeper values. But if by a magic word extreme equality of material means were created and the mere sensuous enjoyments evenly distributed, in that moment all the other differences ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... Benumbed with cold, and sorely wounded by the sharp edges of the rocks, he was at first scarcely able to move, but still he managed to keep his head above the water, and after an half hour spent in a vigorous struggle with death, a rushing wave once more carried ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... of sun and fair weather, and then fifty miles of bitter, aching cold, with nights of peril from the increasing chill, so that Jim dared not sleep lest he should never wake again, but die benumbed and exhausted. Yet Arrowhead slept through all. Day after day so, and then ten miles of storm such as come only to the vast barrens of the northlands; and woe to the traveller upon whom the icy wind and the blinding snow descended! Woe came upon Jim ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... home, said the sombre, dingy servant, and in half a minute Arthur found himself in the marquis's study and in the marquis's presence, with his nose all red and moist, his feet in an agony of cold, his fingers benumbed, and his teeth chattering. He was barely allowed time to take off his greatcoat, and, as he did so, he felt almost disinclined to part ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking about, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... keeps our minds at peace. Even the refuge in God does not always secure us from external suffering. The heart may be quite happy and strong when the hands are benumbed with cold. Yes, the heart even may grow cold with coming death, while the man himself retreats the farther into the secret place of the Most High, growing more calm and hopeful as the last cold invades the house ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... state, and deliver him from the destroying power of sin, that Jesus came into the world. But when he came he found man so low down in the darkness of ignorance, so stupid and slow to open his eyes, so benumbed by the chilling power of the love of self, so infested and possessed by evil spirits of hell, that but little impression could be made upon him, except such as could be felt and seen by means ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... had flung open the slatted window, and a great beam of warm, serene sunlight streamed in, and lay in a dazzling white square upon the wet floor. Two men were busied about him. They had wrapped his body in a soft warm blanket, and were wiping dry his damp, chilled, benumbed hands and feet. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... was the terrible hunger that tormented her. But could she not stoop and break off a piece of the loaf on which she stood? No, her back was too stiff, her hands and arms were benumbed, and her whole body was like a pillar of stone; only she was able to turn her eyes in her head, to turn them quite round so that she could see backwards: it was an ugly sight. And then the flies came up, and ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... and thought again. Jemima's humanity had rather been benumbed than killed, by the keen frost she had to brave at her entrance into life; an appeal then to her feelings, on this tender point, surely would not be fruitless; and Maria began to anticipate the delight it would ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... but Orlando helped (so woe begone Was weeping Olivier, and brought so low) He could not have released his limb alone; And, when released, endures such pain, such woe, The helpless warrior cannot stand upon, Or shift withal his wounded foot, and so Benumbed and crippled is the leg above, That ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... fellow prisoners now as they crouched and assisted to pass him along over their heads, for they were so packed that they could not make room to carry him through. Along over their heads they tenderly passed the poor, emaciated body, so shrunken with prison life and benumbed with cold. We got him into clean blankets, but at first he could not endure the pain from the fire, he was so nearly frozen. We gave him some hot soup and more brandy, and he lay quiet till after midnight. Then he asked for his flute and began playing. As he played ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... that the limbs, that is, the country districts, generally refused to follow the head in these fantastic movements. Hence, after a short spell of St. Vitus' activity, there always came a time of strife, followed only too often by torpor, when the body reduced the head to a state of benumbed subjection. The triumph of rural notions accounts for the reactions of 1831-47, and 1851-70. Paris having once more regained freedom of movement by the fall of the Second Empire on September 4, at once sought to begin her politico-social experiments, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... worshippers all the foundations of their faith, and all the elements of a religious life. A book of poems, breathing faith and worship at all points, and in all attitudes of heavenward contemplation, within the circle of the Christian Year, would, he hoped, restore in many minds to many a benumbed form life ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... cold and motionless. He was stunned, benumbed, by what he saw and heard. Laura drew away from Hector, and tried to free her hand from ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gallant captain instantly divined its cause, seized, loaded, and cocked his gun, and ordered the tent door to be opened, upon which a huge bear was seen outside. Captain Ommaney fired at the animal, but, whether from the benumbed state of his limbs, or the dim glimmering light, he unfortunately missed him, and shot away the rope that supported the tent instead. The enraged monster then poked his head against the poles, and the tent fell upon its terrified inmates, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... storm increased; the wind howled, and whirled the snow into huge heaps. In the hope that he might possibly meet a traveler, the child forced his way for awhile through the snow; but at last, exhausted, benumbed with the cold, and discouraged, he fell upon his knees, joined his hands devoutly together, and cried, as he raised his face, bathed in tears, toward heaven, 'O my God! have mercy on a poor child, who has nobody in the world to care for him!' As he lay in the place ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... about the mines, and have often to stop to take breath. If these vapours are so strong without and in the open air, what must they be within the bowels of the earth in the mines, into which, if a fresh man go, he is suddenly benumbed with pain. This is the case with many, but seldom lasts above a day, and they are not liable to be affected a second time: Yet vapours often burst forth suddenly, by which the workmen are killed on the spot; and one way or another, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... too much time. After this I always went into town and fed in the stable. While the horses were eating and resting, I cleaned the cutter of snow looked after my footwarmer, and, by tramping about and kicking against the tree trunks, tried to get my benumbed circulation started again. My own lunch on examination proved to be frozen into one hard, solid lump. So I decided to go without it and to save it for ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... cold night, "O Lord!" No one changed his position or took any notice of the cry. One or two passed, with a repeated and vague gesture, their hand over their faces, but most of them kept very still. In the benumbed immobility of their bodies they were excessively wearied by their thoughts, which rushed with the rapidity and vividness of dreams. Now and then, by an abrupt and startling exclamation, they answered the weird hail of ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... had long since given up hope of becoming rich by this mad adventure. His only hope, the one that gave strength to his arms benumbed by long clinging to the flashlight and new sight to his eyes, weary with watching, was that they might discover some bit of land, a coral island, perhaps, where they might find refuge from the sea until a craft, called to their aid, might ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... time, when, after having crossed these mountains, he passed the Tanais to subdue the Scythians, and the soldiers were oppressed with thirst, hunger, fatigue, and despair, so that a great number died on the road, or lost their feet from congelation; the cold seizing them, it benumbed their hands, and they fell at full length on the snow to rise no more. The best means they knew, says Q. Curtius, to escape that mortal numbness, was not to stop, but to force themselves to keep marching, or else ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... but at length I obtained the object of my visit, and returned to my room, when, on opening the door, I saw poor Mangrove lying on his back in the middle of the floor, with his legs and arms extended as if he had been on the rack, his eyes set, his mouth open, and every faculty benumbed by fear. At his feet sat the negro child, almost as much terrified as he was, and crying most lamentably; while, at a little distance, sat the spectre of the old woman, scratching its head with ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... slinking home; they slept the time away, or sat all day with their elbows on the table, never uttering a word. The cold, that locked up all else, had an opposite effect upon the heart; there was much compassion abroad. Many whose wits had been benumbed by the cold, so that they did not attempt to carry on their avocations, had suffered no damage at heart, but expended their means in beneficence. Kindly people called the poor together, and took pains to find them out, for they were ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... this night of marching, across concentric circles as it seems, of darkness less dark, then of half-shadow, then of gloomy light. Legs have a wooden stiffness, backs are benumbed, shoulders bruised. Faces are still so gray or so black, one would say they had but half rid themselves of the night. Now, indeed, one never ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Benumbed with cold, and half dead with terror, Paslew needed all his companion's support, for he could do little to help himself, added to which, they occasionally encountered some large stone, or stepped into a deep hole, so that it required ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... we had come. I had felt there was much I would like, and ought, to say, but something in Tom's mood or mine, or in the situation, benumbed my thoughts so they would not come forth, or jumbled them so I knew not where to begin. Arrived upon the ground with a palpitating sense of the nearness of the event, we found ourselves still less fit for utterance of the things deepest in ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... awake or less benumbed by liquor than his fellows, heard the sounds from the river and called ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... these relations with a gloomy calmness and a defiant sorrow. Illness had wrought a peculiar change in her mind, and hardened the gentle, tender feelings of the young girl. Grief had steeled her soul, benumbed her heart, and she had risen from her couch as one born anew to grief and torture. Her present situation and lost happiness had changed the young, loving, tenderly-sensitive maiden to the courageous, energetic, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... his daughter, and rushed toward her with a cry of horror. Wallace sunk, with his breathless load, upon the nearest bench; and, while her head rested on his bosom, ordered surgery to be brought. Lady Mar gazed on the spectacle with a benumbed dismay. None present durst ask a question, till a priest drawing near, unwrapped the arm of Helen, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... know it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment of a mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy, methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the sons of Arithmetic and Prudence; our feelings and hearts are not benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which, whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the nobler qualities of the heart: in the name of random sensibility, then, let never the moon change on our silence any ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... dare," said he, with a guttural and foreign accent, and thereupon, without waiting for a reply, came forward and knelt down beside the dead man. After thrusting his hand into the silent and shrunken bosom, he presently looked up and fixed his penetrating eyes upon our hero's countenance, who, benumbed and bedazed with his despair, still stood like one enchained in the bonds of a nightmare. "He vas dead!" said the stranger, and Jonathan nodded his ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... splendid legions—the famous Neapolitan tercio of Trevico, the veteran troops of Sultz and Hachicourt, the picked Epirote and Spanish cavalry of Nicolas Basta and Guzman—would be hurled upon the wearied, benumbed, bemired soldiers of the republic, as they came slowly along after their long march through the cold ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... if he does not carry a saddle with him, determine to ride on an unsaddled horse, which, with the wretched steeds that are only available here, soon becomes so unpleasant that he at last prefers to let his legs hang benumbed from the kago. A peculiarity in Japan is that the rider seldom himself guides his horse. It is commonly led by a halter by a groom running alongside the rider. These grooms are very light-footed and enduring, so that even at a rapid pace they are not left behind. Running footmen also ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... pierced with holes in the top, to let out such heat as could be communicated by a small pan of coals covered with ashes. But for the male part of the congregation, who despised such a luxury, it was almost impossible to avoid occasionally striking the benumbed feet together, and sometimes the clatter was almost as considerable, as in letting down the seats after the long prayer, especially if that proved to be a very protracted exercise. But I have known young ladies so indifferent to the severity of the weather, as to attend ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... inert,—that we are now marshalling, arming, and drilling our raw recruits; let us concede that the giant of the North has not yet put forth his energies,—that, although roused from his torpor, one of his arms is still benumbed, and that his lithe and active opponent is for the moment pommelling him on every side, and has a momentary advantage; let us admit that our go-ahead nation is indignant at the idea of one step backward in this great contest: still it is safe to predict ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... Greccio, thank you for the bread that you went out and begged when I arrived at your hermitage benumbed with cold and hunger. If you read these lines, read here my gratitude and also a little admiration. You are not all saints, but nearly all of you have hours of ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... some cheese. The young woman recovered. But the poor old Lady Kilbowie could get no help for her leg, which had been crooked for years; for Thome Reid said the marrow of the limb was perished and the blood benumbed, so that she would never recover, and if she sought further assistance, it would be the worse for her. These opinions indicate common sense and prudence at least, whether we consider them as originating with the umquhile Thome ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... sharply, and in the same instant struck the horse. The animal lunged free from Bruce's benumbed grasp, and ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... weary chime to chime, Work—work—work As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam, Seam, and gusset, and band, Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, As well as the ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... Thus benumbed, frozen, petrified, she had barely noticed on two or three occasions, the sound of a trap door opening somewhere above her, without even permitting the passage of a little light, and through which a hand had tossed her a bit of black bread. Nevertheless, this periodical visit of the jailer ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... sheepskins and quilts. Thin ice covers the still pools of water when I resume my toilsome route over the mountains at daybreak, a raw wind coines whistling from the east, and until the sun begins to warm things up a little, it is necessary to stop and buffet occasionally to prevent benumbed hands. Obtaining some small lumps of wheaten dough cooked crisp in hot grease, like unsweetened doughnuts, from a horseman on the road, I push ahead toward the summit and then down the eastern slope of the mountains; rounding an abutting hill about ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... his limbs, which had been cold and benumbed, were now thoroughly warmed, Mr. Dubois rose from his kneeling position and turning to his daughter, said, "Now then, Adele, take the lantern and go with me to the stables. I must see for myself that the horses are properly cared for. They are both ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... bewildered and benumbed under the shock of this calamity; but the cup of her misery was not full. There was revolution in England. James II., the friend and ally of France, had been driven from his kingdom, and William of Orange had seized his vacant ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... to oppose him, so that the Spaniards had to fight both to the front and rear while their baggage, horses, and selves were wafted over. Having got safely over, they found it necessary to go to the town, as one of their comrades was quite benumbed in passing the river. Believing the Spaniards more numerous than they really were, the Indians only defended their town till their wives and children were got away to a place of safety, and then abandoned the place, of which Anasco took possession. The Spaniards made ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... multitude of his thoughts, he was suddenly disturbed, and even terrified, by loud hurrahs from behind, and by a furious pelting and clattering of balls of snow and ice upon the top of his wagon. In his trepidation he dropped his reins; and as his aged and feeble hands were quite benumbed with cold, he found it impossible to gather them up, and his horse ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... seemed to be conscious of anything; her head seemed vacant, her ears buzzed, and she felt benumbed, like one does when one goes to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... cocoon upon a cold world and are doing their best to make good in it. Both are of a species that are hardy beyond belief and both may well winter in the crevice within the gnarled trunk of the old tree into which they creep benumbed when the chill of night begins to fall. The pasture at midday was bright with the yellow of colias butterflies which dashed madly about from one fall dandelion bloom to another, eager to eat enough while the warmth should linger. I saw many of the American copper ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... rapidly driving. Under the gathering darkness and whirling snowflakes the narrow trail is soon obscured, or entirely obliterated, the icy wind congeals the traveler's breath and courage simultaneously, he becomes confused and goes round and round in a circle, until, benumbed by the frost, he sinks down to die. This was what now happened to ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... we crept sideways even to the windows to look out upon the world. There was everything to repel—the cold, the frost, the hardness, the snow, dark sky and ground, leaflessness; the very furze chilled and all benumbed. Yet the forest was still beautiful. There was no day that we did not, all of us, glance out at it and admire it, and say something about it. Harder and harder grew the frost, yet still the forest-clad hills possessed a something that drew the mind open to their largeness and grandeur. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... no longer dreaded any danger in that respect. But among the hardships we were to undergo, that of being constantly wet was not the least: the nights were very cold, and at day-light our limbs were so benumbed, that we could scarce find the use of them. At this time I served a tea-spoonful of rum to each person, which we all found ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... fifty yards from the land; some of the passengers got on shore something as St. Paul did upon the island of Melita. Mr. Van Wart, deeming it safer to hold to the wreck, remained until he was getting benumbed, and feared losing the use of his limbs. Letting himself down into the water, he paddled and swam amongst the broken stuff from the ship until he reached the shore. He was, however, too much exhausted to get upon the land, but ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... dead man was lying underneath him; it was a capote, such as are worn by officers. I unclasped it from his neck, round which it was fastened with two bear's-paws chased in silver, and, wrapping it round my benumbed limbs, proceeded further on to where I now occasionally heard voices much plainer than before. I again fell in with two more prostrate bodies, and, as the day had now begun to break, perceived that they were clothed like people ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... there now." Jimmy lifted his right foot and held it from the ground. The warmth of the room was bringing pain to the benumbed member into which something had been stuck. "She told me to tell you please, 'm, to come if you could. Mrs. Cotter says she can't die until she sees you, and she's so tired trying to hold out. She won't have breath left to talk, mother says, if you ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... is about done for!" muttered Harriet Burrell. She turned Tommy over on her back and, placing a hand under the little girl, began swimming slowly. The added burden was almost more than Harriet, in her benumbed state, was able to handle. She knew that she could not support Grace and herself through the rest of that long, dark night. She knew, too, that unless they were rescued, her companion would be past help by the end of another hour. It already seemed hours since they had slipped ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... were not walking on the same bank of the river, though they were side by side: a chill water ran between them. As in other days, there hung her hand: but not to be taken. Incredible as it was, the icy sense of his having lost her benumbed him. Her beautiful face and beautiful tall figure, so familiar to him that they were like a possession, protested in his favour while they snatched her from him all the distance of the words ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... secured, it only remained to make sure of the other two. And this, as it happened, was a very easy task. For both, exhausted by their long, forced march and utterly benumbed by the cold, had fallen into a drowsy stupor under the hedge where they had been left, crouching beside my faithful steed for warmth. In this state it was simple work to secure them and march them off to custody, where at any ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... while, no doubt in search of food. Birds frequently perish from sudden changes in our whimsical spring weather of which they had no foreboding. More than thirty years ago, a cherry-tree, then in full bloom, near my window, was covered with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of mingled rain and snow, which probably killed many of them. It should seem that their coming was dated by the height of the sun, which ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... lowered—Heaven knows who took a hand at that—and so he disappeared for five minutes. Then a shout: the horse came into view, staggering downstream with harness cut, and scrambled up into the meadow; and the man, drenched and deadly white, and too benumbed to help himself, was hauled up on to the bridge, and carried to the nearest inn. I never heard his name—people of his sort, as Dickens knew, are generally anonymous—but he was one of the labourers of the locality, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... quite what she seemed to be—that was the unshaped thought in the back of his brain. There were explanations to make which had not yet been made. If he told himself that he had solved the problem by leaving the house, he knew in reality that he had not done so. He was benumbed, bewildered. He must get back his reasoning faculties, and then he would see more clearly, both as to what had been done and what ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... deal there will be a residual remnant of persons to some extent mentally infirm or physically incapacitated from engaging in the harder toils. For these people it is necessary to find work, and I think there would be a good field for their benumbed energies in looking after rabbits, feeding poultry, minding bees, and, in short doing all those little odd jobs about a place which must be attended to, but which will not repay the ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... and, taking another hatchet, cut asunder the deer-skin thongs by which her wrists and ankles were tied. I then made signs for her to rise and follow me. She willingly complied with my directions; but her benumbed joints and lacerated sinews refused to support her. There was no time to be lost; I therefore lifted her in my arms, and, feeble and tottering as I was, proceeded with this burden along the perilous steep and over ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... Hall, of Company I. His was a most singular wound. We were all lying prone upon the ground, when suddenly he spoke rather sharply and said he had got a clip on his knee. He said it was an insignificant flesh wound, but his leg was benumbed. He tried to step on it, but could not bear his weight on it, and very soon it became exceedingly painful, and his ankle swelled to double its natural size. He was taken back to one of the hospitals, where it was found a minie-ball ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... anxiety of his family: and he left his friend's house about four o'clock in the afternoon. The weather was intensely cold, as well as stormy, and, owing to the depth of snow which had already fallen, he could make but slow progress, and, when overtaken by darkness and the increasing tempest, benumbed with cold, and blinded by the whirling drifts of snow, he sank down by the road side to die, and the suspense of his wife was at length relieved by the painful ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... because the few persons concerned in it stood as in a picture, absolutely motionless and silent as the dead. Sense, if not feeling, was benumbed in them all, as in another moment it was benumbed in the breasts of these new arrivals. Tragedy was there in its most terrible, its most pathetic, aspect. The pathos was given by the victim,—a young and pretty girl lying face upward on the ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... tumor but to treat the diseased membrane at the point from which the polypus springs; otherwise another tumor may develop at the same point. The nasal passage having been thoroughly anaesthetized, or benumbed, by the use of cocaine, the nasal speculum is introduced, and by means of reflected light from the head mirror worn by the operator, the interior of the nostril is brought into view. (See Fig. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... advantageous position I could select, and obtained an elevation of 16,522 feet.* [Temperature of boiling water, 183 degrees, air 35 degrees.] It was snowing heavily at this time, and we crouched under a gigantic boulder, benumbed with cold. I had fortunately brought a small phial of brandy, which, with hot water from the boiling-apparatus kettle, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... motionless, staring at this thing, my hand, by some most fortunate chance, encountered the pistol in my pocket; and, from the very depths of my soul, I poured benedictions upon the honest head of Simon the Innkeeper, for its very contact seemed to restore my benumbed faculties. With a single bound I was upon my feet, and had the weapon levelled at ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol |
