"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the sun, and the ruin which Richard had seen from the hill-range was now once more visible, without the pedestal of rock on which it was placed. It was a glorious sight, though weird and spectral, and the young painter halted in mute admiration. The scene seemed scarcely of the earth ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... path inside, and entering the house opened the door of the room in which he had seen Laura standing. She was still there, motionless in the lamplight, and as he went toward her she lifted her eyes and gazed back at him in the mute defiance which is ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... in silence till I saw that his strength was giving out,—he was in ill health then,—and with a mute grasp of the hand, and a loud thump ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... servant he should be; and there is an epigrammatist that saith that Art and Nature had spent their excellences in his fashioning, and, fearing they could not end what they had begun, they bestowed him up for time, and Nature stood mute and amazed to behold her own mark; but these are the particulars ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... grasp of a vice; but went on praying, as if unconscious. Just then the crowd gave way a little. The captain had said, that the women were to go next; but they were too frenzied to obey his directions, and now pressed backward and forward. The sailors, with mute, stern obedience, strove to follow out the captain's directions. Edward pulled Maggie, and she kept her hold on the mother. The mate, at the head of the gangway, ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... all that he had just heard of the experience of Derby himself with Calluci; and the adventure, in spite of Derby's protests, certainly lost nothing in the recital. The princess and Nina had not heard of this, and Nina sat and gazed at the hero in mute rapture. In fact, the only one whose feelings were at all uncertain was Derby. Not but that it was pleasant to hear such praise of himself but it is very hard to be a hero unless one has no sense of humor at all. When the prince ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... word to alter," said Graham; "forgive me if my silence wronged my emotion; the truest eloquence is that which holds us too mute for applause." ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which is forced by sheer stress of circumstances on a nature which resents any form of humiliation; she could not abandon herself to unreserved grief for what she had done or omitted, and the sense of this defect made a great part of her affliction. When her husband lay in mute lethargy, she thought only of her dead child, and mourned the loss; but his delirious utterances constrained her to break from that bittersweet preoccupation, to confuse her mourning with ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... blood let peace be made between you." Turning once more, and bowing with deep emotion before Maria, he then, with a movement quick as thought, plunged a poniard in his bosom, and fell to the ground. "Go, tell the queen," he said to the officer of justice, who had stood a mute spectator of this scene—"tell her what you have witnessed; and add, that my promise has been fulfilled. And you, Augustus Glinski—will not this suffice? The assassin of the duke lies here before you. Oh, take her by the hand!" Then, looking his last towards ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... after his meals, he lingered for a few moments watching her at her work when she was alone, sitting by the fire or near the door, and regarding her business-like movements with a wistful air of wonder and admiration. And yet so unobtrusive were these mute attentions that Bess Janner was never roused to any form ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... middle of the courtyard, but made no motion to dismount. The lady came slowly down the broad stone steps, followed by her feminine train, and, approaching the Elector, placed her white hand upon his stirrup, in mute ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... which Gowan had fallen like a shadow. In the arrangement of the house for the great occasion, many little reminders of the old travels of the father and mother and daughter had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and sometimes, in the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had had together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping. Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about singing and cheering everybody; but she, honest soul, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... lives to uphold its flag and its honor, as a willing sacrifice; and as I rode along among them, guiding my horse this way and that way, lest he should profane with his hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as I looked on their bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the country whose flag had only been to them a flag of stripes, on which no star of glory had ever shone for them—feeling I had wronged them in the past and believing ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... French versification have not always been the same. The classical movement of the seventeenth century in its reforms proscribed certain things, like hiatus, overflow lines, mute e before the caesura, which had been current hitherto, and the Romanticists of this century have endeavored to give greater diversity and flexibility to verse-structure both by restoring some of these liberties and by introducing new ones. Especially ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... him of the mute testimony of the newspapers in the living-room. "Some one brought those papers to him ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... in these mute comments which demands an explanation; the more so as they are not in accord either with the view—somewhat superficial perhaps—that we have hitherto enjoyed of Madame Merle's character or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett's history; the more so, too, as Madame Merle had a well-founded ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... less did he trouble to have his excuses interesting, less and less did she affect to believe them. He was certain that she knew he was associating with what Floral Heights called "a sporty crowd," yet neither of them acknowledged it. In matrimonial geography the distance between the first mute recognition of a break and the admission thereof is as great as the distance between the first naive faith and the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... more, but only lay there mute and motionless; and from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know how shocked he was, and how grieved and heartstricken! Love's young dream was o'er! He had thought she loved him, but now he knew better. Their marriage had been a terrible mistake and he would ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Rodrigo enter, but are fixed to the ground in mute amazement at the group that presents itself to their view. The duenna had summoned the courage of despair, and was overwhelming Gomez Arias with a torrent of abuse. Theodora had receded from the light to hide her emotion from her ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... her cheek was pale, and thinner Than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions With a mute observance hung.' ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... 1844, she wrote the following extraordinary lines: "I must tell you that George Sand is only a pale reflection of Pierre Leroux, a fanatical disciple of the same ideal, but a disciple mute and fascinated when listening to his words, and quite prepared to throw all her own works into the fire, in order to write, talk, think, pray and act under his inspiration. I am merely the popularizer, with a ready pen and ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... one of the noblest charitable institutions of Boston. It is in a magnificent situation, overlooking all the beauties of Massachusett's Bay. It is principally interesting as being the residence of Laura Bridgman, the deaf and blind mute, whose history has interested so many in England. I had not an opportunity of visiting this asylum till the morning of the day on which I sailed for Europe, and had no opportunity of conversing with this interesting girl, as she was just leaving for the country. I saw her ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which enabled him so ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Thy softest sounds and sweetest numbers choose; The bright Cecilia's praise rehearse, In warbling words, and gliding verse, That smoothly run into a song, And gently die away, and melt upon the tongue. First let the sprightly violin The joyful melody begin, And none of all her strings be mute; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... blind, "Confound it! what does the fool want of me?" he disappeared around the house, while Lyle exchanged glances with Miss Gladden, and the inoffensive young bookkeeper, recently imported from Silver City, looked on in mute astonishment. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... been kinder, I now bitterly thought, if, like many husbands, he had years ago found for the story he now poured forth some clandestine listener; I should not have known. But he was faithful and good, and so he waited till I, mute and chained, was there to hear him. So well did I know him, as I thought, so thoroughly had he once been mine, that I saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, before the words came. And yet, when it came, it lashed me with the whips ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... aloofness from it all, much as if he were the helpless spectator of activities proceeding in some fantastic dream, he felt the moment thrilling up to him; felt it stand obediently waiting; felt himself slowly gathering in response to its mute query; then felt himself drop helplessly back into a stupid coma of whisky fumes and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... their part, to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously grind for them. Happy that it was so, for the Millers! They themselves needed not to work; their attempts at working, at what they called Educating, now when I look back on it, fill me with a certain mute admiration. ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... Britannia shirks; But haply, near these sundering ditches, Some mute inglorious miler lurks Under a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle rendered you in music. Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks, The air, a chartered libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears To steal his ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... ivory-white face went scarlet all over at the sight of Roger. She sat down in a shadowy corner. Mrs. Barr got up and went out. Roger was mute; he could find nothing to say. He could have talked glibly enough to Isabel Temple's ghost in some unearthly tryst by her grave, but he could not find a word to say to this slip of flesh and blood. He felt very foolish and absurd, and very conscious of his twisted shoulder. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Teddy whistles that he may hear Her answering whistle, soft and clear; Out of the greenwood, leafy, mute, Pipes her mimicking, silver flute, And, though her mellow measures are Always behind him half a bar, 'Tis sweet to hear her falter so; And Ted calls back, "Bravo, bravo!" "Bravo, bravo!" Comes from the distance, faint ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... mute of obstinacy,* or challenge preremp-torily more of the jurors than by law he may, being first warned of the consequence thereof, the court shall proceed as if he had confessed ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... orphan girl had imagined what that tale might be; how often before she had examined every one of those mute tokens; how many times gazed with moist eyes at the faces in the locket; and how, as the years bearing her onward toward maturity passed, had she hoped and waited, hoping ever that some word, some whisper from that far-off land of her birth might reach her! But none ever ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... appearing to tremble under the weight of his hump, which moved fitfully up and down in his futile attempts to utter the word resurrection. As he advanced, he kept heaving one shoulder forward, as if he would fain bring his huge burden to the front, and hold it out in mute appeal to his instructor; but before reaching him he suddenly stopped, lay down on the floor on his back, and commenced rolling from side to side, with moans and complaints. Mr Graham interpreted the action into the question— How was such a body as his to rest in its grave till ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... quite freely to the sailors about their profession and the countries they had visited, which led them to suppose that the lady was a great traveller. She, however, told them that her knowledge was derived from books. Shortlegs was mute. While the others talked he was closely scrutinizing the surroundings. Their host was a tall, well-set man, with shifty, evil-looking eyes that were kept busy, as was his tongue. After they had been in the house some time, he asked them if they ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... murmured gratefully, gulping it down in one long swallow while Fluss shook his head impatiently in answer to Betty's mute interrogation. "My, that tasted good," Blosser added, handing back the glass. "I don't suppose you know whether your aunts want to sell?" he shot at Bob. "Must be kind of hard for them to ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... the eyes had wandered away from his gorgeous descriptions, to another and still more entrancing volume—the glorious page of nature; and as the swift Southern twilight gathered she sat looking out, mute and motionless. The distant pinetops sang their solemn, soothing lullaby, and a new moon sat royally in the soft violet sky. Around the columns of the little portico a luxuriant wistaria clambered, and long, purple blossoms, with their spicy fragrance, drooped almost on Beulah's ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... described this place: "Here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of brass, are written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in English, French, German, and Latin." There are stone crosses all about, and great thickets of roses and yew-trees,—"cypresses that stand straight and mute, and willows that hang low and still;" and there are "dim garlands of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... take liberties with his master's property, nor indeed with his ridiculously dignified small self. Antony was the sole exception to his rule. But then was not he a king among men, a person whose word was law, whose caress a benediction, whose blow a thing for which to demand mute pardon? You knew it was deserved, though the knowledge might possibly at times be vague, since your wisdom was as ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... I lay mute and breathless, and drank in every note of this siren strain. It thrilled through my whole frame, and filled my soul with melody and love. I pictured to myself, with curious logic, the form of the unseen musician. Such melodious sounds and exquisite inflections could only be ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... time since starting, Ned turned and surveyed the ground over which he had passed. The view was not a reassuring one by any means. Instead of seeing the Apaches standing in mute despair upon the margin of the grove, and staring in wonder at his flight, he saw instead the whole party mounted and in full pursuit. They were adopting what seemed to him a strange course. Instead of charging ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... in the low rush chair in stony despair, her hands clasped on her lap, her face white as her dress, her blue eyes dry, and with a mute, inquiring gaze in them, as though she looked around for an explanation of ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... leaf are transferred to the blank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I remember seeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we had one day at our boarding-house. This child was a deaf mute. But its soul had the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacity which through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it had to talk with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... smooth surface with lingering touch, and scanned the mysterious characters with fascinated eyes. These grouped bent heads, these charmed faces, these speaking eyes —how beautiful to me! For was not this my darling, and was not all this mute wonder and interest and homage a most eloquent tribute and unforced compliment to it? I knew, then, how a mother feels when women, whether strangers or friends, take her new baby, and close themselves about it with one eager impulse, and bend their heads over it in a tranced adoration ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was not inclined by nature to take a rosy view of his conduct, but what with the beat of his foot upon the pavement, and the glimpse which half-drawn curtains offered him of kitchens, dining-rooms, and drawing-rooms, illustrating with mute power different scenes from different lives, his own ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... Peter to his room. The hour was near twelve, and it had become a little point of household etiquette for the mulatto and the white man not to be together when old Rose jangled the triangle. By this means they forestalled the mute discourtesy of the old Captain's walking away from his secretary to eat. The subject of their separate meals had never been mentioned since their first acrimonious morning. The matter had dropped into the abeyance ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all. The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, That rotting inward ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see him by the open grave—mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom. I see him, when the mold is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the demon paused; the old man turned to Porbus and Poussin, who stood mute with admiration, and ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... fingers softly over the strings every heart was hushed, filled with a sense of balmy rest. The lark, soaring and singing above his head, paused mute and motionless in the still air, and no sound was heard over the spacious plain save the dreamy music. Then the bard struck another key, and a gentle sorrow possessed the hearts of his hearers, and unbidden tears ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... bores and fatigues me. But no editor of an anthology must seek to impose upon others his own tastes and opinions. He must at the outset remember and never afterward forget that so far as possible his work must be free from the personal equation. He must recognize that some authors who may be mute or dull to him have a place in literature, past or present, sufficiently assured to entitle them to a place among selections which are intended above all things ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... mute appeal. There was that in her face which broke down Dudleigh's reserve. He advanced toward her and held out his hand. She did ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... been Kilmeny Gordon, then," he protested at last, remembering. "The girl I saw played on the violin exquisitely. I never heard anything like it. It is impossible that a deaf mute could play ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... woods there daily came a snow-white doe to supply him with milk. The legend tells that the nightingales singing in the trees distracted the hermit's prayers, so he besought that he might be relieved from this trial; and since that time the nightingales in the woods of Stowe have remained mute. After death the hermit-bishop was canonized and Lichfield flourished, at least one of his successors being an archbishop. St. Chad's Well is still pointed out at Stowe, but his Lichfield church long ago disappeared. A Norman church succeeded it in the eleventh century, and has also been removed, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the party rather. The presence of the new comer seemed to have the effect of a spell. Fleda could not think they had been as silent before her joining them, as they were for some time afterwards. The young ladies were absolutely mute, and conversation seemed to flag even among the elder ones; and if Fleda ever raised her eyes from the quilt to look at somebody, she was sure to see somebody's eyes looking at her, with a curiosity well enough ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... The mute slave picked it up, and laid it carefully on the table again, while his master threw a ball into a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... recital had exhausted his strength, Pipelet fell back on his chair, raising his hands to heaven in the attitude of mute imprecation. Miss Dimpleton left the room suddenly; her desire to laugh almost stifled her, and she could no longer restrain herself. Rudolph himself had with ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... "Our Pan is dead; His pipe hands mute beside the river;— Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, But Music's airy voice is fled. Spring mourns as for untimely frost; The bluebird chants a requiem; The willow-blossom waits for him;— The Genius of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... recompense—were horrible. It might have been more prudent to have had it Brought up at second hand by some good Christian In her own faith. But your friend's orphan child You would not then have loved. Children need love, Were it the mute affection of a brute, More at that age than Christianity. There's always time enough for that—and if The maid have but grown up before your eyes With a sound frame and pious—she remains Still in her maker's eye the same. For is not Christianity all built on Judaism? Oh, it has often vexed me, ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... formidable audience than the English House; and many tongues which were tied by fear in the greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. Gerard Hamilton, for example, who, from fear of losing the fame gained by his single speech, sat mute at Westminster during forty years, spoke with great effect at Dublin when he was ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Cuba?" he laughed, and spread out his hands in mute appeal to the gods. "If I know Cuba! When Cuba is an independent republic, Senorita—when the history of all this trouble comes to be written, you will find two names mentioned in its pages. The one name is Antonio. When you are an old woman, Senorita, you can tell your children—or perhaps ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... eyes while she drank her tea, with Effie sitting in her lap, and Elizabeth, observing it, bit her lip in jealousy. She had thought it well to bring her sister here; it would not do to let Mr. Davies think she was keeping Beatrice out of his way, but his mute idol worship was trying to her feelings. After tea they went to the top of the tower, and Effie rejoiced exceedingly in the view, which was very beautiful. Here Owen got ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... Gisli prayed, Low the sun the pale sky trod; Mute her ruddy hand she raised Beckon'd back ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... appearance, was speechless. Arthur had risen, and stood by Rachel, looking amazedly from her to Jane, and from Jane to her. Rachel turned on him a grievous look which I have never forgotten, and pushed him from her with both her hands back into the room. Then she glanced at me with a mute entreaty, and I stepped with her out of the window, and we went across the lawn and through the trees, and away along all the old tracks to the farm, following Jane, who, knowing we were behind her, flew like the wind, without once looking ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... toward the more pretentious town of San Luis. The only ones awake on the Warrenia were those whose duties required them to be alert, and Captain Winton, knowing that General Bambos was absent, held the whistle mute as he ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... on the brink of the endless sea that is Time and is Death; and all the blind, beautiful, mute, majestic forces of creation move around us and yet ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... a sufficient reason, even if she had not another; which is, that she's never out of hot water without boiling more. Doctor, you're as mute as a fish. You told me how to cure Jane and the dogs, now tell me what's the dose for ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Stella nothing short of a miracle. She had been mute so long. She had almost forgotten what a tragedy losing her voice had been. And to find it again, to hear it ring like a trumpet. It did! It was too big for the room. She felt herself caught up in a triumphant ecstasy as she sang. She found herself blinking as the last ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and no revenge, No torments of foes, appease them in the land of spirits; No shoutings of brother warriors Gladden their shades; The camp of their nation is mute; They are forgotten by their women; The bright eyes of their maidens Have no tears in them: ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... to the engineers' mess-room, on the upper deck, and found Blair and the two assistants off duty, seated round the table, not eating, but mute, with their elbows on the table and their heads in their hands, looking each other in the face in grim silence. We had made friends on leaving Corfu, and were on easy terms, so that, as I entered and no one spoke to me, but all looked up as if I were ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... eat. Abraham mocked them, and said, "Surely, the savory meat that I prepared doth not please you, or perhaps it is too little for you! Therefore I will prepare fresh savory meat to-morrow, better and more plentiful than this, that I may see what cometh therefrom." But the gods remained mute and without motion before the second offering of excellent savory meat as before the first offering, and the spirit of God came over Abraham, and he cried out, and said: "Woe unto my father and his wicked generation, whose hearts are all inclined ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... fathers! There may be objections to having paintings and sculptures in churches, but I confess that I never enter a place where there is either but I feel an awe, an invisible influence, which strikes me mute. I would sit in silence, covering my head. A sanctified atmosphere seems to fill the place and to penetrate my soul when I enter, as if I were in a holy temple. 'Thou standest in a holy place,' I would say. A loud word, a heavy footstep, makes me shudder, as if an infidel were desecrating the place. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... seemed to whisper 'Quietness,' Then quietly itself was gone: Yet echoes of its mute caress Were with me as the ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... a simple peasant girl, looked on in mute amazement when her mistress entered the room ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Burgess can be as mute as a fish when he likes, and there's nothing pleases him better ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... then and there, Her, from head to foot Breathing and mute, Passive and yet aware, In the grasp ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... Bridges continued impressively. "Yes, thanks, I'll take a Scotch highball," he added, in response to Philip's mute invitation, "plenty of ice, Mick. There wasn't a seat to be had in the house, and I wouldn't like to say what old Fink had to go through before he could get his box for the ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which thou art fled!— Hark, the coffin sinks down with a dull, sullen sound, And the ropes rattle over the sleep of the dead. And we cling to each other!—O Grave, he is thine! The eye tells the woe that is mute to the ears— And we dare to resent what we grudge to resign, Till the heart's sinful murmur is choked in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the Belly, that they cannot mute; anoint their Vents, and give them either small bits of Bread or Corn, ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... Blackburn had been alone in a locked room, yet before their eyes it lay, turned on its side, as if to inform them of the fashion of this murder. The tiny hole at the base of the brain, the blood-stain on the pillow, which the head had concealed, offered their mute and ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... gills; it becomes of a more scarlet colour, and from its greater stimulus the sensorium seems to produce quicker motions and finer sensations; and as water is a much better vehicle for vibrations or sounds than air, the fish, even when dying in pain, are mute in the atmosphere, though it is probable that in the water they may utter sounds to be heard at a considerable distance. See on this subject, Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Canto IV. l. ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... blind and cruel, and the end Of every joy is sorrow and distress. And when immortal creatures lightly bend To kiss the lips of simple loveliness, Swords are unsheathed in silence, and clouds rise, Some God is jealous of the mute ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... Luisa Valverde crossed her arms over her breast, and with eyes raised devotionally towards heaven, seemed to offer up a mute, but ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... conducted themselves was simply surprising. The utmost order prevailed amongst them, and how this was brought about we could not tell. One little pleasant-looking nun had charge of the whole confraternity, and she could say them at a word—make them as mute as mice with the mere lifting of her finger, and turn them into all sorts of merry moods by a similar motion, in a second. If this little nun could by some means convey her secret of managing children to about nineteen-twentieths of the mothers of the kingdom, who find it a dreadful ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Lydgate stood mute, and unconsciously pressed his hat on while he looked at her. He saw this woman—the first to whom he had given his young adoration—amid ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... canst transfigure common things, And, like the sun, make the clod burst in bloom,— Unseal the fount so mute this many a day, And help me sing of Linda! Why of her, Since she would shrink with manifest recoil, Knew she that deeds of hers were made a theme For measured verse? Why leave the garden flowers To fix the eye on one poor violet That on the solitary ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... am ready to do anything reasonable and now that I have had a good reason given me, I'll be as mute as ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... rain was swept against the streaming window pane, and a gust of wind shook the frame in its sockets. The watcher turned away from the window with a mute gesture of despair. No eye could pierce that black chaos. He sank again into his seat, and looked around shuddering. The high, vaulted chamber was lit by a pair of candles only, leaving the greater part of it in gloom. Grim, fantastic shadows lurked ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Helena's guests drive home. In the carriage of Sir Victor Catheron there is dead silence. Ethel, shrinking from her husband almost as much as from his cousin, lies back in a corner, pale and mute. Inez Catheron's dauntless black eyes look up at the white, countless stars as she softly hums a tune. Sir Victor sits with his eyes shut, but he is not asleep. He is in a rage with himself, he hates his cousin, he is afraid to look at his wife. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... object of his remarks remained mute he let his thumb ostentatiously slide back with the hammer of the gun under it. "Sing! ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... swept the ground clear of them, perished,—bright young Conradin, bright and brave, but only sixteen, and Pope's captive by ill luck,—perished on the scaffold; "throwing out his glove" (in symbolical protest) amid the dark mute Neapolitan multitudes, that wintry morning. It was October 25th, 1268,—Dante Alighieri then a little boy at Florence, not three years old; gazing with strange eyes as the elders talked of such a performance by Christ's Vicar on Earth. A very tragic performance indeed, which brought ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... often comforts and cheers. But as often it is remorseless. Broken health and empty purses, desperation, mute suffering and madness, we saw at Monte Carlo. Where the world flocks for pleasure, agony of soul reveals itself more readily than elsewhere because of its incongruity. Nice is full of tragedy, and none takes the pains to conceal it as at Monte Carlo. The casual visitor creates his own atmosphere ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... lifting white imperious hand, "suffer me one word, at least; in justice to myself I can sit mute no longer—" ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... time the instrument was mute, and the colonel had soon asked central for the telephone in the apartments now occupied by Mr. Kettridge. There was a period ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... with consternation at the scene before him. His trusty motorcycle which had borne him so far stood beside him, and as he steadied it, it seemed as if this mute companion and co-patriot which he had come to love, were sharing his utter dismay. Almost at his very feet rushed a boisterous torrent, melting the packed earth of the road like wax in a tropic sunshine, and carrying ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... of two dots for each dash, and there are eight of these, eight more ought to be counted in a comparison of it with an alphabet composed wholly of dots, this would make forty-seven. To spell the same words in full by the mute alphabet referred to would require only twenty-three motions. A still greater disparity in rate would, we think, be found in an entire colloquial sentence. Thus the sentence "Hand me an apple" would require, by the mute alphabet, the time of fourteen dots, while with the telegraph alphabet it would ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read in an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those moments when ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... Jove, what's come to pass that thou, thine armor cast away Art mute in heaven; and but an idle tale? At such a time the horns should sprout, the raging bull hold sway, Or they white hair beneath swan's down conceal Here's Dana's self! But touch that lovely form Thy limbs will melt beneath thy ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... and, bent under her sack, knocked at the familiar door. It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there, forgotten, a mute ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... and bear their fruit, My carp-pond glitter in the sun; My cherished grape-vines too, though mute, Will tell the world what ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... the kindly shelter of the fudge pan, "she glared. She wondered why those two idiotic individuals were stalking toward her without a word or knock or smile, when suddenly the hinder one exploded and vanished, while the other ignominiously—stark, mute, inglorious—fled, ran, withdrew—so ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... seized Otto by the waistband of his trousers and swung him round and round in the air. I could see Otto's face as he went round: the same mute courage was written on it as when he turned to run. Alexis swung Otto round and round until his waistband broke, and he ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... Tears are the mute language of sorrow. But why? What connection is there between a sad idea and this limpid, salt liquid, filtered through a little gland at the external corner of the eye, which moistens the conjunctiva and the small lachrymal points, whence it descends into the nose and mouth through ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... fishing, and in those days fish were more plentiful and larger than they are now. The shoals of the mackerel glittered in the dark nights, and indicated where they were swimming; the gurnards snarled, and the crabs gave forth pitiful yells when they were chased, for fish are not so mute as people say. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... another way," he continued, spurred on by her mute protest. "It's all right for me to give the strength of my arm when you're falling over a cliff. But if I take that same strength of arm and use it at pick-and-shovel work for a day and earn two dollars, you ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... I cannot longer justify myself, To be a mute spectator of such ruin, As hourly threatens this respected family. [Aside.] To flatter, or conceal would ill become That friendship you have said you so esteem. My heart is open then, and can't acquit you. You've lost that ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... glistening hair and patent leather boots: his coat is cut in the most elegant fashion: he has a crush hat, kid gloves, something very choice in the way of a waistcoat, the very best style of moustaches, whiskers, and a goatee a la Mazarin; he is also endowed with a profound, mute, attentive ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... me, she keeps afar her jocund band, With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the lute; If I creep near yonder oak she will wave her fairy wand, And to me the dance will cease, and the music all be mute. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... a footing of confidence, is it a wonder they clave one to the other in mute admiration and affection? Many a sumptuous supper, provided at the imminent peril of embargo by the authorities on the one hand, and capture by hungry pirates on the other, did they smuggle into port and enjoy in company; on many a half-holiday did they fish for hours in ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... buildings that bordered the canals; and in the windows I caught sight of drab figures of men and women bending over the machines. Half of the buildings, as Mr. Hutchins pointed out, were closed,—mute witnesses of tariff-tinkering madness. Even more eloquent of democratic folly was that part of the town through which we presently passed, streets lined with rows of dreary houses where the workers lived. Children were playing on the sidewalks, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "May I grow mute as a fish!" answered de la Grange, stoutly, "may the tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, before I persuade my people to accept a garrison of cruel mercenaries, by whom their rights of conscience are to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the queer people around him, but it affected Miss Eustis strangely. To her quick imagination, it suggested loneliness, despair, that was the more tragic because of its isolation. It seemed to embody the mute, pent-up distress of whole generations. Somehow Helen felt herself to be playing for the benefit of this poor creature. The echoes of the wedding-march sounded grandly in the little church, then came a softly played interlude, and finally a solemn benediction, in which solicitude seemed to be giving ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... attending six lectures a day, and going in the evening for three hours to the dissecting-rooms. I never conversed with any one in the boarding-house nor even asked for any thing at the table; but was supplied like a mute. This silence was fruitful to me. About New Year, I ventured to make my English audible; when, lo! every one understood me perfectly. From this time forward, I sought to make acquaintances, to the especial delight of good old Dr. Delamater, who had firmly believed ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... and caught the girl's eye. For a fraction of a second he saw in it the expression which every man at least once in his life looks to see in the eyes of one particular woman. In the girl's dark-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes he saw the dumb appeal, the mute surrender, which, as surely as the white flag on the battlements in war, is the signal of capitulation ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts, that once beat high for praise, Now feel ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... only in the agonised glance of the restless eyes, which seemed to plead for help. But no help could be given to her now. No more hard words could fall from those stricken lips: no more bitter sentences be written by those nerveless fingers. She might live for years, if dragging on a mute, maimed existence could be, indeed, called living; but, as far as power over the destiny of others, of doing good or harm to her loved ones, was concerned, Margaret ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... chose seemed to be exactly that which at the moment she imperatively needed. Then he began to play things she did not know. It was music the like of which she had never heard, barbaric, with a plaintive weirdness that brought to her fancy the moonlit nights of desert places, with palm trees mute in the windless air, and tawny distances. She seemed to know tortuous narrow streets, white houses of silence with strange moon-shadows, and the glow of yellow light within, and the tinkling of uncouth instruments, and the acrid scents of Eastern perfumes. ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... his volubility, for he was a man who delighted in conversation, Desmond gradually gave the talk a personal turn. But willing as Mortimer showed himself to discuss the war generally, about his personal share he was as mute as a fish. Try as he would Desmond could get nothing out of him. Again and again, he brought the conversation round to personal topics; but every time his companion contrived to switch it back to ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... the paper once, then read it over again. Extreme satisfaction beamed over his countenance, and he sat mute for some seconds seemingly in utter astonishment. But soon after, the expression of his face changing, he opened the envelope and threw the enclosure down, jocularly saying to the astrologer, "Here, Sir, is the original of which ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... was, for a few minutes, mute with astonishment. On recovering herself, she did not storm and fret. Indeed, she was never guilty of these little housewife effervescences, usually taking every trouble with a degree of Christian meekness that it would have been well for many in the ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... age is hospitable and entertains, like an inn, "God or the devil on equal terms," as George Eliot says. Alas! the Puritan chart has failed us in the sea through which we are passing; the old stars have ceased to shine; too many of us know neither our course nor destination; "authority is mute;" the "Thus saith the Lord" of the Puritan is not enough now for our guidance. For the age is in all things not one of reason or of faith, but of speculation not only in the business of the world, but in all moral and spiritual questions as well. Well, we shall see what we shall see. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... they had not been able to help him. Then he sought the Master and exclaimed angrily: "If you can do anything, help him!" "Take heed that we do not all suffer because of him," the prophet said, and then made the child whole. And they told yet more. On the other side of the lake He had made a deaf-mute to speak, and at Bethsaida had made a blind man to see. But, above all, every one knew how at Nain He had brought back a young man to life who had already been carried out of the house in his coffin! A wine-presser was there who told something ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... cross. In the Apocalypse we read the Oriental doctrine of the "seven angels who stand before God." As the Christian tenet thus rose among the Jews from their contact with Eastern superstition, and was propagated and expanded while prophecy was mute, it cannot be ascribed to "divine supernatural revelation" as the source. The ground of it is dearly seen in infant speculations on the cause of moral ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... we were little and sat on her knee, She gave us her saga with pictures to see. We read till our eyes opened wide and moist, While nodding and smiling she mute rejoiced. ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... witness the return flight of the birds to their feeding grounds. Hurrying to the nearest opening, we saw the immense flight of pigeons blackening the sky overhead. Stiffened by their night's rest, they flew low; but the beauty and immensity of the flight overawed us, and we stood in mute admiration, no one firing a shot. For fully a half-hour the flight continued, ending in a few ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... looked at him, and something in her fawn-like eyes, a mute reproach, pierced to the boy's heart. At any rate, he began to whimper and left ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard |
