"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... husbands of the women to stay with them. It was a melancholy sight, and the tears stood in Philip's eyes as he looked upon the group of females—some weeping and straining their children to their bosoms; some more quiet and more collected than the men: the elder children mute or crying because their mothers cried, and the younger ones, unconscious of danger playing with the first object which attracted their attention, or smiling at their parents. The officers commanding the troops were two ensigns newly entered, and ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... gazed and listened, Paddy also. All three were mute as the great blazing shield touched the water that ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... mute, while Chichikov remained so dazed with the appearance of the host and everything else in the room, that he too, could not begin a conversation, but stood wondering how best to find words in which to explain the object of his visit. For a while he thought ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... heard these decrees read at night, Catherine and I looked at each other in mute apprehension. I felt beforehand that instead of remaining quietly at home, cleaning and mending clocks, I would be obliged to be again on the march, and that always made me sad; and this melancholy increased from day to day. Sometimes Father Goulden, ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... the triumph and the truth Wrought into these walls of rugged stone. They are a miracle of patient hands, They are a victory of suffering, a paean of pain; All pangs of death, all cries of birth, Are in the mute, moss-covered stones; They are eloquent to my hands. O beautiful, blind stones, inarticulate and dumb! In the deep gloom of their hearts there is a gleam Of the primeval sun which looked upon them When they were begotten. So in the heart of man shines forever A beam from the everlasting sun ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... the force that springs In passion beating on the shores of fate. They said, "There comes a night when all too late The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand, The eager thought behind closed portals stand, And the last wishes to the mute lips press Buried ere death in silent helplessness. Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave, And while the arm is strong to strike and heave, Let soul and arm give shape that will abide And rule above our graves, and power divide With that great god of day, whose rays must ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... countenance exhibiting visible pleasure. She carried her folding stool under her arm, and would not consent to my carrying it, and she sat always by my side. She would remain there for hours, immovable and mute, following with her eye the point of my brush, in its every movement. When I would obtain, by a large splatch of color spread on with a knife, a striking and unexpected effect, she would, in spite of herself, give vent to a half-suppressed ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... in correctness, but it is a fact that when a writer becomes a purist he conforms but does not create. After all, I believe that what's within a man will come out regardless of his training. There may be mute, inglorious Miltons, but Art struggles for expression. The German woman worked in a field and had no books, but she brought tears to the eyes of the Empress, with a little poem, dug ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... tearless eye and bright, She gazes madly round the place Where every comfort bears the trace Of wifely labor wrought with pain, Of woman's love that lives in vain. Here moccasins lie with bead-work gay; Here on the wall the breezes sway The music-breathing flute, Whose lips are dry and mute, While she who once inspired its tone Now sits despairing and alone. The very curls of smoke that rise And mingle with the morning skies, Are tokens of the duties done Beneath the red eye of the rising ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... fact; and so it is that the French Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic comedy of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and which would never have been enacted without the intervention of this august mute personage. It was he that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley. It was he whose arrival in his capital called up all France in arms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust him. While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity round the eagles in ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the bards whom none e'er matched before? The man, who, stretched in Isis' calm retreat, To books and study gives seven years complete, See! strewed with learned dust, his night-cap on, He walks, an object new beneath the sun! The boys flock round him, and the people stare: } So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, } Stepped from its pedestal to take the air! } And here, while town, and court, and city roars, With mobs, and duns, and soldiers at their doors; Shall I, in London, act this idle part? Composing songs for fools to get by heart? The Temple late two brother ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... hands on each other's shoulders, 'Our President is dead.' Over and over, in a dazed way, they said the fateful syllables, as if the bullet that tore through the weary brain at Washington had palsied the nation. The mute news-boy on the corner said never a word as he handed to the speechless buyers the damp sheets from the press; only he brushed, with unwashed hand, the tears from his dirty cheeks. Groups stood listening on the pavement with faces to the earth, while one, in choking voice, read the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... with the noisy clans Of prudes, coquettes and harridans. Now voices over voices rise, While each to be the loudest vies; They contradict, affirm, dispute, No single tongue one moment mute; All mad to speak, and none to hearken, They set the very lapdog barking; Their chattering makes a louder din Than fish-wives o'er a cup of gin; Far less the rabble roar and rail When drunk ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... ask for any further explanation of her words, for such was the ascendancy her good and steady conduct had given her over me, that she would certainly have blamed me for my glaring imprudence. I pressed her hand in mute thankfulness; she comprehended my silence and left me to myself. At the end of some days, seeing nothing of Noel, I ventured to question her as to his fate: she then related to me all you have been told, and added, that ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... woe, no knight can fail Who goes at Love's behest. Long ere one moon shall wax and wane, I shall be back from my quest. I have only to find the South Wind's flute. In the Land of Summer it lies. It can awaken the echoes mute, With answering replies. And it can summon the fairy folk Who never have said me nay. They'll come to my aid at the flute's clear call. Love ...
— The Rescue of the Princess Winsome - A Fairy Play for Old and Young • Annie Fellows-Johnston and Albion Fellows Bacon
... head; but Jewel kept patting his slender leg and offering her hand, until, with much gentle pawing and lifting his little hoof higher and higher, he finally rested it in the child's hand, although looking away meanwhile, in mute protest. ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... undergoing careful preparation as teachers and preachers. There is also the medical host who treated 2,000,000 patients last year; there are industrial institutions under well-trained men, peasant settlements for the poor oppressed ryots, and schools for the blind and the deaf-mute. There is hardly an agency which can bring light, comfort, life, and inspiration to men which is not utilized ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... headman whose wife had been a member of Sir William Johnson's household. He laid his hand on the belt and sang the war song. One by one, then, chiefs and warriors rose, laid hold of the great belt and chanted the war song. Only the older men, made wise by many defeats, sat still in their places, mute and dejected. "After that day every young fellow's face in the overhills towns appeared blackened and nothing was now talked of ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... a brief pause, spent in determined looking, the girl bowed her head in mute farewell; and turned her back perhaps courageously, perhaps unwisely and somewhat faithlessly, upon the mountains, and the rare mysteries of their untrodden snows. She went across the sparse turf, starred with tiny clear, coloured ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... be mute, and thou shalt guide my steps Into the covert from the public road, Till I have learned their drift. A prudent man Will ever shape his course by what he ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... arises is nearly always called forth by beauty and physical grace. Then the one who is first struck begins a regular courtship: frequent walks in the garden when the other is likely to be at the window of her class-room, pauses on the stairs to see her pass; in short, a mute adoration made up of glances and sighs. Later come presents of beautiful flowers, and little messages conveyed by complacent companions. Finally, if the 'flame' shows signs of appreciating all these proofs of affection, comes the letter of declaration. Letters of declaration are long and ardent, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... by fenced fields and give the alarm. When they reached a point from which they could overlook the mill, the attack had already begun, and the yard-gates were being forced. A volley of stones smashed every window, but the mill remained mute ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Burgundy was supplied. It was muddy. Bouvard, attributing this accident to the rinsing of the bottles, got them to try three others without more success; then he poured out some St. Julien, manifestly not long enough in bottle, and all the guests were mute. Hurel smiled without discontinuing; the heavy steps of the waiters resounded over ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... tenderness of the scene. Leaving the room, he passed through the corps of light infantry and walked to Whitehall, where a barge waited to convey him to Paulus Hook. The whole company followed in mute and solemn procession, with dejected countenances, testifying feelings of delicious melancholy which no language can describe. Having entered the barge he turned to the company and, waving his hat, bid them a silent adieu. They paid him the same affectionate compliment, and, after the barge had ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Leaning in mute expectancy, Beneath a stunted sycamore, She added darkness utterly, To the dim light, the shrouded tree, By her ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... the jolly tavern, the bandits gayly drink, Upon the haunted highway, sharp hoof-beats loudly clink? Yea; past scant-buried victims, hard-spurring sturdy steed, A mute and grisly rider is trampling grass and weed, And by the black-sealed warrant which in his grasp shines clear, I known it is ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Too true! Beneath you on the floor Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things That were the sofa's strength, a scattered store Of tacks and battens and protruded springs. Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt, Mute proofs and mournful of ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... ascends from among the waggons; the situation of those who defend them is too serious for any idle exhibition. The man who has fired the last shot only hastens to re-load, while the others remain mute and motionless—each on the look-out for ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... quarter of an hour later he started also with Soa and found his master standing bareheaded by his brother's grave, taking a mute farewell of that which lay beneath before he left it for ever to its long sleep in the untrodden wilderness. It was a melancholy parting, but there have been many such ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... mute as mice, when in her presence," says one of Washington's companions; and common report makes her to have been very much such a woman as her son afterward ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... nothing remarkable about him. He was poorly dressed and carried a small bundle. He looked cold and tired. Philip, who never could resist the mute appeal of distress in any form, reached out his hand and said kindly, "Come in, my brother, you look cold and weary. Come in and sit down before the fire, and we'll have a bite of lunch. I was just beginning to think of ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... seemed at first to shun the bed, as if the object lying there were too powerful a source of grief to bear—seemed to be anxious to discover in some minor souvenirs of sorrow, a preparatory step, which should enable him to approach with seemly and rational composure the mute wreck of his beloved child—the cast-shell of the spirit which had been the pride and joy, the hope and comfort of his life. But presently he succeeded in mastering this sensibility, and approaching the bed, motioned Conrad to follow him. He gently drew aside the curtain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... with mortal voice, unchanged To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days, On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, And solitude; yet not alone, while thou Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... beside her in mute sympathy while he finished his cigarette. There was a certain depression in his attitude of which presently she became aware. She summoned her resolution and turned herself from the great ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Mute, she turned her eyes toward Eddring. The short upper lip trembled; in her eyes there was more than half a suspicion ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... stop thief! a highwayman!" Not one of them was mute; And all and each that passed that way Did join ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... return of the guide who had been sent with us by that tribe, placed him in irons for the night and, much as I liked the poor fellow as an intelligent native, I thought it necessary to send him back this morning in company with a mute young savage, also from Cudjallagong, who seemed much inclined to become a follower of the camp. Our stock of provisions could not be too carefully preserved and such followers, when beyond their beat, might have had claims on it not to be resisted. There then remained with us, besides ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... mute, or at least none of them had ever uttered a vocal sound to be reported by Terrans. This one did not cry out. But he staggered forward, forelimbs up, clawed digits pulling at the wooden pin transfixing his throat just under ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... made up my mind what to say in reply to her mute inquiry of what I wanted there, a woman's voice called out, 'Who is it, Phillis? If it is any one for butter-milk send them round to ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... woods are dumb! Through their oracular depths and secret nooks, To the mute supplication of her ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... matter less placid touching Cyprus and the betrothed bride wherewith to fill this period of waiting: and more than once the Senator Marco Cornaro had returned from lengthy sessions at the Ducal Palace in no gentle humor, yet mute to all questioning. For it had been learned in that innermost Council, and told no farther than was needful, that Ferdinand of Naples was intriguing to draw Janus into an alliance with a princess of his house; it was ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Bride, and for a moment he was mute; then he stepped towards her, and, with an air of peculiar frankness, of ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... spelling of one of the original MSS. has been preserved here, except that, in order to avoid confusion as to the number of syllables, the final mute e is omitted. ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... of a convalescent caused her to retire within herself. She got into the habit of talking in a low voice, of moving about noiselessly, of remaining mute and motionless on a chair with expressionless, open eyes. But, when she raised an arm, when she advanced a foot, it was easy to perceive that she possessed feline suppleness, short, potent muscles, and that unmistakable energy and passion slumbered in her ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... for upwards of a minute in mute suspense; and then a faint and scarcely distinguishable sound was heard in the direction in which he pointed. Scarcely had it floated on the air, when a shrill, loud, and prolonged cry, of peculiar tendency, burst hurriedly and eagerly ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... worshipping, a companion whose being was rich in the womanly developments with which nature had so economically endowed herself. An impoverished organization carries with it certain neutral qualities which make its subject appear, in the presence of complete manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-mute among speaking persons. The deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheek at Lurida's suggestion was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbed expression. There was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew far ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... The type of all thou art, Sad witness to the common heart! With face in veil and seal on lip, In mute and strange companionship, Like thee we wander to and fro, Dumbly imploring as ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... things. Nothing was talked of in the whole city, except the mute servant at the tavern and the beautiful, charming girl, who, it was supposed, had mistaken the dumb man for some one else, and had now brought herself ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... not isolated, but is at one with things, with the farms and the industries on either hand. The vital, universal currents play through him. He knows the ground is alive; he feels the pulses of the wind, and reads the mute language of things. His sympathies are all aroused; his senses are continually reporting messages to his mind. Wind, frost, rain, heat, cold, are something to him. He is not merely a spectator of the panorama of nature, but a participator in ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... to be dragged along. There was nothing else possible. Sir Adolphus continued, in a somewhat lower key, induced upon him by Charles's mute look of protest. It was a disquieting story. He told it with gleeful unction. It seems that Professor Schleiermacher, of Jena, "the greatest living authority on the chemistry of gems," he said, had lately invented, or claimed to have invented, a system for artificially ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... some life and vigour? Ye feeble words! ye cannot even tell How easily her eyes a heart compel; Nor can ye praise her speech in language fit, So weak and dull ye are, so void of wit. Yet there are some things I would have you name— How mute and foolish I oft time became When all her grace and virtue I beheld; How from my 'raptured eyes tears slowly welled The tears of hopeless love; how my tongue strayed From fond and wooing speech, so sore afraid, That all my discourse was of time and tide, And of the stars which up in ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... this—both of yees mute as fishes the moment I come in? Why I hard you just now, when my back was turned, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... a moment confronting each other, mute and menacing. Around them stretched La Souleiade in the deep silence of the night, with the light shadows of its olive trees, the darkness of its pine and plane trees, in which the saddened voice of the fountain was singing, and ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... we were talking about them," whispered she, still with the same fascinated gaze in her eyes. "Ah, there, take care! Don't step on that violet. Don't you see how its mute eyes implore you to spare ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... such a faithful escort fortified And sure, the Christians who had thither wound, With Silence and the Angel for their guide, No longer could stand mute or keep their ground: But hearing now the foe, with shouts defied Their host, and made the shrilling trumpets sound; And with loud clamours, which Heaven's concave fill, Sent through the paynim's ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... completely to the ground, they supposed that their victim had perished in the flames; but their guilty consciences had never permitted them to venture near the debris to see if her charred bones remained a mute ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... moment or two: and in those same expressive eyes which she kept fixed on Madame's face, the look of mute enquiry had become more insistent. It almost seemed as if she were trying to penetrate the underlying thoughts of the older woman, as if she tried to read all that there was in that kindly glance of hidden sarcasm, of humour or tolerance, or of gentle contempt. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... eaten in this foreign land. She had been neither fierce nor angry, nor frightened. Her face he remembered as the only comprehensible face amongst all these faces that were as closed, as mysterious, and as mute as the faces of the dead who are possessed of a knowledge beyond the comprehension of the living. I wonder whether the memory of her compassion prevented him from cutting his throat. But there! I suppose ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... The leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset, with the blue east for their back-ground, and the stars of the dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stubble rimed with frost, contribute something to the mute music. ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... picked up a handful of exploded cartridge shells, while he was speaking. They told a mute story of the last desperate stand ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... pock-marked with shell-holes and craters. Old tanks lay embedded in the mud, their sides pierced by shot and shell, and worst of all by far were the trees. Mere skeletons of trees standing gaunt and jagged, stripped naked of their bark; mute testimony of the horrors they had witnessed. Surely of all the lonely places of the earth this was by far the worst? The ground looked lighter in some places than in others, where the powdered bricks alone showed where a village had once ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... as though to hypnotise me. What happened then I shall never be able to explain. I was translated into another scale of being, into the last world in fact; and just as it is impossible to describe a symphony to a deaf mute or a sunset to a man born blind, so it is impossible for me to put down in terms of our present consciousness the experiences I went through in that earlier pre-natal stage of existence. What I perceived in Ante-land must needs be expressed through the language of this world, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... satisfaction which fancy can picture better than words can paint. But at this particular spot a deep silence reigned, because in these two houses lived two passions which never rejoiced. Beyond them stretched the silent country. Beneath the shadow of the steeples of Saint-Martin, these two mute dwellings, separated from the others in the same street and standing at the crooked end of it, seemed afflicted with leprosy. The building opposite to them, the home of the criminals of the State, was also under a ban. A young man would be readily ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... feebly. Neither physically nor mentally had she the strength to repulse him. If he had taken her in his arms, she could hardly have resisted. But he did not attempt to conquer more than her hand. He stood beside her, letting her feel the whole mute, impetuous offer of his manhood—thrown at her feet to do what she ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the old home was painful, for to me everything suggested the one for whom it had been established. The piano I had bought for her, the chair in which she had loved to sit, her spectacles on the stand—all these mute witnesses of her absence benumbed me as I walked about her room. Only in my work-shop was I able to find even momentary relief from my sense of irreparable ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... innocent animals, nay, these whispering leaves, that seem to kiss the passing air, and blush the while at their own fondness! Surely they are happy, and grateful too that they are so; for hark! how the little birds send up their song of praise! and see how the waving trees and waving grass, in mute accordance, keep time ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... his wish that it be kept exactly as he had known and loved it during the ideal hours he had spent in it with wife and child. He and Peggy had spent many a precious one there since its radiant, gracious mistress had slept in the pine grove. Harrison crossed the hall and opened the door, still mute as an oyster. Mrs. Stewart swept in, Toinette, who had followed her, tearing across the room ahead of her and darting into every nook and corner. At that moment the obnoxious poodle came nearer her doom than she had ever come in all her useless ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... (whom I mark "Ich") LOQUITUR: "Major-General Graf von Gortz," whom Fromme keeps strictly mute all day, is a distinguished man, of many military and other experiences; much about Friedrich in this time and onwards. [Supra, 399.] Introduces strangers, &c.; Bouille took him for "Head Chamberlain," four or five years after this. He ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... movement of hand and head she glided from the room. The Count attempted not to detain her. He stood motionless, his hand thrust into his breast, and followed her with his eyes in mute astonishment. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... mute. Why is your land so mournful? It is almost a week since I've seen my shadow. It is impossible! I don't ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... gentle and so modest doth appear My lady when she giveth her salute, That every tongue becometh trembling mute, Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare, And though she hears her praises, she doth, go Benignly clothed with humility, And like a thing come down she seems to be From heaven to earth, a miracle to show. So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh her, She ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... threw down her watch, with a whole bunch of charms against the evil eye. She cast before her, by a movement full of mute grace, a shagreen bag, which she carried in her belt. The brigand opened it with the eagerness of a custom-house officer. He drew from it a little English dressing-case, a vial of English salts, a box of pastilles of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... her knees, and prayed that the soul which had been persecuted might have rest. Then, when the last stroke of the bell had died away, she sat down in mute despair, and felt that she had lost the best thing life had to ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... trembling, beseeching—and he had brought a clergyman"—again her hands covered her eyes—"and, ere I was aware of it, frightened, stunned in the storm of his passion, he had his way with me. The clergyman stood between us, saying words that bound me. I heard them, I was mute, I shrank from the ring, yet suffered it—for even as he ringed me he touched me not with his hand. Oh, if he had, I think ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... upon his bed staring in a mute agony at the ceiling. Once or twice he fancied he heard the sounds of music from the next room. His heart leaped joyfully. But almost instantly his hopes sank back, like spent swimmers in a relentless sea. It seemed as if his brain ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... at her, mute and motionless with astonishment, so utterly unexpected was this tempest of anger, and so strange in one who had seemed incapable of any such ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... snow, blood marking the track of their naked feet, without their being conscious of it. The joyous radiance of Francis himself illuminated the lives of his followers. "The friars," writes their chronicler, "were so full of fun among themselves that a deaf mute could hardly refrain from laughter at seeing them." With the same glad spirit they laboured for the salvation of souls, the cure of sickness, and the relief of distress. The emotional feeling of the age quickly responded to their zeal. Within a few years other houses had arisen ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... hubble-bubbling; and all about us, where nothing else was, a line of motley humanity—Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian, Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and ecclesiastical, and no hats at all—half circled us with mute and mostly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... her hand as she passed swiftly. The old woman carried the plump little hand to her lips in mute sympathy, and then Ruth broke away even from her and ran upstairs to her room. There she cast herself upon the bed and, with her sobs smothered in the pillows, gave way to the grief that had long been swelling her heart ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... opinion was carried. It was agreed that the Prince of Conde should restrain his ardor, and let himself be vaguely regarded as the possible leader of the enterprise if it were to take place, but without giving it, until further notice, his name and co-operation. He was called the mute captain. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... if they be illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when counsellors and servants stand mute and silent. And senators or counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed upon more safe and substantial principles, than counsellors which are only men of experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other discover them not ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... herself takes part in the frolic. With roguish eyes she escapes and cries: "Those who catch me will be married this year!" And then they descend the hill towards the church of Saint-Amans. Baptiste, the bridegroom, is out of spirits and mute. He takes no part in the sports of the bridal party. He remembers with grief the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... in appearing to accept everything, accepted nothing. She was conscious of a mute rebellion, even of a certain disloyalty of the imagination. She disapproved of Majendie more than ever. She guarded her own purity now as her child's inheritance, and her motherhood strengthened her spiritual revolt. Her mind turned sometimes to the ideal father of her child, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... in mute delight and wonder, at these scenes of nature's magnificence. To the left the Dunderberg reared its woody precipices, height over height, forest over forest, away into the deep summer sky. To the right strutted forth the bold promontory of Anthony's Nose, with ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... overpopulation. The white buildings were the color of winter butter in the warm yellow sunlight as the city drowsed in the noonday heat. It nestled snugly in the center of a bowl-shaped valley whose surrounding forest clad hills gave mute confirmation to the fact that Kardon was still primitive, an unsettled world that had not yet reached the explosive stage of population growth that presaged maturity. But that was no disadvantage. In fact, Kennon liked it. Living could be fun ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... Appelles that breathed over the canvass, and the chisel of Praxiteles that gave life and animation to shapeless blocks, are now no more; and the all-powerful lyre, whose sweeping chords would rouse the soul to rage or melt it into pity, is now, and perhaps FOR EVER, mute ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... her hammer down and picking up a straw that had pushed its way through the loose rags of the carpet on which she sat. After a time she turned her eyes to Aunt Susan with a mute call for help. Susan Hornby was ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... man stood firm against all their arguments, he was unmoved by all their pleading. It was only when his anxious kindred had given up the battle for lost that Gustave wavered. Their mute despair moved him more than the most persuasive eloquence; and the end was submission. He left Beaubocage the plighted lover of that woman who, of all others, he would have been the last to choose for his wife. It had all ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Kazan lay mute and motionless, his gray nose between his forepaws, his eyes half closed. A rock could have appeared scarcely less lifeless than he; not a muscle twitched; not a hair moved; not an eyelid quivered. Yet every drop of ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... the use of language. Freemasonry gives an idea of such a church, and a brother is known and cared for in a strange land where no word of his can be understood. The apostle of this church may be a deaf mute carrying a cup of cold water to a thirsting fellow-creature. The cup of cold water does not require to be translated for a foreigner to understand it. I am afraid the only Broad Church possible is one that has its creed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... hat. With a slight deprecatory laugh she removed it and went hurriedly down the stair. Whatever had she been doing with it, I thought, and settled with a sigh of satisfaction once more to my work, now that the nightmare in red, a kind of mute scarlet "Raven," was gone from my room. How very quiet it was. Not a single sleigh passed, no sounds came from the houses opposite or from next door, the whole world seemed smothered in the soft thick pillows of snow quietly gathering upon it. After a while, however, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... secretly eloped into the open air of freedom and health, and so attained complete literary expression, is a typical figure. It is only because we recognise that she is a typical figure among the women who attained distinction that we are able to guess at the vast number of mute inglorious Elizabeth Barretts who were never able to escape by their own efforts and never found a Browning to ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... he reached the middle of the courtyard, but made no motion to dismount. The lady came slowly down the broad stone steps, followed by her feminine train, and, approaching the Elector, placed her white hand upon his stirrup, in mute acknowledgment of ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... lungs, than that of animals in water by their 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. ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... in matter home for mind. From air the creeping centuries drew The matted thicket low and wide, This must the leaves of ages strew The granite slab to clothe and hide, Ere wheat can wave its golden pride. What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled (In dizzy aeons dim and mute The reeling brain can ill compute) Copper and iron, lead and gold? What oldest star the fame can save Of races perishing to pave The planet with a floor of lime? Dust is their pyramid and mole: Who saw what ferns and ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... I grasped her tiny black-gloved hand, and then, also in silence, raised it passionately to my eager lips. Her soft, dark eyes—those eyes that spoke although she was mute—met mine, and in them was a look that I had never seen there before—a look which as plainly as any words told me that my wild ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... 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 you have produced ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... held commanded a view of the lake at the very place where the accident occurred. The nine survivors sat upon the front seat of all; the friends of the deceased were all there, and, most pathetic sight of all, the two mute white faces of the drowned were exposed to view. The people wept before the tremulous voice of the minister had begun the service, and there was so much weeping that the preacher could say but little. Poor ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... hands together in mute anguish. Dr. May signed to Ethel to guide her back to the sofa, but the movement seemed so far to rouse her, that she said, "I should like to ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... But what might you think, When I had seen this hot love on the wing (As I perceived it, I must tell you that, Before my daughter told me), what might you, Or my dear majesty your queen here, think, If I had play'd the desk or table book;[20] Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb;[21] Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;[22] What might you think? No, I went round to work,[23] And my young mistress thus did I bespeak: Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy sphere; This must not ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... revolution had taken place on Piombo's face; his wrinkles, contracting into narrow lines, gave him a look of indescribable cruelty, and he cast upon the notary the glance of a tiger. The baroness was mute and passive. Ginevra, calm and resolute, waited silently; she knew that the notary's voice was more potent than hers, and she seemed to have decided to say nothing. At the moment when Roguin ceased speaking, ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... leap. Again, far from it! My friend and I had been undergraduates, and very proud of ourselves into the bargain, long ago in England. But we had travelled since then, in more senses than one. We had known comfort and we had known the mute impressive numbness of despair. We had made "scoops" at times and celebrated them with joyous junketings. Once we had dined at Delmonico's, a meal of which the memory is still an absurd chaos. We had, moreover, confronted America with a blank wall of unyielding ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... solid coherence? Why could not Tryst have been left by nature just a beer-loving serf, devoid of grief for his dead wife, devoid of longing for the nearest he could get to her again, devoid of susceptibility to this young man's influence? And the thought of all that was before the mute creature, sitting there in heavy, hopeless patience, stung Felix's heart so that he could hardly bear to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stranger in this moorland haunt, amid falling shadows and rounding gloom, mocked by the mute records and stony memorials of ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... I wander wide To old Ilissus' distant side, Deserted streams and mute? Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains, And echo, 'midst my native plains, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas |
