"Tongue-tied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... statistics of stammering and the custom of cutting the frenum of the tongue do not stand in any sort of correlation with each other, and that this ancient custom, noted by Celsus, has no real scientific raison d'etre (205. 9). We say that a child is "tongue-tied," and that one "makes too free with his tongue"; in French we find: Il a le filet bien coupe, "he is a great talker," and in the eighteenth century Il n'a pas de filet was in use; a curious German expression ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... to have become tongue-tied. What could it be that Coverly was concealing? The idea of complicity in the crime I scouted; nothing could have induced me to believe it. Only one explanation presented itself to my mind, as evidently it had presented ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... You will get tongue-tied if you keep on," warned Hippy Wingate. "We have something more serious on hand than to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... as a huge blunder. But all such feelings are poor and weak as compared with the sinking of the heart and the trembling of the knees which seize upon the unhappy lecturer as he advances towards his first audience, and as before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a tongue-tied would-be lecturer, facing rows of listening faces, listening to—silence. But to my surprise all this miserable feeling vanished the moment I was on my feet and was looking at the faces before me. I felt no tremor of nervousness from the first word to the last, and as I heard my own ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... responded Creede, fumbling for his hat, and as Miss Lucy took his hand the man who had put the fear of God into the hearts of so many sheep-herders became dumb and tongue-tied with bashfulness. There was not a man in the Four Peaks country that could best him, in anger or in jest, when it called for the ready word; but Kitty Bonnair had so stolen his wits that he could ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... is as a huge blunder. But all such feelings are poor and weak when compared with the sinking of the heart, and the trembling of the knees, which, seize upon the unhappy lecturer as he advances towards his first audience, and as before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a tongue-tied would-be speaker facing rows of listening ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... you, Sol?" asked Mr. Phinney. "You're as glum as a tongue-tied parrot. Ain't you satisfied with the way I'm doin' your movin'? The white horse can go back ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... soldiers saluted, tongue-tied and embarrassed, scuffling, and prodding one another's ribs in an attempt to urge a spokesman forward, while General Washington gazed down at them ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... "Tongue-tied—eh? Well, I won't trouble you to answer, for I know well enough my information's right. All you need do is just to hand over to me the packet you're taking to Mr. Walter Moncrief. ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... me, fixed as I was in grave and quiet habits of mind and thought. It was amazing to me at first with what ease many of the boys had acquired clear ideas upon every question of the day, and with what brilliancy they could advance them, while I was tongue-tied from modesty or reserve. Presently, however, I discovered that these promising young gentlemen were not so wondrous wise after all. I dismissed my fears, felt less fastidious about the emphatic utterance of a thoughtless opinion, and soon was as loud-tongued ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... shy, almost tongue-tied. She made him his tea, and gave him a cup; then she spoke of commonplaces, and the little kettle boiled and bubbled and sang as if there were no sorrow or sadness in ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... not budge from her seat or her stocking and seemed tongue-tied. Mrs. Plumfield pressed ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... "She ain't tongue-tied; not as a rule," said Betty apologetically to the children; "but she hasn't been much used to presents, and it's a ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... to her entreaty, packed their trunks, and stoically set out for the unknown. Neither Mr. Spragg nor his wife had ever before been out of their country; and Undine had not understood, till they stood beside her tongue-tied and helpless on the dock at Cherbourg, the task she had undertaken in uprooting them. Mr. Spragg had never been physically active, but on foreign shores he was seized by a strange restlessness, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... practically nothing: which was a shock to Marian Prohack, who had imagined that in the circles graced by Lady Massulam conversation varied from badinage to profundity and never halted. It was not that Lady Massulam was tongue-tied, nor that she was impolite; it was merely that with excellent calmness she did not talk. If anybody handed her a subject, she just dropped it; the floor around her was strewn ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... unhappy one, thine errand; For large discourse may send a thrill of joy, Or stir a chord of wrath or tenderness, And to the tongue-tied somehow give ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... to the sitting-room where she sat to fill his cup and to cut him bread-and-butter, was as lovely a vision as any man could desire to see at his board. Pleasantly and gaily she chattered, waiting on him with her dainty hands. He, tongue-tied, answering little, embarrassed and ill at ease in that ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... world denies, Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; Not always right in all men's eyes, But faithful ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... for himself, was appointed to the Chair of Experimental Physics in King's College, London, But his first course of lectures on Sound were a complete failure, owing to an invincible repugnance to public speaking, and a distrust of his powers in that direction. In the rostrum he was tongue-tied and incapable, sometimes turning his back on the audience and mumbling to the diagrams on the wall. In the laboratory he felt himself at home, and ever after confined his duties ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... sat for an hour with his head buried in his hands, before he dared to answer his girl wife's imperative telegram. "I must wait here like a tongue-tied dog," he growled. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... over the Princess' hand, which was offered him at once, and without hesitation, but his greeting to Forrest was markedly cold. Forrest had evidently lost his nerve. He seemed tongue-tied, and he was very pale. It was the Princess alone who saved the situation from becoming an ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it Heaven! And my discourse no less Must evermore sound noisome to thine ear. Yet where could I have found a fairer fame Than giving burial to my own true brother? All here would tell thee they approve my deed, Were they not tongue-tied to authority. But kingship hath much profit; this in chief, That it may do and say ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... could conceive the English nation so tongue-tied that they dared not whisper their feelings, there were Brussels, Paris, Rome, where the truth could be told; yet, with the exception of a single passage in a letter of Mary of Hungary,[613] there is no hint in the correspondence, either in Paris, Simancas, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... declarations thrusting up at him from the newspaper page like derisive fingers; by the reports in parallel columns he was represented as saying one thing and doing another! And a bumptious, blundering, bull-headed Scotchman had put the Governor of a state in that tongue-tied, skulking position on ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... was in the midst of these thoughts, and about half-way back to town, I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was heightened. It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that morning at the Advocate's, I made sure that I would find myself struck dumb. But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a species of irritation, that the girl was discoursing volubly about the offending chair merely in order to extricate an apparently shy and tongue-tied young man from a ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... itself to him, enlivening his lonely existence, shining suddenly upon his self-contained nature with a brilliancy that made him feel dull and tongue-tied. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... manifested, he had my sympathy and when I left the cemetery and took my mournful way back into town, it was with the secret resolution to stand his friend if I saw the case really going against him. Till then, I would consider the helpless girl, tongue-tied by her condition, and injured enough already by my misplaced love and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... to his sweetheart is of no importance. Men are so circumscribed in their utterances—so tongue-tied in love. They all say one thing; so it need not be set down here what Bob Hendricks said. It was what the king said to the queen, the prince to the princess, the duke to the lady, the gardener to the maid, the troubadour to his dulcinea. And Molly ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... moment they stood miserably tongue-tied. Even their usually quick-witted Little Captain seemed suddenly to have been stricken speechless. They were just about to turn and run when Mollie ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... "Well, I thought you two people knew each other long ago. Miss Baker, this is Mr. Grannis; Mr. Grannis, this is Miss Baker." Neither spoke. Like two little children they faced each other, awkward, constrained, tongue-tied with embarrassment. Then Miss Baker put out her hand shyly. Old Grannis touched it for an instant and let ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... contribution to an acquaintance. He looked straight into Catherine's eyes. She answered nothing; she only listened, and looked at him; and he, as if he expected no particular reply, went on to say many other things in the same comfortable and natural manner. Catherine, though she felt tongue-tied, was conscious of no embarrassment; it seemed proper that he should talk, and that she should simply look at him. What made it natural was that he was so handsome, or rather, as she phrased it to herself, so beautiful. The ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... in a sense it had been her fault. They were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, in a lonely little wood, Jack, as he seldom was, tongue-tied and dull. Piqued, she had twitted him on his silence. And then, all at once, he had turned and, seizing her roughly, had kissed her with the pent-up passion of a man in love who till now has ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... which bomb, Serena gave her whole attention to her breakfast. Usually George Lovegrove would have waxed valiant in defence of his friend, but a guilty conscience held him tongue-tied. Not so Rhoda; strive as she might, those allusions to her age still rankled. And, under cover of protest against injustice to the absent, she paid off a little of her private score, to ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... policy of silence. Meanwhile the vicar was grappling on very unequal terms with Mrs. Seaton. Mrs. Leyburn had fallen to young Elsmere. Catherine Leyburn was paired off with Dr. Baker, Agnes with Mr. Mayhew's awkward son—a tongue-tied youth, lately an unattached student at Oxford, but now relegated, owing to an invincible antipathy to Greek verbs, to his native air, till some other opening into the great world should be ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... about all, for I was never certain when to ring the bell or move the missal. I was all of a tremble when we gathered two on this side and two on that, with genuflection's, in the middle of the sanctuary, to intone the Domine, salvum fac regern at the end of mass. Let me make a confession: tongue-tied with shyness, I used to leave it ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... such a fool of himself—for henceforth, whatever she chose to do, he could not reasonably complain without running the risk of being laughed at. So now the number and variety of her lovers is notorious in the particular social circle where she moves—while he, poor wretch, is perforce tongue-tied, and dare not consider himself wronged. There is no more pitiable object in the world than such a man—secretly derided and jeered at by his fellows, he occupies an almost worse position than that of a galley slave, while in his own esteem he has sunk ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... of laughter and acclaim from all who heard, only Sir Palamon scowled, and, for once mute and tongue-tied, was led ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... "Do not stir till I come back," went away. After awhile, in came a great black slave, with a drawn sword in his hand, who said to him, "Woe to thee! who brought thee hither and what dost thou want?" My brother could make no answer, being tongue-tied for fear; so the black seized him and stripping him of his clothes, beat him with the flat of his sword till he swooned away. Then the pestilent black concluded that he was dead, and my brother heard him say, "Where is the salt-wench?" Whereupon in came a slave-girl, with a great dish of salt, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... God, who needed it not, but to man, who did. I besought him, for the good of all, and as he valued his soul's health, to detail the particulars of his crime, but his eye fell. That dark enemy, who takes care to leave in the heart just hope enough to keep despair alive, tongue-tied him; and he would not—even now—at the eleventh hour—give up the vain imagination, that the case of his companion might yet be confounded with his, to the escape of both—and vain it was. It had not been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... understood the feeling that held me tongue-tied. To make me feel at my ease she started to tell of everything that had happened from the moment that The Waif had cleared Sydney Heads, and the time she spent in that recital was as precious to me as the two-minute interval between ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... at first somewhat tongue-tied with a nervous stiffness common to the Britisher, but they thawed a little as the meal progressed, and when the musical students, Miss Jones and Miss Allen, had elicited that she was actually a pupil of the great Baroni, envy and ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... without being tongue-tied, and unable to wink, still thought. And what did the doctor propose to do with him in case he was not to be stung to death by insects, sand-flies, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... close by Belgrave Square, A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... how exactly describe it?... make you see it?... It's partially tongue-tied, a sad victim of its own excesses. Habitual over-indulgence in blaming has given it a painful stutter when attempting praise; it's the sprucely written sheet of the supercilious; it's the after-dinner pill of the American who prefers Europe; it's our Republic's ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... accept and condone, how far condemn them. She could not tell whether she was dealing with a case original and extraordinary, or one of pretty frequent occurrence in the experience of those who, as the phrase has it, know their world. These considerations kept her timid and tongue-tied; though old habit, combined with Carteret's delightful personality and the soothing influence of the dusky evening quiet, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... my part, I never care For those lips that tongue-tied are: Tell-tales I would have them be Of my mistress and of me. Let them prattle how that I Sometimes freeze and sometimes fry: Let them tell how she doth move Fore or backward in her love: Let them speak by gentle tones, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... smilingly at Alice, that young woman, usually mistress of herself in all emergencies, did not lift her eyes to meet his. Indeed, he thought her strangely embarrassed. She was as flushed and tongue-tied as a country girl in unaccustomed company. She seemed another woman than the self-possessed young beauty he had met a month before on the Limited, but he found her ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... as she said nothing he was obliged to say something, if only to prove to both of them that he was not a mere tongue-tied ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... tongue-tied all of a sudden, are you? Can't a woman take a little exercise without her family and friends coming snooping round and acting as if ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... first seemed disposed to reply. Her lips parted, as if about to speak, and closed again, as glancing her eyes toward the open door, she seemed to expect the appearance of the steward's little, rotund form on its threshold, which held her tongue-tied. A brief interval elapsed, however, ere Jack actually arrived, and Rose, perceiving that Harry was curiously expecting her answer, said hurriedly—"It ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... tongue-tied. "One thing I must do and that is see that a certain insecticide manufacturer gets a plug on Interplanetary TV," I continue. "Ha, we took the bugs out of this planet. It should work quite smooth ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... du Grand Cerf, where a dinner was being prepared by scared servants for thirty German officers. The order was about to be signed when suddenly a cure, small and pale, but lion-brave, entered the room. How he got in no one knew! Surprise held the general tongue-tied for three seconds; and a French cure is capable of much eloquence ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... instrument that linked us together. Yet I was quite incapable of answering her simple question! I can't imagine what I expected her to say, for upon reflection her remark was a very ordinary one, and indeed under the circumstances quite natural, but, as I say, in actual fact I was tongue-tied. ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... eloquence of Heaven itself had suddenly descended upon a person hitherto hopelessly tongue-tied, Rae Malgregor lifted an utterly transfigured face to the ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... out of the dressing-room the prize model flew, each time wearing a new costume and looking more stunning with every change. She posed with absolute self-possession before the stricken buyer, who stood, tongue-tied and motionless, while Zizzbaum orated oilily of the styles. On the model's face was her faint, impersonal professional smile that seemed to cover something ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... a picture in my mind of poor Trenchard searching the countryside for some one to whom he might be devoted, tongue-tied, clumsy, stumbling and stuttering, a village Don Quixote with a stammer and ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... boys were careful not to seem curious about Bud's past. They even refrained from manifesting too much interest in the musical instruments until Bud himself took them out of their cases that evening and began tuning them. Then the half-baked, tongue-tied fellow came over and ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... was hard to follow, she handled the clumsy Korean with a bird-like quickness and an utter disregard for the nature of the language. Her eyes burned into my own, and I sat embarrassed beside her, tongue-tied, while Holaf smiled quietly and kept his hand ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... technical school, where he took the civil engineering degree, and had gone forth to lay track in Montana. He laid it well; but this job finished, there seemed no permanent place for him. He was heavy and rather tongue-tied, and made no impression on his superiors except that of commonplace efficiency. He drifted into Canada, then back to the States, and finally found a place ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... said The Spider, laying another packet of bills on the surgeon's desk. "Where I come from money talks. And I reckon it ain't got tongue-tied since I was in El Paso last. Here's a thousand. Pull that boy through and forget where you ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... indeed, and at last broke up into divisions. Gertrude was obliged to suspend operations for a while, and use her eyes instead of her tongue. Most of the rest were inclined to do the same; and curious glances went about in every direction, not missing Miss Masters herself. Some people were absolutely tongue-tied; others used ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the hard conditions of this state that while we can mostly make out to let people taste the last drop of bitterness and ill-will that is in us, our love and gratitude are only semi-articulate at the best, and usually altogether tongue-tied. ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... could see only a faint, white clad shape inside; and, true to Fergus, I pulled the collar of my cloak high up, for it was July in the wet seasons, and the nights were chilly. And, smothering a laugh as I thought of the tongue-tied Fergus, I ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... intelligence, and whose eyes, accustomed to economize expressions, knew how to say so many things silently—these two old friends, one as noble as the other in heart, if they were unequal in fortune and birth, remained tongue-tied whilst looking at each other. By the exchange of a single glance they had just read to the bottom of each other's hearts. The old servitor bore upon his countenance the impression of a grief already old, the outward token of a grim familiarity with woe. He appeared ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tongue-tied and so loath to speak, In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts: Let him that is a true-born gentleman And stands upon the honor of his birth, If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, From off this brier pluck a white rose ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... twenty-seven years old, these imposing doors were opened. The first interview was unsatisfactory; the young poet was tongue-tied and stammering, the great man reserved and haughty: they parted mutually dissatisfied. Nine months later Maecenas sent for him again, received him warmly, enrolled him formally amongst his friends. (Sat. I, vi, 61.) Horace himself tells the story: he ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... questioning on so sacred a topic was a little more than the young lady was prepared to meet, and for the moment confusion held her tongue-tied. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... clear and searching, and the Knight sat tongue-tied. But presently there flicked into them a look so human, so tender, so completely understanding, that straightway the tongue of the Knight ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... undignified confusion. There was a peace-party, of course, and a war-party, but the latter prevailed. It too often does so in human affairs. Chingatok was understood to favour the peace-party, but as his sire was on the other side, respect kept him tongue-tied. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... thou hear me further? Shall I go on to repeat the conversation? Is it shame that makes thee tongue-tied? Shall I go on? or art thou satisfied with what ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... a tongue-tied brood at the best. The bands can declare on our behalf without shame and without shyness something of what we all feel and help us to reach a hand toward the men who have risen up to save us. In the beginning the more urgent ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... party, the Duke shrank; and his followers were left to sort themselves at will. There was a general expectation that Portland would publicly declare against Fox; but friendship or timidity held him tongue-tied. Malmesbury sought to waken him from his "trance," but in vain.[144] He lay under "the wand of the magician" (Pitt's phrase for the witchery that Fox exerted), even when so staunch a Whig as Sir Gilbert Elliot saw that the wizard's enchantments were ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. "I love ye! Oh, I always loved ye! I never keered fur nobody else! an' I war tongue-tied, an' full of fool pride, an' faultin' ye fur yer ways; an' I wouldn't gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin' ter hear. But now I kin tell the pore ghost of ye—I kin tell ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... anger, humiliation, shame, held her tongue-tied. The instinctive revolt at the vague horror—the monstrous, meaningless threat—nothing could force words from her to repudiate, to deny what he ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... ground. He was disappointed, crushed. Not a syllable did he utter; not a single word of remonstrance and advice did he presume to offer in the presence of his associates. He had a sense of guilt, and men so situated are sometimes tongue-tied. He had, in truth, a great deal to answer for, and enough to make a livelier man than he dissatisfied and wretched. Every farthing which had passed from the bank to the Pantamorphica Association was irrecoverably gone. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... named M. Sarigue, a poor fellow not unlike the inoffensive, ignoble animal whose name he bore,[2] with his sparse, red hair, his frightened eyes, his hopping gait in his white gaiters. He was so shy that he could not say two words without stammering, almost tongue-tied, incessantly rolling balls of chewing-gum around in his mouth, which put the finishing touch to the viscosity of his speech; and every one wondered why such an impotent creature had cared to become a member of the Assembly, what delirious female ambition had spurred on to public ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... again. Why did she not speak plainly, he was wondering. In the subtler matters of life, women have a clearer comprehension and a plainer speech than men. When they are tongue-tied—the reason ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... self-consciousness and shyness. They are a very irrational thing, something purely instinctive and of old inheritance. How irrational they are is best proved by the fact that shyness is caused mostly by the presence of strangers; there are many young people who are bashful, awkward, and tongue-tied in the presence of strangers, whose tremors wholly disappear in the family circle. If these were rational fears, they might be caused by the consciousness of the inspection and possible disapproval of those among whom one lives, and whose ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... pleasure of dissecting their own emotions as soon as they are once assured of a discreet and sympathetic listener. The same is doubly true of sentimentalists. The women of Conrad—like the women of Shakespeare—while they may be garrulous enough and witty enough on other matters, grow tongue-tied and dumb when their great emotions call ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... occasion poor Birotteau felt he was tongue-tied, and he resigned himself to eat a meal without engaging in conversation. After a while, however, the thought crossed his mind that silence was dangerous for his digestion, and he boldly ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... must be the inflaming before there can be the mounting of the aspiration. You cannot get a balloon to go up unless the gas within it is warmer than the atmosphere round it. It is because we are habitually such tepid Christians that we are so tongue-tied ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... bumped, bumped, bumped down the stairs and into the cellar. Then a brief silence followed, abruptly broken by the sound of a girlish voice, which, though beautifully tintinnabulous, was unearthly, and full of suggestions so sinister and blood-curdling, that the fetters which had hitherto held me tongue-tied snapped asunder, and I was able to give vent to my terror in words. The instant I did so the singing ceased, all was still, and not another ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... she asked. "You'm 'mazin' quiet an' tongue-tied for you. I s'pose you'm thinkin' of the time when Joe Noy comes home. I lay you'll ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... was like rushing out into the world. I was almost dazed by the change. At first I was nervous, timid, awkward, and, especially, tongue-tied. The habit of silence had taken such a hold upon me that I could not throw it off. I dreaded the coming of visitors. I did not know how to receive them, what to say to them. Fortunately, as I thought, the tourist season was over, the summer was approaching. Very few people ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... did not stir at the sound of his feet trampling the slush. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open; she breathed, like a child, the half-suffocated breath that comes after long crying. He stood looking at her, tongue-tied with pity. Every now and then her throat shook like a child's with guileless ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... course we are old acquaintances, and he 's always pleasant and civil: he couldn't be anything else; but he wastes mighty little time on me. I don't blame him for preferring other girls' society. He would show very little taste if he did not enjoy Ella Perry's company better than that of a tongue-tied thing like me. She is a thousand times prettier and wittier and more graceful than ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... tongue-tied with astonishment. In the end she recalled herself. Mrs. Hanway-Harley scented nothing perilous in the situation. In any event, Dorothy would wed whomsoever she decreed; Mrs. Hanway-Harley was deservedly ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... cat-eyed she's "a little Pallas," she; The sinewy and wizened's "a gazelle"; The pudgy and the pigmy is "piquant, One of the Graces sure"; the big and bulky O she's "an Admiration, imposante"; The stuttering and tongue-tied "sweetly lisps"; The mute girl's "modest"; and the garrulous, The spiteful spit-fire, is "a sparkling wit"; And she who scarcely lives for scrawniness Becomes "a slender darling"; "delicate" Is she who's nearly dead ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... background, and a perfect retinue of preaching ancestors, whole dozens of them and all Baptists, and they have conspired to poison the boy's mind with the notion that it's up to him to preach, too. It would be all right, if he had anything to say; but he hasn't. He's tongue-tied and unmagnetic at the best; what's more, he has learned too many things to let him flaunt abroad the old beliefs as battle standards. He's gone too far, and not far enough. His life is bound to be a miserable sort of compromise, a species of battledore and shuttlecock arrangement ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... thinking over my position at the present moment, and had come to the conclusion that I was in love with her. The instant, however, that I arrived at that result my careless, happy mood vanished, a mist seemed to arise before me which concealed even her eyes and smile, and, blushing hotly, I became tongue-tied ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... perfect of necks. In her right hand she held a carelessly-plucked creeper that strayed down the white of her dress and drooped over the high firm instep. And so my gaze dropped to earth again. Pity me. I had scarcely spoken to woman before, never to beauty. Tongue-tied and dripping I stood there, yet was ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... when there were only men present, was usually tongue-tied in the presence of ladies. Three phrases, however, he had ready cut and dried, which he ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... drift again, Sandy. I wouldn't be used to such grand people as the patriarchs and prophets, and I would be sheepish and tongue-tied in their company, and mighty glad to get out of it. Sandy, which is the highest ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... he agreed. "Words are poor things when one really feels. Providence seems to have arranged that we should be more or less tongue-tied when we ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... I feel I am all but tongue-tied. Think that it is Harry who petitions you to ensure his happiness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... listeners. William Wetherell perceived that the conversation, for the moment at least, was safely away from politics, and in that dubious state where it was difficult to reopen. This was perhaps what Jethro wanted. Even Jake Wheeler was tongue-tied, and Jethro appeared ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... experiments in contrapuntal prose were, in particular, uncharted passages from which I stayed unique in deriving pleasure where others found bewilderment and no tongue-tied irritation: but, in general, and above every misdemeanor else, the book exasperated everybody by not being a more successfully managed re-hashing of ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... I would have given much to have been alone with her, but I saw no chance of this. Perhaps it was better as it was. What she herself wished I could not tell. Mrs Tarleton showed no intention of leaving the room. I longed to say a great deal, but I felt tongue-tied. Captain Douglas had but little time to spare. He looked at his watch. I saw that I could no longer delay. I bade farewell to Mrs Tarleton. Madeline came to the door of the hut. I took her hand—it trembled ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... trees, but Dave turned from time to time to catch a glimpse of her face, white and fine as ivory in the soft light. He had much to say; he felt that the ages could not utter all he had to say to-night, but he was tongue-tied under the spell of ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... around. 'And that's what started the fire. I'll kick the man off the works that owns the stick.' Still nobody said anything. He caught me grinnin'. 'You know who it was,' says he. 'Sure I do,' says I, 'but I'm a little tongue-tied.' Then he told me he'd fire me if I didn't say who it was. 'Give me my time-check,' says I, and he gave it. He found out afterward I was the man that dragged him out, and sent a letter up to Colusa askin' me to come back, but I didn't go. Don't ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton |
