"Benumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... watched the flood go swaying past. She felt stupefied and bewildered. Whence came the flood, and how? A more unexpected thing had never happened to her. And now she knew that the children were safe, the unexpectedness of it, the amazement of the whole thing, seemed almost to benumb her senses. ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... stark dead, shall raise her up, And teach her yet more charming words and skill Than ever C[oe]lia, Chloris, Astrophil, Or any of the threadbare names inspir'd Poor rhyming lovers with a mistress fir'd. Come then! and while the slow icicle hangs At the stiff thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs Benumb the year, blithe—as of old—let us 'Midst noise and war of peace and mirth discuss. This portion thou wert born for: why should we Vex at the time's ridiculous misery? An age that thus hath fool'd itself, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... How I have escaped death is one of the mysteries which time perchance may never develop. One might fancy the cunning leech who supplied the drug did play me false. Instead of poison, mayhap, one of those potions of which we have heard, that so benumb and stupify the faculties that for a space they mimic death, nor can anything rouse or recover from its influence until the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... self-absorbed, depressed and never smiled. And every time his face came close to mine I smelled the brandy on him. Conscience whipped Its venomed tail against his peace of mind. And so he took the brandy to benumb The sting of conscience and to dull the pain. He told me he had business in Montreaux Which would require some weeks, would there be met By people who had money for him. I Was twenty-three and green, besides I walked In dreamland thinking of the promised schooling ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... himself by the back of her chair, for all his strength and sense seemed on the point of failing him; while for the moment he felt as if he could almost have been grateful to any one who would slay him where he stood, and thus put him out of his misery—benumb his sense of degradation and the remorse which he experienced for his wasted life, and the wrongs of ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... with flesh and blood—that if you suddenly abstract from us but single, impalpable, airy thought, which our souls have cherished, you seem to curdle the air, to extinguish the sun, to snap every link that connects us to matter, and to benumb everything ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... last morning, these seemed to regard him with mournful and hollow eyes; the parting was indeed so intensely sad, that Hugh experienced a grim relief in completing it; and there fell on him a deep dreariness of spirit, which seemed at last to benumb him, until he felt that he could no longer ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... separates the aims of the real hero from those of the fool, that almost every ambitious man must pass through these periods of self-doubt before reaching the goal of his hopes. But despondency did not benumb Mackenzie into apathy, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... calls forth the energies of the mind; but for Heaven's sake shield me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, those enervating triflings, those siren blandishments, that I have for some time indulged in, which lull the mind into complete inaction, which benumb its powers, and cost it such painful and humiliating struggles to regain its ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Instruments, for the Procurement of his Profit, or Pleasure; so is there not a Creature more Serviceable to man in either of these, as the Horse. A Beast Valiant, Strong, Nimble and Hardy, the Vivacity of whose Spirits, neither Heat can scorch, or dry up, nor Cold benumb or freez; he is Valiant, Watchfull, and Laborious, naturally Cleanly, and of exquisite Scent; Gentle and Loving to man, docile, and of a retentive Memory, and Apt or Fit for the performing any Service wherein man employes him. And for the Use of which I am now speaking (Racing) ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... she heard this, uttered a cry of pain. She felt an icy coldness benumb her heart, as she remembered that this unbelieving boy was one day to succeed her on the throne of Austria. The emperor, too, was pained. By the deadly paleness of her face, he guessed the pane that was rending ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... connection I shall say of alcoholics that they contain not an atom that can be converted into living atoms; they congest and irritate the stomach, and hence lessen digestive power; and benumb all the brain ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... to wake inside the house, blowing without sound or impact; and a water began to rise that had no lap in its ripples, no sob in its swell. It was cold, but it did not benumb. Unseen and noiseless it came. It smote no sense in me, yet I knew it rising. I saw it lift at last and float her. Gently it bore her, unable to resist, and left rather than laid her on the settle. Then it ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... deal of sewing to do at home that winter, and whenever it was not so cold as to benumb her fingers, she took it upstairs, in order to watch the little lad in her few odd moments of pause. On his better days he could sit up enough to peep out of his window, and she found he liked to look at her. Presently she ventured to nod to him across the court; and his faint smile, and ready ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... extinguish, and the chilly air Breath'd from the river at the dawn of day? But if, ascending this declivity I gain the woods, and in some thicket sleep, (If sleep indeed can find me overtoil'd And cold-benumb'd) then I have cause to fear 570 Lest I be torn by wild beasts, and devour'd. Long time he mused, but, at the last, his course Bent to the woods, which not remote he saw From the sea-brink, conspicuous on a hill. Arrived, between ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... was feeling very ill now. His fur overcoat had become unbuttoned and the bitter wind that blew across the Park seemed to benumb his body and fetter his limbs so that he could barely ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... of Education—that beautiful timber-headed, timber-hearted, timber-souled structure—could come down on me with an avalanche of statistics. "Look at our results," they cry. I look. There are certain brains that even our educational system cannot benumb. A few clever ones, at the cost of enormously expensive machinery, are sent to the universities, where they learn how to teach others the important things whereby they achieved their own unimportant ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... and Health, says cigarettes are in many cases the direct cause of cancer, blindness, deafness, heart disease and dyspepsia. He further says they dwarf the body, benumb the brain ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... mercurial ointment, used extensively. Mercurial fumigation. Turpeth mineral. To salivate the patient as soon as possible. Exsection or a caustic on the scar, even after the appearance of hydrophobia. Put a tight bandage on the limb above the scar of the old wound to benumb the pained tendon, however long the wound may have been healed. Could a hollow catheter of elastic gum, caoutchouc, be introduced into the oesophagus by the mouth or nostril, and liquid nourishment ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... mediaeval Catholicism, restored by edict, enforced by the Inquisition, propagated by Jesuits, was not of the fine enthusiastic quality to counteract them. Servile in its conception, it sufficed to bridle and benumb a race of serfs, but not to soften or to purify their ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... for that instant did benumb the sinews of my best delights, and did imbitter my former pleasures to me; but hold, it lasted not, for before I had well dined, the trouble began to go off my mind, and my heart returned to its old course: but oh! how glad ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan |
