"Blankly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this refusal to concede to Chandler one of his cherished schemes, the second message was sent to Congress. The watchful and exasperated Jacobins found abundant offense in its omissions. On the whole great subject of possible emancipation it was blankly silent. The nearest it came to this subject was one suggestion which applied only to those captured slaves who had been forfeited by the disloyal owners through being employed to assist the Confederate government Lincoln advised that after receiving their freedom they ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... was our dismay to find that not a particle of food remained on it. How thankful we should have been to find a single ham or a few buffalo steaks! but neither one nor the other gladdened our eyes. We had to descend with the sad intelligence. We looked blankly ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... at him blankly. A light begins to grow in his eyes. It grows till his face is transfigured. It vanishes. ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... blankly, and for a few moments that group in the midst of the tangle of broken timber and jagged root hung together, boy and man staring into ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... blankly ahead of her, in the centre of the room. The memory came over her in a wave; the odd, half-hesitating, half-confident look in his eyes as his arms enveloped her, the faint aroma of talcum powder and soap, the touch of his ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... he looks benign and does not prattle; he respects the lobes of our ears and other vulnerabilia. But for some inscrutable reason we feel strangely ill at ease in his chair. We can't think of anything to think about. Blankly we brood in the hope of catching the hem of some intimation of immortality. But no, there is nothing to do but sit there, useless as an incubator with no eggs in it. The processes of wasting and decay are hurrying us rapidly to a pauperish grave, every instant ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... few strides the automobile came in sight, the blaze of its headlights casting a cheerful glow over the wharf. Brodie was standing where the barge had been moored, and gazing blankly at the river; he turned when he heard their footsteps, and ran ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... use our share of it for scholarships? Four one hundred dollar scholarships would help four girls along splendidly. Of course that isn't a department exactly,—and perhaps it's a silly suggestion." Betty slipped into her seat beside Madeline, blushing furiously, and looking blankly amazed when her speech brought forth a round of vigorous applause, and, as soon as parliamentary order would permit, a motion that 19— should, with the consent of the unknown benefactor of the college, ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... her, but she ignored the request, and gazed blankly before her. Sally nudged her, whispering, "Pickle, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the blue, earliest glimpse of morn, Pleas'd with the lapse of time, return; For now, perchance, I might not fail, To see the long expected sail! Then, as it blankly wore away, Courted the fleeting eye to stay! As they regardless mov'd along, Wooed the slow moments in a song. The time approaches! but the Hours With languid steps advance, And loiter o'er the summer flowers, Or in the sun-beams ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... soaked ground, drenched trees, and peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some new fantasy to be written upon it, as groundless as the rest; our solid land dissolves in cloud, and cloud assumes the stability of land. For, after all, the only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... outside with breathless eagerness draw shut the strong door that led to the passage from which he had entered, and a moment later, Herbert heard the ominous sound of stout bolts being shot into their sockets. He stood for a moment gazing blankly now at the bolted door, now at the barred window, and then slowly there came to him the knowledge which would have enlightened a more suspicious man long before—that he was a prisoner in the grim fortress of Gudenfels. Casting his mind backward ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... very pleasant," Tamara said blankly, while she picked up a book. Even to speak of him caused ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... his cheeks as a swallow flies down from a roof; he started back against the opposite wall with a stifled groan, while she stared at him blankly, and grew as deathly pale ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... pitiless capacity or the deep revenge it takes from time to time on its helpless conquerors. As we passed down by the creek, the "Great House" came into sight, all its blinds drawn and the white windows staring blankly at the sea. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... perhaps, ten seconds, this grisly phantom stood motionless in the boat, staring blankly at us; then, when the ship was within some twenty fathoms of him, he threw his gaunt, bony arms above his head, and with a wild, eldritch yell, such as I had never heard before, and hope never to hear again, he half sprang, half tumbled ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... after luncheon I found him standing by the window, with his hands in his pockets, looking blankly out upon ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... delved earth. These, though in so far a country, were airs from home. I stood on the platform by the hour; and as I saw, one after another, pleasant villages, carts upon the highway and fishers by the stream, and heard cockcrows and cheery voices in the distance, and beheld the sun, no longer shining blankly on the plains of ocean, but striking among shapely hills and his light dispersed and coloured by a thousand accidents of form and surface, I began to exult with myself upon this rise in life like a man who had come into a rich estate. ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there piece they want me to speak." But as the day of our performance drew near it became evident to me, at least, that he was in a desperately black state of mind. As best I could I cheered him with words of praise, but his eye met mine blankly at such times and I could see him shudder poignantly while waiting the moment of ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... up again at the number, and when he realized that he had made no mistake, his knees turned to gelatine, and he stood staring, fascinated, numbed. His eyes wandered blankly from the crumbling ticket-booth to the unkempt lobby and back to the lurid billing—the current attraction was a seven-reel thriller entitled "What He Least Expected," but Henry missed the parallel. With trembling fingers he produced a cigarette, but in his daze ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... blankly. The name had come through to him at last. Aleksander Kardelj was seldom in the news, practically never photographed, and then in the background in a group of Party functionaries, usually with a wry smile on his face. But he was known throughout the boundaries of the State, if not internationally. ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... ticket air like tags on a collection of curios in an auction room, droning the dull iteration of a catalogue. There is as little to awaken and inspire in the system of religion and ethics of the pagan world they lived in as in the eyes of the stone effigies that stare blankly upon us in the British Museum, the Uffizi and ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... away. She remained smiling blankly at him. His words slipped past her ear. Inside, she was wandering—disheveled thoughts were wandering through a darkness. At night she lay beside him as he slept, with her eyes wide open and her lips praying, "Dear Jesus, sweet brother Jesus, ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... I replied. But when I turned to confirm my words, Jane Ryder had disappeared. I could only stare at the woman blankly and protest that she had been at my side a moment ago before. "I knew it!" wailed the woman. "First comes you to wheedle her away, and then come your companions to search the house for her. I knew how it would be. I never knew but one man you could trust ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... and her father stared at each other blankly, almost with despair. They were trapped, cut off from all help; in the power of a man who was going mad. Mr. Clifford said nothing. He was old and growing feeble; for years, although he did not know it, Meyer had dominated ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... news with an indifference from which it blankly rebounded. He buried one bare foot in the soft white sand and withdrew it with a jerk that powdered the blackberry vines ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... said Mr. Acton, with a deep sigh, as he handed him the letter. Then, sinking back in his arm chair and folding his hands, he stared blankly into the distance, his grief ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... not order me another, could you?" blankly demanded Clayton, with a baffled sense of losing both the lady ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... at her blankly. Obviously she did not understand. But, seeing her neat apron, her clean hands, her carefully combed hair, one ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... hospitably open. He walked up the steps, dimly conscious that his cottage looked this morning far less disreputable than it had seemed yesterday, and tried the front door. He didn't remember whether he had locked it last night. But evidently he had not, for it swung open and he found himself staring blankly into a pair of very lovely ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... strangled cry she sank into a chair, clasping her hands tightly together. She sat there, very still and quiet, staring blankly ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... devils of mischief fairly danced in their shimmering, liquid depths. The girl's face, even to him who had long before grown overfamiliar with its beauty, was a wonderfully lovely thing. Allison sat and stared at her for a moment, blankly, and when he went on his voice had ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... that startled him out of his reverie. Communing with himself, he was staring blankly ahead, taking little note of the people whom he saw. But somehow, in a vague and dreamlike way, he seemed to become aware that there was some one in front of him—a long way ahead as yet—whom he knew. He was still thinking of Mrs. Lorraine, and unconsciously ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... person in those rooms. She was like one in a dream. Vladimir de Windt, marvelling at the recklessness of the affair, came once to the twain, thinking to expostulate with Ivan. But what he saw in the two faces turned blankly upon him, filled him with such sudden perception that he stumbled through an excuse, and went off to seek some spot where he could think; saying to himself, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... would have commented; but, save Hans the confiding, none other of the many interested observers were deceived. No man merely indolent sleeps neither by night nor by day; and it seemed the little man never slept. No man merely indolent sits wide-eyed hour after hour, gazing blankly at the earth beneath his feet—and uttering never a word. Brooding, not dreaming, was Asa Arnold; brooding over the eternal problem of right and wrong. And, as passed the slow weeks, he moved back—back ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the dark, cold days. French windows admitted to the inner room, and, peering through the casement curtains which covered them, Tarling saw Mrs. Rider. She was sitting at a desk, a pen in her hand, her chin on her finger-tips. She was not writing, but staring blankly at the wall, as though she were at a loss for ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... and looked at herself, blankly, gloomily. Her eyes fell a little, and took a new expression, that of anxious scrutiny. Gazing still, she raised her arms, much as though she were standing to be measured by a dressmaker; then she turned, so as to obtain a view of her figure sideways. Her ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... muttered, looking blankly at the opposite wall. "My God, this is piling up. What am I ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... of the following day, Fanny peered with pale, haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved slowly out of Union depot, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on the kitchen table ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... behind—Why, where is Michael? See! He has dropped away behind and is walking slowly. Will, does Michael know Miss Endicott? I never thought before about their names being the same. But he lifted his hat to her—and she simply stared blankly at him as if she had ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... way humanized the scene. The ward tenders and the interne stared at her blankly; the nurses looked down in unconscious comment on the twisted figure by their side. The surgeon drew his hands from his pockets and stepped toward the woman, questioning her meanwhile with his nervous, piercing glance. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... left Kurrell gazing blankly after him. Kurrell did not ride on either to see Mrs. Boulte or Mrs. Vansuythen. He sat in his saddle and thought, while his pony grazed by ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... him blankly for a moment. Then she drew a long breath and took an aimless step away from the table. "Well, if that isn't too queer for ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... blankly from Cleve to Blicky, and then at Gulden, who came slowly forward, his hair ruffed, his gun held low. Joan followed the glance of his great gray eyes, and she saw the stage-driver hanging dead over his seat, and the guards lying back of him. The off-side horse ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... God had fitted to endure toil under climatic conditions peculiar to the soil, vast silent fields of weeds stared blankly, and the richer a man found himself in ancestral acres, the more hopelessly was he manacled by taxes. "Reconstructionists" most thoroughly inoculated with "Loyal" rabies, held in lofty disdain the claims of widows and orphans, and the right of minors was as dead as that of secession. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... so sudden, so fierce, so feline that for a moment Lady St. Craye could only look blankly at her hostess. Then she recovered ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... daughters, who were busy with their sewing, or embroidery or lace-work; but he soon wearied of the play and of the talk, and seemed at last to get through with them as a duty. When his wife came down again after dressing, she always found him sitting in an easy-chair looking blankly at Marguerite and Felicie, quite undisturbed by the rattle of their bobbins. When the newspaper was brought in, he read it slowly like a retired merchant at a loss how to kill the time. Then he would get up, look at the sky through the window panes, go back to his chair ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... of the heat as he pulled the bell knob. What ghosts would its jangle summon? The bell, however, gave no sound; in fact the knob came off in his hand, followed by a foot or so of copper wire. He laughed, gazing at it blankly. No one had ever used the bell in the old days. They had simply kicked open the door and halloed: "O-o-h, ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... but no baily—I deserved that place," wailed Henery, signifying wasted genius by gazing blankly at visions of a high destiny apparently visible to him on Billy Smallbury's smock-frock. "There, 'twas to be, I suppose. Your lot is your lot, and Scripture is nothing; for if you do good you don't get rewarded ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... blankly. He was suddenly aware of Aten in the background, smiling triumphantly and very happily at him. There was something like a roar of approval from the ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... they were driven back from it. The lamp which Simon held forward showed a monkeylike creature mowing and grimacing in the corner, man or woman none could tell, but driven crazy by loneliness and horror. In the other cell was a graybearded man fettered to the wall, looking blankly before him, a body without a soul, yet with life still in him, for his dull eyes turned slowly in their direction. But it was from behind the central door at the end of the passage that the chorus of sad cries came which ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... peeping obliquely into Billy's room and making, with the aid of his shaving-glass, all sorts of fantastic colors on the wall, when a slight tug at the blankets which covered him moved him to start, turn over, open his eyes, stare blankly before him, shut them, open them again, rub them desperately, and finally gaze with awakened consciousness up at the object which had disturbed his slumbers. She was leaning half over the bed, her little fat arms, shoulders, and throat all bare, her bright, tangled hair knotted ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... the third day, rolling back toward the elevator and the terra incognita which lay beyond, he saw a sign. He stared at it blankly, because it interfered considerably with a plan he had in mind. The sign was of tin, and ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the gray car made off, leaving Theydon to gaze blankly after it. His sister, though badly scared at first, quickly recovered her self-possession. She even made a joke ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... use for us or it'd pay us something," Gusterson sourly asserted, staring blankly at the tankless TV and kicking it lightly as ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... for the three silent seated figures before the door, and for a moment looked at them blankly with the doubts of a frequently deceived perception. Was he sure that they were quite real? He had not dared to look at his companion for verification, ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... Jim said aloud, as if objecting to his own thought. "The door's locked! We tried it!" He looked at Partridge, who returned his gaze blankly—and then, in spite of what he had said, he reached ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the valley like an empty bowl above an empty vessel, and in his heart he felt no swelling possibilities to fill this void. To the haggard old eyes the face of the world was like a dead thing, which did not return his gaze even with hostility, but blankly—a smooth, thin mask which hid behind ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... into the water, threw himself back, drew them out and dropped them in again, all the while staring blankly at his plaited shoes. The waves splashed against the vessels with a sort of menace, a sort of warning in their drowsy sound that terrified him. The dock was reached. From its granite wall came the sound of men's voices, the splash of ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... objects of our senses. Bunsen, whose thought and scholarship included pretty much all the knowledge of mankind, represents this stage of faith. He stands on the religious side of the movement of Science, believing in immortality without defining it. Comte stands on the positivist side, blankly denying all objective immortality. These two represent the results in which, advancing from its opposite sides, the logical development of the doctrine of a future life ends. With Comte, atheistic dogmatism crushing every eternal hope; ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... delegates looked rather blankly at each other, and then the spokesman smiled. "Oh, well," he said, "if you have prohibited both of them, I don't see that we have anything to ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... with its set sneer, and moving but stiffly, she put forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it lay stretched beneath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison; she thrust it farther backward still, and letting the draperies fall, steadily and with care so rearranged them that all was safe and hid ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... washed; and she did this before she went through her kitchen into a shed-room where she slept. There she sat down in hurried and frowning preoccupation, resting her elbows on her knees and staring blankly at the braided mat on the floor. As she sat there her face reddened; and once she laughed, nervously. "An' me 'most ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... blankly. "Impossible, why, there's nothing there but this box of quinine pills for ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... had blankly forgotten all about him. Remembered him only when she wanted him to tune the piano. She callously proposed to exact this service of him, and if possible, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... are three: that he 'fell down headlong;' that he 'burst asunder in the middle;' and that 'his bowels gushed out'—the first of these elements being unintelligible in the English expression of it, and the two others being purely and blankly impossible. These objections to the particular mode of that catastrophe which closed the career of Judas, had been felt pretty generally in the Christian church, and probably from the earliest times; and the more so on account of that deep obscurity ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... Coburn, watching blankly, found himself astonished at the number of people the village contained. He hadn't dreamed it was so populous. All were in instant frenzied flight toward the mountains. An old woman he'd seen barely hobbling, now ran like a deer. ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... go! eh, Bullen?" remarked Ensign Christie, as the two men stared blankly at the door ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... apparition, evoked, as it seemed, by those terribly damning words he had pronounced, Don Rodrigo stood blankly at gaze a moment, not even seeking to understand how this dread thing ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... at her blankly for a moment, then Drusilla saw that she understood. Her mouth drooped and quivered, her hands faltered in their work, but only for a moment. Mechanically she put the flower into the paste, then placed it on the wreath. She worked quietly for ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... one of them whether he had read some book that was exciting discussion among educated people at the moment, he would probably look at you blankly and, after remarking that he had never cared for economics or history—as the case might be—inquire whether you preferred a "Blossom" or a "Tornado." Poor vacuous old cocks! They might be having a green and hearty ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... the forehead and called him, but he still stared blankly ahead of him, unconscious of even her presence. Locke felt the pulse of the patient and ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... she understood the wonderful things he was telling her. She would lie upon her back with her eyes fixed upon him, her little red fists doubled over his bow, or a thumb thrust into her mouth. And the longer she lay like this, gazing at him blankly, the more convinced Jan became that she was understanding him; and his voice grew soft and low, and his eyes shone with a soft mist as he told her those things which John Cummins would have given much ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... her cheeks, and she was sitting with head bent forward, deeply preoccupied with the food on her plate. Gazing blankly at her, Eric tried to imagine what kind of intimacy she could have formed with the elusive celibate who never spoke to women or ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... words were, they thrilled me to my finger-tips, for they were the first she had spoken to me since the night of my offending in the black gorge of the far-off western mountains. None the less, they were blankly unanswerable, and had the door been open I should doubtless have vanished as I had come. Of all the houses in the town this was surely the last I should have run to for refuge had I known the name of its ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... slightly inclined to one side—an attitude usually considered to be indicative of the artistic temperament, and admired the prospect. The "Place" was deserted, and in the middle the great statue of Napoleon stood staring blankly across the sea towards Elba. There is, whether the artist intended it or not, a look of stony amazement on this marble face as it gazes at the island of Elba lying pink and hazy a few miles across that rippled sea; for on this side of Corsica there is more peace than in the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... keen appreciation of her physical freshness and mental strength, and manoeuvred patiently toward the point where he would dare ask blankly how many there were in her family, and on exactly how many acres her father paid tax. He decided it would not do for at least a week yet; possibly he could raise the subject casually with someone down town who would know, so that he need never ask her at all. Whatever ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... people. Of course if one didn't, it was plausible enough. When I first came down here it seemed to me a very likely theory and I was prepared to find a guilty couple, but when I met Miss Farmond and told her suddenly that Sir Malcolm was arrested, and she gazed blankly at me and asked 'What for?' well, I simply ran my pencil, so to speak, through her name and there was an end of her! The same with Sir Malcolm when I met him. And yet here was the family lawyer, who knew them both perfectly, so convinced of their guilt that he was obviously ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... in the street, staring blankly at the missive, when I was startled beyond measure by feeling a hand on my shoulder, and a voice pronouncing ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... bent over and felt my heart. I was quite aware that it was functioning normally. He shook me and called me by name. After repeated shakings I opened my eyes and stared at him blankly, but I said nothing. Presently he left me and returned with a stretcher. I lay inertly as I was placed thereon and borne out of the chamber. Other stretcher-bearers were walking ahead. We passed through the engine room where ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... to-day, with two painful facts staring me blankly in the face. I am reduced almost literally to my last cent, and have no prospect of increasing this sum. For the first time in my life I may as well examine the situation impartially. It is not my fault that it is a physical impossibility for me to get up early in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... away?" they cried together. Both let their work drop into their laps, and both stared blankly at Anna, who ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... considers doing such a thing," I said rather blankly. "You see, if any one should know, I am that one. He has not approached me, of ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... heard the words, for Michel's voice was pitched in a high, shrill key, which rang above the clamour and the babel. There was an instant hush, every one listening to Michel, and every eye fastened upon him. Nicolas stared blankly at him, as if unable to understand him, yet growing passive under his ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... doorstep. Suddenly a dreadful feeling of loneliness seized on Frank, such as he had not felt since leaving home. Even the great solitary wood had not seemed so cold and unfriendly as this town, full of human faces, where the very houses seemed to stare blankly upon him. He thought of the kind baker woman, and immediately her words sounded in his ear: "There's no place like home." If he went to her she would try to persuade him to go back, and that he was still determined not to do; but his golden pictures ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... softening of the brain she would behave very differently, and that if she had become feeble-minded the decay of her faculties would show in her face; but there is nothing of that observable in her. She has as much dignity and beauty as ever, and, excepting when she stares blankly at those who talk to her, her face is ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... shall come to the Mission house where the God-men are, and I will bring you clothing—these you will put on you," said Bones, still staring blankly over the side of the ship at the waters which foamed past her low hull; "for if my lord Sandi see you as I see you—I mean as I wouldn't for the world see you, you improper person," he corrected himself hastily in English—"if my lord Sandi saw you, he ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... the premises, instantly applied it to a bundle of straw lying in a room, after which all hastily left. Ignatjewa attempted in vain to follow them. The agonised woman then tried to get out at the windows, but these were already nailed up. In front of the cottage stood the people, blankly staring at the spreading flames, and listening to the cries of their victim ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... out of the courtyard, leaving Jean looking blankly at the mud that had been holly lately. Not his act of sacrilege was distressing her, but his news. Were these berries a love token? Had God let Rob Dow say they were a gypsy's love token, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... night that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could run across the intervening stretch of ground and enter the camp in time. On the next occasion of his awaiting her she did not appear in her usual place at the usual hour. His disappointment was unspeakably keen; he remained staring blankly at the spot, like a man in a trance. The trumpets and tattoo sounded, and ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... her uncle go out; and shortly afterward the Rosemary's engine shook itself free of the car and rumbled away westward. At that, Virginia went back to the others and found a book. But if waiting inactive were difficult, reading was blankly impossible. ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... blankly at the trampled earth and the thin thread of smoke rising from a smouldering stick on a bed of ashes, Smith, miles away, was watching the skyline in the direction from which he had come, and gulping coffee from a tin can. He had slept—the print ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... Edestone was innocent of any mistake and was blankly searching for an explanation of their mirth leaned forward and ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... placed his ear to the track, then looked up blankly. "It's stopped," he said, "Mebbe there's been ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... come in," echoes Eleanor feebly, pleased and yet awed by Giddy's suggestion. She is looking somewhat blankly at those delicate pink toes, and the dark mane falling over ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... and citizens and councilors looked blankly at each other. But meanwhile through the darkness a man sped. In his hand he held a parchment, and he never halted in his run till he reached a great oak tree. This oak he knew was hollow. Reaching it he thrust the parchment ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... that they wondered where the parallel came in. Then they said, blankly: "Of course not. He ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mother Hubbard only regarded him blankly, as if there had been no interruption, and then she proceeded. "And you will note what she was eating. Curds and whey—perfectly simple yet nutritious fare. There were other instances showing that the wasteful dinner table must go. It was a wonderful address. A treat. A feast of good things. ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... the schoolmaster, staring blankly after the retreating skirts; then more angrily—"The matter? come and look here!" He took hold of my shirt-sleeve and led me to the well. Stooping, I saw half-a-dozen pins gleaming ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it was open to inspection, and I wandered in. A bleu poudre vase first attracted me; then I turned to examine a slender bronze Ganymede, and in so doing found myself face to face with Mrs. Grancy's portrait. I stared up at her blankly and she smiled back at me in all the recovered radiance of youth. The artist had effaced every trace of his later touches and the original picture had reappeared. It throned alone on the panelled wall, asserting a brilliant supremacy over its carefully-chosen ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them after a while. Having offered me this encouragement, he turned whistling to his affairs and left me planted in the baggage-room at Medicine Bow. I stood deserted among crates and boxes, blankly holding my check, hungry and forlorn. I stared out through the door at the sky and the plains; but I did not see the antelope shining among the sage-brush, nor the great sunset light of Wyoming. Annoyance blinded my eyes to all things save my grievance: I saw only ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... all the years, he had not ceased to afflict himself with such thoughts as these. Once he actually mentioned his self-accusing thoughts to "Cobbler" Horn. It was on one of the rare occasions when the afflicted father had spontaneously spoken of his lost child to his humble friend. He gazed blankly at the little huckster, for a moment, as though he had not understood. Then, perceiving his drift, he gently answered, "My dear friend, you could not help it. Please do not speak ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... nothing felt a certain satisfaction that they had not committed themselves. The Austrian Minister tried to remember what it was he had said, and whether it was too late to retreat, and the general looked blankly at Gordon and ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... sake!" I shouted, throwing my arm about his shoulders, for his voice had risen to a pitch of excitement and fury that I feared must bring the whole place upon us. He caught himself up suddenly, stared at me blankly for a moment, then sank into a chair with a groan. As he did so I became aware of a sound that had been worrying my subconsciousness for an indefinite length of time, and realised what it was. Some one was knocking ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... cried at times, and repeatedly said, "Oh, I wish I were dead—nobody likes me—I wish I were dead and with my father" (dead). She also called to various members of the family, saying she wanted to tell them something, but when they came she would only stare blankly. For a day she followed her mother around, clung to her, said once she wanted to say something to her, but only stared ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... man blankly. "What I was going to say is, that some one was jealous of my being at Cadover. I'll mention no names, but I fancy it was Mrs. Silt. I'm sorry for her if it was. Anyhow, she set Mrs. Failing against me. It came on the top of other things—and ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... at a puzzling crossroads, and asked a labourer of the fields if we were "right" for Chippenham. He stared blankly, doffed his hat with humility, but for a time answered never a word. He knew Calne, a town half a dozen miles away, for he occasionally, walked in there for a drinking-bout on a heavier brand of beer than he could buy locally, but, though he had always heard of ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... moment's awkward silence. The sergeant has the reluctance of his class to getting a fellow-soldier into a scrape. The half-dressed bathers stand uncomfortably about the shore and look blankly from one to another. The man addressed as Rix is busily occupied in pulling on a pair of soldier brogans, and tying, with great deliberation, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... Leach himself stared blankly and incredulously,—his face crimsoned with a sudden rush of enraged blood and then paled again, and changing his former insolent tone for one both fawning and propitiatory, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... of all traces of the recent tragedy, the silence, the hour, his striped pyjamas and bare feet—everything together combined to deprive him momentarily of speech. He stared at her blankly without a word. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... gazing, she turned and looked down at him; a little blankly at first, as though she had just waked from sleep or from abstraction too deep for instant recovery. Then she smiled and changed her position, putting up both hands to pat and pull her hair into neatness; ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... leaned back, blankly studying the bulk-head before him. Disturbing thoughts were now running ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... blankly. He didn't know just what she was talking about, but the salty words rolled off her tongue very glibly. "W-what are you ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... "Oh!" said Chris blankly. "But, Trevor, we couldn't possibly leave him. He isn't well. I—I shouldn't be happy about him. Besides—besides—" Her words faltered under his straight look; she made a little appealing gesture towards him. "Please understand," ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... instant he regarded the child blankly; then his hospitality asserted itself, and he waved ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... what have I been and done!" she cried, and stared blankly at her visitor. "I been and married my baby! I been and married the bread out of my own mouth. O Mr. Harley! Mr. Harley! I knew you when you was a boy that big, and wore jackets; and all of you. And it's my softness that's my ruin, for I never can resist a man's asking. Look at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... blankly at Catherina and whispered, "Why, what he's reading is as much an attack on the West as it ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... everything that I had, except my unhappy writing; and the want of it poisons life. I no longer seem to lie pleasantly in ambush for pretty traits of character, humorous situations, delicate nuances of talk. I look blankly at garden, field, and wood, because I cannot draw from them the setting that I want. Even my close and intimate companionship with Maud seems to have suffered, for I was like a child, bringing the little wonders that it finds by the hedgerow to be ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... stared blankly from her highness to Gretchen, and back to her highness again. Then he grasped it. Here was one of those moments when the ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... never cease!" exclaimed Mrs. Wynn, staring blankly, into her empty tea cup. "Clemence Graystone turned out to be a rich heiress, after bein' perfectly abused the whole live-long summer by everybody in the town of Waveland but me. It's beyond my comprehension. But I always knew she was ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit. Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed by dark circles, her face ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pouring, each one stopping to insert a key in a time-register. They were just coming to work, for I was very early. The foreman, a young German, cut me off unceremoniously by asking to see my working-card; and when I looked at him blankly, for I hadn't a ghost of an idea what he meant, he strode away in disgust, leaving me to conjecture as ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note, that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid, undisturbed floor of the room—smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall to wall; and there was an ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... his hand upon the sash—simultaneously there was a rush of cold air into the room, a half-angry, half-frightened exclamation from Adolphus in the passage, a scream from Miss Maud—and no Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald! No one had time to be more than blankly astonished. The door was opened, and a police inspector, in very nice dark braided uniform and a peaked ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... women looked blankly, despairingly, at each other. In the sunshine-flooded street one or two shabby idlers were pausing to eye the handsome equipage with its magnificent bay horses, and the two great ladies on the doorstep of the fencing-academy. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... her blankly, but did not burst into wrathful exclamations; he was actually exhausted in mind and body; this controversy had been too much for him. But that remark of Helen's ended it. She went slowly up-stairs, clinging to the balustrade as though she needed some support, yet she had not spoken of being ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... looked in the direction indicated cheerfully and blankly. "'The samphire by the ocean's brim,'" he said lightly. "I attach no importance to it whatever, but it's very like you to lift one into your privacy at a moment's notice. I'm all for the formalities myself, so I observe that I haven't seen you for ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... her blankly. She was carrying her own jewel-case. He could see no signs of a maid ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... He flashed us a queer look and we stared at him blankly. "It means nothing, of course," he added. "She's been gone only ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... surprise," the latter at last addressed his brother; "nor can I pretend that it is pleasant." Jeremy Ammidon's gaze wandered blankly from Gerrit to the woman, then back to ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... intelligence clinging helplessly to the thing he had just heard. "The Council," he repeated blankly, and then snatched at a name that had struck him. "But who is ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... gone; but she had left Duchemin with a singing heart that would not let him sleep when he had gone to bed, stared blankly at the last chapter of Bragelonne for an hour, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Certainly I had not intended telling him that. The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm and step back. He stared at me blankly. No doubt he did think me ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Louis' career, his achievements, his work, they regarded it without approval. Their last great painters had been Bierstadt and Hart, their last great sculptor, Powers. Blankly they gazed upon the splendours of the mural symphonies achieved by the son and heir of all the Nevilles; they could not comprehend the art of the Uitlanders; their comment was silence ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... "Miss Lady!" and presently sprang after, to return a moment later with the two ere they had left the hall. Whereupon followed all manner of helpless, hopeless, banal and inadequate commonplaces, out of which Eddring blankly remembered only that the visit of Miss Lady to the city was to terminate that evening, at the departure of the down train. And so, after all, little remained for him but a present parting, though all his ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... face averted, sat gazing blankly out of the window; but when he sat on, mute and unresponsive—in point of fact not knowing what to say—she turned to look at him, and the glare of a passing lamp showed her countenance profoundly distressed, mouth tense, brows knotted, eyes clouded ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Sylvie stood silent—gazing blankly before her, with such perplexity and sorrow in her face that her faithful gouvernante grew anxious ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... not the case, however. After luncheon, Marm Lisa had washed the twins' hands and faces in the back-yard as usual, and left them for an instant to get a towel from the kitchen. When she returned, she looked blankly about, for there was no sign of the two dripping faces and the uplifted streaming hands. They had a playful habit of hiding from her, knowing that in no other way could they make her so unhappy; so she stood still for some moments, ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the room they walked, still trying to locate the strange sounds. Were they under the floor? It was impossible to say. They gave it up and stood there, looking blankly at each other. Was it the work ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... men looked blankly into each other's eyes, and asked themselves and each other how such an unheard-of catastrophe had come about, and what was going to happen next? The first and universal feeling was one of amazement, which amounted almost to mental paralysis, and then came a sickening ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... no trace of the monk, who seemed to have vanished into thin air, or to have gone overboard during the fight. He was not to be found either in cockpit or cabin, forecastle or lazaretto, and at last we stared blankly in each other's faces and wondered what had become ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... a shower of rice. And then all was over. The best people were bidding her a kindly good-bye. Carriages drove up quickly, and in a quarter of an hour everyone was gone except the Vicar and his wife. Vixen found herself standing between Mr. and Mrs. Scobel, looking blankly at the hearth, where an artistic group of ferns and scarlet geraniums replaced ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... would find it locked. If you knocked or banged on it, there would be no answering sign from the other side, and the young man operating the cutting machine alongside the partition would merely stare at you blankly. ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... "Leave?" The Guesser said blankly. "The Naipor? Gone?" It seemed as if the world had dropped away from his feet, leaving him to fall endlessly through nothingness. It was true, of course. It didn't take more than twenty-four hours to unload the ship's holds, and, since there had been no intention of reloading, there ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... often this week that, although he opened his mouth to say something, he was able to repress his wonder. After staring blankly at his employer for a minute, he turned and went out to ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon |
