"Dumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to open all prisons and underground dungeons. They searched and searched, but found nothing. They even detained people for information. One of them told Zbyszko that he could get much information from the chaplain, because the chaplain understood the dumb executioner. But the old comthur had taken the executioner with him, and the chaplain left for Koenigsberg to attend a religious gathering.... They met there often in order to lodge complaints against the Knights of the Cross to the pope, because even ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... he had gathered from God knows where, was a strong point in the disfavour of The Zulu from the beginning; and was consequently brought along as evidence. Upon arriving, all had been searched, the box included, and sent to The Enormous Room. The Zulu (at the conclusion of this dumb and eloquent recital) slipped his sleeve gently above his wrist and exhibited a bluish ring, at whose persistence upon the flesh he evinced great surprise and pleasure, winking happily to us. Several days later I got the same story from The Young Pole in French; but after some little ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... to look at him. But her little hand lay unreprovingly in his,—nestling like a timid bird which loved to be there, and sought not to escape. He pressed it gently to his heart; he felt by its magnetic touch, by that dumb alphabet of love, more eloquent than spoken words, that he had won the heart of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... found in the tales that are put now into children's books, and are told by nurses at the fireside. And we have seen something of the lessons they teach us, and which are taught by all the famous tales of Wonderland; lessons of kindness to the feeble and the old, and to birds, and beasts, and all dumb creatures; lessons of courtesy, courage, and truth-speaking; and above all, the first and noblest lesson believed in by those who were the founders of our race, that God is very near to us, and is about us always; and that ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... at Huish with an air of faint surprise, and looked pointedly away again. It was hard to be more offensive in dumb show. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... my nails scratched you; it was only my spurs I put on going to bed, to keep you at a distance from me; you were so disgustingly drunk, my gentleman!—look there!" and he poked his leg out of bed, and there, sure enough, Reddy saw a spur buckled: and, dumb-foundered at this evidence of the doctor's atrocity, he snatched up his clothes, and rushed from the room, as from the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... my friend is grieved, his griefs I share; Yet now the rivals are my smallest care: They for the mighty mischiefs they devise, Ere long shall pay—their forfeit lives the price. But against you, ye Greeks! ye coward train! Gods! how my soul is moved with just disdain! Dumb ye all stand, and not one tongue affords His injured prince the little ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Where wisdom stands to keep the field, In vain he brings his brazen shield; Though like the sibyl's priest he comes, With furious din of brazen drums The force of thy superior voice Shall strike him dumb, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... documents of more genuinely literary interest are not altogether lacking. One thing at least is abundantly clear—that, as Dr. Evans put it in the summary of his first year's results, 'that great early civilization was not dumb,' but, on the contrary, had means of expression ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... belong to our world. The other animals, the plants even, notwithstanding their dumb life, and the great secrets which they cherish, do not seem wholly foreign to us. In spite of all we feel a sort of earthly brotherhood with them.... There is something, on the other hand, about the insect that does not belong to the habits, the ethics, the psychology ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... could find another, but she was facing the certainty that the one she might have had and with which she undoubtedly could have attracted others, was spoiled by her mother. How long she sat there Elnora did not know or care. She simply suffered in dumb, abject misery, an occasional dry sob shaking her. Aunt Margaret was right. Elnora felt that morning that her mother never would be any different. The girl had reached the place where she realized that she ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... he revived. He had one advantage over some lovers—that he was no metaphysician. He did not torture himself with vain attempts to hold his brain as a mirror to his heart, that he might read his heart there. The heart is deaf and dumb and blind, but it has more in it—more life and blessedness, more torture and death—than any poor knowledge-machine of a brain can understand, or even delude itself into ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... trained like a soldier to his duty, and no matter how the storms raged on the mountains, how dark the night, or how dangerous the paths that led along the slippery precipices, at the word of command he sprang to obey. Only a dumb beast, some people would call him, guided only by brute instinct, but in his shaggy old body beat a loving heart, loyal to his master's command, and ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... front of a very good house on the landward side, a house with beautiful, clear glass windows, flowering knots upon the sills, the walls new-harled* and a chase-dog sitting yawning on the step like one that was at home. Well, I was even envying this dumb brute, when the door fell open and there issued forth a shrewd, ruddy, kindly, consequential man in a well-powdered wig and spectacles. I was in such a plight that no one set eyes on me once, but he looked at me again; and this ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shoot me yet," I managed to request. "And if I sit down and think for a moment, don't take it for a confession. Any innocent man would be shocked dumb temporarily if his traps gave ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... soldiers seeming to suspect that I was anything but a comrade. Now and then I would be greeted by wild cries in their high, shrill voices, or one, waving his rifle, would shout something as he passed. I returned the greetings in dumb show, and hurried on. I do not know how it would have fared with me in broad daylight; probably not nearly so well; but it was now nearly dark. Most of the soldiers had provided themselves, to light the work of slaughter and pillage, with one of those ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... I might find my Judge, That I might press even to His seat, and plead My cause before Him. Would He strike me dumb With His great power? Nay,—rather would he give Strength to the weakness that would answer Him. Lo! I go forward,—but He is not there,— And backward, yet my eyes perceive Him not. On the left hand, His works surround me still, But He is absent,—on ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... advance, we must retreat, that was plain. We could not stay where we were. It was, I fancy, because no one could bring himself to propose such an ignoble issue to our enterprise, that we were for a little space all dumb. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... speak to her." He makes a sudden dash for the woman in the corner. Campbell takes up his magazine, and watches him over the top of it, as he stops before the woman, in a confidential attitude. In a moment she rises, and with a dumb show of offence gathers up her belongings and marches past Roberts to the door, with an angry glance backward at him over her shoulder. He returns ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... our forbears? How did day and night, sun and moon, earth and water, and fire come? How did the animals come? Why has the bear no tail? Why are fishes dumb, the swallow cleft-tail? How did evil come? Why did men begin to quarrel? How did death arise? What will the end be? Why do dead persons come back? What do the dead do? What is the earth shaped like? Who invented tools and weapons, and musical instruments, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... we see everything relating to schools from kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music, agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering schools and institutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... interested in the marvellous progress of this penal colony. While Bougainville was eagerly reading all the works which had as yet appeared upon New South Wales, the officers wandered about the town, and were struck dumb with amazement at the numberless public buildings erected by Governor Macquarie, such as the barracks, hospital, market, orphanages, almshouses for the aged and infirm, the prison, the fort, the churches, government-house, the fountains, the town gates, and last but not ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... rattling of the iron latch of the saddle-house apprised them of his arrival before every dumb brute—dumb, as dumb men say—experienced a cheerful change of mind, and began to pour into his ears the eager, earnest, gratifying tale of its rights and its wrongs. What honest voices as compared with the human—sometimes. ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... such a place? Is Gettysburg giving up her dead so soon?" But, as the thing met me, a voice cried out, "Is that you, Ned? Is that you? Take me on your horse. Let me get in the saddle and you behind." For a moment I was dumb, and wished it wasn't I. The voice was the voice of Lieutenant Brown, the same whom I had seen undermined by the shell at Gettysburg, and who had not put a foot to the ground until now. Barefooted, bareheaded; nothing on but drawers ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... skies Bound by the fascination of her eyes And winning voice—and manly thought he stood, He humbly bowed before that womanhood Which seemed with conscious might to grasp the power Of fame, the world's alluring, phantom flower. Amazed he stood, before her words struck dumb; And startled gazed—the maid he loved had come This night to teach him that her woman's soul Had dared to seek, ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... opinions are often belittled and made light of. The opinion of the world, however reached, becomes in the course of years or centuries the nearest approach we can make to final judgment on human things. Don Quixote may be dumb to one man, and the sonnets of Shakespeare may leave another cold and weary. But the fault is in the reader. There is no doubt of the greatness of Cervantes or Shakespeare, for they have stood the test of ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... from mother to daughter in dumb bewilderment. Certainly this was the most remarkable conduct he ever had dreamed of. Yet, Mrs. Putnam's smile was so affectionate and kind, her eyes met his with such a tender look that he intuitively felt that all was right as right should be. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... is not an idiot[p], if he hath any glimmering of reason, so that he can tell his parents, his age, or the like common matters. But a man who is born deaf, dumb, and blind, is looked upon by the law as in the same state with an idiot[q]; he being supposed incapable of understanding, as wanting those senses which furnish the human ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... patiently while the man slowly and as we thought faithlessly urged the mule to the parapet; then, when she put out her hands and leaned forward to take her seat, the mule inched softly away and left her to recover her balance at the risk of a fall on the other side. We were too far for anything but the dumb show, but there were, no doubt, words which conveyed her opinions unmistakably to both man and mule. With our hearts in our mouths we witnessed the scene and its repetitions till we could bear it no longer, and we had bidden our cabman drive on when with a sudden ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... and looked. He saw a handsome, determined-looking woman standing amidst the closely-packed spectators. Mallett sat by her side; he was evidently struck dumb with sudden amazement and was staring open-mouthed at her; on the other side, two or three men and women, evidently friends, were expostulating with the interrupter. But Mrs. Mallett was oblivious of her husband's wonder and ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... cry which they have raised so long over the sons who were dead. Now are they risen again—from death they have come to life, and from blindness to light. Dearest sons, the lame walk, and the deaf hear, the blind eye sees and the dumb speak, crying aloud with a loud voice: "Peace, peace, peace!" with great gladness—seeing themselves return as sons into the obedience and favour of their father, their minds being reconciled. As people who now begin to see, they say: ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine. Thou art not among articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling, wide as the world here. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help in them; see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait till the mad southwester spend itself, saving thyself by dextrous science ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... there, is a question which I will not pretend to decide. There is one very bad sign for Lord Chatham in his new dignity; which is, that all his enemies, without exception, rejoice at it; and all his friends are stupefied and dumb-founded. If I mistake not much, he will in the course of a year enjoy perfect otium cum dignitate. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... the ground has been broken up, does the purpose of the husbandman appear. At first we see only what is uprooted and ploughed in,—the daisy drabbled, and the violet crushed,—and the first trees planted amid the unsightly furrows stand dumb and disconsolate, irresolute in leaf, and without flower or fruit. Their work is under the ground. In darkness and silence they are putting forth long fibres, searching hither and thither under the black soil for the strength that years hence shall burst into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... without passing through yours; but no matter, I will retire into the inner or outer room, whichever it happens to be, and be thou then well aware that the warder will have some one to grapple with ere he leaves his prison-work to-day. Meanwhile, think thyself dumb as thou art blind, and be assured that the offer of freedom itself would not induce me to desert the cause of a ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... and even in clouds and in melted metals we detect their semblance. Think how in winter you can sink a line down straight in a pasture through snow and through ice, and pull up a bright, slippery, dumb, subterranean silver or golden fish! It is curious, also, to reflect how they make one family, from the largest to the smallest. The least minnow that lies on the ice as bait for pickerel, looks like a huge sea-fish cast up ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... has acquired the name of dumb cane, in consequence of its fleshy, cane-like stems, rendering speechless any person who may happen to bite them, their acrid poison causing the tongue to swell to an immense size. An ointment for applying to dropsical swellings is prepared by boiling the juice in ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... indeed a fulmination to strike an Englishman breathless and dumb with amazement. It put the colonies in the position of a coequal or allied power, entitled to share with Britain the spoils of victory; even in the position of an independent power which could refuse the military allegiance of subjects. English judges would have found abundant treason ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... tell me she is an absolute fool—and really in these days of evening classes and polytechnics there is no excuse for such lamentable ignorance as she displays. I hear that when they go out to dinner she sits as dumb as a fish—or else commits such shocking solecisms that her poor ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... while all the people gazed with their fingers tingling, the legitimate Parisian executioner gave a jerk at the cord which held the fatal knife. With a quick, keen sound, the steel became detached; it fell hurtling through the grooves; it struck something with a dead, dumb thump; a jet of bright blood spurted into the light, and dyed the face of an attendant horribly red; and Couty de la Pommerais's head lay in the sawdust of the pannier, while every vein in the lopped trunk trickled upon the scaffold-floor! ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... horror there were two men looking out, and I stopped dumb-foundered as I listened for their words, which I knew must be about ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... summer time, and in the office of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, one, as the French say, was preparing the daily paper. Along Third Street streamed Shinners, Bulls, Bears, and Newsboys,—in the sanctum, Editors wrote and clipped,—proof rose up and down in the dumb waiter,—there was the shrill scream of the whistle calling to the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... is it not, Neighbour, to be come to Threescore Years, and to have had Fruitful Loins, and to be Mocked and Misused by those thou hast begotten? How infinitely better do we deem ourselves than the Cat and Dog, and yet how often do we imitate those Dumb Beasts in our own degree! fondling them indeed when they are Kittens and Puppies, but fighting Tooth and Nail with them when they be full grown. But there is as much to be said on the one side as on the other; ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... know; but I don't flog more than a man a week, as a rule, and never more than fifty lashes. They're getting quieter now. Then we iron, and dumb-cells, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... pack, saddle and bridle from his mount. Rapidly as he worked, he had only just removed the bridle when the pony sank to its knees, struggled for a moment to rise, then sank slowly to the ground, where it lay looking up at its master with dumb appealing eyes. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... I could thank you, sir, as you deserve; but words mean so little that you have rendered me dumb," replied Janice, feelingly. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... beaere, or when the pleaetes Do clatter loud wi' knives, below Our merry feaeces in a row. An' put between his lags, turn'd up'ard, The zalt-box an' the corner cupb'ard. An' then we laid the wold clock-ceaese, All dumb, athirt upon his feaece, Vor we'd a-left, I needen tell ye, Noo works 'ithin his head or belly. An' then we put upon the pack The settle, flat upon his back; An' after that, a-tied in pairs In woone another, all the chairs, An' bits o' ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... was stricken dumb. He made no comment on the gossip, but when it came his turn to be examined before Colonel Macleod, he swore that Burroughs was the owner of the seized liquor and that he had been employed to drive these men North. In every way he could, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... else I realized for the first time that Boston apes London English. Tom had learned his mother tongue in Boston, and now suddenly he seemed like a foreigner to me simply because he spoke like these other foreigners. The sun went out of my heaven. I was dumb with loneliness and sick with the fear of lost faith. Could it be that my husband was affecting these English mannerisms? Certainly he seemed at home in England, while I seemed to be adrift, ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... conference. He did not know what that dignitary muttered as he swept past in spotless toga, but the gloomy ferocity of his brow needed no interpreter. Drusus, however, never for a moment gave himself disquietude. He was fortified for the best and the worst, not by any dumb resignation, not by any cant of philosophy, but by an inward monitor which told him that some power in some way would lead him forth out of all dangers in a manner whereof man could neither ask ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Ish only grunted in retort, his head nodding drowsily. The tremulous tracery the wood-fire cast upon his face gave it an expression of dumb intensity which adumbrated all the pathos and ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... bombshell had suddenly alighted on the table and there exploded, there would have been, no doubt, more feeling of fright, but not more of shocked surprise. Dumb silence followed. Angry eyes were directed towards the speaker from the top and from the bottom of the table. Miss Frere cast down hers with the inward thought, 'Oh, you foolish, foolish fellow! what did you do that for, and spoil everything!' Pitt ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... heathen foe Lie like a drowsy panther in its lair With limbs all wakeful for the hungry leap. "Enquire me of the Lord!" the King had said, Communing with the doubtings of his heart. But answer came not. Dreams were dumb and dark— Unfathomed mysteries. No Urim spake; And Prophets wore the silence of the grave. So Saul, the King, disheartened and disguised, Went forth at night.(g) The rival armies lay Sleeping beneath the darksome dome of Heaven, And all was still, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... maiden, Lone, heart-laden, Dumb because of days that were; When the streaming Tears are gleaming 'Mid the streaming of thy hair, Ah! with hopes of earth denied thee, Holiest thoughts will heavenward guide thee To the hallowing cloister's door. What word ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... three years, until the next election come, that no mortal could discover what he did? He must not tell it to his wife or his child; he must keep it locked up from his bosom friend; he must not broach it to his pot-companion, but be as dumb as the tankard which they had emptied between them; and this state of silence must be observed for three years. Thus far for the elector: how far was the concealment to be operated upon by the candidate? He had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a demonstration with political import behind it, this was going to be in all the press to be understanded of the people; the Bishops about to fight for their own order were passing before the steps of the throne to indicate in dumb show that allegiance to Crown and Constitution ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... who had opposed the establishment of the World Federation, together with all persons convicted for the fourth time of a felony, had been transported, to superintend the efforts of these dumb, unhuman Moon dwellers. For it had been discovered that the Moon craters were extraordinarily rich in gold, and gold was still the medium of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... on in dumb amazement. She was so accustomed to feeling a little superior to Cricket, on account of her orderliness and generally good behaviour, that she was struck with surprise at the old woman's joy over seeing her little friend, ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... wife," she resumed smilingly, "couldn't either of them utter a sound if even they were pricked with an awl. I've always maintained that they're a well-suited couple; as the one is as deaf as a post, and the other as dumb as a mute. But who would ever have expected them to have such a clever girl! By how much are you in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... have bestowed on their researches. They have taught us that the body in which we live was at first a simple cell. The significance of this "at first" is left somewhat vague. This cell was really what the word means, the cella (room) of a dumb inhabitant, the Self. The essential thing is and remains what was in the cell. Through gemmation, differentiation, segmentation, evolution, or whatever other technical expressions we may use for division, multiplication, budding, increase, ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... crucial moment and she looked at him with dumb appeal in her fine eyes. Then, seeing nothing in his face to reassure her, she dropped her gaze. Her chest heaved with a ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... her," he said, without emotion. "Dere was two fellers in de street sickin' a dawg on to her. An' I comes up an' says, 'G'wan! What do youse t'ink you're doin', fussin' de poor dumb animal?' An' one of de guys, he says, 'G'wan! Who do youse t'ink youse is?' An' I says, 'I'm de guy what's goin' to swat youse one on de coco if youse don't quit fussin' de poor dumb animal.' So wit dat he makes a break at swattin' ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... exceedingly blank at the exhibition of the fire-arms. Pistol for pistol had been utterly out of the range of his calculations. He looked upon the stranger with astonishment, not un-mingled with a considerable portion of that wholesome feeling which begets self-preservation. In fact, he was struck dumb, and uttered not a syllable; and as the stranger made his parting bow, the other could only stare at him as if he had ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... high, yet every word was spoken softly, for the most violent excitement always precipitates a hush. Even the newsboys in the alley caught the awful infection; they stole in and out noiselessly and with less violence than usual, as if, in sooth, the dumb wheels reverenced the dismal sanctity of the hour. The elevator crept silently down with the five o'clock forms, so decently and so composedly as scarcely to jar the bottle of green ink on the Austin landholder's table. All at once ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... mouth is brutal and grim. The heavy jaw flows down into the thick, resistive neck. The right arm swings powerfully out, scattering the grain. The left is pressed to his body; the big, stubborn hand clutches close the pouch of seed. Action heroic, elemental; the dumb bearing of the universal burden. In the flex of the shoulder, the crook of the outstretched arm, the conquering onward stride, is expressed all the force of that word of the Lord to the first toiler, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... mouth wide open: she felt as if she was being throttled. When she wanted to cry out and call for help, she could only splutter a few hoarse sounds. Her hands and feet were rigid. She found herself struck dumb, and powerless ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... helped on the leaders in troubled times; he knows that almost all great men have owed something of their greatness to the influence of a mother or a wife; he remembers how thoughts which had lain dumb in men's brains for more than half their lifetime suddenly woke up into speech and activity by the influence of a woman great enough to call them forth. The adoring seraph would be an encumbrance, and nothing better than a child ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... did so, and Lemminkainen lived once more, but he was still blind and deaf and dumb. But his mother considered deeply how she might restore these senses to him, and at length she called the little bee to her, and bade it go out and collect honey from the healing plants in the meadows. So the bee ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... count, and I want to count, too; but I don't want us to be the only ones that count. I want to live in a world where every soul counts—white, black, and yellow—all. That's what I'm teaching these children here—to count, and not to be like dumb, driven cattle. If you don't believe in this, of course you ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... lay the matter to heart as though it were for her own benefit; and Avanturada then ventured so far as to present Amadour to her. He was like to swoon for joy on kissing Florida's hand, and although he was accounted the readiest speaker in Spain, yet in her presence he became dumb. At this she was greatly surprised, for, although she was only twelve years old, she had already often heard it said that there was no man in Spain who could speak better or with more grace. So, finding that he said nothing ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... were sealed with silence and with darkness, so that I was dumb and blind. The Gates rolled back, the Doors swung wide, and I was swept into the city that is in the Place of Death. I was swept swiftly I know not whither, till at length I stood upon my feet. ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... strange things called Miracles; that at a marriage feast, where wine was wanted, he changed several barrels of water into wine of excellent quality; that he fed five thousand men with five loaves, walked on the water, opened the eyes, ears, and mouths of men born blind, deaf, and dumb, and at a touch or a word brought back a maimed limb. They called him a SAVIOUR, sent from God to redeem the Jews, and them only, from eternal damnation; next, said that he was the Saviour of all mankind,—Jews ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... it inside the breast-pocket of his coat, and buttoned it over. "That was my game, you see!" said he, equably enjoying the dumb panic of his victim. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... But at a later moment, the scene changes. How, then, are we to retain our sway? Youth and beauty decay, and the charm of wit and intelligence is not sufficient. In order to remain mistresses of our homes, we must practice the most divine of all the virtues—gentleness—a blind, dumb, deaf gentleness of demeanor, that pardons everything for the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... about him, so that when he came out of it he would cry out, asking where he was, and what had been done to him. He would forget, too, that my mother was gone, and would call her, "Mary! Mary!" so that one's heart ached to hear him; and then Abby or I must make it clear to him again, and see the dumb suffering of him, like a creature that had not the power of speech, and knew nothing ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... gone back to my table while the "very little" was being selected, and I felt, in spite of how slightly she counted me, that it would be inadequate in me to remain completely dumb. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... an Arab with the aid of Suliman, and drilling me painstakingly for half-an-hour, both of them using every trick they knew to make me laugh or show surprise, and Grim nodding approval each time I contrived not to. More difficult than acting deaf and dumb was the trick of squatting with my legs crossed, but I had learned it after a fashion in India years ago, and only ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... had told her that the Forum was ringing with the fame of this new writer, and that from the Palatine to the Subura his poetry was taking like wildfire. She was dumb before such strange comfort. What was this "fame" to which men were willing to sacrifice their citizenship? Nothing in Rome had so shocked her as the laxity of family life, the reluctance of young ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... upon the couch, "Dirk Hatteraick, you and I will never meet again until we are before the judgment seat—will you own to what I have said, or will you dare deny it?" He turned his hardened brow upon her, with a look of dumb and inflexible defiance. "Dirk Hatteraick, dare ye deny, with my blood upon your hands, one word of what my dying breath is uttering?" He looked at her with the same expression of hardihood and dogged ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... no one ventured to speak. Occasionally Ezekiel assumed an appearance of courage, which he felt not; rallied his guests, and made sundry excuses for the presence of his aged friend, whom he represented as having a mental infirmity, as being deaf and dumb. On all such occasions the old man rose from the table, and looking at the host, laughed a demoniac laugh of joy, and departed as quietly ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the Corporal, sighing, "the poor dumb animal makes me sad to think on't." And putting down his fish-hooks, he stroked the sides of an enormous cat, who now, with tail on end, and back bowed up, and uttering her lenes susurros—anglicae, purr;—rubbed herself to and fro, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Jenkins, dumb and wheezy, lay prone in a forecastle bunk, trying to wonder how it happened. His mental faculties, though apprising him that he was alive, would hardly carry him to the point of wonder; for wonder predicates imagination, and what little Jenkins ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... Any book was better than no book to her. Aunt Myra, who discouraged the practice of reading for girls as unfitting them for any sort of useful work, used to declare that the very sight of a book made Cannie deaf and blind and dumb. ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... good men and true— Were then sworn in to see it through, And each made solemn oath that he As any babe unborn was free From prejudice, opinion, thought, Respectability, brains—aught That could disqualify; and some Explained that they were deaf and dumb. A better twelve, his Honor said, Was rare, except among the dead. The witnesses were called and sworn. The tales they told made angels mourn, And the Good Book they'd kissed became Red with the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... unfolding to its full Homer's [Greek: kuma kophon]—"dumb wave"; just as the best of all comments on Horace's expression, "Vultus nimium lubricus aspici," 'Odes', I., xix., 8, is given us in Tennyson's picture of the Oread ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... McKnight, commonly known as Jacker Mack, and now after an hour of it the boys were still jubilant. The game had to be played with great caution, and conversation was conducted in whispers when ideas could not be conveyed in dumb show. All that was going on in the room above was distinctly audible to the deserters below, and the joy of camping there out of the reach of Joel Ham, B.A., and beyond all the trials and tribulations of the Higher Fifth, and hearing other fellows being tested, and hectored, and caned, was too ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... rock, and landed in safety. Having wrung the water from our trousers, and dried ourselves as well as we could under the circumstances, we proceeded to ignite the torch. This we accomplished without difficulty in a few minutes; and no sooner did it flare up than we were struck dumb with the wonderful objects that were revealed to our gaze. The roof of the cavern just above us seemed to be about ten feet high, but grew higher as it receded into the distance, until it was lost in darkness. It seemed to be made of ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Sailor, rich in joy Though blind, thy tunes in sadness hum; And mourn, thou poor half-witted Boy! Born deaf, and living deaf and dumb. 40 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... here if I did?" she flashed resentfully. "I was a country girl away at school, more foolish than one of those dumb Swedes ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... common? Yet a bond existed between this woman and himself—a bond of which he now became aware, and which seemed strangely to grow stronger as the minutes passed and no words were spoken. Why was it that she, too, to whom speech came so easily, had fallen dumb? He began to long for some remark, however disconcerting. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... given by the proprietor of the hotel to his numerous Malay employes, we make our first acquaintance with native music. Dancing girls, in mask and tinsel, gyrate to the weird strains of the Gamelon, an orchestra of tiny gongs, bamboo tubes, and metal pipes. Actors perform old-world dramas in dumb show, and conjurors in gaudy attire attract people of all ages to those time-honoured feats of legerdemain which once represented the sorcery of the mystic East. The simple Malay has not yet adopted ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us. The freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent, we may be led like sheep ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... dead. And they, keeping this saying to themselves, questioned one with another what this rising from the dead should mean, as men not understanding the purport of it. And it was after this that Jesus met the father whose son was possessed with a dumb spirit and who cried out to him, "Lord, I believe; help thou ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... head of the man who was busy cleaning the fish. When he saw those seven khaki-clad figures standing there, with two shotguns bearing directly on his person, he was to all appearances struck dumb for the moment. His eyes stared and his mouth fell open. Fish and knife dropped from his ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... Irish Nora's eyes are dim For a singer, dumb and gory; And English Mary mourns for him Who sang of ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... she said shortly; 'the dumb spirit is cast out of her. That is the blessed saints' doing. I knew my mistress would come to her senses—Heaven be praised ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... timidly, but without hesitation, and going to the piano, sang, to a simple old Scotch air, to which they had been written, the following verses. Before she ended, the minister, the late herd-boy, and the dumb baronet were grouped ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... terrified, thinking perhaps about our own sinfulness, perhaps about that wonderful majesty which dwelt inside. We should have wished to say or sing something spiritual, as we call it; at all events, something very different from the 104th psalm about woods, and rivers, and dumb beasts. We do not like the thought of such a thing: it seems almost irreverent, almost impertinent to God to be talking of such things in His presence. Now does this shew us that we think about this earth, and the ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and I slept. First, I stared at Preston streets as long as they lasted; and, meanwhile, I may have had some small dumb wondering within me whereabouts our cellar was; but I doubt it. Such a worldly little devil was I, that I took no thought who would bury father and mother, or where they would be buried, or when. The question whether the eating and drinking by day, ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... prominently into the conference, although he realized that it would be a matter of half an hour, at the outside, before every one of the new Literate crew would have heard about her Literate ability. If she'd only played dumb, after opening ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... Bjerregrav reached the landing and swung himself sideways through the door; and the old man would laugh—he had paid this visit daily now for many years. The master took no further notice of him, but went on reading; and Bjerregrav sank into his dumb pondering; his pale hands feeling one thing after another, as though the most everyday objects were unknown to him. He took hold of things just as a newborn child might have done; one had to smile at him ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... preaching again!' Well! shame on us preachers if we have made a living Gospel into a dead theology. And shame no less on you hearers if by you the words that should be good news that would make the tongue of the dumb sing, and the lame man leap as a hart, have been petrified and fossilised into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... strong energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire, and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid—such is the influence of a bright example— performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... steamer, secured at the end of the wharf, another scene of bustle and confusion presents itself. A passenger is not quite sure his baggage is all on board, and must needs waste his breath in oaths at the dumb porter, who works at his utmost strength, under the direction of Mr. Mate, whose important figure is poised on the wharf. Another wants to "lay over" at Richmond, and is using most abusive language to a mulatto waiter, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... told them to tell no one, but in spite of what he said the people kept telling about it, saying: "How well he has done everything! He even makes the deaf hear, and the dumb speak." ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... is not always practicable to take our "dumb companions" with us in our travels. Accordingly, the following advertisement is said to have been recently inserted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... was right; the poor brutes had come well, and, after all, whatever the horrors and inconveniences may be to oneself, one cannot drive dumb animals to death, so, therefore, at that majatalo we stayed, weary and hungry prisoners for ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... through the fissures of the cave, on whose floor lay the relics of antediluvian races, and rested in one flood of silvery splendor upon the hollows of the extinct volcano, with tufts of dank herbage, and wide spaces of paler sward, covering the gold below—gold, the dumb symbol of organized Matter's great mystery, storing in itself, according as Mind, the informer of Matter, can distinguish its uses, evil and ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... desolation can hardly be imagined. She soon came to herself, however; and reflecting that, if the lost child was found, there must be a warm bed to receive her, else she might be a second time lost, she rose and shut the door, and mended the fire. It was as if the dumb attitude of her prayer was answered; for though she had never spoken or even thought a word, strength was restored to her distracted brain. When she had made every preparation she could think of, she went ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... nothing,—I balked a herd once in crossing a railroad track, and after trying for two days to cross them, had to drive ten miles and put them under a culvert. You want to cultivate patience, young fellow, when you're handling dumb brutes." ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... But the wonderful feature of the case is, that we are in tacit accordance to avoid the subject—to keep it as far off as possible, as long as possible—and to talk about anything else, rather than the joyful event. I may even go so far as to assert that there is a dumb compact among us that we will pretend that it is NOT Mayday's birthday. A mysterious and gloomy Being, who is said to have gone to school with Mayday, and who is so lank and lean that he seriously ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens |
