"Inaudible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shed an effusion of light throughout the apartment. The most elegant furniture was spread through the chamber, consisting of canopies, sofas and chairs of the most costly description. On the floor was spread a carpet so soft that the sound of footsteps was inaudible. The walls were a mass of mirrors extending from the ceiling to the floor, relieved here and there by magnificent paintings, representing woman's form in every attitude and every variety of costume. In fact the most beautiful ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... was the one redeeming thing of her appearance. Half way down the stairs she stopped involuntarily and looked with an expression of wondering inquiry into the many staring eyes focused upon herself. Then a titter, nearly inaudible at first, grew into a general snicker ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... light of morning at Monet's face, white and immobile, the thin and shapely lips parted ever so slightly, and marvel at the bland and childlike faith that was the basis of this almost breathless and inaudible sleep. Fred had made friendships in his life, warm, hand-clasping, shoulder-thumping friendships, but they had been of gradual unfolding. Never before had anyone walked full-grown into ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Rounds of cheering marked progress of narrative, concluding passages inconveniently rendered inaudible by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... not as unhappy as we. He knows nothing of the affliction which has befallen him. He was taken ill—" The rest was almost inaudible. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... something was definitely settled, he felt that the suffering and suspense which he was already enduring would be increased tenfold if he remained longer in the same house with the twin sisters—the betrothed of one, the lover of the other! Murmuring a few inaudible words of acquiescence in the arrangement which had just been proposed to him, he left the room. The same evening ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... people filled every corner of this vast room; and from the crouched or upright figures rose a continuous, inaudible murmuring. ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... fancied I could detect human voices crying for aid, but put it down to my imagination, till I saw, to my horror, not a hundred yards from the shore, a French Chasse-mare, or fishing boat, driving straight for the rocks. I shouted, but the noise of the breaking sea rendered it inaudible five yards off against such a wind. Two of her three masts were gone, and by the next flash I could distinguish several men crouching by the bulwarks, and one at the tiller. Then came a sudden lurch and a dead stop, a tremendous sea crashed on deck, and I knew she had struck the rocks on the beach ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... up, and another man on the platform at the rear attempted to address the crowd, but his voice was inaudible in the din of howls, catcalls, hooting and obscene curses. After about an hour of this, as the crowd began pushing against the van and trying to overturn it, the terrified horses commenced to get restive and uncontrollable, and the man on the box attempted to drive up the hill. This seemed to ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... him. He always did this. It was a relic of his pulpit habits. He glanced briefly from one to the other of us, his face grave and earnest, his hands lifted to the stars and his eyes all closed and puckered up beneath a momentary frown. Then he offered up a short, almost inaudible prayer, thanking Heaven for our safe arrival, begging for good weather, no illness or accidents, plenty of fish, and ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... quietness in the house before the day of the burial, which was natural, but it was maintained after Uncle Matthew had been put in the grave where John's father lay. Uncle William's quick, loud voice became hushed and slow and sometimes inaudible, and Mrs. MacDermott went about her work with few words to anyone. John had come on her, an hour or two before the coffin lid was screwed down, putting a book in Uncle Matthew's hands. He saw the title of it ... Don Quixote ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... mounted higher and the heat shimmered on the trail in front of them. The surface of the earth was cracked in dry, sun-baked tiles curving upward at the edges. Cat's-claw clutched at the legs of the travelers. Occasionally a swift darted from rock to rock. The faint, low voices of the desert were inaudible when the horse moved. The riders came out of the silence and moved ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... crowded; Doctor Elbert was looking after his wife, and Margie, clinging to a rope, stood frightened and alone. Some one came to her, said a few words which the tempest made inaudible, and carried her below. The light of the cabin lamps fell full on his face. She uttered a cry, for in that moment she ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... had not been really dead, but had fallen into some sort of fit in the course of his lonely meditations, from which he had been awakened by the Cossack's terrific swearing. Why the latter had seemed to be invisible and inaudible to him, was a matter which Schmidt did not attempt to solve. It was clear that the Count was alive, and sleeping like other people. Schmidt hesitated some time as to what he should do. It was possible that his friend might wake again, and find himself desperately ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... know, but I am in my aunt's room. There is the lamp in one corner and the bed in the other, and my aunt in night-gown and cap in bed with her face toward me. She is asleep; she does not stir; even her breathing is inaudible. The flame of the lamp wavers slightly with the fresh draught, and the shadows dance through the whole room and on my aunt's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... to those who never saw him read, as the existence of the chameleon has been to those who fancied it never eat. His advances in the heart of his mistress were, as we have seen, equally trackless and inaudible, and his triumph was the first that even rivals knew of his love. In like manner, the productions of his wit took the world by surprise,—being perfected in secret, till ready for display, and then seeming to break from under the cloud ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... opened, all started and turned anxiously toward it, as if expecting a bearer of sad tidings. The face of the empress was pale and agitated; her form trembled; at times she turned toward her ladies, who stood behind her, and addressed to them some almost inaudible question, not waiting for a reply, but looking again toward the door, or inclining her head on ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... a few brief words he warned Alice, as he left him, of the wild and sudden manner in which their conversation had been broken off, and strongly urged her to send for instant medical advice. She did so; and after taking leave of him, and murmuring in an almost inaudible voice the words, "Pray for us!" she returned to her post with that sinking of heart, and strength of spirit, which those only know who feel acutely, and never give way. She did not inform Mrs. Middleton of the alarming symptoms which ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... resorted to with a perhaps excessive liberality. It consists simply in SLURRING over certain final syllables—not eliding them or contracting them with the syllables following upon them, but passing over them lightly, so that, without being inaudible, they may at the same time not interfere with the rhythm or beat of the verse. This usage, by adding to the variety, incontestably adds to the flexibility and beauty ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... feel the passage of divine dreams over his troubled life when the infinite meadows of heaven are suddenly abloom with light? On such a night immortality is written on earth and sky; in the silence and darkness there is no hint of death; a sweet and fragrant life seems to breathe its subtle, inaudible music through all things. In the depths of the woods one feels no loneliness; no liquid note of hermit thrush is needed to make that silence music. The harmony of universal movement, rounded by one thought, carried forward by one power, guided ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... where Djabal and Khalil, Djabal and Anael, Anael and Loys are the speakers, might be described as dialogues conducted by means of "asides," and even the imagination of a reader resents a construction of scenes which requires these duets of soliloquies, these long sequences of the audible-inaudible. With the "very tragical mirth" of the second part of Chiappino's story of moral and political disaster, the spectators and the stage have wholly disappeared from Browning's theatre; the imaginary dialogue is highly dramatic, in one sense of the word, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... up in his place, with his head bent, and his face covered with an ashy whiteness. "I burnt it, sir," he said, in an almost inaudible voice, and trembling ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... noticed presently, however, that Lilla could no longer look at negroes without turning pale, that her antipathy to certain colors, sounds, and perfumes had increased, and that sometimes she appeared to be listening to a voice inaudible to others. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... remember, when I was in it—" For, while he was yet deriding, from points a little distant apart, single, winged horsemen dropped from the far sky, whither, I suppose, they had soared to keep more efficient watch; and though we heard no whisper of sound, by some means (inaudible bugle-call, positively maintains the Count) the camp was instantly roused and soon astir like seething broth. Tents were struck and withdrawn to the rear. Arms and harness, bucklers and gemmy helms sparkled and ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the wheel was watching the compass card with a silent intensity that made his face look as if it had been carved in bronze. The telegraph-men maintained a conversation that was pitched in a low, deep note inaudible two yards away. It concerned the photograph of a mutual lady acquaintance, and has no place in ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... process of decay renders them unsuitable for dissection. This is their plan for defeating the resurrectioners. There is no corpse in the vault to-night. We shall adjourn to it for our meeting. The walls are so thick, I am told, that remarks made even in a loud tone inside will be perfectly inaudible to eavesdroppers. The door is very small, and we can hang a cloak over it, so that our light will not be visible. It will be quite safe, I think; besides, it will be very comforting to think that if one of us should die suddenly his body ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... noiselessly followed. There was the almost inaudible sound of softly closing doors, and quiet reigned over ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... not bow, nor relax the rigor of his watch. Only, when she was seated in the carriage, he bent respectfully and mutely before Mabel, who followed her hostess, and paying as little attention to the two gentlemen as they did to him walked up to Mrs. Sutton, and said something inaudible to the bystanders. As they drove out of the yard, the Ridgeley quartette saw the pair saunter, side by side, to the extreme end of the portico, apparently to be out of hearing of the rest, but no one remarked aloud upon the renewed intimacy and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... bed. Seating myself erect, I listened intently and with a good deal of surprise; for it was not easy to imagine whence sounds so unusual for that place and hour could proceed. The discourse was earnest and even animated; but it was carried on in so low a tone that it would have been utterly inaudible but for the deep quiet of the hotel. Occasionally a word reached my ear, and I was completely at fault in endeavoring to ascertain even the language. That it was in neither of the five great European tongues I was certain, for all these ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I answered, in a clear, steady voice. Just then a tall, slender girl, with dark eyes and hair, who was seated opposite to me, and whom I had never seen in our class before, rose from her seat and went up to Sister Andre's throne. She spoke to her in a low, inaudible tone for a few short moments, and then went back as ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... affected by the address of Miss Foster, as to be for some time inaudible. When heard, he spoke ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Jews, in respect of their dramatic culture, seem more like one who enjoys Shakspeare in the closet; the Greeks, like those who are tolled off to the theatre to see him acted. The Greeks would have contrived a pair of bellows to represent the whirlwind; mystic, vast, inaudible, it passes before the imagination of the Jew, and its office is done. The Jew would be shocked to see his God in a human form; such a thing pleased the Greek. The source of the difference is to be sought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... which they had joined because it was inexpensive, lively if not fashionable, and almost a necessity for just such occasions as these. Moreover, it was of no great moment what one did there, and so long as the Patch party were reasonably inaudible, it mattered little whether or not the social dictators of Cradle Beach saw the gay Gloria imbibing cocktails in the supper room at ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... dramatized by the father of the young bud of womanhood, would be taking place, and the entry into Lakelands calculable, for Nataly's comfort, as under the aegis of the Cantor earldom. Gossip flies to a wider circle round the members of a great titled family, is inaudible; or no longer the diptherian whisper the commonalty hear of the commonalty: and so we see the social uses of our aristocracy survive. We do not want the shield of any family; it is the situation that wants it; Nataly ought to be awake to the fact. One blow and we have silenced our enemy: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... yours of balling your feet! Leaping angels! You know how acute my hearing is; you know the noise of your sock against the sole of your shoe when you ball your feet is the most exquisite torture to me! A little whiskey, Jarvis! Quick!" He spoke now in a weak, almost inaudible voice to Hastings: "No; I got no such letter. I saw no such letter." He sank slowly back ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... mother!"—exclaimed he, drawing them hastily on one side and whispering something in a low, and almost inaudible voice. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... lower that answered him. The sharp tap of a pipe on the mantelpiece cancelled the words. And perhaps Jacob only said "hum," or said nothing at all. True, the words were inaudible. It was the intimacy, a sort of spiritual suppleness, when mind prints upon ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... reproached me. There is no reproach in love. But—she died in disgrace, and alone. From the first to the last it was her white hands under my feet. That was how I served the one woman I have deeply loved, the one creature who deeply loved me." The duke's voice had become almost inaudible. "You have done better than I," ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... hostess to be seated while her guest made his call and what more fortunate than the fact that the telephone wire passed over the arm of the sofa on its way to the insulator in the floor. The snip of the scissors as she cut the wire was quite inaudible because of the good lady's flow of remarks on the subject ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... and walked on; and the heap in the fireplace put out his head tortoise fashion and listened in horror to the retreating footsteps. Not until they had become inaudible in the distance did the ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... Mr. Eden's steps grow fainter and fainter, and at last inaudible, Robinson groaned; the darkness turned blacker and the solitude more ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... forward, breathed upon a gold plate covered with mystic signs which rested on a table, rose to an upright posture, again became rigid, stretched out his hands with face upturned, and whispered in tones almost inaudible:— ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... of an officer, who had acted from the most praiseworthy of motives, and who could not possibly have anticipated the unfortunate catastrophe that had occurred, was considered especially harsh and unkind by every one present; and a low and almost inaudible murmur passed through the company to which Sir Everard was attached. For a minute or two that officer also appeared deeply pained, not more from the reproof itself than from the new light in which the observation of his chief had taught him to view, for the first time, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... of the sound. He crouched close by the trunk of a tree and strained his ears. All was quiet for some moments. Then he heard the patter, patter of little hoofs coming down the stream. Nearer and nearer they came. Sometimes they were almost inaudible and again he heard them clearly and distinctly. Then there came a splashing and the faint hollow sound caused by hard hoofs striking the stones in shallow water. ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... of silence. Caterham had subsided to a conspicuous patience, and subordinate and inaudible persons were saying and doing formal and insignificant things. It was like hearing voices through the noise of leaves in spring. "Wawawawa—-" What did it matter? People in the audience talked to one another. "Wawawawawa—-" the thing went on. Would that grey-headed duffer ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... advanced thereto in little groups, gazed down into the ravine, and then retired again. When this had continued for some few minutes the sound of hoofs again became audible; but now the hoofs were retiring instead of advancing, and in the space of ten minutes had become inaudible. The creatures had retired to ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... although no account of any battle was more beclouded than that of Pultusk which the Emperor sent to Paris, the approbation of the fatherland could not reach Poland until long afterward, and in tones that were low and almost inaudible. It is an old French saying that next to the kingdom of heaven France is the most beautiful land, and every Frenchman believes it. The Emperor himself said that his French soldiers were unfitted for distant expeditions by their yearnings for home. In ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... to be a young woman, who brought a badly-sprained wrist for cure. She was treated with an herb poultice, over which the old woman muttered an inaudible incantation; and having paid a bunch of parsnips as her fee, she went away well satisfied. Next came a lame old man, who received a bottle of lotion. The third applicant wanted a charm to make herself beautiful. She was ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... were not long in comprehending his wishes, and laying aside their firearms, they parted, taking opposite sides of the path, and burying themselves in the thicket, with such cautious movements, that their steps were inaudible. ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Jack Carleton, while he stood in the woods, silent and listening, was a peculiar swashing noise, which continued a few seconds, followed by the same space of silence—the intervals being as regular as the ticking of a huge pendulum. Accompanying the sound was another, a soft, almost inaudible flow, such as one hears when standing on the bank of a vast stream ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... man's words are inaudible in the noise of the train, but for a long time he goes on muttering, sighing and clearing his throat.... The cold air in the railway van grows thicker and more stifling The pungent odor of fresh dung and smoldering candle makes it so repulsive and ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a start. At first he was too surprised to speak, but quickly he regained his composure, and gave vent to a long, low whistle, which was inaudible to his companion. Carelessly throwing his cigar over the balustrade, he rose from his seat, and stood leaning on another chair a short distance away. Laura, meantime, had not moved, except to place her left hand on a cushion and lean her head wearily against it. She still sat motionless, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... visages and hair, set up a loud howl while I was waiting for it. In that fierce battle. I then, with the object of destroying them, fixed on my bow-string the weapon capable of piercing the foes if but his sound was inaudible. Upon this, their shouts ceased. But those Danavas that had sent up that shout were all slain by those shafts of mine blazing as the Sun himself, and capable of striking at the perception of sound alone. And after the shout had ceased at one ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a Senate House, and for other public functions in connection with the University. The ceremony itself was almost identical with that at one of our Universities, and it was similarly interrupted by noisy Undergraduates, whose humour consisted in rendering the proceedings inaudible without contributing anything amusing of their own. One lady who took a degree was much cheered. The Bishop of Melbourne (Dr. Moorhouse) is the Chancellor, and delivered an address to the "fractious children," and he then called ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... the Virgin was on his right hand, with its singular, low, subterranean chapel. A very singular chapel, especially when filled to the very choking with pilgrims from those strange retreats of oriental Christendom, and when the mass is being said—inaudible, indeed, and not to be seen, at the furthest end of that dense, underground crowd, but testified to by the lighting of a thousand tapers, and by the strong desire for some flicker of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... The young man read the paper which Simeon had prepared for him, but did so in a voice low and partially inaudible. Then Simeon himself, taking the paper from him, read the apology in such tones that ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... harmony that men, seeking to interpret it by what was most harmonious in themselves or in their human experience, supposed an actual Music of the Spheres inaudible to mortals: Plato as we see (who learned of Pythagoras) inventing his Octave of Sirens, perched on the whorls of the great spindle and ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... dim in the distance, and was about to descend when he detected the sound of a second approaching car! Acutely conscious of danger, he remained where he was. Almost before the hum of the retiring limousine had become inaudible, a second car entered the lane and turned into the drive ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... perceive from the trolley-cars grinding and squealing under their windows. The manager (if that was the quality of the patient and amiable old official who received us) seemed surprised to see the cars there, perhaps because they were so inaudible; but he said we could have rooms in the annex, fronting on the adjoining plaza and siding on an inoffensive avenue where there were absolutely no cars. The interior, climbing to a lofty roof by a succession of galleries, was hushed by four silent senoras, all in black, and seated in mute ceremony ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... huge, formless creatures, with shaggy heads held low, their vast bulk making them seem almost like prehistoric things. The dust of their going arose in a blinding cloud, the thunder of their hoofs left inaudible even the shrill cries of the riding warriors as they ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... At every other step she paused and listened, but no sound met her ears except a slight, regular, thudding noise, which she presently discovered, with something of a shock, to be the beating of her own heart. The sound of her progress was almost inaudible. As the day was damp, she was wearing goloshes, and her small, rubber-shod feet fell upon the stone floor with a gentle patter that was ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... reverent and stately bow it was too—regarded him for a moment, and, taking a pace backward to the door, called after the retreating turnkey, to whom he addressed some order in a tone to me inaudible. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... much conversation is kept up in an inaudible tone of voice. Harry has an instinctive knowledge that it is about him, for he hears the words, "Peter! Peter!" his name must be transmogrified into "Peter!" In another minute he hears dishes rattling on the table, and Bengal distinctly complimenting the adjuncts, as he orders some ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... as if filtered through cotton-wool was inaudible on the other side of the deck. Poor Flora, taken very much unawares, made an inarticulate murmur, shook her head vaguely, and glanced in the direction of the pacing Anthony who was not looking her ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... of an enormous fraud, dropped his cap, in his confusion, twice, murmured something inaudible, rose to his feet, and backed out of the room, making one comprehensive bow to everybody, and saying "Good-night" before ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Shand gives an inaudible assent. The column is halted, and the scouts called up. A brief command, and they disappear into the darkness, at the double. C and D Companies give them five minutes start, and move on. The road at this point runs past a low mossy wall, surmounted ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... through it to the terrace. Monotonously, exasperatingly, one querulous voice sent a fretful question through the bewildered speeches of the women ... "But what's it about? That's what I want to know. I've asked everybody, but nobody seems to know!" Some one made an inaudible reply to the querulous voice, and then it went on: "Serbia! That's what some one else said, but we aren't Serbia. We're England, and I don't see what we've got to do with it. If they want to go and fight, let them. That's ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... hurt?" the doctor managed to stutter in an almost inaudible voice, so overcome with surprise was he at the ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... ignored. We might have been ghosts, invisible and inaudible. Even the supervisors, less-young women set in authority, did not turn to glance at us as they moved restlessly peering behind the stools. And yet somehow I could hear the delicate shoulders of all the young women saying, without speech: "Here come these tyrants and taskmasters again, who have ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... which William Dulan arose to take his leave, which he did in a choking, inaudible voice. As he turned to leave the room, his ghastly face and unsteady step attested, in language not to be misunderstood, the acuteness and intensity of his suffering. Alice did not misunderstand it. She uttered one word, in a low ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... upon Roderick himself. In solitude his melancholy grew more black and sullen. He spent whole days—indeed, it was his sole occupation—in communing with the serpent. A conversation was sustained, in which, as it seemed, the hidden monster bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners, and inaudible except in a hiss. Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort of affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant emotions incompatible. ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... minutes getting her hands back into her gloves, fixed a good-by smile on her face, murmured some unintelligible words to her hostess, and departed, annoyed to realize that the engine of the awaiting car—kept running to emphasize her comet-like passage through so mixed an assembly—had become quite inaudible to the company. ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... which spread wide and pleasantly around. It was twilight. But in a moment her child appeared, and was pressed to her heart, smiling at her in greater beauty than he had ever possessed. She uttered a cry, but it was inaudible. A glorious swelling strain of music sounded in the distance, and then near to her, and then again in the distance: never had such tones fallen on her ear; they came from beyond the great dark curtain which separated the hall from the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... surprise that his companion seemed annoyed by the presence of the other party already referred to. He scowled and shrugged his shoulders when he looked at them, and in a low voice, inaudible to those of whom he spoke, he said to Herbert: "Are they going to stay here ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... at uncertain intervals their guns threw shells into Gommecourt. It was difficult to believe that the terrible explosions which resulted were caused by a shell lighter than our 18 pounders, whose shrapnel burst with an almost inaudible 'pip.' Practically the only retaliation indulged in by the Germans was to shell our batteries as they were getting into their gun-pits, though without serious damage. About the end of the month, however, a serious misfortune befell A Company, one of whose platoons was half destroyed ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... correct. The two horses followed them like dogs, their hoof tramp being almost inaudible, and they went on through the darkness at a pace which seemed terrible to Fred in its sluggishness, nearly down to the lake, and then round its western end, and in ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... she said, in the same inaudible language. This time he discovered that the sense of what she said was received by his brain through the organ ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... struggling young actress who would some day be famous—and then he might see her on a night of triumph and recognize her as the girl he had passed on the street, that day, so long ago! But by this time, the episode was concluded; the footsteps of him for whom she was performing had become inaudible behind her, and she began to forget him; which was as well, since he went out of her life then, and the two never met again. The struggling young actress disappeared, and the previous superiority was resumed. It became elaborately emphasized ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... unequal to the task of stopping a Woman's mouth; and as the wife has absolutely nothing to say, and absolutely no constraint of wit, sense, or conscience to prevent her from saying it, not a few cynics have been found to aver that they prefer the danger of the death-dealing but inaudible sting to the safe sonorousness of ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... tulip ears alert, Laddie stood listening. To the keenest human ears the thief's soft progress across the wide living room to the wall-safe would have been all but inaudible. But Lad could follow every phase of it; the cautious skirting of each chair; the hesitant pause as a bit of ancient furniture creaked; the halt in front of the safe; the queer grinding noise, muffled but persevering, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... he had spoken, there was a sound that all the world seemed to stand still to hear. It was a low, murmuring sound of thunder; but it was so remote as almost to be inaudible. The next moment an awful thing occurred. The two men standing face to face in the dark suddenly found themselves in a blaze of blinding steel-blue light, and at the very same instant the thunder-roar crackled and shook all around them like the firing of a thousand cannon. How the wild echoes ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... no pain, but he was visibly sinking. His noble features, paled by the approach of death, were perfectly calm. Inaudible words escaped at intervals from his lips, bearing upon various incidents of his chequered career. Life was evidently ebbing slowly, and his ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... reproved her in words or requested her to take a lower seat, but some rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who would thankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about a certain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of those wretched freshers, which must instantly be put ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Bumble's discourse, Oliver, just hearing enough to know that some allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible. Sowerberry returned at this juncture. Oliver's offence having been explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... that she did not move. After a silence of a few seconds, she faltered in an almost inaudible tone: ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... all," she said, in almost inaudible tones; "last night we flew over the house." He stared at her, his hands trembling, and no longer able ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... not sleeping; she is listening—listening to the sobs, almost inaudible, which now and then escape from the beloved one at her side. As they grow fainter and fainter and gradually die away altogether till stillness reigns through the whole dormitory, she rouses and bending forward on her elbow, looks long ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... of a corpse. Nor could the boy, if crippled by his fall, and unable to show himself, give evidence of his whereabouts by so much as a single cry. Both tongue and ears were sealed by infirmity, and any low sound such as that he might have been able to utter would have been rendered inaudible by the torrent rushing through the ravine hard by. At nightfall the search was suspended, to be renewed before daybreak with fresh assistance from the nearest village. Some of the new-comers spoke of a cave ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... therefore, and walked about at a little distance, where I could just hear the swell of the organ. Such is the immensity of the building, that at the other side of the aisle the music is perfectly inaudible. ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... reached the Inn and entered the bar where they found the Marquis sitting alone before a cheerful fire. All of Tom's suspicious jealousies returned with fresh force, for Nancy rapidly crossed the room, spoke a few words to the old gentleman in an inaudible tone of voice, and passed quickly on ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... strength was now Choo Hoo's weakness. His host visibly melted before his eyes; the vast mass dissolved; the ranks became mixed together, without order or cohesion. Rage overpowered him; he stormed; he raved till his voice from the strain became inaudible. The barbarians were cowed, and ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... in a world gently fervorous with lyric delicacies, and her own almost girlish laughter is like a kind of gracious music for the scenes she wishes to portray. I am reminded in this instance to compare her gentle voice with the almost inaudible one of Albert Ryder, that greatest of visionaries which America has so far produced. It is probable that all mystical types have voices softened to whispers by the vastness of the experience which they have endured. These gentle ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... appreciated, Valmai fell into a tremor of uncertainty. Was it Cardo? Yes, she could not be mistaken in the voice; but how would he take her sudden appearance? Would he be glad? Would he be sorry? And the result of her mental conflict was a very meek, almost inaudible knock. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... silence ensued. Just as the modern "talkies" become inaudible motion pictures when the sound apparatus goes out of order, so the Divine Hand, by some strange miracle, stifled the earthly bustle. The pedestrians as well as the passing trolley cars, automobiles, bullock carts, and iron-wheeled hackney carriages were all in noiseless transit. As though ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... combination as would constitute specific form in ordinary apprehension, though in the blind and deaf the possibility of high and intelligible complexity in these senses is proved. Similarly, the term is carried over to the invisible and inaudible world of the soul within itself, and we speak of the beauty of Sidney's act, of Romeo's nature, and, in the abstract, of the beauty of holiness, and, in a still more remote sphere, of the beauty of a demonstration or a hypothesis; by this usage we do not so much describe the ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... through the burst hatchway, tore the door of the cuddy from its hinges. Sylvia found herself surrounded by a wildly-surging torrent which threatened to overwhelm her. She shrieked aloud for aid, but her voice was inaudible even to herself. Clinging to the mast which penetrated the little cuddy, she fixed her eyes upon the door behind which she imagined North was, and whispered a last prayer for succour. The door opened, and from out the cabin came a figure ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... your old father," he cried, in a whining tone—"you take advantage of my helplessness, all of you—you ill-treat me and deny me the very comforts of life! I'll tell—I'll tell the doctor," he continued, as his voice subsided into an almost inaudible tone, and he sank back into the chair in a state ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... could sit in the open air and enjoy the agreeable prospect. But whether indoors or out, he toiled at the book in every possible moment, writing with a pencil on tablets while he had strength, then dictating in almost inaudible whispers, little by little, to an amanuensis. So, toilsomely, through intense suffering, sustained by indomitable will, this legacy to his family and the world was completed to the end of the war. His last battle was won. Four days after ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... quickly. The professor had just put in one of his unexpected appearances. He had a habit of shuffling about in felt slippers which were altogether inaudible. ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... do!" These words, though vehement, were inaudible; being formed in the mind of Mr. Bullitt, but, for diplomatic reasons, not projected upon the air ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... of almost inaudible applause, such as is sometimes heard in church. Then a large old man, with a long and venerable white beard, perhaps the only real working-man present, rose lumberingly ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... see any one. I handed in my card, and said to the servant: "I leave for America to-morrow, and only called to say good-bye to Mr. Gladstone." He overheard my voice (not one of the feeblest), and, coming out into the hall, greeted me most warmly, but in a voice almost inaudible from hoarseness. I told him: "Do not attempt to speak, Mr. Gladstone; the future of the British Empire depends upon your throat." He hoarsely whispered, "No, no, my friend, it does not," and with a very hearty handshake we parted. My prediction came true. Within a year ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... taking his hand, muttered something; it certainly did not matter what, for it was inaudible; but such as the words were, they were the first spoken ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... himself speaking. What he said was at first almost inaudible, for he was kneeling between the wall and the pan which had been his childish joy, with his face and arms crushed against the stones. But when he began the boys about pricked up their ears, and David was conscious suddenly of a deepened silence. There were warm tears on his hidden cheeks; ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Richmond had spoken, Chatham rose. For some time his voice was inaudible. At length his tones became distinct and his action animated. Here and there his hearers caught a thought or an expression which reminded them of William Pitt. But it was clear that he was not himself. He lost the thread ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... flakelet that reached me was a mere white speck that came idly circling and eddying to the ground. I could not see it after it alighted. It might have been a scale from the feather of some passing bird, or a larger mote in the air that the stillness was allowing to settle. Yet it was the altogether inaudible and infinitesimal trumpeter that announced the coming storm, the grain of sand that heralded the desert. Presently another fell, then another; the white mist was creeping up the river valley. How slowly ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal night when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bedroom candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins yawn on ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... unadulterated, unalloyed; in full, net; passable, unimpeded, unobstructed, open; acquitted; unburdened, exempt; clarified. Antonyms: opaque, obscure, indecipherable, ambiguous, equivocal, vague, cryptic, abstruse, inexplicable, roily, turbid, enigmatical, inexplicit, inaudible, adulterated, cloudy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... stone, observing in a whisper that if they came too nigh, he would try which was the hardest, a Spaniard's scull or that "ground nut," as he designated the stone which he held in his hand. The soldiers, however, passed on without seeing them, and in a few seconds their footsteps became inaudible. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... inaudible. But between that long, happy day and the present time there has been an arc of life large enough to place the union of Tyrrel and Ethel Rawdon among ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... had sunk down under the last bit of light, without complaint, without sound. Her eyes were closed, she leaned her head against the sharp edge of the aperture and her arms hung down lifelessly. Soelver bent over her; her breath was almost inaudible, but irregular and did not suggest sleep. Like a thirsty plant she stretched herself out of the single airhole of the dungeon that she might seize the last drop of light before the darkness extinguished everything. Soelver divined that she could not be brought ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... defiles into the long narrow strath which lay below him; but such was the extent of the train that the rear had but just cleared the sea-shore. It was a solemn and impressive spectacle to look down from such a height upon the sable and inaudible procession stealing along and meandering upon the narrow ribbon-like paths that skirted the base of the mountains. The mourners were naturally a silent train even when viewed from a nearer station: but from Bertram's aerial position the very horses and carriages seemed shod with felt. So far ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted the steps swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find my hat in the low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his voice again, but the words were inaudible. I stopped, startled; but then I heard the voice of one of the vilest of his associates saying, "Nobody can possibly know." And then I heard those two or three words which I remember in every syllable and cannot forget. I heard the Diabolist say, "I tell you I have done everything ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, and still another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its vitality, and grew to be merely a torpid habit, and was saddest then),—all their hitherto forgotten features peeped through the face of the great-grandchild, and their long-inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or laughed, in her familiar tones. But it often happened to Dr. Dolliver, while frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the one reality looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters,—it often happened that his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his head, obeyed her; as the door closed behind them he could hear that she cried softly, and that Lightmark, his silence at last broken, consoled her with inaudible words. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... in the first watch it began to thunder and lighten furiously; but the thunder, though close, was quite inaudible in the tremendous uproar of the wind and sea. It blew a hurricane: there were no more squalls now; but one continuous tornado, which in its passage through that great gaunt skeleton, the ship's rigging and bare poles, howled and yelled and roared ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... embraces her. There is tenderness between them. Their bodies, indeed, seem to have become overtones that mate in a delicious and inaudible melody. But this melody must be brought closer so that its beauty may be more definitely enjoyed. This melody must be played on instruments and ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... with dread, pitiable to contemplate; but after a few moments her hands sought each other, and her trembling lips moved evidently in prayer, though the petition was inaudible. Mrs. Singleton sponged her forehead with iced water, and by degrees the convulsive shivering became less violent. The wise nurse began in a subdued tone to sing slowly, "Nearer my God to Thee," and after a little while, the sufferer ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... on the door, so light as to be inaudible except to listening ears. Jeanne rose at once, silently opened the door, which purposely she had not latched, and stepped into the passage. A hand touched her on the arm and then slid down her arm until it clasped her fingers. She was pulled ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... What a myriad of splintering, reverberating crashes, bursting upward into the night; echoing away, renewed again and again so that it all was a vast pulsing throb of terrible sound. And under it, inaudible, what faint little sounds must have been the agonized screams of the humans who ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... one about to make a remark. Then suddenly a curious change seemed to come over his manner. His natural ease seemed to have entirely departed. He stood stiff and rigid, and there was something forbidding in his face as he looked down at the girl who had glanced timidly towards him. A word—it was inaudible but it sounded like part of a woman's name—escaped him. He had the appearance, during those few seconds, of a man who looks through the present into a past world. It was all over before even they could appreciate the situation. With ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... something inaudible as the door closed behind her. He was a short, thickset man, not in the least like Lawrence, who was ten years his junior. Two years previously he had made a furtive attempt to pay court to Bessy Houghton for the sake of her wealth, and her decided ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... well, he does not like to find that he has any equal. Heaven forbid that I should say that there is rivalry here. You, sir, are so pre-eminently the first that no one can touch you." Then he laughed long,—a low, bitter, inaudible laugh,—during which Mr. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... estimates of the result; Lady Maud talked only of a speech made by Lord Milford, which from the elaborate noise she made about it, you would have supposed to have been the oration of the evening; on the contrary, it had lasted only a few minutes and in a thin house had been nearly inaudible; but then, as Lady Maud added, "it was ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... across the lurching room and again wedged myself under the couch. Babs stood at the lattice ten feet away. We dared to talk in low tones; the rumbling voices and footsteps outside would make our tiny voices inaudible to Polter. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... accustomed tone of voice, in which of course it was inaudible to Peg, Mr Squeers drew a stool to the fire, and placing himself over against her, and the bottle and glass on the floor between them, roared out ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the expression of her face changed little by little. "Making people happy!" She repeated the phrase as she had formulated the idea again, very softly, with a persistence that would have surprised Mrs. Delancy, could she have caught the inaudible murmur. Presently, the faint rose in the pallor of her cheeks blossomed to a deeper red, and the amber eyes grew radiant, as she lifted the long, curving lashes, and fixed her gaze on her aunt. There was a new animation in her voice as she spoke; there was a new determination ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... emerging from the torpor which already enveloped him, the little fellow opened his eyes and looked at the faces bending over him, with sullen indifference, then, returning to his dream which he deemed more attractive, clenched his little wrinkled hands and heaved an inaudible sigh. Oh! mystery! Who can say for what purpose that child was born? To suffer two months and to go away without seeing or understanding anything, before anyone had heard the sound of ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... and raised the hand of Clara to his lips, murmuring some sweet, soft, silvery and deferentially inaudible words of condolence, sympathy and melancholy pleasure, from which Clara, with a gentle bend of her head, withdrew to ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... his heart looked out of his grave deep eyes, which never wandered from the face so dear to him, and moved his lips in an inaudible prayer for the peace and welfare of the lonely waif whom Providence or fate had brought into his path, to evoke all the tenderness latent ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... exclaimed Jock, with an inaudible growl between his teeth. "Trust Kencroft for boring on!" and aloud, with some impatience, "It is just what I would have ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... amen!—(and here amen was said, and not in the tame style of the American Archbishop of Canterbury's cathedral, be assured; but whether the spiritual bullet hit the chap aimed at, I never learned; if it did, his groans were inaudible in the alarming thunder ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... The door opened, cautiously, the Professor tiptoed in, followed by Ardelia, with a tray. At the sight of the two before him, engrossed in the inaudible comments, he stepped back into Ardelia and rattled the contents of the tray. Jarvis looked up and caught his astonished expression. He rose with ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... inaudible in the thundering roar of the bombardment. "Ann, I've got to go ahead. I've got to go tonight. To Nevada, to the Dartmouth plant there. I know I'm right, but I have to go, to check something—to make sure of something." He paused, looking down at her. "I'll be back, Ann. But I'm afraid of ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse |
