"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in a blur of wind and cold, penetrating rains. Except for the placing of the insurance on the Hilmer shipbuilding plant, business was dull. Fred began to make moves toward getting in money. But it was heartbreaking work. The people who had yielded up their consent so smilingly to Fred for personal accident policies, or automobile insurance, passed him furtively on the street or sent word out to him when he called at their ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... of those men who are remarkable for thick, massive, and saturnine features. At a first glance he was not at all ill-looking; but, on examining his beetle brows, which met in a mass of black thick hair across his face, and on watching the dull, selfish, cruel eyes that they hung over—dead as they were to every generous emotion, and incapable of kindling even at cruelty itself—it was impossible for any man in the habit of observing nature closely not to ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... were rather strange; but the narration of them is not very profitable, not that I go in for the utilitarian theory of conversation; but I think, on the whole, that, in story-telling, fiction should be preferred to dull facts like these, and so the next time I tell a story I will make ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... Dull as Regent Mary was, she now saw that she must call that dreaded States-General, or lose not only the nobles, but the people. Undecided as she was, she soon saw that she must do it at once; that if she delayed it, her great nobles would raise the cry for it again and again just as often ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... disadvantages to start with. She lay in a dull and marshy bottom, with no building stone at hand, and therefore she was forecondemned by her very position to the curse of brick and stucco, when Bath, Oxford, Edinburgh, were all built out of their own quarries. Then fire destroyed ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... rosy sea! The radiant head half-sunk! A pool of light, As the blue globe had by a blow been broken, And the insphered glory bubbled forth! Or the sun were a splendid water-bird, That flying furrowed with its golden feet A flashing wake over the waves, and home! Lo there!—Alas, the dull blank wall!—High up, The window-pane a dead gray eye! and night Come on me like a thief!—Ah, well! the sun Has always made me sad! I'll go and pray: The terror of the night begins ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... what it was like. And here he saw the beautiful Helener, and likewise her husband Menelayus. And one day, Menelayus went out hunting, and left Paris and Helener alone, and Paris said: "Do you not feel dul in this palis?"[2] And Helener said: "I feel very dull in this pallice," and Paris said: "Come away and see the world with me." So they sliped off together, and they came to the King of Egypt, and he said: "Who is the young lady"? So Paris told him. "But," said the King, "it is not propper for you to go off with other ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... fact, I have her written permission to use the house, which I should have shown you if we had got in a pinch. But it seemed so much more fun just to let matters take their course. It's a pet theory of mine that life is a dull affair unless we trust to luck a little. After my brother's death I was very unhappy and had gone out East to visit Aunt Alice, who is a great roamer. I thought it would be nice to stop here on the way home, just for a lark, without telling papa, who was frantically ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... saloon was doing a fine business. The swinging doors between the backroom and the bar were swinging all the time—and at the various tables a score of young men and a dozen or so of young women, and one stout fellow at the piano, were roaring dull care away. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... births and virtue equally they scorn, As asses dull, on dunghills born; Impervious as the stones their heads are found, Their rage and hatred steadfast ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... however, the weather showed signs of changing. They had been sailing along with a good following breeze, the sky overhead a deep, cloudless, sapphire blue, and the sea smooth enough to relieve them from all uneasiness. Now, however, the sun was sinking toward the horizon like a ball of dull red copper, and the western sky, instead of being clear as previously, was heavy with black clouds that were banking up and threatening to obscure the sun ere it set. Overhead, too, deep violet clouds ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... departs for the country, which means, economizing for some months in a huge half-furnished mansion. In short, the romance of a Roman Princess is made up of a certain number of noisy winters, and dull summers, and plenty of children. If there be, by chance, any more exciting chapters, they are ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... Bell no longer belonged to the group. They had found matters so intolerably dull that they started off on their own hook to ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... did hear the language of Heaven, and the dull souls around her wuz too earthly to comprehend the divine harmonies, and so they ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... this bosom by your wild excess, Ah! kindly cease—for pity's sake subside, Nor thus o'erwhelm me with joy's rapid tide: My beating heart, oppress'd with woe and care, Has yet to learn such happiness to bear: From grief, distracting grief, thus high to soar, To know dull pain and misery no more, To hail each op'ning morn with new delight, To rest in peace and joy each happy night, To see my Lycidas from bondage free, Restored to life, to pleasure, and to me, To see him thus—adorn'd with virtue's charms, To give him to a longing mother's arms, To know ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... began to be (as the phrase is) extremely brilliant. However, as nothing past in it which can be thought material to this history, or, indeed, very material in itself, I shall omit the relation; the rather, as I have known some very fine polite conversation grow extremely dull, when transcribed into books, or repeated on the stage. Indeed, this mental repast is a dainty, of which those who are excluded from polite assemblies must be contented to remain as ignorant as they must of the several dainties of French cookery, which are served only at the tables ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... showery and dull. True to her resolution, Katherine put her mother's lucubrations into their covers, and prepared to ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... judgment of the mind, 57. By corporeal judgment is meant the judgment of the mind according to the external senses, which judgment is gross and dull, 57. See Justice ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... and through the smoke Sam descried two young men, one a slight wiry fellow, the other a large, broad-shouldered, fair-haired man with a dull expression of ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... moon!" Chet Bullard broke in, but again a movement from Harkness silenced his exclamations. Whatever of dull apathy had gripped young Harkness was gone. No thought now of the devastation below them that spelled his financial ruin. Some greater, more gripping idea had now possessed him. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... sat on the edge of her nest; Her yellow-beaks slept as sound as tops; That day she had done her very best, And had filled every one of their little crops. She had filled her own just over-full, And hence she was feeling a little dull. ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... changing contrasts. Love of neighbors, human or animal, grows up amid savage traits, coarse and fine. When father made out to get us securely locked up in the back yard to prevent our shore and field wanderings, we had to play away the comparatively dull time as best we could. One of our amusements was hunting cats without seriously hurting them. These sagacious animals knew, however, that, though not very dangerous, boys were not to be trusted. One time in particular I remember, when we began throwing stones at an experienced old Tom, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... take heed! You put your sword into the hands of recreant knights; they will dull its edge and mar its brightness, and, when your hour of need comes and you would put it into other hands, you will find its edge chipped and its point broken. ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... three in high spirits. When they came to the cloister, they flung an iron hook upon the roof of the treasure-room, and Tim climbing up by means of a rope which was attached to it, at once gave proof that he was anything but a dull pupil. In a trice a hole was made in the roof—the chests in the treasury were broken open—money-bags were piled up upon the floor, and then flung down out of the treasury upon the ground, where they were gathered up by Tim's comrades, ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... that painful transformation in his face: a difficult dull-red flood sweeping over it, only to recede instantly, leaving him white from neck ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... cannot, with their honour, call for after The Play, they look to be serv'd up in the middle: Your dance is the best language of some comedies And footing runs away with all; a scene Express'd with life of art and squared to nature Is dull and ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... witnesses which made it truth. There was the chair in which she had so often sat plying her needle with such tardy grace while her impatient thoughts did battle with the humdrum, narrow life she led. How she had beat against the fate which seemed to promise naught but that dull round of commonplace events in which her early years had passed away! How as a gall and fret had come the thought of Reuben's proffered love, because it shadowed forth the level of respectable routine, the life she then most dreaded! To be courted and sought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... the war-path again," he remarked to Pinetop, who was stalking at his side. The two had become close friends during the dull weeks after their first battle, and Bland, who had brought a taste for the classics from the lecture-room, had already referred to them in pointless jokes ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... could not prevail. I am forced to allow the Sheriff 40 s. per Week for keeping Kidd safe; otherwise I should be in some doubt about him. He has without doubt a great deal of gold, which is apt to tempt men that have not principles of honour; I have therefore, to try the power of dull Iron against gold, put him into Irons that Weigh 16 Pound. I thought it moderate enough, for I remember poor Doctor Oates[10] had a 100 weight of Iron on him when he was a prisoner in the late Raign. There never was a greater Lyar or Thief in the World than this Kidd; notwithstanding he assured ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... stanchions and clamped by 8-pieces. Northward the lights of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square threw a copper-coloured glare above the black roofs, and southward by all the orderly lights of the Thames. A train rolled out across one of the railway bridges, and its thunder drowned for a minute the dull roar of the streets. The Nilghai looked at his watch and said shortly, "That's the Paris night-mail. You can book from here to St. Petersburg ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... it reached to the Company's store. In the door, looking toward the big cage, stood the young white man. He heard the snarling, the clashing of teeth, and his jaws set heavily and a dull flame burned in his eyes. His breath came ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... Bard composed this furious ode, As tired he dragg'd his way thro' Plimtree road![27:2] Crusted with filth and stuck in mire Dull sounds the Bard's bemudded lyre; Nathless Revenge and Ire the Poet goad 5 To pour his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... got about through Wild Rose,' he continued. 'She was immensely tickled when I told her. I'm afraid she must have been feeling rather dull all these days, ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Prince's guilt has taken firm root in the dull minds of our police authorities. They have had every information with regard to Prince Semionicz's antecedents from Russia; his position, his wealth, have been placed above suspicion, and yet they suspect and go on suspecting him or his secretary. They have communicated with the police of every ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... was that beautiful apathetic Dorcas Brandon. Where is the laggard so dull as to experience no pleasing flutter at his heart in anticipation of meeting a perfect beauty in a country house. I was romantic, like every other youngish fellow who is not a premature curmudgeon; and there was something indefinitely pleasant in the consciousness ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... The whole upper floor of her new building is a spacious gymnasium, where her pupils exercise every day under the instruction of a skillful German; and on every Saturday morning they take lessons from the best dancing master in the city. The result is, she has no dull scholars complaining of headaches. All are alike happy in their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... this weeping man approaches, supported by two friends, that comfort him with: "All right, Tom. You done noble," uttered in pacifying if not convincing tones? Heart-brokenly he cries: "I dull le ver' bes' I knowed, now di' n't I? Charley? Billy, I dub bes' I knowed how. An' nen he says to me—Oo-hoo-hoo-oooo-oo! He says to me: 'Come ou' that, ye cussed fool!' Oo-oooo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo! Smf! Lemme gi' amma ham hankshiff. Leg go my arm. Waw gi' amma hankshifp. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... early numbers contained verses as grossly indecent as they were dull. Cave moreover advertised indecent books for sale at St. John's Gate, and in one instance, at least, the advertisement was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... them out. Those idle words, neighbor, are past remedy. That turning back to the old pages produces anything but elation of mind. Would you not pay a pretty fine to be able to cancel some of them? Oh, the sad old pages, the dull old pages! Oh, the cares, the ennui, the squabbles, the repetitions, the old conversations over and over again! But now and again a kind thought is recalled, and now and again a dear memory. Yet a few chapters more, and then the last: after which, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Greenfield, Massachusetts, was a member of the House of Representatives. I knew him very well and he was a constant visitor at our home. He was celebrated for his flashes of wit, which sometimes stimulated undeveloped powers in others, and I have often seen dull perceptions considerably sharpened at his approach. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of his witty sayings in the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," and his conversational powers were so brilliant that they won the admiration of Thackeray. Robert ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... on the Maramec, a good day's tramp, and we did not expect to be back until nearly time for Madame Chouteau's dance. I think the matrons and the maidens expected to spend the day in going to church and in making visits, which seemed to me a dull way to spend Christmas, but ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... have given you. Norfolk! There is only one word between it and the plantations. At this time of the year, it is a clay pudding full of villages. Give me your arm, Dick; I shall play no more until my luck turns again. Losing cards are dull company indeed." ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... of assize, in an eloquent speech, put on one side all questions of witchcraft and diabolical compact, and bestial transformation, and boldly stated that the court had only to consider the age and the imbecility of the child, who was so dull and idiotic—that children of seven or eight years old have usually a larger amount of reason than he. The president went on to say that Lycanthropy and Kuanthropy were mere hallucinations, and that the change ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... trick of drawing herself up to every new proposal with an air of "What is that to us?" At this time Canada herself was in bad way. She had just completed her first big transcontinental. Times were dull. The Crown Colony of Newfoundland did not come begging admission to confederation. No political party could do that and live; for politics in Newfoundland are a fanatical religion. I have heard the warden of the penitentiary say that if it were not for politics he would never have any inmates. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... every year in heavier mantles of hemlocks and cedars; but a shaded road winds now gravely by the river-side, and along it the city sends out those who are tired, worn out, and need to hear that message of the river. No matter how dull their heads or hearts may be, they never fail to catch something of its meaning. So quiet it is there, so pure, it is like being born again, they say. So, all the time, in the cool autumn-mornings, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... him was magical. He was sailor enough to love the swell of the waves and the rippling music of the water as it slipped under the anchored boat; he was fisherman enough to be thrilled by the chances of capture; he was artist enough to gloat over the beauty of the dull morning—the white gulls circling overhead, the black rocks sticking their spines above the gray sea, a phantom four-masted ship sailing straight toward ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... a merrymaking it was! Truly, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and in a country and at a time when all young people had to work almost as hard as their parents, the pioneer fathers and mothers encouraged the young folk to mix pleasure well with their tasks. Indeed, it was ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... the tragedy of a careless and supercilious coquetry which plays with the heart as the fisherman plays with the salmon? Read "Clara Vere de Vere." Would you know the dull heartache of a loveless married life, growing at times into an intolerable anguish which no marital fidelity can do much to medicate? Read "Auld Robin Gray." Who but a poet can interpret the pain of a parting between loving ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... first to last lounging about the wharf, overseeing the going away of our goods. Harris, so soon as I gave him key and street-number had posted to Reade Street to attend the silk's reception. Waiting for the coming back of the conveying dray was but a slow, dull business, and I was impatiently, at the hour I've named, walking up and down, casting an occasional glance at the big last trunk where it stood on end, a bit drawn out and separated from that common mountain of baggage wherewith the wharf was piled. One of the general inspectors, a man ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... dull day at our place. In the morning, when the weather was pleasant, my wife and I would drive to town, a distance of about five miles, to attend the church of our choice. The afternoons we spent at home, for the most part, occupying ourselves with the ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and now, for all you know, his hand may be too strong. Poor, dishonest king! When you accepted this throne, which belongs to another, you fell as far as possible from moral ethics. And now you would be honest and be called dull, and dream, while your ministers profit and smile behind your back. I beg your Majesty's pardon, but you have always requested that ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no more of these grazing cattle,—though they seemed, in their dull manner, to wear a more respectful air now, and to face round, in order that they might stare as long as possible at the possessor of such great expectations,—farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... said, "I should be an ungrateful wretch if I could not oblige you in so small a request. I promise not to disturb you, Zara; and do not think for one moment that I shall be dull. I have books, a piano, flowers—what more do I want? And if I like I can go out; then I have letters to write, and all sorts of things to occupy me. I shall be quite happy, and I shall not come near ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... Tuppence, her flagging spirits reviving. "And all expenses paid! But, oh, Tommy, I do like things to happen quickly. So far, adventure has succeeded adventure, but this morning has been dull as dull." ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... But, alas! he could catch nobody! The enemy was an airy, agile, artful, experienced creature who was never at the end of his inventions, and had nothing else to think of but how to make a fool of him; while he, with his dull henchman Alexander, was but a stupid, heavy animal, whose horns had to grow before he could butt with them. It was therefore with a very surly look that Master Boltay, standing outside his door one day, beheld ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Viscount's usually direct gaze wavered and fell, while his pallid cheek flushed a dull red. He did not answer at once, but his sudden ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... curtain of the large bow-window, so common in the West Indian houses, and the rich moonlight, now unvexed by the dull glare of the taper, flowed into the apartment, bathing every object it touched with silvery radiance. Clara sat in the window, in the full glow of the light, leaning forward toward the open air, and I, with a beating heart, gazed upon her superb beauty. Shall I ever forget it? ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... said the same thing, when I told them I wanted to go over to England: "What on earth do you want there?" Though only a few hours' journey from England, they had never felt the least curiosity to see the country. "And London! It was said to be a very dull city; it was certainly not worth putting one's self out to go there." Or else it was: "If you are going to London, be careful! London is full of thieves and rascals; look well to ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... espousing the daughter of some irreproachable county family, and returning to his old home to live in frugal state for the rest of his life; driving to church in the old barouche, attending a succession of dull, country-house dinners; taking the chair at village meetings. He tried to imagine Cornelia spending long, peaceful years as the squire's wife, contentedly pottering about the village, superintending Dorcas meetings, and finding recreation in occasional garden ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... minute even the galloping hoofs had muffled their dull thunder in the darkness and distance. With wild dread spurring him on, the father was gone to the rescue of his children, leaving old Plummer and his faithful sergeant shocked and nerveless at ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... the dinghy, with Dominique and Pedro, had left the side of the yacht; the captain, by Frank's orders, set four men to work to paint the gig black, while others gave a coat of dull lead colour to the varnished oars. The order was received with much surprise by the men, who audibly expressed their regret at seeing their brightly varnished boat ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... summer afternoon; and a simple but striking little picture of a child brooding, with looks of silent but deep and sorrowful regret, over a handful of withered flowers, with glimpses of dark low hills and autumnal fields behind it, and a dull beclouded sky above. ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the Judge, patient to the last degree, wades through the account-book. Meanwhile the hands of the clock have moved on. Instead of being a short case, this apparently simple matter has proved a long one, and already as the afternoon advances the light of the dull winter's day declines. The solicitors engaged in the 'horse case,' who retired to consult, hoping to come to a settlement, returned into Court fully an hour ago, and have since been sitting at the table ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... mighty army, yet I have more than once witnessed the fact, and remarked how, but a short distance from the line of our hurried march, the country lay untouched and uninjured; and though the clank of arms and the dull roll of the artillery may have struck upon the ear of the far-off dweller in his native valley, he listened as he would have done to the passing thunder as it crashed above him; and when the bright sky and pure air succeeded to the lowering atmosphere and the darkening storm, he looked ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... triumphantly in. It was pretty—and queer—perhaps queerer than pretty. The walls were green-gray, the carpet gray-green, the furniture pale yellow, almost white, with brass handles and hinges, and lines of dull red tiles set into the wood. Every picture on the walls had a meaning, Miss ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... rebellion. Her nerves had been so shaken that she sobbed behind her veil all the way to her destination. Paris, when she reached it, offered her almost nothing that could comfort or amuse her. That city is always empty and dull in August, more so than at any other season. Even the poor occupation of teaching her little class of music pupils had been taken away by the holidays. Her sole resource was in Modeste's society. Modeste—who, by the way, had never been ill, and who suffered from nothing ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... islanders has been on the page of history, these characteristics are very much at variance with the descriptions we have of the savages seen by the earliest European visitors, and especially by Captain Cook who thus describes those he saw at Adventure Bay in 1777: "Their colour is a dull black, and not quite so deep as that of the African negroes. It should seem also that they sometimes heighten their black colour by smoking their bodies, as a mark was left behind on any clean substance, such as white paper, when they handled ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... or two white clouds lit up with sunshine appeared drifting over from the southward, and that was the end. The old pensioner came to the door for his bread and cheese: 'The wind's in the south' he said, 'and I hopes she'll stay there' Five dull yellow spots on the hedge—gorse bloom—that had remained unchanged for so many weeks, took a fresh colour and became golden. By the constant passing of the waggons and carts along the road that had been so silent it was evident that the busy time of spring was here. There ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... carbine to his shoulder, took deliberate aim, and fired. Almost simultaneously with the report, the huge animal came tumbling down from the tree, and fell with a dull, dead plash upon the water. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... was a large, dull woman, but had kept a touch of the beauty that had marked her when she was young. She was kind, conventional, and generally anxious to take the proper line. Cartwright was twelve years older, and since she was a widow and had three children when she married ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... grew minute by minute on the dull oblong of the blind, and minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took something ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... those on an ordinary wild bush of this country. When cooked, the prickles soften down to the same consistence as the skin, which is rather thick. When ripe, they are easily peeled, and well repay the trouble, the spines being then much less obdurate than when green. The mature fruit is of a deep, dull, coppery red color, and in flavor is equal, if not superior, to any of the red varieties which I have eaten in England. I have often wondered whether cultivation might not remove the spines from the berries, or, that failing, whether a seedling could not be raised ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... your story, Hare," I repeated. "You are becoming metaphysical and therefore dull. The time is short and I want to ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... mile or two there was Jim riding steadily along the road, looking very dull and down-like, just the way he used to do when he was studying how to get round a job of work as he wasn't used to. He brightens up a bit when he sees me, and we both jumped off, and had a good shake-hands and a yarn. I told him about mother and Aileen, and how I'd left dad all ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... life easily, on the whole," said Lord Warburton. "And then you know we're very dull. Ah, we can be dull when ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... have his head "scratched" by the hour together, with a sharp-pointed comb, to relieve by external irritation the distressing sensation's, which he compared to those made, sometimes by a tightening ring, sometimes by a leaden cap, and sometimes (but this was in later life) by a dull boring instrument. Yet he was the centre of the family life, and of its merriment as well; and his strong social instincts and lively animal spirits made him full of animation and vivacity in society, although he was soon tired, and with a nervous restlessness ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... this short space to give a full account of this novel and interesting dinner party, but if any one supposes that there was a dull moment in ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... violently gesticulated, while one of them was observed driving a thick pole into the ground, at about fifty yards from the fire, around which the party and the prisoners squatted. Presently, at a sign from one of the Indians, supposed to be a chief named "Dull-Knife," four of the red-skins seized the Mexican and forced him towards the stake, where they stripped him to the skin, and then bound him to it with thick cords. The whole party then, without further ceremony, proceeded to torture the wretched man to death, as a punishment ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Beersheba; and we're going to have a real jolly time, and we're going to forget dull care. It'll be quite the most delightful sport we've had since we came to Haddo Court. What I should love most would be to vault over the fence and go all by our lonesome selves. But we must have a maid—a horrid, stupid maid; only, of course, she'll walk behind, and she'll leave us alone ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... dull roar of heavy guns broke out in the direction of Harwich, shaking the earth under Captain Jemmy's feet. It was the town's parting salute to his Majesty King William the Third. And at the same moment the leading ship of the royal squadron ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dear, that I am going to criticise you. I am no judge of sewing,—never set a stitch in my life. It must be a dull way of spending time. Can't you put ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... 'animated moderation.' He would say that such writings are never slow, are never excessive, are never exaggerated; that they are always instinct with judgment, and yet that judgment is never a dull judgment; that they have as much spirit in them as would go to make a wild writer, and yet that every line of them is the product of a sane and sound writer. The best and almost perfect instance of this in English is Scott. Homer was perfect in it, as far as we can judge; ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... well-bred! And there were the Ashleys—clever mother and three daughters, au-fait girls, racy and witty talkers; I forget whether they were last from Paris, Washington, or San Francisco. Family motto: "Don't be dull." All the Van Dams from New York, and the Sleiderheifers and Mulligrubs of New Jersey, were there for the season, some of them in cottages. These families are intimate, even connected by marriage, with the Bayardiers of South Carolina and the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his customary seat on the bench in front of the shack, watching with listless, dull eyes the restless waves. He greeted the professor with his twisted smile, as the latter called to ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... in a university town, comes the advantage—if it be an advantage—of having spent one's youth there. Mr. Howells says that he must be a dull fellow who does not, at some time or other, hate his native village; and I must confess that I have not, at all stages of my life, held my present opinion of Andover. There have been times when her gentle indifference to the preoccupations of the world has stung me, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... you're big enough to praise the work of a fellow craftsman when you recognize its value." And Koritz, the dull red showing under the olive of his cheeks, went back ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... "It would be a dull world, except for peculiar persons," observed the man on the settee philosophically. "I've seen very many peculiar persons lately by the simple process of coming here day after day. No, I'm not Mr. Livius' representative. I'm only a town-bound and ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of the babbling giant. He dropped his blanket fully back from his body and stood with his eyes boring forward at his foe, his arms crossed arrogantly over his naked, ridging trunk, proud, confident, superb, a dull-hued statue whose outlines none who ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... dull and dogged a little boat as ever was built, it was within an hour of noon when we turned into Nice Harbour, where we very little expected anything but breakfast. But we were laden with wool. Wool must not remain in the Custom-house at Marseilles more than twelve months at a stretch, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... on still more quickly had it not been for the trouble in sharpening the drills. These were heated in the small blacksmith's fire Dias had brought. They were first placed in the fire, but this was not sufficiently hot to raise them beyond a dull red glow. When this was done a shovelful of glowing fragments was taken from the fire and placed on the hearth, and among these the small bellows raised the ends of the drills to a white heat, when of ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... ill-managed dinner of wits and scientific men I have often felt. There must be a mixture of nonsense with sense, or it will not amalgamate: all wits and no fools, all actors and no audience, make dinners dull things. The same men in their boots, as you say, are quite other people. "Two or three ladies, too"—we were delighted with your finding them useful as well ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... only like me about the eyes, and like—him—in the honey color of her hair. Hers is as brilliant and curly as mine is dull and smooth. And she's so big. So golden and burstingly big. I can't look at her without fairly gasping, 'can ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... a thrillingly familiar feminine voice calling "Kitty, kitty, kitty." He tried to move, a dull pain throbbed in his breast, and a groan escaped him. In a moment Helen appeared; the gray kitten was forgotten. She looked very anxious and solicitous—and also, Dan ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... bulkiest and most voluminous writings that proceeded from the cloisters or the universities, even the metaphysical disquisitions of the Nominalists and Realists, and the boundless subtleties of the contending schools of the "Divine Doctors," Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, fall under this description. Dull, dreary, unintelligible, and interminable as they are, they are still in reality works of fancy. They are the offspring, almost exclusively, of the imaginative faculty. It ought not to create surprise, to find that this faculty predominated in the minds ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... ancient eloquence, and fragrant flowers of poesy to enliven and perfume the dull cloister studies of the monks. It is not every library or reading society even of our own time that possess so many gems of old. But other treasures might yet be named which still further testify to the varied tastes and literary pursuits of these monastic bibliophiles; ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... Cordial Use, And thou may'st all the Doctors Slops Refuse. Hush then, dull QUACKS, your Mountebanking cease, COFFEE'S a speedier Cure for each Disease; How great its Vertues are, we hence may think, The Worlds third Part makes it their common Drink: In Breif, all you who Healths Rich Treasures Prize, And Court not Ruby Noses, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... to die Bobs up again as the seasons appear; Deathless it hits us again in the eye— Changeless and dull as the calendar year. Musty and mouldy and yellow and sere, Stronger, withal, than the sturdiest oak; Ancient and solemn and deadly and drear— Down with the ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... am dull about many things," said Dorothea, simply. "I should like to make life beautiful—I mean everybody's life. And then all this immense expense of art, that seems somehow to lie outside life and make it no better for the world, pains one. It spoils my enjoyment ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of course I am never dull at The Grange, and I don't know that I am so fond of Sarah. I do like her very much, but I shall see her in another month; so, if you like, I will ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... let us see your pleasant face this morning. Where were you last night? My company all complained about your absence. We were as dull as a funeral." ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... turned Normans to my comfort!" quoth Gurth; "expound that to me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... lower limbs, which indicated that the old fellow actually felt some disposition to dance. It soon passed away, though his grim, hard, wrinkled, dusky, grey countenance continued to gleam with a sort of dull pleasure for some time. There was nothing surprising in this, the indifference of the Indian to melody being almost as marked as the negro's ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... circus; but in the open country, if I happen to be passing, that coursing haply will distract me from some weighty thought, and draw me after it . . . and unless Thou, having made me see my weakness, didst speedily admonish me, I become foolishly dull." Secondly, when the knowledge of sensible things is directed to something harmful, as looking on a woman is directed to lust: even so the busy inquiry into other people's actions is directed to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... have been taught this more than I have been taught to play. And the music of the master-composers I always think of as beautiful and simple but hard to make it sound as it should. Often I have heard others say that the music of the masters is dull, and not beautiful, but that is really not what the people feel. It is difficult for them to play the music rightly. And again they cannot understand this: that art is often simple in, its truth, while those who look upon it are not! simple-hearted, as they regard ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... miles out. There we had breakfast or lunch of huge chops at 10.15. After that we took the road again, and did not call a halt of any length till we had put another twenty miles behind us. The day was fine but dull, and we were not troubled by the heat. At the fortieth milestone it began to appear doubtful whether we should all reach the journey's end. I have an entry in my diary: 'At 40 Robertson bad, I worse, Deanlet (i.e. Forbes) quite fit.' So at Foulmire, nine miles from Cambridge, ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... northeast. Here she came to the blind adobe wall of La Garita, whose olden purpose one still may read in the many bullet-holes in its brown sides. Here she paused, and as the evening shadows lengthened the dress and wall blended their dull tones together. ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... which opens this story, one might have stood upon the bridge and watched the lazy flowing of the river on whose dull green surface all the spans and bars were shadowed, and on the buttress seen the sunshine in ever changing, trembling glints of gold. Dead thistles were on the bank rustling in the breeze and the long tules by the water-side, some broken, others upright, waved ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness—all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person; for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... cry sank into a dull moan, and, setting a frail white arm across her eyes, she bowed her head upon it, as do weeping children, and fell to sobbing with that subdued despair that ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... [7]"There is no condition that could be promised to me for fighting and combating with thee," said Lugaid, "and there is no condition on which I would undertake it, but[7] they are persuading a brother of mine to come fight thee [8]on the morrow,[8] to-wit, a foolish, dull, uncouth youth, dealing stout blows. [9]They brought him into the tent of Ailill and Medb and he has engaged to do the battle and combat with thee.[9] [10]He is befooled about the same maiden.[10] And it is for this ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... [It is dull, and I need wholesome excitements and distractions; so I will go lightly excursioning along the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... does the Author of life endow a little mortal pilgrim in giving him at the outset of his career such a body as this! How miserable it is to look forward twenty years, when the same child, now grown a man, wakes in the morning with a dull, heavy head, the consequence of smoking and studying till twelve or one the night before; when he rises languidly to a late breakfast, and turns from this, and tries that,—wants a devilled bone, or a cutlet with Worcestershire sauce, to make eating possible; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... a box full of lovely roses, which I shared with the sons and Mrs. A. B—-. I see I have not mentioned before that I received yours and Mary's letter of 28th September, which came very soon after my birthday. This morning we went to a Presbyterian Church by mistake, but it was very dull and we soon went out and went to another close by, which turned out to be Ritualistic, but at any rate the music, and better still, the sermon, was very good,—"What think ye of Christ?" It was ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... much the worse for their queer adventure, although for some days they seemed dull and ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... the world could wish to read these hundreds of volumes? For all their beautiful bindings she had a conviction that the contents would be appallingly dull; and her eyes fled gladly to the more congenial scene outside the windows where the flowers danced gaily in the sunshine and a little skiff floated by on the shimmering river, like some magic boat gliding to ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... gallant rescue. As his holiday had progressed he had felt the need for some such old gentleman more and more; for only thus, he realised, could he capture the heart of the wayward Miss Spratt. But so far it had been a dull season; in a whole fortnight nobody had gone out of his way to oblige William, and to-morrow he must return to the City as unknown and as unloved as ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... tempering are in use. One is to heat the blade in the fire and to plunge it at a dull heat into water. The other is to lay the cold blade upon a flat bar of red-hot iron. This has the advantage that the degree of the effect upon the blade can be judged from the change of its colour as it absorbs ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... these stony hearts, those dull imaginations—not even this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the wounded girl-soldier hanging her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim and dusty iron mail of the historic defenders of France. No, there was nothing ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... Suddenly, however, a dull sound arose within a quarter of a mile from the city gate, as of some feeble attempt to blow a blast upon a trumpet. In five minutes more a louder blast was sounded close to the gate. Questions were joyfully put, and as joyfully answered. The usual ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Joanna's entreaties and persuasions. He could not withstand Jo when her blue eyes were all dull with tears, and her voice was hoarse and frantic. For some months now his marriage had seemed to him a wrong and immoral thing, but he rather sorrowfully told himself that having made the first false step he could not now turn round and come back, even if Ellen ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... for the heavy hush of the Rooms, for the closeness, and the rich perfumes, which mingling together seem like the smell of money piled on the green tables; he was in a mood for the dimmed light like dull gold, gold sifted into dust by passing ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... simply the society of old Miss Birdseye, of whom Olive saw more this winter than she had ever seen before. It had become apparent that her long and beautiful career was drawing to a close, her earnest, unremitting work was over, her old-fashioned weapons were broken and dull. Olive would have liked to hang them up as venerable relics of a patient fight, and this was what she seemed to do when she made the poor lady relate her battles—never glorious and brilliant, but obscure and wastefully heroic—call back the figures ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... shadows round the base of the tower, for his ears had already caught a faint, almost inaudible throbbing that seemed to grow from moment to moment. There certainly was a dull vibration in the air, a vibration like the distant hum of machinery. Suddenly old Edouard touched Bennie upon ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... Robin, that he seemed so modest? Was it because people's eyes—Mrs. Morrison's, Lady Shuttleworth's—had been so angry lately whenever they rested on her that his seemed so very kind? No; she did remember thinking them that, even being struck by them, when she saw him first in Kunitz. A dull red crept into her face when she remembered that day and what followed. "It isn't very snug," she said at last, trying to hide by a careful coldness of speech all the strange things she was feeling. "When it ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... that dull innocence been punished as it should? What say'st thou? Man is hard,—but woman? And thy tears, Who has been drinking? And into what ear so good Dost pour thy woes for it ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... made a Khitmah or perfection of the Koran and held a festival—in honour of the Shaykh Abd al-Kadir al-Jilani. And when the morrow dawned, the Consul gave his son ten thousand dinars, saying, "O my son, when thou comest to Baghdad, if thou find stuffs easy of sale, sell them; but if they be dull, spend of these dinars." Then they loaded the mules and, taking leave of one another, all the wayfarers setting out on their journey, marched forth from the city. Now Mahmud of Balkh had made ready his own venture for Baghdad and had moved his bales and set up his tents without the walls, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... all countries, in all ages, Carol admitted, have a tendency to be not only dull but mean, bitter, infested with curiosity. In France or Tibet quite as much as in Wyoming or Indiana these timidities are inherent ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Ozhogin came in. I promptly went up to him, and began talking to him very unconstrainedly. I don't know how it was, but I stayed to dinner, and spent the whole evening with them; and next day the Ozhogins' footman, an elongated, dull-eyed person, smiled upon me as a friend of the family when he helped me ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... exceedingly good-looking fellow, dressed handsomely, always wore spurs, and had more manners than any other farmer within twenty miles; and, therefore, it is not to be wondered at that Lady Rooke somewhat encouraged these gratitude-visits. Her Ladyship often complained how dull and lonely she was, living without a protector in that old mansion, whose walls were covered with ghastly portraits of departed Rookes; and whose ancient casements rattled at night when the wind blew in its fitful fancies, and made the very stairs groan as it rushed ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... certain that they are pursued, as also who is the pursuer. She has heard the question asked by Aguara, recognising his voice; heard also the dull thud of his club as it descended on the skull of the unfortunate man; and now again hears the trampling of hoofs renewed and drawing nearer. She has still hold of Francesca's hand, and for a moment debates within herself what ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... people move to the city, because every city, great and small, has in the course of the year some events which bring all the people to the curbstone. Country life has few such times and therefore it is dull, because the richest experience of mankind is the experience of common social joy. The best recreation is acquaintance and conversation. The farmer's son spends many hours in silence. He wants someone to help him to talk, and to ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... months of my mother's existence, Peter was almost always on her bed, night and day; and during the final four weeks, when death was daily expected, he was sad and dull: which was attributed to the change in the habits of the family. Forty-eight hours before all was over, Peter crept into a corner under the bed, which had always been his place of refuge when in trouble; and we with difficulty prevailed on him to quit it, even when ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... be dull, when zuns do glow? Oh! no; look down the grove, Where zides o' trees be bright above; An' weaeves do sheen below; An' neaeked stems o' wood in hedge Do gleaem in streaeks o' light, An' rocks do gleaere upon the ledge O' yonder zunny ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... the man answered. "You have broken the hearts of thousands of suffering men and women—you who might have led them into the light, have forged another bolt in the bars which stand between them and liberty. So they must live on in the darkness, dull, dumb creatures with just spirit enough to spit and curse at the sound of your name. It was the greatest trust God ever placed in one man's hand—and you—you abused it. They were afraid of you—the aristocrats, and they bought you. Oh, we are not ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were not silent either. We stood up against the squirrels, like giants, beat them with our swords, aimed our arrows at them, and shot at them with our pop-guns. But, alas! our swords were dull as wood; and before we could set our bows, they had thrashed us. I say nothing of the guns. What can you do with a pop-gun if the foe will not wait until you have taken aim at him? They rushed forward and knocked the guns out of our ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich |
