"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus. He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him. He is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... due consideration. He was preparing to answer something in his own mind. The dull-faced girl was having a peculiar effect upon him. He ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... motioned to the clerk, and through the hushed silence of the court the dull voice droned out: "Anthony West, William Borkins, Lester Stark, Gustave Brellier, Miss Antoinette Brellier, Doctor Bartholomew...." And so on through the whole list. As each name was called the owner of it came forward and stood in front of ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... said Miss Kerr, "you would not like poor mama to have no one to read to her, would you? It is so dull for her all day on the sofa by herself. You would not ask me to leave her, ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... Vpon vneasie Pallads stretching thee, And huisht with bussing Night, flyes to thy slumber, Then in the perfum'd Chambers of the Great? Vnder the Canopies of costly State, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest Melodie? O thou dull God, why lyest thou with the vilde, In loathsome Beds, and leau'st the Kingly Couch, A Watch-case, or a common Larum-Bell? Wilt thou, vpon the high and giddie Mast, Seale vp the Ship-boyes Eyes, and rock his Braines, In Cradle of the rude imperious Surge, And in the visitation ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... brought to some certainty of Reine, and Trotting forth-right, then to the Treading forth of the large Rings. And here first examine your Horses Nature, before you choose your Ground, for, if his Nature be dull and sloathful, yet strong, then New-plow'd-Field is best; if Active, Quick, and Fiery, then Sandy-ground is to be preferred; in the most proper of which mark out a large Ring, of a Hundred Paces circumference. ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... eyes, with an air of a man who is going a long journey in a post-chaise. Mr. Baron Garrow dipped his pen into an invisible ink-pot, and scratched it on his desk. A long story began to drone from under the wig, an interminable farrago of dull nonsense, in a hypochondriacal voice; a long tale about piracy in general; piracy in the times of the Greeks, piracy in the times of William the Conqueror... pirata nequissima Eustachio, and thanking God that a case of the sort had ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... lady and who spoke our language fairly well, looked after us assiduously and provided us with occupation and amusement during the stay at the capital. One day he took us to see trotting matches, a very popular form of sport in Petrograd although it struck me as rather dull. We dined at different clubs, went to the Ballet one night, and another night were taken to the Opera where we occupied the Imperial box in the middle of the house. In those days Russian society thoroughly understood the art of welcoming a guest of the country, for the different ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... one who came to tea, and her eyes were heavy and dull, and she seemed like one in a dream. That night was a wretched one to both. When I went to the library to see if the windows were fastened for the night, Miss Elizabeth sat by the smouldering fire with her face buried in her hands. I shut the door softly and left ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... was shining brightly, bathing the whole wide landscape in its shimmering light. To the right lay the open country, broad plains with clumps of woodland, and the towers of castles pricking out from above the groves. A heavy bell was ringing in some monastery, and its dull booming came and went with the breeze. On the left, but far away, lay the glimmer of Paris. They were leaving it rapidly behind. Whatever his destination, it was neither the capital nor Versailles. Then he began to count the chances of ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hypate, in respect of the concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch as it depresses and heightens,—and in fine makes a harmony,—by abating what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull. For what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. Still more is it the end of the rational faculty to bring the passions to moderation, which is called sacred, as making a harmony of the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... in the road and the entrance gate to the estate came into view. Up the well kept lane, beyond the rambling house of weathered shingles, stood a long, low barn and a silo, both of a dull red color. And on either side of the entrance gate were two broken willow trees, their tall tops partly removed, but most of the trunks still lying upon the ground where ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... so with your passionate incandescence. It is all well while it burns and scintillates in your emotional centres, without articulate and connected expression; but the minute you plunge it into the rhyme-trough it cools down, and becomes as dead and dull as the cold horse-shoe. It is true that if you lay it cold on the anvil and hammer away on it for a while it warms up somewhat. Just so with the rhyming fellow,—he pounds away on his verses and they warm up a little. But don't let him ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... sunbeams from cucumbers, eh?" drawled the magnate, inhaling cigarette smoke and blowing a thin cloud toward the wanton Bacchantes. He affected indifference, but his dull eyes brightened a trifle in his wan face, deep-lined by the savage dissipations of the previous night. "And you insist on dragging me out ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... see the gleam of water. It was a reservoir, he decided. Probably it constituted the water supply for a considerable section. And then, as he looked, he saw a flash — saw a great column of water rise in the air, and descend, like pictures of a cloudburst. A moment after the explosion, he heard a dull roar. And after the roar another sound. He saw the water fade out and disappear, and it was a moment before he realized what was happening. The reservoir had been blown up! And that meant more than the danger and the discomfort of an interrupted ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... of the author of a one-act comedy is not over until, after several weeks of playing, his playlet has been so reshaped and altered by him that not a single dull spot remains. Individual lines must be condensed so that they are as short as they possibly can be made. The elimination of every unnecessary word or phrase is essential. Where a line that develops the plot can be altered so that it will still serve its purpose, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... looking after my trees—getting the fruit out of the nuts in the same old way that they have done for unnumbered years—I shall grow all sorts of things in my garden, and I shall fish. There will be enough work to keep me busy and not enough to make me dull. I shall have my books and Eva, children, I hope, and above all, the infinite variety of the sea and the sky, the freshness of the dawn and the beauty of the sunset, and the rich magnificence of the night. I shall make a garden out of what so short a while ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... by hackney-coach to the Spittle, and heard a piece of a dull sermon to my Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and thence saw them all take horse and ride away, which I have not seen together many a day: their wives also went in their coaches. And indeed the sight was mighty pleasing. Thence took occasion to go back to a milliner's in Fenchurch-street, whose name I ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... represent Love and Purity and Beauty, and these figures, leaded to unalterable attitudes, were little more motionless than the two human beings upon whom fell the mottled faint light of the window. The colours were growing dull; evening ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... gained by mere diligence, if the head is dull. Philologist after philologist has swooped down on Homer in the mistaken belief that something of him can be obtained by force. Antiquity speaks to us when it feels a desire to do so, ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... 410 Such was the sudden conflict; equal rage To stain with gore the lance ruled every breast. Horrent with quivering spears the fatal field Frown'd on all sides; the brazen flashes dread Of numerous helmets, corselets furbish'd bright, 415 And shields refulgent meeting, dull'd the eye, And turn'd it dark away. Stranger indeed Were he to fear, who could that strife have view'd With heart elate, or spirit unperturb'd. Two mighty sons of Saturn adverse parts 420 Took in that contest, purposing alike To many a valiant Chief sorrow and pain. Jove, for ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... vision. He saw himself drilling into a safe. Then came a dull explosion and when the safe's door was torn from its hinges he saw himself upon his knees filling a large bag with the gold coins which poured out of the dynamited treasure box. Then he saw Joe and himself dressed in the best that money could purchase, speeding along aboard a Pullman to Rugby, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... think best," Malone said, resigning himself to a very dull hour. He tried to picture Kettleman in the midst of a gang of juvenile delinquents. It was very hard ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... execution the beneficial plan, first practised and made known by the great captain Cook. It was in the standing orders of the ship, that on every fine day the deck below and the cockpits should be cleared, washed, aired with stoves, and sprinkled with vinegar. On wet and dull days they were cleaned and aired, without washing. Care was taken to prevent the people from sleeping upon deck, or lying down in their wet clothes; and once in every fortnight or three weeks, as circumstances permitted, their beds, and the contents of their chests and bags, were opened ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... and child. It should make every mother a better woman and a better mother. It should make every child a truer, holier child. Every home should have its sacred friendships between parents and children. Thus something of heaven will be brought down to our dull earth; for, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... and the riches within them hitherto concealed: whereof notwithstanding God in his wisdome hath permitted to be reuealed from time to time a certaine obscure and misty knowledge, by little and little to allure the mindes of men that way (which els will be dull enough in the zeale of his cause) and thereby to prepare vs vnto a readinesse for the execution of his will against the due time ordeined, of calling those ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... is troubling heaven! A strange dull glow Hangs like a half-quenched veil of fire between The blue sky and the earth; and the shorn stars Gleam faint and sickly through it. Day hath left No token of its parting, and the blush With which it welcomed the embrace of Night Has faded from ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... 6 m. N.W. of Wellington, with a station on the G.W.R. branch to Barnstaple. Population, 1417. It is a dull and uninteresting, but clean and comely little place. Of antiquities it has none, except traces, to the S. of the church, of a bishop's palace, built by John Drokensford in the 14th cent., some windows of which have found their way into neighbouring houses. The church is a tasteless building, ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... gate open, and stood looking up at him, a curiously picturesque-looking figure in the grey twilight. Her gown was like no other woman's; it was something between a Greek robe and a tea-gown, of a dull orange hue, and her dusky hair was tied up with a bow of ribbon of the same colour. Everything about her was strange; even the faint perfume which hung about her clothes, and which brought him sudden, swift memories of that moment when she had lain in his arms, and his lips had met hers. Paul ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for a pound. The extra five hundred a year which seems to stand in the way of our complete happiness—when we receive it, we realise that our happiness really required a thousand. Fame is a wonderful and beautiful state, until we become famous and find out how dull it is and what a real blessing it is to be a person of only the least importance. Life, I can understand, is never so sweet as it is to those who, as it were, have just been sentenced to be hanged. Our ideals are always thrilling until one day we wake up to find them ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... candid, far from being a clever fellow, is one of the most barren rascals on record. Vampyre, whether drawn out or held in, is a poor creature, not a great creature—opaque, not luminous—in a word, by nature, a very dull dog indeed. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... in the least aware that he was such a man,' murmured Somerset, looking wistfully after the minister.... 'Whatever you may have done, I fear that I have grievously wounded a worthy man's heart from an idle wish to engage in a useless, unbecoming, dull, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... more or less, Through life the whole of my success; With my cigar I'm sage and wise,— Without, I'm dull as cloudy skies. When smoking, all my ideas soar, When not, they sink upon the floor. The greatest men have all been smokers, And so were all the greatest jokers. Then ye who'd bid adieu to care, Come here and ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... that never-flagging runner; while the quick and feeble breathing of the girl told how she was fast losing in the race with the all-omnipotent hours. On a small table stood two phials, in which were imprisoned dull-coloured liquids, powerless, despite their supposed potency, to stay the hunger of the disease so rapidly consuming the patient; and by their side was a plate of shrivelled fruit, the departing lusciousness of which ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... your story, Hare," I repeated. "You are becoming metaphysical and therefore dull. The time is short and I ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... on the priests, were current for centuries before the Reformation. There were many anecdotes of this priest, all to his discredit, many of which were attributed, at a later day, to other unworthy monks. Among these, a very dull one is interesting, as connecting him with Eberhard, 'our bearded prince,' already referred to. Having begged of this truly noble man a benefice, Eberhard, who was aware of his character, replied: 'If I had a thousand vacant, you should not have the least ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dull not to perceive it," replied the parson, "aware, as you are, of the unexpected state of my circumstances. In short, I want you to assist me with a ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... But the dull pain in my side soon brought back to me that clear, fresh morning on the bank of the Elk, and for a moment ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... and if the jobber does not take a price when there is a rise, and fairly in his power, he is a fool, for he will soon find out that the buyers will have no mercy upon the sellers when in their power. In all my experience, the above, in a dull day, or any other day, was the ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... their gloomy bosoms burn, And chiding, every hour, the slow-paced sun, Endure their woes till all his race was run No one to mark the sufferers with a tear No friend to comfort, and no hope to cheer, And like the dull, unpitied brutes repair To stalls as wretched, and as coarse a fare; Thank Heaven one day of misery was o'er, And sink to sleep, and wish to wake ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... a rather dull and stolid personage, accepted these mock apologies with such imperturbable gravity and sincerity that Haroun was ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... attention was once turned to such subjects as had been occupying Tom, to get hold of wild and violent beliefs and notions in those days than now. The state of Europe generally was far more dead and hopeless. There were no wars, certainly, and no expectations of wars. But there was a dull, beaten-down, pent-up feeling abroad, as if the lid were screwed down on the nations, and the thing which had been, however cruel and heavy and mean, was that which was to remain to the end. England ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... a monster is in love. Near to her close and consecrated bower, While she was in her dull and sleeping hour, A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, Were met together to rehearse a play Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day. The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort Who Pyramus presented in their sport, Forsook ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... us home, you soft air-mothers, now our fathers the sunbeams are grown dull. Our green summer beauty is all draggled, and our faces are grown wan and wan; and the buds, the children whom we nourished, thrust us off, ungrateful, from our seats. Waft us down, you soft air-mothers, upon your wings to the quiet earth, that ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... his side, and looked along the grassy summit to the woods upon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull silver, immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the moonbeams. Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as with snows, stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and there was ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... greatness. Compare with it the attempts of our painters a century ago to achieve the effects of the old masters by imitation when they should have been illustrating a faith of their own. Contemplate, if you can bear it, the dull daubs of Hilton and Haydon, who knew so much more about drawing and scumbling and glazing and perspective and anatomy and 'marvellous foreshortening' than Giotto, the latchet of whose shoe they were nevertheless not worthy to unloose. Compare Mozart's Magic Flute, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Wagner's ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Charley poked the barbed end down into the hole. Down, down it went, fifteen, twenty feet, then struck with a dull thud. He began twisting the sapling over and over, then drew it slowly and gently up, but the end came into view with nothing adhering to it. Again and again was the fruitless operation repeated, and a look of disappointment had begun to settle on Charley's face when at last his harpoon ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... but there was a dull relief in his eyes. "Best I can do," he muttered, seeming about to depart, yet lingering. "I figure it out a good deal like this," he said. "I didn't KNOW my job was any strain, and I managed all right, but from what Gur—from what I hear, I was just up to the limit ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... At such times as the latter he may be approached quite near without much danger. Each day he also goes to a favorite wallowing place, where he rolls in the red dirt and emerges from this dirt bath a dull red rhino. In the rhino country dozens of these red dirt rolling places may be found, each one trampled smooth for an area of fifteen or twenty feet in evidence of the great number of times it has been used by one or more rhinos. This dirt ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... had any good reason for becoming a town, seems already at that time to have entered on the road to rapid decay. Offutt's speculations had failed, and he had disappeared. The brothers Herndon, who had opened a new store, found business dull and unpromising. Becoming tired of their undertaking, they offered to sell out to Lincoln and Berry on credit, and took their promissory notes in payment. The new partners, in that excess of hope which usually attends all new ventures, also ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... "Down with dull care, Miss Dexter; let us make a pact never to be bored—in Bloomsbury, or West Africa, or Park Lane. I suppose you found a great deal to do to ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... of course, because he thinks her perfection. But she may have dreadful taste and want the lace curtains and that nightmare of a pink rug Willard admired, and I dare say she'd rather have a new flaunting set of china with rosebuds on it than that dear old dull blue I picked up for a mere song down at the Aldenbury auction. I stood in the rain for two mortal hours to make sure of it, and it was really worth all that Willard has spent on the dining room put together. It will break my heart if she sets to work altering Eden. It's simply perfect as it is—though ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... moist cosmetics, and her color appears as if stained with crocodile's ordure; and now, in wild impetuosity, she tears her bed, bedding, and all she has. She attacks even my loathings in the most angry terms:—"You are always less dull with Inachia than me: in her company you are threefold complaisance; but you are ever unprepared to oblige me in a single instance. Lesbia, who first recommended you—so unfit a help in time of need—may she come to an ill end! when Coan Amyntas paid ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... soporiferous, somniferous, soporific, dormitive, narcotic, somnific, hypnotic; dormant, sluggish, lethargic, torpid, dull. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... for me. My mother sometimes wept when I was rebuked. Perhaps she was disappointed in me. But she had no power to make things better. I felt that I was a beast of burden, fed only in order that I might be useful; and the dull life irked me like an ill-fitting harness. There was ...
— The Sad Shepherd • Henry Van Dyke
... my dream that they went on until they came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy, if he came a stranger into it. And here Hopeful began to be very dull, and heavy to sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian: I do now begin to grow so drowsy that I can scarcely hold open mine eyes; let us lie down ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... started to tell this Mr. Meyers he was glad to meet him, but caught himself and merely nodded. The man stared at him with neither interest nor curiosity in his dull blue eyes. The warden moved ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... that she remained the same size; to be sure, this is what generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... have no outside little friends, and so my friends live inside me. I make new ones now and then, when the old ones get dull, but I like the ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... round frequently to feast his eyes with the ever-changing landscape. Descending the mountain, the detachment seemed to be swallowed up in the steaming river, like the army of Pharaoh, and anon, with a dull sound, the bayonets glittered again from the misty waves. Then appeared heads, shoulders; the men seemed to grow up, and then leaping up the rocks, were lost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... passage, and had stood along the whole of the weather-side of the group, to give notice to the whalers where to go; and she had notified the two brigs to go in to-windward, and to remain in Weather Bay, where all the rest of the dull crafts had been taken for safety; and then had come to-leeward to look for the governor. As the Abraham was barely a respectable sailer, it was not deemed prudent to take her too near the strangers; but, she might see how matters were situated to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... day 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 gracefully, ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... thing to do. "Why," she replied, "I have never purchased a darning needle, to put the case strongly, without consulting Mr. S., and he does not think a new stove necessary." "What, pray," said I, "does he know about stoves, sitting in his easy-chair in Washington? If he had a dull old knife with broken blades, he would soon get a new one with which to sharpen his pens and pencils, and, if he attempted to cook a meal—granting he knew how—on your old stove, he would set it out of doors the next hour. Now my advice to you is ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... can be found in the movement for woman's emancipation. Yellow journalists and milk and water literateurs have painted pictures of the emancipated woman that make the hair of the good citizen and his dull companion stand up on end. Every member of the women's rights movement was pictured as a George Sand in her absolute disregard of morality. Nothing was sacred to her. She had no respect for the ideal ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... sensation of being under the paws of a beast, odious and fetid, savage and pitiless, overwhelmed her. That this was no trick of a moment but a calculated scheme to abase and possess her she now realized with a sort of dull horror. And on top of all he was, despite ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... natives in the pay of the merchants who had word with native sowars, saying that it is not well to be carried over sea to fight another's quarrels. All this the government knew, though, of course, thou art not the government, but only a soldier with a ready pistol and a dull wit." ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a yeshibah bahur—a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... recognized her as the daughter of Ganser, a rich brewer of the upper East Side. He had placed himself deliberately beside her, and he at once began advances. She showed at a glance that she was a silly, vain girl. Her face was fat and dull; she had thin, stringy hair. She was flabby and, in the lazy life to which the Gansers' wealth and the silly customs of prosperous people condemned her, was already beginning to expand in the places where she ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... a sad mystery to me why rude and dull intelligences should sneer at, or denounce, these delightful fantastries, the very stuff of which dreams and love and poetry—the three ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... light of the stars when Ned reached the vicinity of Chimney rock, coming in from the slope to the north and moving with extreme caution. There was a dull glow in the dip back of the rock, the glow of ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... and bear an equal mind? Since you will drive me from you, I must go: But, O Monimia! when thou hast banish'd me, No creeping slave, though tractable and dull As artful woman for her ends would choose, Shall ever dote as I ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... forest, and in the midst stood an old lime-tree, beneath whose branches splashed a little fountain; so, whenever it was very hot, the King's youngest daughter ran off into this wood, and sat down by the side of this fountain; and, when she felt dull, would often divert herself by throwing a golden ball up in the air and catching it. And this was her ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... Venus' children dear: For in the Fish* their lady sat full *Pisces And looked on them with a friendly eye. This noble king is set upon his throne; This strange knight is fetched to him full sone,* *soon And on the dance he goes with Canace. Here is the revel and the jollity, That is not able a dull man to devise:* *describe He must have knowen love and his service, And been a feastly* man, as fresh as May, *merry, gay That shoulde you devise such array. Who coulde telle you the form of dances So uncouth,* and so freshe ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... for some sticks and straw, and having filled the chimney with them, set a light to it. The fire crackled, and the smoke ascended like the dull vapor from a volcano; but still no prisoner fell down, as they expected. The fact was, that Andrea, at war with society ever since his youth, was quite as deep as a gendarme, even though he were advanced to the rank of brigadier, and quite prepared for the fire, he had climbed out ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... anxiously endeavored to accelerate, by putting to the lips of the slowly-reviving victim of his violence some cold water, in a tea-cup. He swallowed a little; and soon afterwards, opening his eyes, stared on Titmouse with a dull ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... runaways walked ashore to freedom. "The underground railroad is in fine working order," is the comment of The Journal. "Rarely does a collision occur, and once on the track passengers are sent through between sunrise and sunset." That time did not dull the terrors of the Fugitive Slave Act is shown by the fact that every fresh arrest would cause a panic in its neighborhood. At Chicago in 1861, almost on the eve of the Civil War, more than 100 Negroes left on a single train following ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Rochambeau beckoned. Duty enthralled you. For France you had reckoned Her gift and your debt. Dull hearts could harden Half-gods could palter. For you never pardon If Liberty's altar You ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... blessed privilege to have hearts to feel the greatest enjoyment in tender love for others. See that you keep that love in constant exercise, or, like others of our best gifts, it may grow dull by disuse or abuse. The time may come when, deprived of your parents or brothers and sisters, you will bitterly mourn the sorrow you have caused by your evil ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... hair. His black clothes fitted him very closely, their extreme tightness suggesting that they had shrunken in the course of wearing, or that he had grown much plumper since he had come into possession of them; and their general worn and dull appearance gave considerable distance to the period of their first possession. But there was nothing worn or dull about the countenance of the man, upon which was an expression of mellow geniality which would have been suitably consequent ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... hidden away, like rude ancient frescoes, under the elaborate decorations of the Greek artists, who seized upon everything that came to hand, including the old deities themselves, to amuse themselves and win the admiration of their dull pupils at Rome. He who would appreciate the difficulty of getting at the original rude drawings must be well acquainted with the decorative activity ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... who knows whereof he speaks. His allu- sion to Christian Science in the following paragraph, [15] glows in the shadow of darkling criticism like a mid- night sun. Its manly honesty follows like a benediction after prayer, and closes the task of talking to deaf ears and dull debaters. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... was capable of such an act, there could be no doubt that she meant what she said, and her tone carried conviction to Blake. He was silent for a long moment. When he replied, it was in a voice dull and heavy with despondency. "You don't realize what you're putting me ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... sent home to England before her husband's death, and after that event she had followed them; but there, though she was possessed of moderate wealth, she had no friends and few acquaintances, and after a little while she had found life to be rather dull. Her customs were not those of England, nor were her propensities English; therefore she had gone abroad, and having received some recommendation of this school at Le Puy, had made her way thither. As it appeared to ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... has interrupted my journal for several weeks, and idleness has prolonged the chasm. The noting down the daily recurrence of uninteresting events is as dull as the ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... home. There was a blur over one of the dates, the little square that marked the twenty-fifth of December. It was a red-letter day on the calendar, but in Alec's bare little room a holiday that dragged its dismal length out toward dark, like a dull ache. ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... still now, my Lady," replied the dame, "the servants are all worn out with long attendance and fast asleep. Let my Lady go to her own apartments, which are bright and airy. It will be better for her than this dull chamber." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... how she had kissed Dick flashed across her mind, but in an instant it was gone; and bending her head, she laid her lips to her husband's. It in no way disgusted her to do so; she was glad of the occasion, and was only surprised at the dull and obtuse anxiety she experienced. They then spoke of indifferent things, but the flow of conversation was often interrupted by complimentary phrases. While Ralph discoursed on his mother's nonsense in always dragging religion into everything, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... for her board and lodging, with some collateral regulations as to occupation, needle-work, and the like,—she would not adhere to them. The change from a life of fevered, though most miserable, excitement, to one of dull, pleasureless, and utterly uninteresting propriety, is one that can hardly be made without the assistance of binding control. Could she have been sent to the mill, and made subject to her mother's softness as well as to her mother's care, there might have been room ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... peculiar folk as he passed from Warwickshire to London by way of Banbury or Oxford. He had stopped at inns in strange company of fools and knaves, pedlars, roisterers and swashbucklers. He had hobnobbed with dull-pated village ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... which I think when I push my king's man-at-arms two leagues forward. A game of chess is a romance sport when it is described in that dull official notation "P to K4 Kt to KB3"; a story should be woven around it. One of these days, perhaps, I shall tell the story of my latest defeat. Lewis Carroll had some such intention when he began Alice Through the Looking Glass, but he went at it half-heartedly. Besides, being a ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... complete his conquest, but that little he could not command. He had reached the point at which a man talks of the woman he loves or of himself, and of nothing else, and the depth of his passion seemed to dull his speech. A little more eloquence, a little more gentleness, a little more of that charm which Alexander possessed in such abundance, might have been enough to turn the scale. But they were lacking. The very intensity of what he felt ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... perpetrators of the deed drove off, leaving the luckless postboy to protest, loudly and vainly, to "the dull, cold ear of death," against the loathsome companionship. When the first market-gardener's cart passed by, most lustily did he call for help; but every effort to get free only tended to prolong his suspense. What could the carters ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... side of the foremost battle-ship, there rolled upward a cloud of white smoke, obscuring the funnels and the rigging, thinning out into the blue sky over the top-masts. After what seemed a long interval the low, dull roar of a cannon reached him, followed by the echo from the high hills of the island, and later by the fainter re-echo from the mountains on the mainland. This depressed De Plonville, for, if the ships were out for practice, the obscuring smoke around them would make the seeing of ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... to add, that by the anxious care of the physician, and a thousand ingenious contrivances, the senses of this human animal, with the exception of his hearing, which always remained dull and impassive, were gradually stimulated, and he was even able at length to pronounce two or three words. Here ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... his unselfish way, told one of the diarists, possibly Sir M.E. GRANT-DUFF, possibly Mr. G.W.E. RUSSELL—I forget whom—was to wrap up the sponge in a bath-towel and jump on it. Here, for the historical painter, is a theme indeed—something worth all the ordinary dull occasions which provoke his talented if somewhat staid brush: the great Liberal statesman, the promoter of Home Rule, the author of The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, leaping upon the bath-towel that held his sponge. But no historical ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... and the twenty-five million rats of the metropolis were too numerous to furnish interest to spectators, and the Bourse was practically deserted, the traffic in shells sustained the starving mercantile instinct during a very dull period. But the effect on the nerves was deleterious. The nerves of everybody were like nothing but a raw wound. Violent anger would spring up magically out of laughter, and blows out of caresses. This indirect consequence ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... plane was a buzzing noise, which grew louder to a sharp drone as it seemed to increase in size, and became a dull monotonous roar as it dipped toward the waters of the stream. It floated downward, very gently, and circled as if regarding a certain spot critically, and resumed its onward flight. Again it circled, anxiously, now, as if the time ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... the piper advanced and the children followed; And when all were in, to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say all? No! One was lame, And could not dance the whole of the way; And in after years, if you would blame His sadness, he was used to say,— "It's dull in our town since my playmates left! I can't forget that I'm bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, Which the piper also promised me; For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, Joining the town and just at hand, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Freeman that the night was passing and that the first dull light of day was creeping over ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... she said. "She made me take it. I promised." She turned her dull eyes slowly on Gueldmar. "It was Lovisa's fault. Ask Lovisa about it." She paused, and moistened her dry lips with her tongue. "Where is your crazy lad?" she asked, almost anxiously. "Did he come ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Then, self-deceived, they talk about a "wave," or "epidemic" of it. So far is this from the truth that one of the most noticeable characteristics of crime is the steady and unbroken monotony of its occurrence in certain forms. There is nothing so dull and unvarying as this tedious uniformity of repetition. The march of crime is never retarded, never accelerated. The criminals appear to be thoroughly well satisfied with their annual average, as shown by the periodical reports of their secretary, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... "Dear heart, thou seemest dull tonight, and yet thou wert not so when we parted for the last fight. Thou didst thy best then to ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... "I am tired of this life. I want away. I want to push my fortune. What is there here for me? What future is there for me? I want to go to the States. I can get along there. This life is too dull and narrow, and all the young fellows ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... the shell at this point of observation, and no indication to mark the course it is taking; but in a few seconds the attentive observer with a good glass will see the cloud of smoke that follows its explosion, and then the report comes back with a dull boom. If it has done execution, the enemy may be seen carrying ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... else—on account of the joyousness of his soul. There was a contagious and a godlike hilarity in his broad, open brow, his frank, laughing eyes, and his mobile lips. He seemed to carry about with him a bracing moral atmosphere. The sight of him had the same effect on the dull man of ordinary life that the Himalayan air has on an Indian invalid; and yet Jack was head-over-heels in debt. Not a tradesman would trust him. Shoals of little bills were sent him every day. Duns without number plagued him ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... to North-East, during which the thermometer stood at 96 degrees; generally however we had a fresh sea-breeze from the north-west, with clear and fine weather; but towards the latter part of our visit we had some very cloudy dull days and a few showers of rain: this change hurried my departure; and we considered ourselves fortunate in embarking our provisions and bread ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... speech from Lord Harrowby, long and sensible; but heavily delivered and not wanted. A long speech from Lord Lansdowne, still less wanted, and very dull. ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... circumstances, was as painful as it was inevitable, and a rather extreme measure on Eve's part, no one will deny that it afforded relief on the main point. It seems to be the universal instinct of all Eve's sons and daughters that have followed since, that an expressive world is better than a dull one. An expressive world is a world in which all the men and women are getting themselves expressed, either in their experiences or in their arts—that is, in other ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... A dull, gloomy day; and with it came the inevitable leave-taking. The door closed behind me. For the last time I left my home and went alone down the garden to the beach, where the Fram's little petroleum launch pitilessly awaited me. Behind me lay all I held dear in life. And what before ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... "A dull thing," answered Ainley, promptly, with a sudden flash of the eyes. "I am with you there, Miss Yardely, but romance does not lie in mere barbarism, for most men it is ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... indicated by paleness, roundness of the form, softness of muscle, fair hair, sleepy, half-closed eyes, and a dull, sluggish, inexpressive face. In this temperament the brain and all other parts of the body appear to be slow, dull, and languid, and the whole body little else than one great manufactory of fat. These temperaments, however, are rarely found pure, but mixed or ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... was one, and one only, who attracted her. The others were well-meaning girls, but full of the frivolous purposes and pleasures which their tastes prompted and their dull life fostered. Dress, gossip, and wages were the three topics which absorbed them. Christie soon tired of the innumerable changes rung upon these themes, and took refuge in her own thoughts, soon learning to enjoy them undisturbed by the ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... humor and serious reasoning, such a speech as no one in that room, I suppose, had ever heard. Certainly it was a fine and dramatic bit of impromptu pleading. The weary committee, which had been tortured all day with dull, statistical arguments made by the mechanical device fiends, and dreary platitudes unloaded by men whose chief ambition was to shine as copyright champions, suddenly realized that they were being rewarded for the long waiting. They began to brighten and freshen, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... two months we admire the superb orb, sparkling in the azure illuminated with its radiance. Then of a sudden, its light fades, and diminishes in intensity, though the sky remains clear. Imperceptibly, our fine sun darkens; the atmosphere becomes sad and dull, there is an anticipation of universal death. For five long months our world is plunged in a kind of penumbra; all nature is saddened in ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... ones." And he then pointed at the beggar's retinue and laughed,—an unpleasant laugh, welded of contempt and amusement. The princess looked and shrank on her throne. He, the beggar man, was—was what? But his retinue,—that squalid, sordid, parti-colored band of vacant, dull-faced filth and viciousness—was writhing over the land, and he and they seemed almost crouching underneath the scorpion lash of one tall skeleton, that looked like Death, and the twisted woman whom men called Pain. Yet they all ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a dull man, Tammas, who could not read the meaning of a sign, and laboured under a perpetual disability of speech; but love was eyes to him that day, ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... to ourselves. There is a dear, old, retired, sea captain there, too, who takes people out in such a nice sail-boat. I shall keep Sally and the baby out on the water all day long. I am afraid you will find it very dull, Dr. Williams. Do you like the sea? Of course you will stay with us all the time. I don't mean in the least, that you are to come only once a day to see Sally, as you do here. You will be our guest, you understand. I dare say you will do more to cure Sally than all the sea-air and ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... very much indeed, but she should not be piqued and feel injured if he excuses himself on the ground of having to take his sister out, or spend his evening with his parents. He will be all the better husband for this courtesy to his own relations. Of course his people may be very dull, possibly unpleasant, and in that case real friendship will be a labour, if not an impossibility; but, for the man's sake, they must be treated in such a way as not to hurt either his feelings or their own. The same, naturally, holds good ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... In rottenness of rest, These sleepy lips blood-suckled And satiate of thy breast, These dull wide mouths that drain thee dry and call ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... intimated what he proposed to do. But Fate decreed that he should be childless, that all religious independents might call him father. There is only one thing better than for a strong man to marry an absolutely dull woman. She teaches him by antithesis: he learns by contrast, and her stupidity is ever a foil for his brilliancy. He soon grows to a point where he does not mentally defer to her in the slightest degree, but goes his solitary ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... autumn was hot and dry. The foliage died fast, the leaves twisted and dried up and the brown grass stems fell lifeless to the earth. A long time they were without rain, and a dull haze of heat hung over the simmering earth. The river shrank in its bed, and the brooks ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... answered Rimrock dryly, and L. W. turned from bronze to a dull red. "I know the whole bunch of you, from the dog robber up, and this time I play my own hand. I was a sucker once, but the only friends I've got now are the ones that stayed with me when ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... to his companion, and from her again at Heimbert, and suddenly exclaimed, gnashing his teeth, "Ha, was it to be thus! I was not even to be allowed to die in the dull happiness of quiet solitude! I was to be first doomed to see my rival's success and my sister's shame!" At the same time he sprang to his feet with a violent effort and rushed forward upon Heimbert with ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... None of the beautiful things of the world were to be seen here, but only the things coarse and ugly. And wearily to and fro its sunless passages trudged with heavy steps a weary people, coarse-clad, and with dull, listless faces. And London, I knew, was the city of the gnomes who labour sadly all their lives, imprisoned underground; and a terror seized me lest I, too, should remain chained here, deep down below the fairy city that was already but ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... clung to his arm, but the snow was everywhere; it filled her eyes and took away her breath, the wind blew her skirts and impeded her steps, and in her state of nervous exhaustion she was very soon overcome. A dull stupor came over her, and, letting go her hold on the arm of her protector, she sank down ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... When the dull rumble of the sluiceway waters informed her that she was near the camp of the enemy she went more cautiously, and when she heard the voices of men she called, announcing that she desired to speak ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day |
