"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I made a bargain with the man that I was bound to, that if he would give me four months in the winter of each year when the business was dull, I would clothe myself. I therefore went to Waterbury, and hired myself to Lewis Stebbins, (a singing master of that place,) to work at making the dials for the old fashioned long clock. This kind of business ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... a dull clangor stirred the air—the tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace—Shan almost to a man—were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... the corner of the building when I heard the shriek of a shell coming nearer. I guessed it was pretty close, and without a moment's hesitation dropped in the mud and water of a small ditch, and not a moment too soon for with a dull thud the shell struck and burst hardly seven feet from me. Had I not fallen down these lines would never have been written. Picking myself up, I hurried on. Still the shells continued to drop, but fortunately at a greater distance. When I reached Croix Rouge, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... of the fray. And this my work, Mezentius. Now prepare To king Latinus and his walls to fare. Let hope forestall, and courage hail the fray, So, when the gods shall summon us to bear The standards forth, and muster our array, No fears shall breed dull ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... this, however, there was still a dull ache in his heart, a feeling that something was wanting in his life. He had not forgotten Mary Bolitho. He knew he never should. Never since the day after the election had he seen her in Brunford, and ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... declaration that he is not uneasy at Pope's satire, that "no blockhead is so dull as not to be sore when he is called so; and (you'll excuse me) if that were to be your own case, why should we believe you would not be as uneasy ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... this night comes an order from Sir W. Coventry to stop the pay of the wages of that Yard, the Duke of Albemarle having related, that not above three of 1100 in pay there, did attend to do any work there. This evening having sent a messenger to Chatham on purpose, we have received a dull letter from my Lord Brouncker and Peter Pett, how matters have gone there this week; but not so much, or so particularly as we knew it by common talk before, and as true. I doubt they will be found to have been but slow men in this business; and they say the Duke ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... well as all my species, are most partial to perfumes, and I did not therefore fail to visit the representative of Signior Jean Marie Farina in his shop, No. 4568, a la rue haute a Cologne. Nothing struck me particularly in this town of Cologne. The streets are very narrow, and seemed dull enough. To be sure, the principal one, which is said to be a German league in length, is rather fine. The old convent of the Ladies of St. Ursula, is curious at least. They show you in it the bones of 11,000 virgins, who they say were murdered by the Huns at the time of their invasion, when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... they followed crawled like a leisurely river between the freshly ploughed ridges, where the earth was slowly settling around the transplanted crop. In the distance, labourers were still at work, passing in dull-blue blotches between the rows of bright-green leaves that hung limply ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Going into the cottage where the clergy were assembled and the visitors had arrived, including Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was to stand god-father, he suddenly announced that the baby "ought not to be christened at all." He announced this quietly, briefly, forcing out his words, and gazing with dull ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with her, for her sake, if from no higher motive, to put away her sin. The woman seemed touched, and hiding her face in the child's neck, she wept. The little blue-eyed thing looked sadly weary of the dull walls, and Jennie longed to lead her away from the lonesome place to a home as bright as she had found. She stroked her silken hair, and caressed her as if she had been a sister, and giving her a few toys from her rich pocket, she hurried on to overtake her teacher ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... small room, but still snug and comfortable, and full of pretty things. Tea was laid on the little round table that would hardly hold five, as Nan once observed, thinking of Dick; and the evening's sunshine was stealing in, but not too obtrusively. Mrs. Challoner tried not to think it dull, and endeavored to say a word of praise at the arrangements Dulce pointed out to her; but the thought of Glen Cottage, and her pretty drawing-room, and the veranda with its climbing roses, and the shady lawn with the seat ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... have we seen Done at the Mermaid, heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if everyone from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past; wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancelled; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... sterling, in the shape of compensation: and what consolation is it to know, that a hogshead of sugar will now bring thirty pounds, which, a short time ago, was only worth twelve. Let any unprejudiced individual look at the return now before us, and say whether our prospects are not deplorably dull and obscure. If we take the four years immediately preceding the passing of Mr. Canning's resolutions, say 1819, 20, 21, and 22; we will find the average to be 105,858 hogsheads, and if from this we even deduct one fourth for the time now lost, there will be an average crop of 79,394 hhds., ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... or Raye, seems to be mentioned only once—viz., in Love's Labour's Lost, in the account of the preparations for the Pageant of the Worthies. Constable Dull proposes to accompany the dancing of the hay with a tabor, which may be taken as the common practice. Holofernes says Dull's idea is 'most dull,' like himself. The Hay was a Round country-dance—i.e., the performers stood in a circle to begin with, and then (in ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... catechisms, entomological primers, and tales of political economy—dismal trash, all of them; something half-way between stupid story-books and bad school-books; being so ingeniously written as to be unfit for any useful purpose in school and too dull for any entertainment ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... charming and admirable impersonation of our poet's Portia, which I witnessed to-night with a real delight. You have given me a new light on the character, and by your so pretty by-play in the Casket Scene have made bright in my memory for ever the spot which almost all critics have felt dull, and I hope to say this in a new ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... ship and his own career. He must have seen something to interest him in Netty Cahere's face—perhaps he caught a glance from the dark-lashed eyes—for he turned and looked at her again, with a sudden, dull light ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... sounds Wright's voice, as if in answer to my thought. I gather up all my remaining force, and charge. There is a flash across my eyes, and a dull shock against my chest. I reel and stagger, and forget where I am. I am being swept along in a torrent; the waters with a roar rush past me and over me. Every moment I get nearer and nearer the fatal edge—I am at it—I hang a moment on the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... that Mr. Tertius had returned, for he let himself into the house with his own latch-key, and went straight into Herapath's study. There, if possible, everything was still quieter—the gloom of the dull November morning seemed to be doubly accentuated in the nooks and corners; there was a sense of solitude which was well in keeping with Mr. Tertius's knowledge of what had happened. He looked at the vacant chair in which he had so often seen Jacob Herapath ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... rooms in Studio Building, opening into each other by folding doors, which were never known to be shut. The walls were hung with old French tapestry, its rich, soft colors harmonizing exquisitely with some dull-red velvet draperies from Venice. Bits of armor, some of them very splendid, were disposed here and there, while a wealth of bric-a-brac enriched every nook and corner. In the doorway hung an old altar-lamp of silver, with a cup ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... to think he had saved the Byzantine. His next duty was to go to the relief of the little Princess. A dull fancy would have taught how trying the situation must have been to her; but with him the case was of a quick understanding quickened by solicitude. Taking Nilo with him, he made haste ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... me, however, that I could do nothing but remain still, and anticipate the reproof that was preparing. What was my agreeable surprise to see the old gentleman standing at the stile, with his hands in his pockets, surveying the whole scene with evident satisfaction! And how dull I must have been, not to have known till my friend the grandfather (who, by- the-bye, said he had been a wonderful cricketer in his time) told me, that it was the clergyman himself who had established the whole thing: that ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... names and addresses, and slouched away, his animosity gone, and only a dull, miserable lethargy sagging ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... that he was now to leave ships behind him he was mistaken, for the dining room proved to be quite as much of a museum as the library had been. Against the dull blue paper hung pictures of racing yachts, early American fighting ships, and nautical encounters on the high seas. The house was a veritable wonderland, and so distracted was the lad that he could ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... servants, and the school children sat crowded on the steps. It was not such a service as had been the custom of the Hurminster churches; and the singing, such as it was, depended on the thin shrill voices of the children, assisted by Lady Adela and the mistress; the sermon was dull and long, and altogether there was something ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Betty, in a tone characterized as "dull and hopeless," in stories. "Why, Grace Ford, if you have done anything else but eat—candy—ever since we started on this picnic, I'd like ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... choked off the rest of the sentence. Jed rubbed his eyes and sat up in his chair. For the first time since the captain's entrance he realized a little of what the latter said. Before that he had been conscious only of his own dull, aching, hopeless misery. ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... such times as this, when business is dull. I have noticed that men spend more money when they ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... in heaven. The spangled landscape glitters with drops of dew after the shower. The 'fleecy fools' show their coats in the gleams of the setting sun. The shepherds pipe their farewell notes in the fresh evening air. And is this bright vision made from a dead, dull blank, like a bubble reflecting the mighty fabric of the universe? Who would think this miracle of Rubens' pencil possible to be performed? Who, having seen it, would not spend his life to do the like? See how the rich fallows, the bare stubble-field, the scanty ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... ashamed to let her real feelings be known. So she kept on a show of indifference, all the while that her heart was fluttering. The "good-bye" finally said, the driver cracked his whip, and off rolled the stage. Gray turned homeward with a dull, lonely feeling, and Lucy drew her vail over her face to conceal the ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... their table, a bored look on her small, sharp face. "How are you?" she said nonchalantly. "I thought I'd come over here. Having tea alone is dull. Don't you think so?" ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... almost all he could do to breathe with such a weight upon him, but after a few moments' rest he tried to shout for help. His shouts were not very loud, and soon he had to stop. He lay breathing heavily and looking up at the pile of dull earth. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... went on talkin' and the blacksmith was makin' a rod and he took it out of the forge and put it on the anvil and it sputtered sparks, and he pounded it around, and finally he took a chisel and cut off a piece, and I watched it grow from dull red till it got black and looked like a piece of licorice. So I went and picked it up. Gee! but it just cooked my fingers, and I yelled. "Thar's your lesson," says Lem—"remember it. Don't take hold of a hot thing till it gets cold. ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... seventy-five bushels of potatoes. Meantime his preaching had been enlivened with new illustrations and he was enabled to enforce, to the amazement of his hearers, new impressions with old truths. The Scripture teaching which had become dull and scholastic became live and modern, as he preached the Old Testament to a people who were recognizing the sacredness of land. His audiences began to increase. His influence on his people very shortly passed bounds and reserves. When at the end of the season ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said, and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why does he come? The ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... a silent prayer that the ship may cast the right way. Hurra! round she comes. The sails fill. She moves through the water. The boats with the hawser get alongside and are hoisted up, and the old "Ranger" stands out towards the open sea. Is there a soul on board so dull and ungrateful as not to return fervent thanks to a gracious superintending God for deliverance from the imminent danger in which ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Kind of dull I suppose you find it," he remarked pensively, looking out across the waste of lavender-grown marshes, sand hummocks piled with seaweed, and a far distant line of pebbled shore. "And yet, I don't know. ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Paschal Chronicle, which introduces this haughty message, during the lifetime of Theodosius, may have anticipated the date; but the dull annalist was incapable of inventing the original and genuine style ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... the sluice-boxes with bowed head he was thinking that the day was well suited to the ending of his roseate dreams. Failure is dull, drab, colorless, and in his heart he had little doubt that for some reason still to be explained, he had failed. Just how badly ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... twice as gay Just because of you, Louise! Which is going some, you say? In my dull, pedantic way I am fashioning my lay Just because I want ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... favourite dwelling-place of imagination, the character of the stream seems a type of the human mind: stormy, bounding, and impetuous, when wrapped up in the glorious feelings which belong to romantic countries; peaceful, dull, and monotonous, amid the less interesting lowlands. Yet, after indulging in such a fancy for a time, another reflection arises, which, if it be less pleasing and poetical, is, perhaps, more useful—that the impetuous course of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... stood out from the black background made him sway and clutch at the garments in the closet. For her robes radiated dull light, like a coal seen behind ashes. It was as though she were about to burst into flame. On her head gleamed a dull star; from it, the radiance of her robe fell away toward her feet in lesser light, like ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... myself as charmed with all these arrangements, for I thought it would be very dull for Lady Betty to be left behind at Gladwyn; and then I asked Giles what he ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the preparations, but invents the most beautiful decorations for the table,—and out of nothing—out of leaves and flowers so common that no one would have thought of culling them, yet so wonderfully arranged that every one exclaims at their picturesque effect? When you have dull guests,—guests that put me to sleep, or out of patience,—is it not Madeleine who amuses them? How many evenings, that would have been insufferably stupid, have flown delightfully, chased ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... upon the Catechism; but considering my age and great infirmities, it is not very probable I should continue this practice any longer. I am willing therefore, as a small monument of my care and affection for you, to print the last of these Lectures," &c.... What heart so dull as not to admit that men like this, (and there were many of them!) are quite good enough to redeem an age from indiscriminate opprobrium ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... chameleon-like change of colour exhibited by many Crabs occurs very strikingly in it. The carapace of a male which I have now before me shone with a dazzling white in its hinder parts five minutes since when I captured it, at present it shows a dull gray tint at the same place.) What may be the significance of these peculiar hairs,—whether they only keep foreign bodies from the branchial cavity,—whether they furnish moisture to the air flowing past them,—or whether, as their aspect, especially in the small Gelasimus, ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... gymnastic a purely military character. In marriage, his object is still to produce the finest children for the state. As in the Statesman, he would unite in wedlock dissimilar natures—the passionate with the dull, the courageous with the gentle. And the virtuous tyrant of the Statesman, who has no place in the Republic, again appears. In this, as in all his writings, he has the strongest sense of the degeneracy and incapacity of the ...
— Laws • Plato
... evening we drove to Casasano, an hacienda about three leagues from Cocoyoc, and passed by several other fine estates, amongst others, the hacienda of Calderon. Casasano is an immense old house, very dull-looking, the road to which lies through a fine park for cattle, dotted with great old trees, but of which the grass is very much burnt up. Each hacienda has a large chapel attached to it, at which all the workmen and villagers in the environs attend mass; a padre coming from a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... repair.—Ramrod tubes often break off, and it is a very troublesome accident when they do so. I know of no contrivance to fasten them on again, except by using soft solder, the application of which will not in the least hurt the gun: ashes, at a dull red heat, must be heaped over the barrel to warm it sufficiently, before applying the solder. If the ramrod tubes have been lost, others made of ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... changed the whole country-side, and the sun was brighter and the braes greener and the air sweeter from the day she came. Our lives were common no longer now that we spent them with such a one as she, and the old dull grey house was another place in my eyes since she had set her foot across the door-mat. It was not her face, though that was winsome enough, nor her form, though I never saw the lass that could match ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... entrance where he would otherwise be debarred. Often the interest of a subject depends as much on the way it is presented as on the subject itself. One writer will make it attractive, another repulsive. For instance take a passage in history. Treated by one historian it is like a desiccated mummy, dry, dull, disgusting, while under the spell of another it is, as it were, galvanized into a virile living thing which not only pleases ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... fact is that, as regards the ass, we have only very sorry specimens of the animal in England; they are stunted and small, and, from want of corn and proper food, besides being very ill-treated, are slow and dull-looking animals. The climate of England is much too cold for the ass; in the south of France and the Mediterranean, where it is much warmer, the ass is a much finer animal; but to see it in perfection we must go to the Torrid Zone in Guinea, right ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... 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 countenances** *unfamliar ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... more, like partners who know that they may never meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy's good-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled even himself, and ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... we have been bred up to it, and we wager upon it just as you Britons do on your fights between cocks. I never felt any hesitation about it before, because I had no particular personal interest in any of the combatants. After all, you know, life is dull in Rome for those who take no part in politics, who have no ambition to rise at the court, and who do not care overmuch for luxury. We have none of the hunting with which you harden your muscles and pass your time in Britain. Therefore it is that the sports of the arena are so popular with our class ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... been men with deeper insight; but, one would say, never a man with such abundance of thought: he is never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care for ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... 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 precautions ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... lark begin his flight, And singing, startle the dull Night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled Dawn doth rise; Then to come in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow Through the sweetbrier, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine; ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... sails and broken masts, driven and tossed by eternal whirlwinds, appear and vanish in the river's rush; but the old remain motionless above. The hot rain of stars forever falling there dies out with dull moan, while the glad waves and white foam laugh as the ruined wrecks toss helplessly in the strong winds; but the aged heed it not: they have grown into one with the rock of the past, they build air ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... baths has some one else to spend the evening with him. There is always a vast demolition of cold chickens, and cakes, and preserves, and then a little music, and a little conversation, and an immense deal of gossip. The general complaint is, that the place is rather dull; and, indeed, it must be owned, that formerly there were more facilities for spending a gay season than ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... sad little smile, and shook his head. Then first I seemed to understand a little. A dull flash ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... period; and at the Tuileries, and the houses of the French nobility, which he visited, Monsieur le Marquis de Farintosh excited considerable remark, by the use of some of the phrases which his young professor had taught to him. People even went so far as to say that the Marquis was an awkward and dull young man, of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... kept Miss Belinda Bree from utterly wearing out at her dull work in the great warerooms, or now and then at days' seamstressing in families. It really keeps a great many ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Constantinople in 1762, ANDRE CHENIER was educated in France, travelled in Switzerland and Italy, resided as secretary to the French Ambassador for three weary years in England—land of mists, land of dull aristocrats—returned to France in 1790, ardent in the cause of constitutional freedom, and defended his opinions and his friends as a journalist. The violences of the Revolution drove him into opposition to the Jacobin party. In March 1794 he was ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the usurer, is Shylock's grandson. The unjust judge, who declares that some men have no rights which others are bound to respect, is a later Jeffries on his bloody assizes, or dooming Algernon Sidney to the block once more for loving liberty; while he whose dull heart among the new duties of another time is never quickened with public spirit, and who as a citizen aims only at his own selfish advantage, is a later Benedict Arnold whom every generous ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Gentlemen directors, with favourite abb'es and favourite mistresses, have almost overturned the thing in England. You will plead my want of interest to Mr. Smith(801) too: besides, we had Bufos here once, and from not understanding the language, people thought it a dull kind of dumb-show. We are next Tuesday to have the Miserere of Rome. It must be curious! the finest piece of vocal music in the world, to be performed by three good voices, and forty bad ones, from Oxford, Canterbury, and the farces! There is a new ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... shall grieve not, though the eye that seeth me Gazeth through tears that make its splendor dull; For oh! I sometimes fear when thou art with me, My cup of happiness is ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... excitement, of intense mental strain, and of unremitting bodily exertion, after speech-making and parades, music and bonfires, it must be something of a trial to face at once the mortification of defeat, the weariness of intellectual and physical reaction, and the dull commonplace of daily routine. Letters written at this period show that under these conditions Mr. Lincoln remained composed, patient, and hopeful. Two weeks after election he wrote thus to Mr. Judd, a member of the Legislature and Chairman of the Republican State ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... It was enough. Too late! She had failed. Her sacrifice, her atonement,—fruitless. She sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands, trying to think. But in her head was a dull chaos of sounds, echoes of her wild ride, and her body swayed as she sat. She had never fainted, but for a moment it seemed that she lost consciousness. She found herself presently staring through her fingers at the pattern in the gray aubusson carpet—and ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... comfortable office enough," said George, "and not particularly dull; but I have not had sufficient experience in it ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... is a seasonal trade, students are advised to take, in addition, lamp and candle shade making in the Novelty Department, or straw sewing in the Operating Department. They are thus provided with good trades during the months when their own trade is dull. ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... false teeth, and aped the giddy girl. But this was because of Mrs Head's impulsive welcome of me, and her grey hair. The hair was not so grey as I thought at first, seeing it with the lamp-light behind it: it was like dull-brown hair lightly dusted with flour. She wore it short, and it became her that way. There was something aristocratic about her face—her nose and chin—I fancied, and something that you couldn't describe. ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... learned anything at the asylum but work," she answered slowly, "just dull, hateful, routine work; doing the same things over again every day in the same way, cooking and washing dishes and scrubbing. I suppose I was being useful, but there isn't much fun in being useful when nobody cares or seems to be helped by what you do. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... wife, 'now, if you did as I tell you, we should have left this dull place long ago and gone ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... not so dull as not to see he was not wanted; but he was not yet used enough to social customs to know how to extricate himself dextrously from his false position, which his generally is who accosts people he is little ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... And the world is growing old; Love is low and faith is dull, Truth and right are bought, ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... of Mahomet and the annals of the caliphs. They enjoyed the advantage of reading, and sometimes correcting, the Arabic text; yet, notwithstanding their high-sounding boasts, I cannot find, after the conclusion of my work, that they have afforded me much (if any) additional information. The dull mass is not quickened by a spark of philosophy or taste; and the compilers indulge the criticism of acrimonious bigotry against Boulainvilliers, Sale, Gagnier, and all who have treated Mahomet with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... her face was sweeter far Than aught I'd seen before— As simple as the cowslips are Upon the rushy moor: She seemed the muse of that sweet spot, The lady of the plain, And all was dull where she was not, Till ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... constituted the Mongol nation proper is very likely correct.... I. J. Schmidt (Ssanang Setzen, 380) derives the name Mongol from mong, meaning 'brave, daring, bold,' while Rashiduddin says it means 'simple, weak' (d'Ohsson, i. 22). The Chinese characters used to transcribe the name mean 'dull, stupid,' and 'old, ancient,' but they are used purely phonetically.... The Mongols of the present day are commonly called by the Chinese Ta-tzu, but this name is resented by the Mongols as opprobrious, though it is but an abbreviated form of the name Ta-ta-tzu, in which, according to Rubruck, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... reply, in effect, was "What make you here, you little Bulgar boy?" He maintained that, while not as "dull and cautious" as he had meant it to be, the speech referred to in no way bore out Mr. BUXTON'S assertions. Then he proceeded in characteristic fashion to knock together the heads of the pro-Bulgarians and the other Balkan theorists, and declared in conclusion that, while sharing the desire ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... with murderous intent, had brought a gun-butt down upon his unprotected skull. Excitement was at all times as wine to him, so, promising to be at the rendezvous, he rode homeward faster than before, with a sense of anticipation which helped to dull the edge ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... is artificially stained, so that stones naturally unattractive by their dull grey tints come to be valuable for ornamental purposes. The art of staining the stone is believed to be very ancient. Possibly referred to by Pliny (bk. xxxvii. cap. 75), it was certainly practised ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... dull: Mrs. Beaumont, who never says much, was more silent than usual; Lady Louisa strove in vain to lay aside the restraint and distance she has hitherto preserved; and, as to me, I was too conscious of the circumstances to which I owed their attention, to feel either pride or pleasure ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... quick short glance each moment tow'rds him fled. How he, too, seemed to shun her speech and gaze, And yet he always lingered where she was; Though nothing in his aspect or his air Told that he knew she was in presence there; But an appearance of constrained distress, And a dull tongue of moveless silentness, And a down drooping eye of gloom and sadness, Oh! how unlike his former face of gladness. "'Tis plain! too plain! and I am lost," she cried; And in that thought her last good ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... did ought to be interesting to their fellow creatures, and yet, such is the weakness of human nature, that we all know folk so cruel dull in mind and body that an instinct rises in us to flee from 'em at sight and never go where there's a chance of running across 'em. It ain't Christian, but everybody knows such deadly characters none the less, and you might say without straining ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... gained by evading the forester. Sitting with his back to a small tree, he closed his eyes and folded his thick arms over his head. Of course, he would soon be found, and he would have to go back to the hunt. But this forester was a dull, soft fellow. He could be made to believe Flor's excuse that he had become lost for a time, and had been searching the woods ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... her. And presently the deck lashings would part under the battering of the surf and the deck load would go by the board. Half of it would drift out to sea, and the other half would pound on the beach and get filled with sand, which would dull the saws and planes of the carpenters when they came to cut it up. Also, the ship's cabin would be sure to go, and unless he had help he would have to abandon the vessel and she would lie there, submerged, at anchor, a menace to the navigation of ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... been doing, that the chatter and laughter are as great as upon the night preceding the breaking-up. In the morning, however, all this is changed. As they take their places at their desks and open their books, a dull, heavy feeling takes possession of the boys, and the full consciousness that they are at the beginning of another half year's work weighs ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... relief to take up a volume so absolutely free from stressfulness. The love-making is passionate, the humor of much of the conversation is thoroughly delightful. The book is as refreshing a bit of fiction as one often finds; there is not a dull ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... late on a winter evening; the mountains were covered with snow, but the moon shone brightly, and moonlight in Italy is like a dull winter's day in the north; indeed it is better, for clear air seems to raise us above the earth, while in the north a cold, gray, leaden sky appears to press us down to earth, even as the cold damp earth shall one day press ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... do. He forbade nakedness, as well as garments of hair and other uncomfortable costumes. The raiment which he prescribed consisted of three pieces of cloth of the colour called kasava. This was probably dull orange, selected as being unornamental. It would appear that in mediaeval India the colour in use was reddish: at present a rather bright and not unpleasing yellow is worn in Burma, Ceylon, Siam ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... which the gay brown carpet would mark him, he was down, the Fates were upon him—the disturbance, the disrobing, the darkness. Nevertheless, even as he was carried, sobbing, into the farther room, there went with him a consciousness that life would never again be quite the dull, purposeless, monotonous thing that it ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... part of his being and that which he shares with inferior creatures, to call any individual man an animal is to imply that the animal nature has undue supremacy, and so is deep condemnation or utter insult. The brute is the animal viewed as dull to all finer feeling; the beast is looked upon as a being of appetites. To call a man a brute is to imply that he is unfeeling and cruel; to call him a beast is to indicate that he is vilely sensual. We speak of the cruel father as a brute ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... terms of friendship, that every deed and word and look of her friendship might have been open to her husband,—or open to all the world? She could have done so. She told herself that that was not,—need not have been her great calamity. Whether she could endure the dull, monotonous control of her slow but imperious lord,—or whether she must not rather tell him that it was not to be endured,—that was her trouble. So she told herself, and again admitted Phineas to her intimacy in London. But, nevertheless, Phineas, had he ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... of the game, and they chase her and propitiate her; and she generally condescends to return, for solitary dignity is dull. If any of the seniors happen to see it, it is checked as much as possible, but oftener we hear of it in that very informing prayer, which is to her quite the event of the evening; for she takes to the outward forms of religion with great avidity, and the evening ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... What had they meant? By the internal combustion which had so suddenly lighted up the dark corners of his being, he saw with almost clairvoyant distinctness how it must have been. He saw her growing older, as he had grown older, but in the dull apathy of monotony. She had none of this great filling Labour wherewith to drug herself into day-dreams of a future. The seasons as they passed showed her the same faces, growing ever a little more jaded, as dancers ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... stories are long, and lazily told; and they overflow with the most lugubrious monotony. There is scarcely a relief throughout the volume, from Wordsworth's "majestic sonnet" on Sir Walter Scott, to Autumn Flowers, by Agnes Strickland; we travel from one end to the other, and all is lead and leaden—dull, heavy, and sad, as old Burton could wish; and full of moping melancholy, unenlivened by quaintness, or humour of any cast. Not that we mean to condemn the pieces individually; but, collectively, they are too much in the same vein: the Editor has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... had never breathed before. We were standing in a flagged hall, looking up through a great well, past gallery after gallery, to a skylight covering the top of the roof. It was the sunshine filtering through the dull, thick, greenish glass which gave that cold, sad-colored light. Within the galleries I caught glimpses of men at work at desks; and over the railings lounged figures, peered faces, disheveled, sodden, disreputable; and sometimes near ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... the shadows are long on the grass, and of bright autumn afternoons, when it would be luxury to saunter in the neighbouring lanes; and of frosty winter days, when the sun shines in over the laurustinus at the window, while the fire burns with a different light from that which it gives in the dull parlours of a city. ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... room was lavishly adorned, hardly produced an impression of beauty. Marcia, looking slowly round her with critical eyes, thought suddenly of a bare room she knew in a Roman palace, some faded hangings in dull gold upon the walls, spaces of light and shadow on the empty matted floor, and a great branch of Judas tree in blossom lighting up a corner. The memory provoked in her a ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mound, which Stockdale at the same time adroitly skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous roar burst upon his ear. The hillock was about fifty yards from the top of the cliffs, and by day it apparently commanded a full view of the bay. There was light enough in the sky to show her disguised figure against ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... rapidly, and many of the trees shed their leaves. About this period is commonly felt the harmattan, a dry and parching wind, blowing from the north-east, and accompanied by a thick smoky haze, through which the sun appears of a dull red colour. This wind, in passing over the Great Desert of Sahara, acquires a very strong attraction for humidity, and parches up every thing exposed to its current. It is, however, reckoned very salutary, particularly to Europeans, who generally recover their health during ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Horseleech, to be 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, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... character), to work out the best of which it is capable. On the other hand, it is the object of Socialism, acting through political and economic machinery, to crowd out these varying attributes of human nature and reduce the individual to the mental status of a dull, unthinking animal. Of course human nature always has rebelled against this repression and always will do so in the final analysis. It is impossible for Socialism or any other system of uniform and outward repression to fetter the human soul and it inevitably ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... an early supper, and, hardly had the dishes been put away, when from the west, where there was a low-flying bank of clouds, there came a mutter of thunder. A little later there was a dull, red illumination amid ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton |
