"Motionless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ground. The rest of the yard, the flooring of beams, formed a great couch on which the light reposed, streaked here and there with the slender black shadows which edged the different pieces of timber. In the frigid silence under the wintry moon, the motionless, recumbent poles, stiffened, as it were, with sleep and cold, recalled the corpses of the old cemetery. The young man cast but a rapid glance round the empty space; there was not a creature, not a sound, no danger of being seen or heard. The black patches at ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... serum, or a sort of whey. The serum in poor Fougas was dried up in his veins; the water which we have gradually introduced by a slow endosmose has saturated the albumen and fibrin of the serum, which is returned to the liquid state. The red globules which desiccation had agglutinated, had become motionless like ships stranded in shoal water. Now behold them afloat again: they thicken, swell, round out their edges, detach themselves from each other and prepare to circulate in their proper channels at the first impulse which shall be given them by the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... at sea without any vessel or boat introduced, my little boy, then about five years old, came dancing and singing into the room, and all at once (if I may so say) tumbled in upon the print. He instantly started, stood silent and motionless, with the strongest expression, first of wonder and then of grief in his eyes and countenance, and at length said "And where is the ship? But that is sunk, and the men are all drowned!" still keeping his eyes fixed on the print. Now what pictures are to little children, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... bay; the land wind blew gently, bearing to us the delicious perfumes of orange and coffee-blossoms, and crowds of vessels were coming from the bay, taking advantage of it to gain an offing before the setting in of the sea-breeze. Half a mile from us a brig lay motionless upon the water, her yards swarming with men loosing the sails, which in a moment fell together with a precision that would have plainly told a sailor that the brig was a man-of-war, even without taking notice of the delicate white ribbon painted upon her side, pierced by a ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... little jerk within her. She stood motionless for a space. Then, with a little quivering smile, she very, very ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... not—his ears, his eyes, his whole soul, were concentrated in the apples. Ten minutes elapsed, but he stood motionless, like a ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... swell begins to take its rise; and, watching its first motion very attentively, paddled before it, with great quickness, till he found that it overtook him, and had acquired sufficient force to carry his canoe before it, without passing underneath. He then sat motionless, and was carried along, at the same swift rate as the wave, till it landed him upon the beach. Then he started out, emptied his canoe, and went in search of another swell. I could not help concluding, that this man felt the most supreme pleasure, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... motionless, etc. Cf. the Introduction to Rob Roy; "Rob Roy, while on his death-bed, learned that a person, with whom he was at enmity, proposed to visit him. 'Raise me from my bed,' said the invalid; 'throw my plaid around me, and bring me my claymore, dirk, and pistols: it shall ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... spoke. Ethel seemed to have relapsed once more into a semi-unconscious state. Lesley sat motionless, pillowing her friend's head against her shoulder, and stroking one of her hands with her own. Now and then hot tears welled over and dropped upon Ethel's dark, curly head, but Lesley did not try to wipe ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... contempt for a Christian, were empty. Without encountering a single attendant, I reached his room overlooking the sea; it was dimly lighted by a few candles of bad Egyptian wax, with enormous untrimmed wicks. Here, at the end of his divan, I found him rolled up in a sort of ball,—solitary, motionless, apparently absorbed in thought. The waves were breaking heavily on the mole, and I expected every instant the casements to be blown in. The roar of wind and sea was almost awful, but he did not seem conscious ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... night, there sat by my bedside a grief-stricken youth who tended me with the utmost care. This youth, so sad and melancholy, was Raoul, but Raoul so altered as to be scarcely recognisable. For hours he would sit motionless as a statue, then, rising gently, he would give me the medicine according to the doctor's orders, or smooth the tumbled pillow which I was helpless to ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... trying to hide now. Perhaps some faint hope took possession of them that they might be unnoticed if they did not move; just as the still hunter, stalking a feeding deer, will watch its short tail, and whenever he sees it twitch he stands perfectly motionless; for he knows that the animal is about to raise his head, and that he will probably be taken for a stump if he does ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... yet been projected. It is a bright spring day. The sunshine falls upon the buildings on the Surrey side, and lights them with a picturesque beauty to which they have not the slightest title. A barge, laden with hay, is lying almost motionless in the middle of ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... speechless, as if suddenly paralysed, for the expression on our big captain's face was wonderful, as well as indescribable. Mrs Bright opened her eyes to their widest, also her mouth, and dropped the Billy-garments. Mrs Davidson's buttery hands became motionless; so did the "babby's" tarry visage. For three seconds this lasted. Then the captain said, in the deepest bass notes ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Books were near him, and the pen which had just dropped, as it were from his dying fingers. 'Open the shutters, and let in more light!' were the last words that came from those lips. Slowly stretching forth his hand, he seemed to write inthe air; and, as it sank down again and was motionless, the spirit of ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... in the midst of this splendor of light and air, fragrance, colors, shapes, movements, melodies and joys that Isabel, the loftiest receptacle of life among them all, soon sat in a secluded spot, motionless and listless with her unstanched and desperate wound. Everything seemed happy but herself; the very brilliancy of the day only deepened the shadow under which she brooded. As she had slipped away from the house, she would soon have escaped from the garden had ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... praising God, and the other birds, from tree and shrub, answered as best they might, each with his song of praise; and the man, lying motionless beneath the great tree, ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... from fear doth Eric gather, Wide the cabin door he threw— Lo! the face of his dead father, Stern and still, confronts his view! Stately as in life he bore him, Seated—motionless and grand, On the blotted page before him Lingers still ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... by, Mr Sharp cast a passing glance on the late passenger. He observed that her bundle of shawls moved of its own accord, and, for one whole minute after the train had left, he stood motionless, meditating on that curious phenomenon. He had often heard of table-turning, but never until now had he seen inanimate matter move of its own accord. Can we feel surprised that he was both astonished and perplexed? Proceeding to ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... reined in as his jaded steed scrambled up the shelving bank, and for a space sat there motionless, for which the horse gave mute thanks. The moon was struggling to heave through fleecy clouds, as it was hard on midnight; in the half obscurity the rider ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... and we go ahead, or we rise; I push or turn another way and we stop, or go back. So I concentrate the atomic force just as I choose. It makes us go, or it carries us back to earth, or it holds us motionless, according to the way I apply it. The earth is what I kick against at present, and what I hold fast by; but any other sufficiently massive body would serve the same purpose. As to the machinery, you'd need a special education in order to ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... stared at the Robot's motionless frame. What electrical, mechanical thoughts were passing within that metal skull! What emotions, what strange struggle, what warfare of nameless etheric vibrations of will power were taking place ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... full flush of happiness and hope, now suddenly, ay, even as he knelt beside his beautiful wife, and even as their spirits mingled in the same acts of devotion, the marquess now, struck by the angel of death, laid cold, senseless, and motionless, in the arms of his servants, who were vainly endeavouring to recall that vital spark which was totally extinct. Victorine, the young and lovely marchioness, thus suddenly and awfully reduced to widowhood, had fallen into such violent hysterics, as to render the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... calmly, nonchalantly, as though that of which he spoke were of every-day occurrence. 'Of course, the good dame screamed, but the next instant her fear turned to terror when the weapon fell from your father's hand and he reeled, falling upon the ground with a strangling, choking cry, and lay motionless. She thought him dead, but ran for assistance nevertheless. It was some hours before the doctor arrived, and not long afterward your father passed away, quietly and painlessly, for he had lain in a coma ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... upright, square to the fore, in the position of ' 'tention,' their naked toes disposed at an angle of 60, with fingers close to the seams of their breeches (when not breekless), heads up and eyes front. Face and body were motionless, as if cast in ebony: nothing moved but the saucer-like white eyes and the ivory-lined mouths, from whose ample lips and gape issued a prodigious volume of sound. Native assistants, in sable skins and yellowish white ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... what they want and do, seemed to me, when I thought of it, like gray, motionless figures; but in the holy solitude all around me everything was light and color. A fresh, warm breath of life and love fanned me, rustling and stirring in all the branches of the verdant grove. I gazed and enjoyed it all, the rich green, the white blossoms ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... from his body before the transit was over. When at last he landed and was detached from the cordage, he was so bruised, so nearly drowned, so every way exhausted, that he could not stand. He lay for quite a while motionless, his head swimming, his legs and arms twitching convulsively, every joint and muscle sore, catching his breath with painful gasps, almost fainting, and feeling much as if ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... onlookers stood by way of an audience, awaiting a drama composed of the strokes of chance, the faces of the actors, the circulation of coin, and the motion of the croupier's rake, much as a silent, motionless crowd watches the headsman in the Place de Greve. A tall, thin man, in a threadbare coat, held a card in one hand, and a pin in the other, to mark the numbers of Red or Black. He seemed a modern Tantalus, with all the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... brightened. It was a handsome face, with a mouth that smiled easily. His heavy-lidded eyes behind astonishingly thick and curling lashes were blue; when he lifted them the observer felt a slight shock, for they were curiously motionless; generally, however, the heavy lids drooped, lazily good-humored. He read Mrs. Richie's letter and tapped the edge of his desk with strong, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... arm without turning his head, or by any gesture whatever acknowledging her presence, he took her hand and pressed it to his burning lips, and then laid it upon his cheek. She made no effort to withdraw her hand, and sat perfectly still and motionless. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... let go my hand, turned to Gaston, who was standing at the door motionless as a statue and, to all appearance, deaf and blind as one also, uttered the one word, "Rustan!" and fled swiftly down the dark side corridor, leaving me utterly bewildered. The western sun was flooding the cabinet of the First Consul when I went into my hiding-place, ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... were seated in a wide circle. Their sick children lay in their arms or played at their feet. Here was a child whose life was choked at the source by hereditary disease—a small bundle of skin and bone with limbs like bamboo canes. Another lay motionless with closed eyes and a deathly face, as if pining to return to the world it came from. A little cripple dragged behind it a deformed leg as it tried to crawl, and near by a child of five was beating ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... master sat motionless for some time, gazing at the floor as if in meditation. Then he rose, went to his book-case and took down a large thick volume, which he ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the reflection from which shed a glowing tint on every object; the floor was covered with a rich Turkey carpet, and the air was heavy with perfumes. In this rosy light and balmy atmosphere was seated the princess, on a low platform at the further end of the tent, dressed in shining robes and motionless as an idol. Around her, crouching on their heels, were arranged some twenty women in full dress. Having allowed Madame de Hell a few minutes to admire her, the princess slowly descended the steps of the platform, approached with ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... lords to be seated, and commanded that her 'faithful Commons' should be summoned. When the members of. the lower House had come in, the speaker read a speech, to which, I have recorded, Her Majesty listened, in a cold, quiet manner, sitting perfectly motionless, even to her fingers and eyelids. The Iron Duke standing at her left, bent, and trembled slightly—supporting with evident difficulty the ponderous sword of State. Prince Albert, sitting tall and soldier- like, in his handsome ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... fell from the oars and when they touched the sea there flamed up for an instant a little blue spot. The night was growing darker and more silent. The sky no longer resembled a rough sea; the clouds extended over its surface, forming a thick, even curtain, hanging motionless above the ocean. The sea was calmer and blacker, its warm and salty odor was stronger and it did not appear as ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... electricity, was practically estimated by the time required to bring the cube and its associated mirrors to a state of rest. With bismuth this time amounted to a score of seconds or more: a cube of copper, on the contrary, was struck almost instantly motionless ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... where the tent was that I have already mentioned, and he entered his and performed his usual ceremonies and prayers. You must not think that when the king passed the troops moved from their positions, on the contrary they stood motionless in their places till the king returned. As soon as the king had finished his ceremonies he again took horse and returned to the city in the same way as he had come, the troops never wearying of their shouting; ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... I looked across the room. Mr. Hamilton was still standing by the mantelpiece, perfectly motionless. He had covered his eyes with his hand, and seemed lost in profound thought. He absolutely started ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... were accustomed. She had never seen mustachios before, for they were not worn by civilians in Lower Wessex at this date. His hands and his face were white—to her view deadly white— and he heeded nothing outside his own existence. There he remained as motionless as the bushes around him; indeed, he scarcely seemed ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... of Wicks, motionless and broken, lay far below the window, on the pavement of an air and light shaft, formed like a niche in the building. Garrison sent Dorothy to her lodgings, promising to visit her soon. There was nothing she could do ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... gone, Mrs. Mavick sat long in her chair, motionless between bewilderment and rage. In her heart she was saying, "The obstinate, foolish girl must be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Burwood. Instead, she settled down again in London, and not one of those whom Robert Elsmere had loved was forgotten by his widow. Every Sunday morning, with her child beside her, she worshipped in the old ways; every Sunday afternoon saw her black-veiled figure sitting motionless in a corner of the Elgood Street Hall. In the week she gave all her time and money to the various works of charity which he had started. But she held her peace. Many were grateful to her; some loved her; none understood ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the forest, the boys stopped with a cry of delight. A motionless heap of yellowish brown lay half in half out of the fringe of trees, the shelter of which the poor creature had ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the expression of crushing pain was so strong, that, after Fleda had fearfully made her way up beside her, she could do no more. She stood there tongue-tied, spell-bound, present to nothing but a nameless chill of fear and heart-sinking. She was afraid to speak afraid to touch her aunt, and abode motionless in the grasp of that dread for minutes. But Mrs. Rossitur did not stir a hair, and the terror of that stillness grew to be less ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... minutes he stands there motionless, watching the new creature that he has never seen before; and it will be well for you to keep perfectly quiet and let him surrender the path when he is so disposed. Motion on your part may bring him nearer ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... made in fine order, and they carried off all their wounded in safety. Upon a crowded wagon lay Julius Alvinzi; living, indeed, but a living wreck, and his recovery despaired of. He had been wounded in six places, and lay motionless and insensible; his servant walking by his side in silent trouble. As the remains of his regiment marched slowly back upon Mantua, and passed the convoy of the wounded close to the gates, you might have heard the name of Alvinzi ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... sheet, and seemed to have wilted as though the flames had blasted him. He sank down upon the roof, and would have rolled off if the strong arm of his nephew had not saved him. His eyes were closed, his lips were blue and ashy, and his frame was motionless. Levi was alarmed by his appearance. He was either dead or had fainted, and the young man saw that he must be removed. Lying down by the side of the senseless form, he clasped his arms around it, and rose to his feet with the burden on his back. Like all misers, uncle Nathan was nothing but ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... a very old man, so old, indeed, as to make it hard to guess his age from his face and his hands, the only parts visible as he lay at rest, the vast body and limbs lying motionless under his garment, as beneath a heavy white pall. He could not be less than a hundred years old, but how much older than that he might really be, it was impossible to say. What might be called the waxen period had set in, and the high colourless features seemed to be modelled in that soft, semi-transparent ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... attraction for Kai Lung. Almost before Li-loe had disappeared he was at the shutter in the wall, had forced it open and was looking out. Thus long he waited, motionless, but observing every leaf that stirred among the trees and shrubs and neglected growth beyond. At last a figure passed across a distant glade and at the sight Kai Lung lifted up a restrained ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... Dotting this motionless ocean everywhere, like whitened sails, are quiet homes, real argosies ventured by the sturdy and industrious people who have fought their way through almost insurmountable difficulties to the tranquillity which now ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... dark when he awoke, and lay on the bed, motionless and trembling, his heart sinking in the knowledge that he should never have slept. For almost half a minute, eyes wide with fear, he lay in the silence of the gloomy room, straining to hear some sound, some indication ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... The motionless figures on the blankets, with every boy sleeping with his feet turned toward the fire, which now had died down, presented a sight which would have appealed strongly to their distant friends in the east had they been able to see it. Seldom did any figure stir and the ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... still sat motionless, but his face gradually changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... answered, and that no harm would befall her. Pharaoh mistook her silence and advanced toward her. As he did so, however, he felt a tremendous blow on the head. He was stunned for a moment. On recovering himself he looked all round the room, but could see nothing. Sarah continued to stand motionless. ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... settled on the river. Enoch lay motionless until they called him in to supper. When he entered the cabin where the table was set, Curly cried, "Hello, Judge! Where've you been? I swear you look as if you'd ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... comer was his comrade Wilson, of the coastguard, whose place he had taken on the eventful night of the wreck. On rounding the point of rock, and coming suddenly on our hero, that worthy was struck dumb and motionless for at least a minute, while his eyes gradually opened wide with surprise, and ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... a murmur to disturb your unfinished dream and warn you that you are no longer sleeping; not a breath to recall you to reality; not a movement to rustle the coverings. I will be silent as a shade, motionless as a statue; and if I kiss you—for, after all, I have my weaknesses—it will be done with a thousand precautions, my lips will scarcely brush your sleeping shoulder; and if you quiver with pleasure as you stretch ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... the air. Filmy purple mists, that were not vapors but fabrics woven of color, hid in the recesses of the hills. San Francisco lay like a blur of smoke upon her heights. The intervening bay was a dull sheen of molten metal, whereon sailing craft lay motionless or drifted with the lazy tide. Far Tamalpais, barely seen in the silver haze, bulked hugely by the Golden Gate, the latter a pale gold pathway under the westering sun. Beyond, the Pacific, dim and vast, was raising on its sky-line tumbled ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... sir," she said, pointing in-doors to where a long, motionless figure seated in a chair was covered with a ragged patchwork quilt. The doctor nodded gravely, paused, asked if ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... in silence, till on coming about half-way across the room, he gives to all present, but looking specially at the master of the house, the customary "Es-salamu'aleykum," or "Peace be with you," literally, "on you." All this while every one else in the room has kept his place, motionless, and without saying a word. But on receiving the salaam of etiquette, the master of the house rises, and if a strict Wahhabee, or at any rate desirous of seeming such, replies with the full-length traditionary formula. "W' 'aleykumu-s-salamu, w'rahmat' Ullahi w'barakatuh," ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... kisses—rather so Had he stood stabbed to see, than on to go His round of lonely exile! Now he stands Beneath her house, and on his spear his hands Rest, and upon his hands he grounds his chin, And motionless abides till day come in; Pure of his vice, that he might ease her woe, Not brand her with his own. Not yet the glow Of false dawn throbbed, nor yet the silent town Stood washt in light, clear-printed to the crown In the cold upper ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... men were led out upon the traps. Permission was given to them to speak their last words. Casey availed himself of the privilege and spoke a few minutes in clear loud voice, in somewhat excited manner, denying his guilt of murder and vindicating his action. Cora stood all the while as motionless as a statue. Not a tremor or quiver was perceptible. The white cap covered his head and face to below the chin. At the conclusion of Casey's brief speech, the cap was drawn over his face, and as the hangman pulled it down he whispered in his ear something that made the doomed ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... red, which the wind heaps up into hills. Scarcely any region on the earth's surface is more desolate. The boundless plain lies stretched before the traveller like an interminable sea, but dead, dull, and motionless. Vegetation, even the most dry and sapless, scarcely exists. For three or four hundred miles together he sees no running stream. Water, salt, slimy, and discolored, lies Occasionally in pools, or is drawn from wells, which yield however only a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Kirby sneeringly, his cold gaze surveying his motionless opponent. "You seem to be taking your time. Do you cover ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... fishes, which Josselyn calls the Fresh-Water or River Wolf, is very common in the shallow and weedy lagoons along the sides of the stream. It is a solemn, stately, ruminant fish, lurking under the shadow of a pad at noon, with still, circumspect, voracious eye, motionless as a jewel set in water, or moving slowly along to take up its position, darting from time to time at such unlucky fish or frog or insect as comes within its range, and swallowing it at a gulp. I have caught one which had ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... sleep, and only when my mule ran me against some spiny branch, did I wake to find myself in a fantastic forest of leafless, towering cacti, that stood motionless, black, and silent in the moonlight, like spectres with numberless arms uplifted. The overwhelming noise of the frogs seemed to voice their thoughts and forbid me to advance farther. But the mule accelerated its pace, the shadows glided quicker and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... Now they were putting on the bridles; now they were fastening the saddles; they were mounted; the gate was being opened; in another moment they would sweep down on them. Then she looked at her lover standing there so motionless, waiting—for what? The thought of it ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... Perching motionless, alone, Ibis, bird of classic fame, From a carven slab of stone Reads the moon-god's ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... recruiting office, as you say, of the Mafia, but instead tried to take from me the much money I am holding." I then went on to describe to them my desire to attain contact with the said Mafia; meanwhile they descended further and grouped about me in the very little light, examining curiously the motionless figures of ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... Tell me, stand we motionless, Or still forward do we press? All things round us whirl and fly; Rocks and trees make strange grimaces, Dazzling meteors change their places, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... gone to bed he kept his promise:—sitting motionless in his chair, his elbow on the arm of it, his head ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... finished there was a reverential silence. President Arthur, who seemed to have been deeply impressed, made no movement to go. The immense audience was motionless. It was the most impressive moment of the day. At length there was a faint stir. Then President Arthur arose, and, with his Cabinet, silently left the great hall. The Supreme Court followed, and then the great assemblage quietly dissolved. The last public ceremonial over the death of Garfield was ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... been tears, and tenderness, and poetry,—and, perhaps, a parting caress. But with his jeering words, and sneering face, he was as hard to her as a rock. He was now silent, but still looking down upon her as he stood motionless upon the rug,—so that she was compelled to speak again. "I sent for you, Lord George, because I did not like the idea of parting with you for ever, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... or what seemed a long time, while they stood motionless in the summer night, with the great branches of the trees moving a little overhead, and garden scents creeping out on the damp air, Margaret said, with a sort of breathless catch ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... She knew! She flung out her hands and gripped at the window-frame and watched. She saw her aunt, her usually ruddy face drawn, haggard, and white. She saw something that lay motionless on a part of the old barn-door, which four men were carrying with such care. She saw a man on a bicycle dashing ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... results (too long allowed to remain so), it may be well, under the circumstances, to refer to a still more remarkable experiment by the same most sagacious investigator. By a prick with a sharp lancet at a certain point, he has been able to paralyze one-half of the leaf-trap, so that it remained motionless under the stimulus to which the other half responded. Such high and sensitive organization entails corresponding ailments. Mr. Canby tells us that he gave to one of his Dionaea-subjects a fatal dyspepsia by feeding it with cheese; and under Mr. Darwin's ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... Monthyon—where we saw the battle of the Marne begin,— and the line they were observing was the Iles-les-Villenoy, in the river right at the west of us. When I first saw the exercises, there were half a dozen lovely red and green lights hanging motionless in the sky. I could hear the heavy detonation of the cannon or gun, or whatever they use to throw them, and then see the long arc of light like a chain of gold, which marked the course of the fusee, until it burst into color at the end. I wrapped myself up, took my field-glasses, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... and the teacher Carol leased a small flat. Here she found home, her own place and her own people. She had, though it absorbed most of her salary, an excellent nurse for Hugh. She herself put him to bed and played with him on holidays. There were walks with him, there were motionless evenings of reading, but chiefly Washington was associated with people, scores of them, sitting about the flat, talking, talking, talking, not always wisely but always excitedly. It was not at all the "artist's studio" of which, because of its persistence in fiction, she had dreamed. Most of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... never-failing sensation in the spectator as they pass afar or near. Of course, the supreme attraction in their sort for the newly arrived American is the pair of statuesque warriors who motionlessly sit their motionless steeds at the gates of the Horse- Guards, and express an archaic uselessness as perfectly as if they were Highlanders taking snuff before a tobacconist's shop. When I first arrived in London in the earliest of those sad eighteen-sixties when our English brethren were equipping our Confederate brethren ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped. Upon this, the dial plate (if we may credit the fable) changed countenance with alarm; the hands made a vain effort to continue their course; the wheels remained motionless with surprise; the weights hung speechless; and each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the others. At length the dial instituted a formal inquiry as to the cause of the stagnation, when hands, wheels, weights, with one voice, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the sight of me stood motionless Those fortunate spirits, all of them, as if Oblivious to go ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... gun and dashed off at a run along the road... Dust was whirling in the distance—Azamat was galloping away on the mettlesome Karagyoz. Kazbich, as he ran, tore his gun out of its cover and fired. For a moment he remained motionless, until he had assured himself that he had missed. Then he uttered a shrill cry, knocked the gun against a rock, smashed it to splinters, fell to the ground, and burst out sobbing like a child... The people from the fortress gathered round him, but he took no notice of anyone. They ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... in a riot of olive-greens of a thousand hues, reached out its arms and folded the Snark in. There was no perilous passage through the reef, no emerald surf and azure sea— nothing but a warm soft land, a motionless lagoon, and tiny beaches on which swam dark-skinned tropic children. The sea had disappeared. The Snark's anchor rumbled the chain through the hawse-pipe, and we lay without movement on a "lineless, level floor." It was all so beautiful and strange that we could ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... dim, but the six tall waxen torches threw a warm light on the quiet face, and the white robes reflected it around. There were three torches on each side, too, and there were three Noble Guards in full dress, motionless, with drawn swords, as though on parade. But no one looked at them. Only the marble face, with its kind, far-away smile, fixed itself in each man's eyes, and its memory remained with each when he had gone away. It was very solemn and simple, and there ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... he said to himself, and for a long time he sat there in the darkness, in the stillness of the evening, motionless as the tree in whose shade he sat, plunged in the most profound and strange reverie, from which presently his quick ear, alert and keen even when his mind was deep in thought, caught the light and careful sound of ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... amongst the shadows of the auditorium. Several times during the performance he had glanced up in the same direction; once he had almost fancied he could see a solitary, bent figure sitting rigid and motionless in the first row of the amphitheatre. No man was possessed of a smaller share of curiosity in the ordinary sense of the word than Matravers; but the thought that this might be the same man come again to witness a play which had appealed ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the child's death, Mrs. Beeler has sunk with a low moan into a chair, where she lies white and motionless. ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... been speaking, the girl stood motionless, every line on her face showing plainly the conflict raging within her breast. Her eyes were dry, for there are griefs so deep and searing that they, with their fiery tongues, do lick up the springing tears ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... her figure was altering, she was at length undeceived, and became like an imprisoned animal, did not speak and cowered motionless in the darkest corners, and did not even rebel at the blows, which marked her pale, passive face. She carefully thought over every minute in the past few months, and did her utmost to fill up the voids in her memory, and at last she guessed who ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... STAFF, silent, motionless and watchful, stands beside him with his hands resting on the table-top. He is thin, old and emaciated, clean-shaven, firm-lipped, and looks startlingly like a bird of prey. Right, stands a group ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... of the horizon to the landward cliffs the ocean appeared motionless; it was only when I had advanced almost to the cliffs that I saw the movement of waves—that I perceived the contrast between inland inertia and the restless repose of the sea, stirring ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... something black and slender twisted away into a darker place. Sunni stood absolutely still, gradually letting go his hold upon the pipal twigs. Presently everything was as it had been before, except for the little dark motionless figure on the wall; and the south wind was bringing across the long, shrill, mournful howls of the jackals that plundered the refuse of the British camp half a ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... that a leech may tend thee. Silent still? Nay, Child, what profits silence? If 'tis ill This that I counsel, makes me see the wrong: If well, then yield to me. Nay, Child, I long For one kind word, one look! [PHAEDRA lies motionless. The NURSE rises.] Oh, woe is me! Women, we labour here all fruitlessly, All as far off as ever from her heart! She ever scorned me, and now hears no part Of all my prayers! [Turning to PHAEDRA again.] Nay, hear thou shalt, and be, If so thou will, more ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... sat motionless, breathing softly, with closed eyes. Then she began to smile—and her lips were full and red, and at last they shaped ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... our right. But athwart our path it never fell until we reached the very summit of the pass. Then we passed quietly into the full glory of the winter morning—a tranquil flood of sunbeams, pouring through air of crystalline purity, frozen and motionless. White peaks and dark brown rocks soared up, cutting a sky of almost purple blueness. A stillness that might be felt brooded over the whole world; but in that stillness there was nothing sad, no suggestion of suspended vitality. It was the stillness rather of untroubled ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... came, and entered the quiet room until it was full of people; for the news spread from one to another of what had taken place. And in the midst of all the tumult, and of all the clamor of the crowd of neighbors, Rico stood by the bedside speechless, motionless, and gazed at his father. All through the week the house was filled with people who wished to look at the man, and hear from the cousin how it had all happened; so that the lad heard it repeated over and over, that ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... delight in watching the play of fantasies which appeared to come and go independently of myself. There was still a dim consciousness of outward things mingled with my condition; I was not beyond the recall of my senses. But one day, I remember, as I sat motionless as a statue, having ceased any longer to attempt to control my dead limbs, more than usually passive, a white, shining mist gradually stole around me; my eyes finally ceased to take cognizance of objects; a low, musical humming sounded in my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... by the cessation of the firing, and seeing that some one was wounded, were coming on well abreast of us. But the first shot warned them, and the two which followed sent them once more back under cover, leaving one of their number, to Pomp's great delight, motionless ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... had covered it, like a coverlet, up to the neck, while beyond that protruded the head. It was turned toward him: a bony, skeleton head, whose hollow cavities seemed not altogether vacancy but rather dark eyes which looked gloomily at him—dark eyes fixed, motionless; which had been thus fixed through the long years, watching wistfully for him, expecting his entrance through that doorway. And this was the Being who had assisted him to the shore, and who had thrown off the covering of sand with which he had concealed himself, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... lips; and then she stood rigid, erect, motionless, glaring alternately at me and at the fatal bottle with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets. I glanced towards the son; he was also affected in a terrible manner. His knees smote each other, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren |
