|
|
|
More "Stillness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the rapidly stripping branches, where a few rustling leaves still told of their departed glories. The long undefined shadows of the trees stretched far across the wide lawn, scarcely moving in the profound stillness of the air; and a whole assembly of birds kept up a low-toned conversation in the bushes, as if the day were hardly bright enough to warrant a full chorus of concerted song. It was a tender, wistful kind of day, such as comes sometimes in the fall of the year, before the advent of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... sound that sent him whipping behind the door in a trice. Miss Hazeltine had stepped on board the houseboat. Her sketch was promising; judging from the stillness, she supposed Jimson not yet come; and she had decided to seize occasion and complete the work of art. Down she sat therefore in the bow, produced her block and water-colours, and was soon singing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Judy disposed of, what should I say next? And the moment her mind turned from Judy, I saw a certain stillness—not a cloud, but the shadow of a cloud—come over Miss Oldcastle's face, as if she, too, found herself uncomfortable, and did not know what to say next. I tried to get a glance at the book in her hand, for I should know something about her at once if I could only see what she was reading. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... great deal to her, without knowing where to begin. She had surprised him too much—as usual. She was so different from what he had been dreaming about. Here was no one of the imaginary creatures that had risen before his mind during the stillness of the night. Even the pale dreamer in black and blue beads was gone. He found before him (as far as he could make out) a quiet, bright-faced, self-possessed girl, clad in a light and cool costume of white, with bits of black velvet about ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... succeeded the happening of these events; but it was as the solemn stillness which precedes the eruption of an earthquake, when a volcanic explosion has given notice of its approach;—rendered more awful by the uncertainty where its desolating influence would be felt. It was however, a stillness of but short duration. The gathering storm soon burst ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... made by Hera and Athena to help the Greeks, but the goddesses quailed before the punishment wherewith Zeus threatened them. When night came the Trojans encamped on the open plain, their camp-fires gleaming like the stars which appear on some night of stillness. ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... heads did the Dedannan host listen to Finola's chant, and when the music ceased and only sobs broke the stillness, the four swans spread their wings, and, soaring high, paused but for one short moment to gaze on the kneeling forms of Lir and Bove Derg. Then, stretching their graceful necks toward the north, they winged their flight to the waters of the stormy sea that separates the blue Alba from the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... toward the rear and had almost passed the house, when a deep roar broke the stillness. It was succeeded by another, and another, like the bellowing of a mad bull, and the intruders stopped short and Louise clung to her uncle in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... course of human events," and it marches on in stately tones above the silence of the people. At the words "all men are created free and equal," the name of Franklin breaks upon the stillness. Jamie the Scotchman joins in the rising applause, and he proudly turns to Jane ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... King sprang up the steps, then paused in the great doorway, beyond which the darkness and quiet of an empty interior silently invited passers-by to rest and reflect. At that moment a deep organ note sounded far away upon the stillness, and King took a step inside, looking cautiously about him. The figure he pursued had vanished, and after a moment more he crossed the vestibule and stood, hat in hand, gazing ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... grim wild moors it is not hard at midnight, through the roaring of the wind, or in the stillness of a calm night broken only by the weird cry of some nocturnal bird or the distant sound of a rushing stream, to imagine, far away, the baying of ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... rivers Cluden and Cairn. In front stretched the moors and hills of the ancient district of Galloway, at that time given over to the tender mercies of Graham of Claverhouse. Beside him stood the two patient troop-horses, gazing quietly at the prostrate man, as if in mild surprise at his unusual stillness. ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... going out, however, he found a sentry at the door, who ordered him back, telling him, that without the captain's leave they would not be allowed to leave their cabin. In a short time longer, the sound of the anchor let go, and the perfect stillness of the ship, convinced Jack that he was right in his conjectures. Soon after this a person they had not before seen came ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... rusty black, and bearing in his hand a small plain Bible from which he selects some passage for his text, while the hymn is concluding. The congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... week with Anne, sleeping in the house at her behest. For a week she had braved it out alone. Then came the sudden surrender to dread, terror, loneliness. The shadows in the halls were grim; the sounds in the night were sinister, the stillness that followed them creepy; the servants were things that stalked her, and she was afraid—mortally afraid in this home that was not hers. She had made up her mind to go away for a long time just as ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... I found myself in the heart of the forest. It reached all about me on every side for hundreds of miles. All around me was the unbroken stillness of the woods. Not a sound reached my ear save the twittering of a squirrel, or squirl, in the branches high above my head or the far-distant call of a loon hovering over ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... succeeding to the hot and parching breezes of summer, that the Ottoes assembled to dance and feast in the cabin of their chief. It was one of the most beautiful nights ever beheld. Nothing was heard to break the stillness of the hour, save the rustling of the branches of the cedar and pine, the slight music of a little rivulet, and the mournful singing of the wekolis,[A] perched in the low branches of the willow. The feast was prepared, the Master ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... for word to be flashed him that the debt he owed Clay Lindsay had been settled in full. A telephone lay on the desk close at hand and beside it was a watch. The second-hand ticked its way jerkily round and round the circle. Except for that the stillness weighed on him unbearably. He paced up and down the room chewing nervously the end of an unlit cigar. For the good tidings which he was anxious to hear was news of the death of the strong young enemy who had beaten him ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... shoulder of my trooper. It was only a nasty long scratch. While I was busy about it a bell began to ring in the distance. The sound fell deliciously on the ear, clear like the morning light. But it stopped all at once. You know how a distant bell stops suddenly. I never knew before what stillness meant. While I was wondering at it the fellow holding our horses was moved to uplift his voice. He was a Spaniard, not a Basque, and he trolled out in Castilian that song ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... brought temporary relief to his sufferings), it would have sufficed, had Odette only permitted him to remain in her house while she was out, to wait there until that hour of her return, into whose stillness and peace would flow, to be mingled and lost there, all memory of those intervening hours which some sorcery, some cursed spell had made him imagine as, somehow, different from the rest. But she would not; he must return home; he ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... through the long watches of the night, sounds are borne to you which tell that the jungle is afoot. The argus pheasants yell to one another as the hours creep by; the far-away trumpet of an elephant breaks the stillness; and the frightened barking cry of a deer comes to you from across the river. The insects are awake all night, and the little workman bird sits on a tree close by you and drives coffin nails without number. With the dawn, the tree beetles again raise their ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... am just wondering if one might not be dining with the head of the university philosophy department and his academic guests some night and hear one's voice uttering down a suddenly silent table, "She ain't livin' at that address no more." Utterly abashed, one's then natural exclamation on the stillness would be, "My Gawd!" Whereat the hostess would busily engage her end of the table in anguished conversation, giving her husband one look, which, translated into Lena's language, would say, "What t' hell did we ask ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... peal of thunder through all the streets and into all the houses; and, while within their closed doors, and in the stillness of their own homes, the well-disposed praised the king for having the courage to protect the priests and the emigres, the evil-disposed bellowed out their curses through all the streets, and called upon the rabble to avenge themselves upon ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... passed; its fogs, its rains withdrew from England their mourning and their tears; its winds swept on to sigh over lands far away. Behind November came deep winter—clearness, stillness, frost accompanying. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... ever of chalcedony and onyx, nor of all her fathers the gods, but only of all the birds. Then in the woods and meadows where they had all suddenly sung, they suddenly ceased. And Inzana, looking up, found that her ball was lost, and all alone in the stillness one owl laughed. When the gods heard Inzana crying for her ball They clustered together on the threshold and peered into the dark, but saw no golden ball. And leaning forward They cried out to the bat as he passed ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... o'clock Rivermouth goes to bed. At eleven o'clock Rivermouth is as quiet as a country churchyard. At twelve o'clock there is nothing left with which to compare the stillness that broods ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... disarray of her nightgown, sat upright. The alarm clock on the floor by the bed clacked in the stillness. The tap in the kitchen cubicle dripped. Timbers, contracting in the cool of early ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert
... we reached the verge of the wood, and as we rode out upon the plain, what a spectacle met our eyes! Before us, in a narrow valley separated from the river by a low ridge, were picketed three cavalry regiments; their noiseless gestures and perfect stillness be-speaking at once that they were intended for a surprise party. Farther down the stream, and upon the opposite side, rose the massive towers and tall spires of Oporto, displaying from their summits the broad ensign of France; while far as the eye could reach, the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Silence continues—stillness profound, awe-inspiring. They in the boat begin to doubt the evidence of their senses. Is there a barque before their eyes? Or is it all an illusion? How can a vessel be under sail— full sail—without sailors? And if any, why do they not show at her ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... monotonous whiteness—not merely for days or weeks, but for more than half a year together. Whichever way the eye is turned, it meets a picture calculated to impress upon the mind an idea of inanimate stillness, of that motionless torpor with which our feelings have nothing congenial; of anything, in short, but life. In the very silence there is a deadness with which a human spectator appears out of keeping. The presence ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... with some such grave apophthegm in my mind when I discovered, for the first time, a venerable pile, to which the enclosure belonged. An air of melancholy hung about it. There was a languid stillness in the day, and a single crow, that perched on an old tree by the side of the gate, seemed to delight in the echo ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... with a marble basin and a tap of cold water. The offer was a novel one, but he accepted it, and fitted up the apartment with some cheap second-hand furniture, quite inconsistent with the carved mantels and decorations, and made a fair sitting-room and bedroom of it. Here, on a Sunday, when its stillness was intensified, and even a passing footstep on the pavement fifty feet below was quite startling, he would sit and work by one of the quaint open windows. In the rainy season, through the filmed panes he sometimes caught a glimpse ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... upon her as she sat there. Bits of her childhood flashed back at her out of the eternal stillness, "even as the beads of a told rosary." Since the day she met Alden's father, everything was clear and distinct, for, with women, life begins with love and the rest is as though it ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the tangible, the hanging in a void, the horror of great darkness, loneliness unspeakable. Endure, endure. Everything must go. "Nothing out of the Eternal can help you." God only shines out in the stillness; as says the Hebrew: "Be still, and know that I am God." In that silence a Voice shall be heard, the voice of the Self, In that stillness a Life shall be felt, the life of the Self. In that void a Fullness shall be revealed, the fullness of the Self. In that ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... see! he has stepped on the railing, he climbs with his feet and his hands, And firm on a narrow projection, with the belfry beneath him, he stands! Now once, and once only, they cheer him—a single tempestuous breath, And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush like the stillness of death. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... a day of beauty—the trees and grass lightly rimed, the air sparkling and translucent. Nature was held in the rest of winter; but beneath the outward stillness, one caught as it were the strong heart-beat of the mighty mother. Diana climbed the steep down without a pause, save when she turned round from time to time to help her companion. Her slight firm frame, the graceful decision of her movements, the absence ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... swept down by floods from the banks, or shivered by tempests from the brow; and the sullen sound, at stated intervals, from the strokes of the great hammers in the forge, deadens the roar of the water-fall"—the solitude, the loveliness, and the stillness of Dovedale, "the whole of which has the air of enchantment; grotesque as chance can cast, wild as nature can produce"—the monkish tomb-stones, and the monuments of benefactors long since forgotten, which appear above ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... The stillness, doubly effective after the tumult just quitted, the lulling voice of the water, the soothing aspect of the quivering foliage, the noble building, and the cool and capacious quadrangle, the aspect even of those who ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the great class of mammals enlivened the depths of the forest. There were fishes in the waters, but not the fishes of to-day. Some true reptiles and amphibians disported themselves in swampy jungles, but they were unimportant. Almost the only sound to break the stillness, was the hum of marsh-loving insects, the whistling of the wind, and the roar of the tempests, which we may well believe raged with the more than tropic severity of ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... does Love speak? In wild words that uttered seem so weak They shrink ashamed to silence; in the fire Glance strikes with glance, swift flashing high and higher, Like lightnings that precede the mighty storm In the deep, soulful stillness; in the warm, Impassioned tide that sweeps thro' throbbing veins, Between the shores of keen delights and pains; In the embrace where madness melts in bliss, And in the convulsive rapture of a kiss: ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... play away. It's good to hear the piano going again. And, between ourselves, I'm beginning to feel depressed by the stillness of the house. It's difficult to believe that this is home since we took on hospital work. Between ourselves, I sha'n't be sorry when Ormsby says good-bye. As a strong man and a soldier, I like him; but, as a sick man, I've had enough of him. Never had a fancy ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... is!" and the two friends went to the side door and stood together in a moment of affectionate silence, looking out toward the sunset across the wide fields. The country was still with that deep rural stillness which seems to mean the absence of humanity. Only the thrushes were singing far away in the walnut woods beyond the orchard, and some crows were flying over and cawed once loudly, as if they were speaking to ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... his hat. But though Lydia saw him she dismissed him as quickly, perhaps as no matter for wonderment, and again because her mind was full of Esther. Now in the haste that dares not linger, she crossed the street and ascended the steps of the brick house. As she did so she was conscious of the stillness within. It might have been a house embodied out of her own dreams. But she did not ring, nor did she touch the circlet the brass lion of a knocker held obligingly in his mouth. She lifted the heavy latch, stepped in and shut the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... straight ahead of her down the long dim avenue, making no response to his question. The cherries that swung from her hat-brim stirred not a hair's-breadth, but the commotion their stillness caused in Quin's heart was nothing short ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... sitting alone in the cosy enclosures of a cushioned fauteuil, thought out the queer circumstance that had visited her to-night; never noticing how fast time flitted by, never heeding the stillness of advancing night, until Mr. Rayne's late arrival roused her from her reverie, and brought her suddenly back from the sunlight of her dreams to the grim darkness of the reality. Kissing him a ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... its beauty—half savage, half gentle—leading perforce the mind of any cultivated and imaginative gazer far back from the present day, waking up long-forgotten passages from old poets. The stillness of such wastes of sward, such deeps of woodland, induced the nurture of revery, gravely soft and lulling. There, Ambition might give rest to the wheel of Ixion, Avarice to the sieve of the Danaids; there, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... now with a purpose. Pray don't fidget so dreadfully, George. It is really bad style. I am noted in London for moving in the very best society. I see the men of culture and refinement, who are always remarked for the stillness of their attitudes.' ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... seraphs sang in benediction of that peace of God which passeth understanding. The men who built and planted here were sick of the temples of Baalim, tired of being cribbed and cabined, weary of quarrelsome winds and voices. They wanted space and sun, and stillness, comfort and rest, and beauty, and the quiet ownership of their own; and no men ever more perfectly expressed, for future times to read, the ideal ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... along in the gloom among blackened corpses he thanked God for the stillness. It was comforting to him as water in the desert to a man dying. He drank it ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... well as he knew that he was then alive. Sensitive-natured men, such as he, were bound to be killed ... they had not the phlegm of men with blunter natures ... they would not be able to keep still when stillness meant safety ... their nerves would go, and in that hideous hell of noise and battering, of men killing or being killed, his ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... He went straight to the French galley, and cast anchor about eight paces from her. The other vessels went to the windward, and very near the enemy. During the maneuvers, which lasted until about two hours after sunset, not a word was said on either side. Never in my life have I known such stillness. Our general inquired of the French galley, which was the vessel nearest his, "Whence does this fleet come?" They answered, "From France." "What are you doing here?" said the Adelantado. "This is the territory of King Philip II. I order you to leave ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... along the street. He was followed by a woman who wailed 'wa-ater-creases!' Then the concertina once more possessed the stillness. Few pedestrians were abroad; the greater part of the male population of Lambeth slumbered after the baked joint and flagon of ale. Yet here and there a man in his shirt-sleeves leaned forth despondently from a window or sat in view within, dozing over ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... strange picture a University presents to the imagination. The lives of scholars in their cloistered stillness;—literary men of retired habits, and Professors who study sixteen hours a day, and never see the world but on a Sunday. Nature has, no doubt, for some wise purpose, placed in their hearts this love of literary labor and seclusion. Otherwise, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... soon at the entrance of the great park surrounding Azay-le-Roi. Calvert never forgot the look of the great avenue of rustling poplars and the exquisite grace of the chateau as he and Mr. Jefferson rode up to it on that September afternoon. A sunny stillness brooded over it; long shadows from the pointed turrets lay upon the fine white sand of the driveway and dipped along the gray walls of the chateau, which the hand of man had fretted with lace-like sculpture. In an angle of the courtyard ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... saw the tears in the eyes of the Sultana, everyone for a moment was silent, and suddenly, amidst the stillness of that dumb moment, from the highest window of the prison-fortress of the Seven Towers, a man's voice called loudly into the ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... from her statue-like stillness as the door closed behind him. The heavy breath of odorous flowers stole in through an open window and sickened her. For years after she could not dissociate their fragrance from the sorrow of that hour. She turned to the piano. He had left his music—and ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... Linley, for us to be out here." In the moment when she made that reply her merriment vanished; she looked out sadly, through the open door, at the stillness of the night. "What should I have done," she wondered, "if I had been shut out of the house by myself?" Her eyes rested on him timidly; there was some thought in her which she shrank from expressing. She only said: "I wish I knew how to be ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... came abreast, he opened his lips and closed them twice before passing on, and in the sultry stillness of the sleepy place they heard him ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... the pattering of red and yellow rain round the rough-hewn bench, the brown baby awakes and stretches out its arms with a lusty cry—a suggestive human sound that effectually breaks up the stillness; for at the same instant an urchin whittling wood in the hedge scrambles out in haste, and a buxom-looking woman steps from the porch of an ivy-covered lodge, wringing the soap-suds from ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... white lips no longer quivered—the eyes were suffused with a bluish vapor, and the long black lashes rested on a cheek white as wax. Madame de Villefort gazed upon the face so expressive even in its stillness; then she ventured to raise the coverlet and press her hand upon the young girl's heart. It was cold and motionless. She only felt the pulsation in her own fingers, and withdrew her hand with a shudder. One arm was hanging out of the bed; from ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... batons, and soldiers, with fixed bayonets, guarded the place of embarkation, till, at a given signal, the boats were loosed from their moorings, and glided gently over the waves. A loud shout burst from the spectators, which was succeeded by a stillness so profound, that, for several moments, the measured dash of the oars was distinctly heard on shore. An equal silence prevailed on board the shallops, which were rowed in exact unison, while the men, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... the stillness of the room except the laboured breathing of the poor old woman. Philippa gazed at the still white face, perfectly still, perfectly white, and apparently lifeless. The nurse raised herself with a sigh which seemed to intimate that all further ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... to Nick, sharp and distinct, through the dark stillness. He said nothing at the moment, and presently he heard Barney speak again, as he stood invisible, and enveloped in the gloom of the night, at the ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... is very surprising that the country should affect me so; whether it be that the scenes to be met with there, fall infinitely short of my ideas of pastoral simplicity; or that I have acquired so strong a relish for the variety and hurry of a town life, as to languish in the stillness of retirement; or that the atmosphere is too moist and heavy, I shall ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... accounted for by particular causes. On the journey to Rome, the vague misgivings took shape in one definite experience. "From the steep slope a heavy mass of stone was detached, after some whisperings among the trees above his head, and rushing down through the stillness fell to pieces in a cloud of dust across the road just behind him, so that he felt the touch upon his heel." That was sufficient, just then, to rouse out of its hiding-place his old vague fear of evil—of one's "enemies." Such distress was ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... classically beautiful and faultless in mechanism. Its flow is that of a river over sands of gold, its solemn monotone broken now and then by staccato plaints, and the tender gold of its shining waters dimmed by dark shadows, as rock beneath or tree above assails the gentle stillness of its onward flow. Only that which comes from the heart goes again to the heart. We find a new and delicious personality, a simple Greek naturalness, in this exquisite dirge that scarcely owns the 'blasphemy of grief,' that are wanted in his ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... astonished the writer, could he at that moment have been clairvoyant. But Mary felt as one who finds, in the emptiness after a friend's death, an unexpected message or memento; and all alone in the white, calm stillness of her little room her heart took sudden possession of her. She opened the letter with trembling hands, and read what of course we shall let you read. We got it out of a bundle of old, smoky, yellow letters, years after all the parties concerned were gone on the eternal journey ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... great roaring blaze that our Russian drivers piled high with big logs the whole night through; and the next morning, in the phantom gloom we were off again, gliding noiselessly through the forest, charged with the unutterable stillness of infinite ethereal space; but, as the shadows paled, there was unfolded a fairyland of enchanted wonders that I shall always remember. Invisible hands of artistry had draped the countless pines with garlands and wreaths of white ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... was satisfied. There was complete stillness and silence for a moment, then another short lurching journey through the cane; and next, with an abruptness that made the engineer's senses swim again, the fellow once more took to the air. The speed with which he "got away" ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... curtain fell on the Antigone who kept her pose without a tremor, the uproar of applause was so great that it had to rise, not only twice, but three times. At the last, a faint wavering shook slightly the Antigone's sculptured stillness and poor old Oedipus rocked obviously ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... BABBIJAM kept his binoculars levelled at the silent horizon for three-quarters of an hour by the saloon clock. Far away in the murky distance of the mysterious empyrean, a single star flashed with a weird brilliance down upon the death-like stillness of the immemorial ocean. Yet the good old Marlinspike was rolling from side to side and rising and falling as if the liquid expanse were stirred by the rush of a tempest instead of lying as motionless as a country congregation during the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... oppressive stillness had settled down on everything in and out of the hospital while Jackson was going on with his story. I noticed it only as the hush of a tropic midnight; but as he spoke, I heard—apparently out on the prairie—a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... went out. The glare cut off abruptly. There was only a dim redness where the space-port tarmac had been made incandescent for a little while. That glow faded—and Cochrane became aware of the enormous stillness. He had not really noticed the rocket's deafening roar until ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... be imagined that the whole scene by which we are here surrounded has over it an air of profound and deathlike stillness. The sea, where we behold nothing but water around us, presents more of life to divert the mind. The very rushing and splash of the wheels, the bounding waves, the bustle of bending or reefing sails, and the crowding of ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... actual and menacing. Every corner seemed to threaten an ambush. Our voices echoed so loudly that unconsciously we spoke in lower tones. The tap of the captain's walking-stick resounded like the blow of a hammer. The emptiness and stillness was like that of a vast cemetery, and the grass that had grown through the paving-stones deadened the sound of our steps. This silence was broken only by the barking of the French seventy-fives, in ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... getting low by this time, and the stillness of the wilds was only broken by the twittering of a little flock of birds in the adjacent trees, when Dinny came running ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... did so because it was haunted by the ghosts of William Barton and Luella Sealy. The house is now standing idle, and is known to the children of the neighborhood as the "haunted house," and many say that, in the night, two white figures are seen walking on the verandah, and that frequently the stillness is broken by the sound of a pistol, and the agonizing shrieks of a woman in the anguish of a ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... had been interested before, he was excited now. The two speakers were within earshot of the boat, and in the stillness of the scene he could hear every word that was said. In a few moments he was in full possession of the statements of the captain and the major in regard to their intentions; and it appeared that the gentleman he had seen in Nassau still desired ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... picture here brought before us is that of the motionless ark in the midst of what had been Jordan. There is an obvious intention to contrast the stillness of the priests, bearing it on their shoulders, and standing rooted in that strange place all these long hours, with the hurry around. 'The priests stood ... and the people hasted.' However broad the front and swift the march, the crossing must have taken ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the chimney-piece had already struck eleven, Roland Sefton did not move. He had not stirred hand or foot for a long while now; no more than if he had been bound fast by many strong cords, which no effort could break or untie. His confidential clerk had left him two hours ago, and the undisturbed stillness of night had surrounded him ever since he had listened to his retreating footsteps. "Poor Acton!" he had said half aloud, and with a ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... throughout life, as that of the avenger of injustice and punisher of evil, must exhibit itself in the boy as the wild instinct of nature; and the mythus makes him kill his tutor Linus with a blow of the lyre. When sent away by Amphitryon, he prepares himself, in the stillness and solitude of the shepherd's life, by feats of strength and courage, for his future task of purifying the earth ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... stretched forth at my ease and endeavoured to repose seriously. There were occasional lulls, now, in the carnival, but explosions of sound still broke the stillness, and phantoms of the restless throng began to chase each other through my brain. The exotic costumes of the Albanian girls in their green and gold wove themselves into dreams and called up colours seen in Northern Africa during still wilder festivals—negro festivals such as Fro-mentin loved ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... that night was too young to shed much light. But just after Jean and Jake sleepily laid aside their pipes and closed their eyes, the aurora borealis flamed out icily in a clear sky, bringing more than all the light Bill needed. In that frozen stillness Bill's brain was like the interior of a lighted factory with all its machinery in full swing. Fed by hate and slowly accumulated stores of bitter anger, his thoughts went throbbing in and out the lighted convolutions of his brain with the silent positive efficiency ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... chops and sodden potatoes. As for the tea Mary brought, he would have gladly pitched it at her by way of diversifying that blank evening with an incident. The contrast between what he had looked for and what he had, was wonderful. How delicious this stillness should have been, this consciousness of having his house to himself, and nobody to interrupt his brief repose! But somehow it appears that human nature takes best with not having its wishes granted. It is indescribable how Dr Rider yawned—how dull he found his newspaper—how few books ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... hanging under the brush shelter, and food when he called for it. The prairie zephyrs fanned him mildly; mocking-birds at morn and eve competed with but scarce equalled the sweet melodies of his lyre; a perfumed stillness seemed to fill all his world. While old man Ellison was pottering among his flocks of sheep on his mile-an-hour pony, and while the Kiowa took his siesta in the burning sunshine at the end of the kitchen, Sam would lie on his cot thinking what a happy world he lived in, and how ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... that they might be, and many felt it their duty to be, of that half-dozen, so as to establish their attitude once for all. It was, in fact, too severe a test for human nature and the feelings which Church ought to arouse. The stillness of that young figure, the impossibility of seeing her face and judging of her state of mind thereby; finally, a faint lurking shame that they should be so intrigued and disturbed by something which had to do with sex, in this House of Worship—all ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the barren slopes of the volcano itself; beneath the distant lava stream of which we were told seventeen hundred people lay, buried by the last eruption. The scene tempted me more than most to description, for the brilliant stillness of a clear November day, and the gaunt, bare trees, were strange to our long experience of verdure in southern Japan, and smacked strongly of home—Hakodate being in the latitude of New York; but, as always, the majority have their own vision, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... a cold chill run over him as its wings fanned his face. It shot off like a bullet directly across the river, and could be distinguished for several minutes, its body resembling a black ball, until it faded out from view. Nothing else disturbed the solemn stillness that held reign. Everything wore the spirit ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... their songs; the larks fled from the mid-heaven; and occasionally might be seen a straggling bee hurrying homewards, careless of the flowers which tempted him in his path, and only anxious to reach his hive before the deluge should overtake him. The stillness indeed was awful, as was the gloomy veil which darkened the face of nature, and filled the mind with that ominous terror which presses upon the heart like a consciousness of guilt. In such a time, and under the aspect of a sky so much resembling the pall of death, there is neither mirth nor ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... meant a further dose of war at close quarters. Here, in a huge military hospital at Westminster, one is very anxious to be up and about, for that would mean a long-delayed taste of the joys of London. At Gezaincourt rumbling gunfire punctuated the countryside stillness; aeroplanes hummed past on their way to the lines, and engendered gratitude for a respite from encounters with Archie; from the ward window I could see the star-shells as they streaked up through the dim night. At Westminster ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... winding far in amongst the steep and towering mountains. The lower slopes of these are clothed with a thick tangle of forest, where foliage is kept eternally fresh and vivid by rain and mist. White torrents and waterfalls everywhere seam the verdure and break the stillness. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... sound broke the death-like stillness of the room as he sat down, and I noticed that every face within my view was turned away from the prisoner's chair and the old man who sat near it. The tense strain of the moment was broken by the prisoner's counsel, who arose and began a motion ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... extreme silence and care, he began to ascend these stairs and when he was about half-way up he became aware of a faint and strange sound that came trembling through the silence and stillness of ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... may wander now, No more awakes the slightest care; It matters not—for still wilt thou Be present 'mid my heart's despair. So springs and blooms, in lonely state, Some flow'ret on a roofless cot, And decks with smiles, though desolate, The gloomy stillness of the spot. Remember me—remember me— My latest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... fall soothed him into reverie. The distressful images that had gathered round his heart gradually vanished, and all that remained to him was the reality of his happiness. Her beauty and her grace, the sweet stillness of her searching intellect, and the refined pathos of her disposition, only occurred to him, and he dwelt ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Albanian bearing dispatches to the pasha from the Egyptian army, passed unquestioned through the Turkish camp, and was only arrested by the sentinels around the pasha's tent, who informed him that he must wait till morning. Then wildly through the stillness of the night that bugle blew; faithfully it was echoed from without; and the war-cry of the avenging Greek broke upon the Moslem's ear. From every side that terrible storm seemed to break at once; shrieks of agony and terror swelled the tumult. The Turks fled in all directions, and ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... reason we found it necessary to eat a considerable amount. The theory of a simple diet, a little fruit, meat once a day and in small quantity, did not work out in practice. After midday the world is a blinding glare and the intake of air seems to burn the lungs. A comparative stillness descends on the scene. On the plain activities cease. Through the double canvas roofing of a tent the sun beats down like a giant with a leaden club. The temperature in the wards increases. At the worst moments you feel distinctly ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... uneasiness began to colour the girl's consciousness. She grew increasingly sensitive to the ominous quiet of the hour and place: the stark, dark stillness of the shrouded coppices and thickets, the emptiness of the paths. Once only she caught sight of a civilian, strolling in his shirt-sleeves, coat over his arm, hat in hand; and once only she detected, at ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... and, striving to see through the blue hollow of the night, they thought of the adventure of the voyage they had undertaken. Spectral ships loomed up and vanished in the spectral stillness; and only within the little circle of light could they perceive the waves over which they floated. The moon drifted, and a few stars showed through the white wrack. Whither were their lives striving? She had thought that her life in ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... up early the next morning. He went through the silent house before Sally had crept yawning from her room, and, throwing open the doors at each end of the hall, let a burst of sunshine and fresh wind into the darkness and stillness. Then he went out, and began to walk up and down the porch as a sort of outlet to his impatience. Over and over he said, "What can it be?" Indeed, Dr. Howe had asked himself that question even in his dreams. "I hope there's no woman at the bottom of it," he thought. "But no; Ward's a ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... if his enemies purposed to project themselves surreptitiously in upon him, taking him at a disadvantage. He sat upright, his sword ready for action, and listened intently. The silence was profound, and as the Count sat breathless, the stillness seemed to be emphasised rather than disturbed by a long- drawn sigh which sent a thrill of superstitious fear through the stalwart frame of the young man, for he well knew that the Rhine was infested with spirits animated ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... yellow of the mustard-flower spread in waves to the base of the hills, now mystically veiled in radiance. She stood motionless, watching their melting, elusive changes from palpitating rose to the transparent purple of amethyst. The stillness of evening was broken by the monotonous, not unmusical creaking of a Persian wheel at some little distance to the left of the tent. The well stood in a little grove of trees; between their branches she could see, when she turned her head, the coloured ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... night had passed, and there was profound stillness on earth. The young men then walked quietly through the shadows, till they reached the western gate of the palace, and found the wicket ajar. The minister's son peeped in and saw the porter dozing, stately as a Brahman ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... looking down into the dark hollow so often thronged with citizens of Latin speech. Small wonder that Benvenuto's necromancer could evoke his myriads of flitting ghosts in the midnight Colosseum; here too it needed but to stand for a few minutes in the dead stillness, and the air grew alive with mysterious presences, murmurous with awful whisperings. Mallard enjoyed it for awhile, but at length turned away abruptly, feeling as if a cold hand had ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... the dawn, which filled the dosshouse, a solemn stillness reigned over all. Long and silently they sat at the feet of their dead companion, seldom looking at him, and both plunged in thought. Then ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... heaved up In the middle of the room. And then I saw That there were shapes of woe all round the room, Like women in long mantles, bent in grief, With long veils hanging low down from their heads, All blacker in the darkness. Not a sound Broke the death-stillness. Then the shapeless thing Began to move. Four horrid muffled figures Had lifted, bore it from the room. We followed, The bending woman-shapes, and I. We left The house in long procession. I was walking Alone beside the coffin—such it was— Now in the glimmering light ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... with the same intense delight. "It's such a splendid life! Fancy! No more humbug, and flattery, and insincerity. 'Vous ne jouerez plus la comedie,' an old monk said to me. Wouldn't it be splendid? Think of the stillness, and then the singing of the Office while the world is asleep, like the little birds at dawn. It would be simply and entirely ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... windows, at a distance of four hundred yards, the pounding of the machinery which flooded the water jacket of the Relay Gun was distinctly audible in the stillness of the night. The pressure of a finger—a little finger—upon that electric button was all that was necessary to start the torrent of iron and high explosives toward Paris. By the time the first shell ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... on the floor below, the stillness in the cottage was merrily broken by an outburst of dance-music—with a rhythmical thump-thump of feet, keeping time to the cheerful tune. Toff was playing his fiddle; and Toff's boy was ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... welcome, since tears with her were rare. She flung herself on the sofa, and gave herself up unreservedly to her sufferings. Edward, meanwhile, could not take himself from the door. He knocked again; and a third time rather louder; so that Charlotte, in the stillness of the night, distinctly heard it, and started up in fright. Her first thought was—it can only be, it must be, the Captain; her second, that it was impossible. She thought she must have been deceived. But surely she had heard it; and she wished, and she feared to have heard it. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... listened to his strange tale In the mood that stillness brings, And I grew to accept as the day wore ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... watch them. Sometimes we read aloud, but our voices were low and lulling, as if quieter than silence. Then we talked of my calm paintings, shadowing deeper lonelinesses in them. But it was my highest rapture to sit in stillness for hours while Heraine, cushioned at my feet, made cunning embroideries, like some facile poet whose fingers were ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... black bread and a long draught from the fountain was Stephan's breakfast, which being speedily finished, he broke the morning stillness with repeated blasts from the horn, which seemed to awake the valley as by magic; for scarcely had the more distant mountains echoed the summons, than from almost every door-way scampered one or more goats. All hurried in the direction of the water-tank, where ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... the house. Presently the stillness was interrupted by the vociferous barking of a dog; Then there was a sound as of some one picking a taut wire and the voice of the dog curdled in ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... these years is as silent as that of the dewdrop upon the blade of grass, but it is as real. God's voice is the still, small voice that ever speaks in quietness. The stillness of the moment at the mother's knee, the prayer repeated in the reverent, low tone of the mother's voice, the earnest prayer for him offered in his presence, the Christ-like living in the home, all carry their holy influence to his soul. He feels God, without ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... sleepless night, when I felt impelled to go out on to my balcony in the small hours, I heard for the first time the famous old folk-song of the gondolieri. I seemed to hear the first call, in the stillness of the night, proceeding from the Rialto, about a mile away like a rough lament, and answered in the same tone from a yet further distance in another direction. This melancholy dialogue, which was repeated at longer ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Deep stillness fell on all the crowd, From Claudius on his throne Down to the meanest slave that bowed At his imperial throne; Silent his fellow-captive's grief As fearless ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... little to lessen this sense of loneliness. I knew that these were the regiments which I was destined to command, travelling to the camp where I must meet them. But in such silence did they move that no sound came from them even in the deathly stillness of the perfect night, so that almost I was tempted to believe them to be the shadow-ghosts of some ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... air was still to the extent of stagnation; and the temperature was so unusually high that Dickinson found the mere act of walking, even at the idle sauntering pace which he had adopted, a laborious exertion. In the great and oppressive stillness which prevailed, the hoarse thunder of the trampling surf upon the rocky shores of the island smote so loudly upon the ear as to be almost startling; and to the lonely wanderer there in the stifling darkness the sound seemed to bring ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... before the furious blast of the coming tempest, the upper reach of the river whipped into white foam by the wind, and the black clouds torn into fantastic shapes trailing low over the swaying trees. Round her all was as yet stillness and peace, but she could hear afar off the roar of the wind, the hiss of heavy rain, the wash of the waves on the tormented river. It came nearer and nearer, with loud thunder-claps and long flashes of vivid lightning, followed by short periods of appalling blackness. When the storm ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... as the sound of running feet and of the boats being hoisted overboard came loudly in the stillness of the night. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... opposite shore, the dark causeway projected more and more distinctly, to my fancy at least, and I swam more softly still, utterly uncertain as to how far, in the stillness of air and water, my phosphorescent course could be traced by eye or ear. A slight ripple would have saved me from observation, I was more than ever sure, and I would have whistled for a fair wind as eagerly as any sailor, but that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of Cymru, far from the city's din, Your peace no tumult troubles, no discord enters in; No sound breaks on your stillness but merry children's cry, Or murmur of the rustling leaves or brook ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... grotto, while in the neighbourhood of the engine-room the deck was slippery with the frozen moisture. There was a warm glow of light by the galley, though, and a faint sound from the humming stove was breaking the stillness of the place, while quite a burst of hot light saluted them as ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... don't you?" demanded the Princess sharply. She appeared unnecessarily irritated, and as a matter of fact embarrassed her guests to such an extent that they were utterly unable to relieve the stillness that oppressed them quite as ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... town, within the wall, like the superfluous folds of a garment whose wearer has shrunken with old age. He reached his little grass-grown terrace, and found it as sunny and as private as before. The old mendicant was mumbling petitions, sacred and profane, at the church door; but save for this the stillness was unbroken. The yellow sunshine warmed the brown surface of the city-wall, and lighted the hollows of the Etruscan hills. Longueville settled himself on the empty bench, and, arranging his little portable apparatus, began to ply his brushes. He worked for some time smoothly and rapidly, ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... noonday sun. It passed like a panorama, but so vivid was the impression that we could not tell whether it or ourselves were in motion. All was bustle and life, but not a sound broke the oppressive stillness. It was noiseless as a dream. It was a phantom picture.... The scene faded away, and Miss H—— placed herself in turn by ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... the street and off through the two-o'clock stillness. The mystified burglar was losing his equanimity. He could not understand the captor's motive, nor could he much longer curb his curiosity. In his mind he was fully satisfied that he was walking straight to the portals of the nearest station. In all his career as a housebreaker, ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... he was about to creep into the room, he heard distinctly in the stillness a whispered word in a voice his keen ear instantly recognized. All idea of caution forgotten, he threw open the door and switched on the electric light. To outward appearances ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... were ready as an escort to raise the flag in the heart of the city. All of the other regiments were formed upon the ground which they occupied during the siege. As the second-hands of our watches showed the minute of twelve, noon, a field-piece burst upon the stillness of the sultry day, and the band began the strains of "The Star-spangled Banner." Every hat was taken off, and an instant later, efforts to restrain it being ineffectual, six miles of solid cheering ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... the same time that she struggled, however, she also surrendered; there was a moment at which she almost dropped the form of stating, of explaining, and threw herself, without violence, only with a supreme pointless quaver that had turned, the next instant, to an intensity of interrogative stillness, upon his general goodwill. His large, settled face, though firm, was not, as she had thought at first, hard; he looked, in the oddest manner, to her fancy, half like a general and half like a bishop, and she was soon sure that, within some such handsome range, what it would show her would ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... coming now quiet and coolness and sleep. His tense limbs relaxed, and settled in a calm languor. The blood ran fainter and slow from his heart. He did not think now with a savage anger of what might be and was not; he was conscious only of deep stillness creeping over him. At first he saw a sea of faces: the mill-men,—women he had known, drunken and bloated,—Janey's timid and pitiful-poor old Debs: then they floated together like a mist, and faded away, leaving only the clear, ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... plumage. Gold and silver glistened with splendour. Pearls and precious gems shed out their brilliant lustre. The tripod censers burnt the Pai-ho incense. In the vases were placed evergreens. Silence and stillness prevailed, and not a man ventured so ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... majestic glory, Miss Janet's favorite mountains, yet were the peaks alone distinctly visible; the twilight only strong enough to disclose the mass of heavy fog that enveloped them. The stars had nearly all disappeared, those that lingered were sadly paling away. How solemn was the stillness! She thought of the words of Jacob, "Surely God is here!"—the clouds were flying swiftly beneath the arch of Heaven, as if from God's presence. Many thoughts were suggested to her by the grandeur of the scene, for my ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... a deep, padded arm-chair. The library of Hatton Towers was in the south-east wing, and now because of the night's stillness dim booming of distant guns was audible. A mood of reflection claimed him, and from it he sank into sleep, to dream of the portrait of Sir Jacques which seemed to have become transparent, so that the camel-like head now appeared, as in those monstrous postcard caricatures ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... of high-pitched voices broke the deadly stillness of the dawn. The women talked excitedly about the invulnerable red of the eagle's feathers, while the would-be heroes sulked within their wigwams. "He-he-he!" groaned ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... the summer night came cool and friendly in their faces. The blue heaven was studded with stars. A little half-moon hung above the quiet shadows of the square through which they were passing. For the stillness they might have been ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... would I To Silence also rise. Let there be night, Stillness, and only these staid watchers by, And no light shine save my low study light — Lest of his kind intent some human cry ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... at breakfast two days before Thanksgiving. It was a hot argument. Jean beat her little hands upon the table. Hilda's hands were still, but it was an irritating stillness. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... was as patient as her daughter, "tried to gather into stillness," and settle herself as soon as possible to her Bible. But the change from the Sabbath-like quiet of her old room to the confusion of this noisy dwelling must have tried ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... a little park high up above the city whose lights lay, shimmering and misty, below. The stillness was obtrusive here. Not a leaf stirred. There was no one about. They might have been alone upon some ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... with his Maker. Her helpless condition, the red flames licking the rigging as they climbed aloft, the sparks and pieces of burning rope taken off by the wind, and flying miles to leeward, the ghastly glare thrown upon the dark sea as far as the eye could reach, and then the deathlike stillness of the scene,—all these combined to place the "Golden Rocket" on the tablet of our memories forever." But it was not long before the crew of the "Sumter" could fire a vessel, and sail away indifferently, with hardly a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of dewy freshness, and only the twittering of birds broke the stillness. A subtle sweetness seemed to distil through the young man's veins as he glanced at his companion; involuntarily, ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... fashion. Passing through the woods on some clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and tension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the utter stillness and amid the rigid forms we listen with pleasure; and, as it comes to my ear oftener at this season than at any other, I freely exonerate the author of it from the imputation of any gastronomic motives, and credit him with a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... action, and the brilliant and expressive eye of a handsome woman—attributes which of themselves almost compelled belief. When she reached the most telling passages, instead of adding exaggerated action and sound, Ethelberta would lapse to a whisper and a sustained stillness, which were more striking than gesticulation. All that could be done by art was there, and if inspiration was wanting ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... myriads of insects, whose hum and buzz make a good part of the noise and stir of a summer afternoon, are all gone. No whirring wings rush past; there is no sound of "dragon-fly, or painted moth, or musical winged bee" to break the stillness; all the insect-world seems dead, or flown south with the swallows—though, as there are still spiders' webs to be seen, each delicate thread marked in sharp outline, like the rigging of an icebound ship, it would seem that there must still remain some unwary fly ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... into the firelight and raised his hand. The long, shrill wail of a tiger from far off toward Mount Ophir seemed to pulsate and quiver on the weird stillness ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... observation, he reminded himself of the hero of 'Pilgrim's Progress'. On all sides of him lay fearsome beasts, lying in wait to pounce upon him. At any moment Mr Gregory's hoarse roar might shatter the comparative stillness, or the sinister note of Mr Bickersdyke make ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... ordered a trumpet to be sounded, to inform the inhabitants of our arrival. Before the echoes of the blast from the trumpet had subsided, (and they seemed to penetrate farther and reverberate longer than usual from the perfect stillness of this apparently void region,) about thirty musical instruments came hopping towards us. These were bass-viols. On the very long neck of each was placed a little head; the body was also small, and covered ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... teemed with those horrible ideas, our adventurer, concluding, from the general stillness, that the jeweller and his wife were at last happily asleep, ventured to come forth from his hiding-place, and stood before his mistress all begrimed with soot. Wilhelmina, lifting up her eyes, and seeing this sable ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... rose from his seat, and all eyes were instantly turned upon him. He was then in middle life, and his tall and erect form and fine physiognomy were singularly striking. He was full of emotion, and seemed at first to lack the power of utterance, while the stillness of death prevailed in the Convention. He began by saying: "Mr. Chairman, this is the most solemn experience of my life. I feel as if in the immediate presence of the Divine Spirit." He paused here for a few moments, while there did not seem to be a dry eye in ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... a strange picture—the bland, smooth shining-pated doctor facing this wild excited man standing with his back to the door, his hands outspread as if to keep it fast, and his head half-turned as he listened for the sound of steps in the stillness of the ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... preparation, as far as speech was concerned, that the occasional opening and shutting of pans, and ringing of ramrods to ascertain the efficiency of the muskets, might be heard distinctly in the stillness of the night at a distance of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... stretched out her arms and cried, "Take me now," he disappeared, and she found the song stayed upon her lips, the room hushed, and only the glory, which the angel's presence had shed about, still lingered there. The holy stillness came into her heart also, and she sat quietly upon the floor a long time; and when, at last, she rose and went up to her aunt's bedside, she found the brow she kissed was cold, the hand she clasped was chilly; and, in looking ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners, glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters—all these, in their quiet loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... secluded life, and stretched its parental arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed beneath it for the accommodation of the foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain, whose stillness was no longer broken by the tap of the martial drum, nor the discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered among its branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its venerable contemporaries, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... as Betty's, and she usually had to stop at the bottom of every page to explain something. Often he fell asleep in the middle of the most interesting part, and then Betty read on to herself, with nothing to break the stillness around her but the buzzing of the wasps, as they darted angrily in and out of the open window ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... hand held out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his own and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle kiss was heard through the stillness. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upstairs, to find that her mother was still sound asleep. She sent the two tired girls to bed, and, lying down on the sofa in the sitting room, tried to sleep. She had left her mother's door slightly ajar, and knew that she would hear the least movement in the room. All was perfect stillness, however, and presently Effie fell into a ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... clamor of speech; then our steed's bell-collar would jingle, and for the children's cries, a bird-throat, high above, from the heights of a tall pine would pour forth, as if in uncontrollable ecstasy, its rapture into the stillness of this radiant Normandy garden. The song appeared to be heard by other ears than ours. We were certain the dull-brained sheep were greatly affected by the strains of that generous-organed songster—they were so very still under the pink apple boughs. The ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... facility of those to whom camp life has become a second nature, were quickly asleep. From this slumber Billy Brackett was startlingly awakened, some time later, by Bim's bark, and a pistol shot that rang out from the profound stillness of the forest like a thunder-clap. He grasped the dog's collar and sat up. Before he could rise any farther there came a roar of guns, a trampling of feet, a confusion of voices, a rush, and a crashing of wood. The next ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... temple stands, Temple never built with hands; There the Lord doth fill the place With the glory of His grace. Cleansed by Christ's atoning blood, Thou art this fair house of God. Thoughts, desires, that enter there, Should they not be pure and fair? Meet for holy courts and blest, Courts of stillness and of rest, Where the soul, a priest in white, Singeth praises day and night; Glory of the love divine, Filling all this heart ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... the little running brook of Kishon for the nation's sake? God touched the sore spot, when, down at Horeb, the mount of thunder and fire, He spoke to this man of fire and thunder in that exquisitely soft sound of gentle stillness. This was a new revelation of God to this ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... beast's howling suddenly diminishes and grows less and dies away to silence, when the hunter's arrow has sped close to the heart with a mortal wound, so in one moment, the incoherent din sank down, and the dead stillness that followed was dreadful by contrast. Darius stood with his hand upon the arm of his chair, not understanding the words of the fearful stranger; still less the mastering power those words had upon the drunken priests. But his ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... profound stillness of the cloister, that the sound of the street could not reach, the "companion" Luna thought he heard far off, very far off, the shrill sound of a trumpet and the muffled roll of drums, then he remembered ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and down; vainly the fresh wind fanned his fevered brow; vainly the sparkling stars glanced down from holy heights upon him; he found no coolness for his fever in the air, no sedative for his anxiety in the stillness, no comfort for his soul in the heavens; he knew not whether he were indoors or out, whether it were night or day, summer or winter, he knew not, wrapped as he was in the mantle of his own sad thoughts, suffering as he was in the purgatory of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Montenero's I saw the window-shutters closed, and there was an ominous stillness in the area—no one answered to my knock. I knocked louder—I rang impatiently; no footsteps were heard in the hall: I pulled the bell incessantly. During the space of three minutes that I was forced to wait on the steps, I formed a variety ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... his ear caught the sound of a deep, rich note—a soft echo of the strain itself, evoked by an irresistible impulse. He looked inquiringly at his companion, but her head was bent and the brim of her hat concealed her face. Her stillness, her reverence appealed to his heart, for it was easy to see that she was enjoying the music not as a mere concert, but, above all things, as an accompaniment to the words themselves. One time, when he glanced at her ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... which filled the dosshouse, a solemn stillness reigned over all. Long and silently they sat at the feet of their dead companion, seldom looking at him, and both plunged in ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... we reached the gates of Paris. Under the heights of St. Cloud and Suresnes the reaches of the Seine trembled with the blue-pink lustre of an early Monet. The Bois lay about us in the stillness of a holiday evening, and the lawns of Bagatelle were as fresh as June. Below the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysees sloped downward in a sun-powdered haze to the mist of fountains and the ethereal obelisk; ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... lay hushed and dim beyond the fringe; whispering leaves and crackling twigs sounded sharp as a shower of stones in the stillness. Great trees reared their majestic heads to mingle their foliage and shut out the light; every creeping, flying, walking creature seemed awed into a vague murmuring that was deeper than silence. The Grove of Mysteries was a semicircular space ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... ration, it enabled both the girl and Lennon to suck at lumps of raw bacon. They lay silently mouthing and chewing the greasy fat, their rifles ready and their ears alert for the slightest thud of approaching hoofs. But no sound broke the deathlike stillness of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... and filmed with delicate tracery every available inch of window pane, it seemed stealthily to invade the house itself, stilling and chilling it as it drew closer around its central heart of warmth and life. Only once the frigid stillness was broken by the opening of a door and steps along the corridor. This was preceded by an acrid ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... deeply the satisfaction of it, an exploding rifle echo shattered the stillness. With excited sputtering came the prompt answer of a fusillade. She was new to the West; but some instinct stronger than reason told the girl that here was no playful puncher shooting up the scenery to ventilate his exuberance. Her imagination ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... had been exchanged, and Lily had turned homeward, she felt the stillness which succeeded their farewells almost oppressive; she started at the dark shadow of a tree which lay across the path, and to shake off a sensation of fear which was coming over her, she put her arm within ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so apt to do when some trouble seems too big for the house to hold. There is a vague counsel-taking with nature, to which one is impelled at such times; or is it sympathy-seeking? The sweet October afternoon had passed into as sweet an evening, the hazy stillness was unchanged, and through the haze the silver rays of a half moon high in the heavens came with the tenderest touch and the most gracious softness upon all earthly things. There was a vapourous glitter on the water of the broad river, a dewy or hazy veil on the land; the scene could not ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... F. The time taken in cooling is from fifteen to twenty hours, but it may be modified by the kind of death, the age of the person, the presence or absence of clothing on the body, the surrounding temperature, and the stillness or otherwise of the air about the body. Still, the body, other things being equal, may be said to be quite cold in about ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... of Springfield I paid a visit to the Wilson Creek battle-ground. It was eleven weeks from the day I had left it. Approaching the field, I was impressed by its stillness, so different from the tumult on the 10th of the previous August. It was difficult to realize that the spot, now so quiet, had been the scene of a sanguinary contest. The rippling of the creek, and the occasional chirp of a bird, were the only noises that came to ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... parted lips and eyes that shone with the indignation of a convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through half-shut eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright in an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that fluid grace of hers which even in stillness suggested ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... kind of deviltry in that four-hundred foot gash in the earth; the sinking moon lightened only a strip along the east wall, near the top; lower down, smoke mingling with the natural gloom cast an impenetrable veil from bank to bank; not a breath of air stirred the tomblike stillness. Directly in front of us a horse coughed. We dropped on all fours, listened a moment, then crept forward. Without warning, we found ourselves foul of a picket-line, and the vague forms of grazing horses loomed close by. Piegan halted us with a touch, and we lay flat; ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... music from the thrilling chords had perished; The stillness was not moved With memories of cadences long cherished, The closes of the songs that ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... right ran the wide Oliphant, and mirror-like flashed back the moon, whose silver spears were shivered on its breast, and then tossed in twisted lines of light far and wide about the mountains and the plain. Down upon the river-banks grew great timber-trees that through the stillness pointed solemnly to Heaven, and the beauty of the night lay upon them like a cloud. Everywhere was silence—silence in the starred depths, silence on the bosom of the sleeping earth. Now, if ever, great thoughts might rise in a man's mind, and for a space he might ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... those dark and tender eyes; there was rather an anxious and wistful questioning. And her heart seemed to go out from her to implore these gentle winds, and the soft colors of the sea, and the dreamy stillness of the woods, that now they should, if ever that was possible to them, bring all their sweet and curative influences to bear on him who had come among them. Now, if ever! Surely the favorable skies would heed, and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... other, and for some time not a sound had broken the stillness. Naught save the ticking of the clock, and that did not startle them, but, rather, by its monotonous tune, seemed like a friend that sought to ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... sisters of the father, the father and mother, and seven children, with the wife of one of the sons. Not twelve rods from their own door they sleep side by side—that many voiced household, in the silence of death. No voice breaks the stillness; no words of love are interchanged; but their dust shall mingle together till the morning of the resurrection, teaching an impressive lesson to those that stand by their graves and read the inscriptions upon ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... silence," he commands (lest any unlucky word be spoken); and in a stillness broken only by the auspicious twittering of the sparrows amid the Parthenon gables, he takes barley corns from a basket, an sprinkles them on the altar and over the lamb. With his sacred knife he cuts a lock of hair from the victims head and casts it on the fire. Promptly ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... sides of the nation for one summer, and whose pseudonyme was in everybody's mouth. Alas! what he took for perpetual motion was but an eight-day clock, and I need not call your attention to the present dead and leaden stillness of its pendulum. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... I sat in the cabin under this spell, the profound stillness all about was broken by human voices alongside! I sprang instantly to the deck, startled beyond my power to tell. Passing close under lee, like an apparition, was a white bark under full sail. The sailors on board of her were hauling on ropes to brace the yards, which just cleared ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... recovery is certain, and that the doses are therefore to be discontinued, by these signs: the cessation of the trembling in the hands; the appearance of natural perspiration; and the transition from the stillness of apathy to the repose of sleep. For at least a week or ten days afterwards a vegetable diet, with cream, is necessary as a ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... are many such, and new ones are building. I visited for the first time one in Marienstadt. The building lies in a beautiful landscape, close by the town, on a small stream of water, like a great villa, white and smiling, with window upon window. But one soon discovers that the stillness of the grave rests over the place; it seems as if no one dwelt here, or as if it were a dwelling forsaken during the plague. The gates of these walls are locked; but one opened and the jailor received us, with his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... were cured, or half killed; and to-night, in this great room with its double row of beds, the trained silence of the sleepers seemed unnatural, almost terrible, especially after the horror that had broken it. Max had never before felt the oppression of this deathlike stillness. Usually he slept as the rest slept; but now, weary as he was, he resigned himself to lie staring through the slow hours, till the orderly's call, "Au jus!" should rouse the men to ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... passage along the margin of the breakers into the placid waters of the sequestered bay, The passing blasts were still heard rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the hills seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of gloom, in the centre of the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was in vain that the anxious ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... graveyard froze round MURRAY as he read carefully prepared statement. When he sat down, faint murmur of applause rose from scanty muster on Liberal side. No sound, whether of approval or disapproval, broke the stillness of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... huge rocks covered with moss and saxifragous plants, between which whole fields of snow and ice were extended. The air was intensely cold. I looked round, and the forest had disappeared behind me; a few steps more, and there was the stillness of death itself. The icy plain on which I stood stretched to an immeasurable distance, and a thick cloud rested upon it; the sun was of a red blood-colour at the verge of the horizon; the cold was insupportable. I could not imagine what ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... Laura had prepared for the boy had been a nursery, and had a frieze, representing in gay colours the old Mother Goose stories. Jim was put on a cot beside the open fire, where he lay very still, but it was not the dull hopeless stillness of the hospital. Now he was resting, and his eyes travelled happily along the wall as he picked out the ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... melancholy resignation. The streets are clean, bright, and airy; but this fact seems only to add to the intense sobriety. It implies that the unobstructed heavens are in the secret of their decline. There is something ghostly in the perpetual stillness. We frequently hear the rattling of the yards and the issuing of orders on the barks and schooners anchored out in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Berlin all put together cannot furnish the noise of New York, while the roar of Chicago is the stillness of a cathedral compared to it. And most of it, I may be allowed to state, is entirely unnecessary. The papers are full of accounts of nervous collapses, the sanatoria are crowded, while I never heard as much about insanity in the whole of my life elsewhere as I have heard in New York ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... her heart would crack with her effort, her muscles tear; she forgot the retreating rumble of the storm, the brooding, dripping forest stillness; she forgot even her certainty that he would die. She entirely forgot herself. She only knew—straining, gasping, sweating—that she must get the body—the dead body perhaps!—into the wagon. And she did it! Just as she did it, she heard a faint groan. Her heart stood still with terror, then ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... splashing otter, as he ventured from the dark angles and intricacies of the upland glen, to seek his prey in the meadow-stream during the favorable dusk of twilight. Many a time have I heard the simple song of Roger M'Cann, coming from the top of brown Dunroe, mellowed, by the stillness of the hour, to something far sweeter to the heart than all that the labored pomp of musical art and science can effect; or the song of Katty Roy, the beauty of the village, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... which the peaks rise, phantom-like and pallid, into the grey air, scarcely distinguishable from their background. The pine-forests on the mountain-sides are of darkest indigo. There is an indescribable stillness and a sense of incubation. The wind has fallen. Later on, the snow-flakes flutter silently and sparely through the lifeless air. The most distant landscape is quite blotted out. After sunset the clouds have settled down upon the hills, and the snow comes ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... will judge you,—in the name of Jesus Christ, who beseeches you to come to him and live,—by all your hopes of happiness and life,—I charge you let not this year die, and leave you impenitent. Do not dare to utter defiance in its decaying hours. But, in the stillness of its awful midnight, prostrate yourselves penitently before your Maker; and let the morning sun rise upon you, thoughtful and serious men." One does not see how the so-called 'Evangelicals' could ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... of the Achaean ships. First he called loudly to Ulysses peer of gods in counsel and woke him, for he was soon roused by the sound of the battle-cry. He came outside his tent and said, "Why do you go thus alone about the host, and along the line of the ships in the stillness of the night? What is it that you find so urgent?" And Nestor knight of Gerene answered, "Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, take it not amiss, for the Achaeans are in great straits. Come with me and let us wake some ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... funeral flames were a dishonor to that temple of God which had been so highly favored of heaven. So the cherished bodies of the dead were brought here out of the sight of man, where no irreverent hand might disturb the solemn stillness of their last repose, to lie until the last trump should give that summons for which the primitive Church waited so eagerly, in daily expectation. In the city above the Christian religion had been increasing for successive generations, and during all this time the dead had ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... three days; but he might have sent a couple of his lazy negroes. Or, if he had only fired a shot or two as a signal. I stopped and listened, in hopes of hearing the crack of a rifle. But the deepest stillness reigned around, scarcely the chirp of a bird was heard—all nature seemed to be taking the siesta. As far as the eye could reach was a waving sea of grass, here and there an island of trees, but not a trace of a human being. At last I thought I had made a discovery. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... the people up into a frenzy of excitement and terror, he exclaimed, "Listen, I reckon I hear Gabriel getting ready to blow now. De last day am on us, de judgment am right here, whar you sinners now? Listen." And with bated breath they listened. Just then there came a fearful blast on the stillness of the midnight air, and the scene that followed can better be imagined than described. Helter-skelter over the benches and over each other, the terrified people scrambled for the mourners' bench. The preacher boastfully told afterward, ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 2, February 1888 • Various
... place had a sort of brooding quiet, like the ocean just before the arrival of a cyclone. As Lucille had said, Miss Huskisson's voice was loud. It was a powerful organ, and there was no doubt that it would take the cloistered stillness of the Cosmopolis dining-room and stand it on one ear. Almost unconsciously, Archie found himself bracing his muscles and holding his breath as he had done in France at the approach of the zero hour, when awaiting the first roar of a barrage. He listened ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... almost interminable prospect, stretching east, west, north, and south, like a broad ocean, without wave or ripple. The few trees scattered here and there stand alone, casting long shadows over the plain at nightfall, and adding solemnity to the mysterious stillness of that isolated place. It is not a place for human habitation, for the soil is sandy and sterile; neither is it a place for human hearts, so desolate in winter, and so unsheltered and dry during the long warm summer. Yet midway between the village ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... have just as easily have tiptoed downstairs and out the back door, but it would have spoiled the romance of it all. The absolute stillness and the pitch black darkness of the night were awe-inspiring. The roll of a pebble or the crack of a twig under foot would set us all a-tingle as we stole out to our cave house. Sometimes the night was so black that we could hardly find ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... Boston, and he listened for its repetition or an answer from the mate, but the stillness was unbroken. He turned over to see if Doctor Tom had heard or noticed it, and thought the dark bundle by the side of the log seemed rather small for the sleeping Indian. Boston got up and walked over to the log. Doctor Tom's blanket only was there. Boston looked for the musket; ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... fain have lived, and, according to her obedient nature, had submitted to all the silence and stillness enforced on her; but she had told Dr. Hammond that she must see her brother-in-law before she was too far gone. And the doctor, knowing all, took care it should ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opening misfortune of his campaign: has learned by experience much of the new conditions of the war. Strange that the Boers did not advance after their victory; stranger still that they retired from Dordrecht. Never mind whether their stillness be due to national cautiousness or good defensive arrangements. Since they don't want Dordrecht, let us go there; and there we go accordingly. Out of this there arises on New Year's Day a successful skirmish, in the account of which the name of De Montmorency is mentioned. In Egypt the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... burst of warmth and sunshine almost as sudden. It was that brief period of calm repose in which nature indulges in some parts of the world as if to brace herself for the rough work of approaching winter. There was a softness in the air which induced one to court its embrace. Absolute stillness characterised the inanimate world. Clouds floated in the heavenly blue in rotund masses, which seemed, to the careless glance, as unchangeable as the hills, and the glassy water reflected them with perfect fidelity. ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... consolation in this for Annette's foreboding heart; but as she lay down in her blanket, with Julie at her side, there came once more, through the stillness, from the bosom of the lake, the ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... a sound had broken the stillness since the strangers had arrived, except that of their own voices. They began to wonder if there were no people to inhabit this magnificent ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... pistols and something of a heavy heart, and set open the window where I was to watch. It was a small part of the deck that I could overlook, but enough for our purpose. The sea had gone down, and the wind was steady and kept the sails quiet; so that there was a great stillness on the ship, in which I made sure I heard the sound of muttering voices. A little after, and there came a clash of steel upon the deck, by which I knew they were dealing out the cutlasses, and one had been let fall; and after that ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... for the rivers to wash them with sweet waters or the lurid fire to shape them in the bowls of the mountains. The beauties given us to enjoy are those upon which our eyes may light in the woodlands or from the heights—the glory of the sunset, the stillness of the sea, the thousand Hues of a garden of flowers, or the cascade as it falls from the mountain top. These things are common to all, but the precious stone is too often for the neck or the fingers of the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... after crash; and in the rare moments of stillness, in this nerve-shattering prelude to the Great Push, I could hear the sweet warblings of a lark, as it rose higher and higher in the ...
— 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
... in, at bedtime, to kiss their father and say good-night, there was something portentous in the stillness there; in the look of the sick man, raised high against the pillows, and turning his eyes wistfully toward them, with no slightest movement of the head; in the waiting aspect of all things,—the appearance as of everybody being to sit up all night ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... moment that the sound of the two revolver shots rang out in the silence from the stillness of the cottage. And at that the superintendent dashed forward, with a cry to the others, and began to beat on the front door, and while his men responded with similar knockings at the back he called loudly on Miss Pett ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... the servants were awakened by a commotion at the front door. Their master, returning from the club, had stumbled and fallen down the stoop. Oku picked him up, and Stafford, luckily unhurt, staggered unaided to his room. Half an hour later the stillness of the night was again disturbed—this time by a woman's shrill scream of fright and a man's voice raised in tones of angry command. To the servants it seemed as if the sounds came from ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... his impetuosity, it appeared probable, that nothing less than arms would terminate the contention. Madame Montoni, having exhausted all her expressions of indignation, and Emily, hers of comfort, they remained silent, in that kind of breathless stillness, which, in nature, often succeeds to the uproar of conflicting elements; a stillness, like the morning, that dawns upon ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... with my knife scraped away the rime of frost, an eighth of an inch thick, which obscured it, till I could see out. A whitish-gray light was on the landscape. Every object seemed still, with a quite peculiar stillness that might be called intense. From the chimneys of some of the houses around thick columns of smoke and sparks were pouring, showing that the fires were being crowded below. Other chimneys showed no smoke at all. Here and there a dull light shone from a window. There was ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... She sat down and watched him silently. From the first moment she knew that all, and more than all, Elton had said was true. She saw death unmistakable, inevitable, and close at hand, and reproached herself for not having come sooner. But in that strange calm and stillness, even self-reproach seemed to be curbed and repressed—even a quickened beating of the heart would have been out of place. So they remained until fully half an hour had passed, when the door of the room again opened; this time to ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... the wharf; the steamer was not yet arrived, but I heard its thunder up the river every moment becoming more distinct: there was mist and darkness upon the face of the waters, and I felt awe as I listened to the approach of the invisible monster booming through the stillness of the night. It came at last in sight, plashed its way forward, stopped, and I was soon on board. It was the Peninsula, the best ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... flushing to beauty in its hidden bed, blood-root, hepatica, wind-flowers, violets in a purple glory; finding in the summer wild roses, dewberries, blackberries, bees and butterflies, the cool shade of the little groves, the shine and shimmer of the streams; finding in the fall a golden stillness and the redness of Virginia Creeper. They had ridden on horseback over the clay roads, they had roamed the stubble with a pack of wiry hounds at their heels, they had gathered Christmas greens, they had sung carols, they had watched the Old Year out and the New Year in, and their souls had been ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... shot broke the stillness. A swift zigzagged across the cattle trail he was following. Out of a blue sky the Arizona sun still beat down upon a land parched by aeons of drought, a land still making its brave show of greenness ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... area of timber in the world, and it is one of the grandest parts of the Park. A death-like silence generally pervades this cool, dark region, where few kinds of animal life find a congenial abode. Occasionally the stillness is disturbed by the Douglas squirrel, busily gnawing off the fir cones for his winter's supply, or by the gentle flutter of the coy wren, darting to and fro among the old, fallen logs. The higher forms of vegetable life are also restricted ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... wise enough to say nothing, but quietly made what preparations she could, and waited for tidings. Bab and Betty were away berrying, so no one had alarmed Thorny, and he had his afternoon nap in peace,—an unusually long one, owing to the stillness which prevailed in the absence of the children; and when he awoke he lay reading for a while before he began to wonder where every one was. Lounging out to see, he found Ben and Lita reposing side by side on the fresh straw in the loose ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... with nothing to indicate the reason for these most peculiar actions. Half an hour that was interminable to Mr. Weil, torn with a thousand fears as to what it might all portend. At last, however, a faint sound broke the stillness. Some one was approaching. Roseleaf touched the shoulder of his companion to indicate ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... come into the divine, sad stillness of the woods, where the warm sunlight shone through the gray moss, lighting the curtained solitudes away and away into the depths of the golden afternoon; and somewhere amid the miles of sleeping wilderness sounded the hoarse honk of the ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... then came over my mind, and having thanked the Creator of all for his never-failing mercy, I closed my eyes, and was passing away into the world of dreaming existence, when suddenly there burst on my soul the serenade of the Rosebreasted bird, so rich, so mellow, so loud in the stillness of the night, that sleep fled from my eyelids. Never did I enjoy music more: it thrilled through my heart, and surrounded me with an atmosphere of bliss. One might easily have imagined that even the ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... midst of the lagoon upon their employment; the cook, a boy of ten, was over his pots in the camp. Thus were all souls accounted for except a single native who accompanied Donat into the wood in quest of sea-fowls' eggs. In a moment, out of the stillness, came the sound of the fall of a great tree. Donat would have passed on to find the cause. 'No,' cried his companion, 'that was no tree. It was something NOT RIGHT. Let us go back to camp.' Next Sunday the divers ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reached to the top of the bank had no dust on them; the rocks were parti-coloured with lichens; the river was bright, flowing and rippling past; the "Pipe of Peace" had pushed off and sped on, and in another minute or two was turning the point, and then—out of sight. Stillness seemed to fill the woods and the air as the beat of her paddles was lost. I breathed stillness. New York was fifty miles away, physically and morally ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Houses of red brick, houses of white wood; the long, wide, dusty Duke of Gloucester Street; gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply, passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,—all seemed remote without distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, and yet keen and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of ordinaries and public places; from open door and window all along Duke of Gloucester Street came laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap of drinking song. To Haward, giddy, ill at ease, sickening ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... was silent a moment or two and leaned back in her chair; and the others dared not speak. The strange emotion of her voice and the stillness of that sparkling figure in the porter's chair affected them profoundly. Her face was now completely shaded by ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... a cow in the quiet meadows, the splash of a trout in the fish-pond, the last notes of a tired bird, the creaking of wagon-wheels upon the distant road, every now and then breaking the evening silence, only made the stillness of the place seem more intense. It was almost oppressive, this twilight stillness. The very repose of the place grew painful from its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying somewhere within that gray and ivy-covered pile ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... grand promises, sir. I hae had a glint inside spacious halls o' delightfu' stillness and wonderfu' wisdom. I'll ne'er forget the joy ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... an uncanny stillness was broken by an inferno of noise. With a din and roar that can never be forgotten by those who heard it, one of the greatest concentrations of artillery the World had ever seen came into action. The crash and rattle were appalling. Sandwiched as we were, with machine ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... elegant crocketed pinnacles of All Souls, the delicately taper spire of St. Mary's, and the clustered enrichments and imperial canopies of masonry, and splendid traceries which every where strike the eye: all of which objects were rendered trebly impressive from the stillness of the night, and the flittering light by which they were illumined. I had enough of wine and frolic, and had hoped to have shirked the party and stolen quietly to my lodgings, there to indulge in my lucubrations on the scene I had witnessed, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... were playing ball in the stables, but she did not feel as if she wanted to romp with them. There was a stillness and a sweetness abroad which penetrated and absorbed her. She moved towards the paddock gate; the pony and the donkey came towards her, and she rubbed their muzzles in turn. It was a pleasure to touch anything, especially anything ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... vessels got out of the way to give the 'Vanderbilt' and the 'Minnesota' room to bear down upon the rebel terror as soon as she should clear the coast line. It was a calm Sabbath morning, and the air was still and tranquil. Suddenly the stillness was broken by the cannon from the vessels and the great guns from the Rip Raps, that filled the air with sulphurous smoke and a terrific noise that reverberated from the fortress and the opposite shore like thunder. The firing was maintained for ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... imperfectly as the dusky current which they bestrode, seemed rather caverns which swallowed up the gloomy waters of the river, than apertures contrived for their passage. With the advancing night the stillness of the scene increased. There was yet a twinkling light occasionally seen to glide along by the stream, which conducted home one or two of the small parties, who, after the abstinence and religious duties of the day, had partaken of a social supper—the only meal at which ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... my breath, before I could turn my eyes, gave it her breast. It pressed its wandering, blind hands into that miraculous, ivory globe (that pattern of the living world) and through the dense, warm stillness of that garden spot, where the bees' hum was the very music of silence, there sounded, so gradually that I could not tell when the first notes stirred the soundlessness, a curious cooing and gurgling, a sort of fluty chuckle, a rippling, greedy ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... with a glance at him which took in the dust, and the stains of salt-water on his clothes, the fatigue he sought to conceal by a rigid stillness, and the tension that was left by the dangers he had passed through—daring ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... Mystically writ on cloud? To speak your name aloud Were to unhallow Such a holy thing; Therefore I bring To your white feet And your immortal eyes Silence forever, But in such a wise Am silent as the quiet waters are, Hiding some holy star Amid hushed lilies In a secret lake. Ah, if a ripple break The stillness halcyon— The ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... to move, lives also in continual rhythm and response. The eternal hills are vibrant to the eye of science, and the very stones are pulsing with the joy of life. The countryside sings, and there is the beat of rhythm not merely in our hearts but in every particle of our body. Stillness is a delusion, and immobility a fiction of the senses. Life is movement and activity, and rigidity and stiffness come more near to what we understand as death. Yet even in death there is no stillness, there is but a change in the form of activity. The body is no longer alive as ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... without him. Be his memory dear and honourable to us, as that of one so worthy ought. What in him was true and valiant endures for evermore—beyond all memory or record. His light, airy brilliancy has suddenly become solemn, fixed in the earnest stillness of Eternity. There shall we also, and our ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... thought. His footfall was nothing on the soft mold. Portly trunks of the hemlocks began to bar his way. The thick shade entreated secrecy; he stood still, and saw his dryad, a green apparition, kneeling at the foot of a beech tree, and looking down. In the stillness, which absorbed all but the beating of his heart, he heard the dry tick, tick of a beech leaf falling. Those that still clung to the sleek upper boughs were no more than a delicate yellow cloud or glowing autumnal atmosphere suffusing the black bole of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... proceeded from the whiteness that was Maud. In the stillness it sounded like some loud noise. It jarred on ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... plunged through the twilight without, with a glad cry that pierced like a knife through the stillness which had fallen in the little room. Raoul de Frison faced her, with clenched hands, silent. For that instant she ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... engaged in building my own little room, and making our hovel comfortable. My thoughts had been almost entirely occupied in contriving means to get into prison. But now I looked towards the gate with a kind of melancholy feeling, but no wish to enter. All was the stillness of death; no preparation of your brother's food, no expectation of meeting him at the usual dinner hour, all my employment, all my occupations seemed to have ceased, and I had nothing left but the dreadful recollection ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... that word along the ranks of the Kindred, and men were merry with the restless joy of battle: but scarce had two minutes passed ere suddenly the stillness of the dawn was broken by clamour and uproar; by shouts and shrieks, and the clashing of weapons from the wood on their left hand; and over all arose the roar of the Markmen's horn, for the battle was joined with the second company of the Kindreds. But a rumour and murmur went from ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... came on intensely black, with intervals of perfect stillness, followed by puffs of icy wind, which were charged with tiny sharp spicules of ice, which made the face tingle at the slightest exposure ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... in duration, it would be difficult to imagine, but the love of liberty had been infused in their dreams somewhere, either in their eastern homes from the tragic scenes of the anti-slavery conflict, or on that perilous march amidst those eternal solitudes by day and the solemn stillness of the far-off stars in the gathering darkness. That this long communion with great nature left its impress on their young hearts and sanctified their lives to the best interests of humanity at large, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the English senate for the benefit of whose biographers the adjective amiable seems especially to have been invented. Although the master of a large fortune, while he was still a boy of twenty he was deservedly noted for the gravity and stillness of his youth, and during a political career of one-and-thirty years, if he showed neither commanding eloquence nor commanding statesmanship, he did honor to the Whig party by his sincere patriotism and irreproachable uprightness of character. If heaven had denied Rockingham the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... uncouth words in an unknown language, and bade Satan stand forth.... He expected a thunderclap, the flashing of lightning, sulphurous fumes—but the night remained silent and quiet; not a sound broke the stillness of the monastery; the ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... faculty abides, That with interpositions, which would hide And darken, so can deal that they become Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt Her native brightness. As the ample moon, In the deep stillness of a summer even Rising behind a thick and lofty grove, Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own. The Excursion, Bk. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... at times so boisterous, that frequently we could not, though so near them, distinguish a word the King and Queen said; and yet, whenever the leaders of these organized ruffians spoke or threatened, the most respectful stillness instantly prevailed. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... he set the watch in order right To guard the camp, along the trenches deep, And as he armed was, so every knight He willed on his back his arms to keep. Now had the stillness of the quiet night Drowned all the world in silence and in sleep, When suddenly we heard a dreadful sound, Which deafed the earth, and tremble made ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... of black bread and a long draught from the fountain was Stephan's breakfast, which being speedily finished, he broke the morning stillness with repeated blasts from the horn, which seemed to awake the valley as by magic; for scarcely had the more distant mountains echoed the summons, than from almost every door-way scampered one or more goats. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... which may be read with profit and delight in the history of the prince's adventures, she forbore to tell him as yet, as judging that he would hear them with greater pleasure from the lips of his son, when he should have him in an hour of stillness and safety, when their work should be done, and none of their enemies left alive ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... scrap, and my father, the person in all his family most justly appealed and most anxiously listened to, had been urged to come and support her in a separation that she passionately rejected. Vivid to me still, as floating across verandahs into the hot afternoon stillness, is the wail of her protest and her grief; I remember being scared and hushed by it and stealing away beyond its reach. I remember not less what resources of high control the whole case imputed, for my imagination, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... hope deferred would fall upon her loving heart, crushing it almost to breaking; yet bravely she struggled with her woe. It was when the holy stars shone down, gazing pityingly at her meekly raised eyes, and she was alone in stillness with her great sorrow, that then would she murmur with ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... sleepy village of Tinkletown was in a state of agitation unsurpassed by anything within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.... Along about supper time one could have heard animated arguments rising above the clear stillness of the air, penetrating even to the heaven which was called upon to witness the unswerving fidelity of two opposing sexes. There was a distinct difference, however, in the duration of this professed fidelity. Masculine voices pleaded for the immediate ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... Hupner's voice breaking the stillness now, "if you each want to clear your own individual selves you will step forward and volunteer to have your persons ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... earnestly tried to speak the words which he has never heard—to come out of the prison of silence, where no tone of love, no song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the stillness—can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of discovery which came over him when he uttered his first word. Only such a one can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked to my toys, to stones, trees, birds and dumb ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... speed, the Arabs sweep ahead. Meanwhile the prince springs forward from his seat, And all on tiptoe still and eager stand, So that the rumbling of the chariot-wheels, The tramp of flying feet and drivers' cries, Alone the universal stillness break— As when before the bursting of some fearful storm, Birds, beasts and men stand mute with trembling awe, While heaven's artillery and roaring winds Are in the awful silence only heard. But when the double victory ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... warning eloquence, there is little doubt that his own mind and heart were gainers by a retirement, in which he had leisure to "prune the ruffled wings" of his benevolent spirit,—to exchange the ambition of being great for that of being useful, and to listen, in the stillness of retreat, to the lessons of a mild wisdom, of which, had his life been prolonged, his country would have ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... with satisfaction, "I was about to ask you what you thought the distance was. Two miles is about what I had estimated. We can't say very exactly, for sound is likely to travel far in this still air. But let us make a liberal allowance for the stillness. I think we are safe in saying that the sound comes from a point not more than four miles distant from this island. Now, the next question is, from what direction ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a minute; and then in came Dr. Sandford. In his presence Preston was mute; attending to the doctor's manipulations as gravely as the doctor himself performed them. In the midst of the general stillness, Dr. Sandford asked, "Who was speaking about trilobites ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... run upstairs, on arriving with Mr. Underwood, looking paler, more scared and miserable, than any of them; and he was sobbing so much when he took his place in the procession, that Wilmet had made Felix take Alda, that she might support him. None of his mother's steady reserve and resolute stillness had descended to him, he was all sensibility and nervousness; and Geraldine, though without saying this to herself, felt as if 'poor Edgar' might really have been nearly killed by the last few days ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... silent, but at last raised her eyes again to his, saying in a voice that even in the stillness of the room ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... cross. While they were thus engaged the Magdalen and Mary talked together. "At last," said Mary Magdalene, "the madmen have departed. Be comforted, beloved mother, now we are alone with our friends; the mockery and blasphemy are past and a holy evening stillness surrounds us." ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... table, on the clock-shelf, knocking down a tin dish, that fell with the clatter of a bursting magazine in the dense stillness of the night. Both drew back in shadow, waiting with heart-beats that sounded in their ears like tramping horses on thick sward. The clamor of rushing steeds in the lane suddenly drowned this; a loud, joyous whinny sounded in the very kitchen it ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... cancelling years of wrong! Ah, fair and fatal decoration, serving as a mark for a hidden foe! The sharp crack of a rifle broke the stillness of the night, and with those hopeful words upon his lips, the young man sealed his ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness, and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... boys were working, and in the dormitories where the rest were now going to bed. The tall trees round the building stood quite black against the faintly-lighted sky, waving their thinned remnant of yellow leaves in the November air. In the stillness you heard every slight sound; and the murmur of boys' voices came mingled with the plashing of the mountain stream, and the moaning of the low waves as they broke upon the shore. A merry laugh rang from one of the dormitories, jarring painfully on Wilton's feelings, as he stood gazing ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... would have believed any fairy tale by now. And they started for it, Harley leading; but the tide was too high, and at the farther end of the little pebble isthmus the higher breakers actually came across and poured their foam into the clear stillness. Ann and Jane were afraid; even Dolly hesitated; as for Harley, he was stopped by discovering a beautiful new peg-top which had been cast up by the sea and was rolling ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... quiet, till, in the midst of absolute stillness, came the words, 'Are you ready?', then the pistol-shot and the great race had begun. Above the roar of the crowd came the shrill cry of Baptiste, as he struck his broncho with the palm of his hand, and swung himself into the sleigh beside Sandy, as ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... being, though, probably, many a wandering savage had watched them from the covert of the bank, as they floated silently between the forests. It was an unbroken solitude, where the ripple of their paddles sounded loudly on the ear, and their voices, subdued by the stillness, were sent back in lonely echoes ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... dark woods. Myriad fireflies flitted round, insects chirped in every hollow, the whippoorwill called from the distant thicket, the night-hawk circled in the open glade. A cheerful sound of cow-bells broke the noisy stillness, the forest opened upon a row of dark buildings and darker orange trees, and barking of dogs and kindly voices told us that rest was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... they floated swiftly on, over the dusty waste, they watched their own huge shadows sweeping like the forms of clouds across the burning sand, exactly underneath, for it was noon: and the surface of the desert shook and quivered in the stillness, as if the wind, asleep, had, like a tired traveller, sought refuge from the fury of the sun above their heads. And all at once, the Daughter of the Snow exclaimed: See, there is the mirage! Let us descend, and sit for a little while upon ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... without hope—truthfulness without prospect, almost without possibility, of tangible fulfilment—is all that lies before her now. She accepts it in a mournful stillness, not of despair, and not of resignation, but simply as the only true accomplishment of her life that ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... sickened, and for two or three days did not quit her room, still Olive, though grieving for the moment, never dreamed of any serious affliction. She tended her nurse lovingly and cheerfully, made herself quite a little woman for her sake, and really half enjoyed the stillness of the sickroom. It was a gay time—the house was full of visitors—and Elspie and her charge, always much left to one another's society, were now alone in their nursery, night and day. No one thought the ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... In tolerable stillness Rose one little, little star, And it chuckled at my illness, And it mocked me from afar; And its brethren came and eyed me, Called the Universe to aid, Till I lay, with naught to hide me, 'Neath the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... hands across each other on the sheet with a curious sigh of satisfaction, and was quiet for a little, while Dora held her hand. But it was not long before the stillness broke up in sudden agitation. A tremor ran through her, and she caught Dora's fingers. In her weakness she could not control herself, and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... temptation to do so was very strong; but he remembered his mother's injunction, and sat down again on the rug. But it was very hard to wait. It would have been a great deal easier to Arthur to do almost anything else just then. One half hour and then another passed, and no sound came to break the stillness which was in the house, till Arthur's head dropped on his hand for weariness, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. How long he remained so he hardly knew; but he did not wake until a gentle step came on the stairs. The door ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... ourselves about the desecration; and certainly ours was one of the most delightful gardens that ever existed, what with green turf, bright flowers, shapely shrubs, and the grand beech-trees enclosing it with their stately white pillars, green foliage, and the russet arcades beneath them. The stillness was wonderful to ears accustomed to the London roar—almost a new sensation. Emily was found, as she said, 'listening to the silence;' and my father declared that no one could guess at the sense of rest that it ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horsemen. The battle was rolling a step nearer to them, and she began to see, low down under the pall of smoke, flashes of fire like swift strokes of lightning. Then it rolled another step nearer and its tumult beat heavily and cruelly on the drums of her ears. Yet the deathly stillness in the scrub oaks around the house continued. They waved as peacefully as ever in the gentle wind from the west. It was still a battle heard but ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... sweet girl, and I am very partial to her, there's the truth," cried Lady Clonbrony, in an undisguised Irish accent, and with her natural warm manner. But, a moment afterwards, her features and whole form resumed their constrained stillness and stiffness, and in her English accent she continued, "Before you put my idears out of my head, Colambre, I had something to say to you—Oh! I know what it was—we were talking of embarrassments—and I wish to do your father the justice ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... remain till the following spring. This little orchard, without a path through it, without a border, or a parterre, or a terrace, is a place to sit down and dream in, notwithstanding that it touches the road, for thus left to itself it has acquired an atmosphere of peace and stillness such as belongs to and grows up in woods and far-away coombs of the hills. A stray passer-by would go on without even noticing it, it is so commonplace and unpretentious, merely a corner of meadow irregularly dotted ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... not high, and seemed very far below the children, who sat looking at it from their ponies on the bank. As they watched in silence a fish leaped in the middle of the Bend. The sudden movement seemed amazing in the stillness. It flashed for an instant in a patch of sunlight, and then fell back, sending circling ripples spreading ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... telephone bell in the office ripped the stillness with a discordant suddenness which Farquaharson thought must arouse the household, but the snoring beyond the wall went on, unbroken, and there was no sound of a footfall on the creaking stair. At last Stuart, himself, irritated by the strident urgency of its repetitions, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... outlines of wood and meadow, and the sun's beams rested tenderly upon the rapidly stripping branches, where a few rustling leaves still told of their departed glories. The long undefined shadows of the trees stretched far across the wide lawn, scarcely moving in the profound stillness of the air; and a whole assembly of birds kept up a low-toned conversation in the bushes, as if the day were hardly bright enough to warrant a full chorus of concerted song. It was a tender, wistful kind of day, such as comes sometimes in the fall of the year, before the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... heroes. He stared between them at the red facade; if she was a coward she would still be somewhere in there. The thought struck him with terror. If she were not waiting for him the moonlight would shatter and turn to darkness, the violence of his heart-beat turn to stillness. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... its golden light, than King Solomon in all his glory. There was the crimson-leaved maple, and the yellow beach, and the variegated oak, mingled with the fresh green hemlocks and pines. There was something in the quiet, and deep stillness of the woods, which made the boys silent, as they rode through; they felt the influence of its exceeding beauty, though they could not have expressed it in words; for God always speaks to us through his works, and if we ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... Epistemon, that is a pretty jolly vow of thirteen to a dozen. It is a shame to you, and I wonder much at it, that you do not return unto yourself, and recall your senses from this their wild swerving and straying abroad to that rest and stillness which becomes a virtuous man. This whimsical conceit of yours brings me to the remembrance of a solemn promise made by the shag-haired Argives, who, having in their controversy against the Lacedaemonians for the territory of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... there was neither a sail on the sea, nor a human habitation on the land; there was not even a sheep cropping the herbage of the headlands. I think there were birds calling about the pinnacles of the cliffs—yet it seemed to me that the man broke a complete stillness when he spoke, as he quietly wished me a ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... among the pine trees there were now both heat and silence. It seemed as if a dreamy stillness enveloped the whole world. Not a breath of wind stirred; the trees, grain, and grass were motionless. The leaves hung on the trees as if rocked to sleep; the birds had ceased their noises, and the moment of rest had come. But this rest seemed to come from an ineffable ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... on his side; and relapses into sleep. Stillness settles on the Sierra; and the darkness deepens. The fire has again buried itself in white ash and ceased to glow. The peaks show unfathomably dark against the starry firmament; but now the stars dim and vanish; and the sky seems to steal away out of the universe. Instead of the Sierra ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... of a residence is in (the suitability of) the place; that of the mind is in abysmal stillness; that of associations is in their being with the virtuous; that of government is in its securing good order; that of (the conduct of) affairs is in its ability; and that of (the initiation of) any movement is ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... the powdered remains of last year's foliage; the leaves above him were showing the first yellow stains of autumn. A sweet smell of ripening nuts was thick upon the air, and busy rustlings and chirpings through the stillness told how the chipmunks and squirrels were attending ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Breton were compelled to use force to hold the sick man on his mattress. He horrified the nuns at evening prayer by shouting for wine, calling the main at dice, or singing a camp song. At other times his laughter broke the quiet of midnight or the stillness of dawn. But never in all his ravings did he mention the marquis or the tragedy of the last rout. Some secret consciousness locked his lips. Sometimes Brother Jacques entered the berthroom and applied cold cloths, and rarely the young priest failed to quiet the patient. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... substance they filled out the rents in the grassy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale luster, streaming through narrow barbican and mildewed arch, touched the decaying ruin of San Felipe with the wand of enchantment, and restored it to pristine freshness and strength. Through the stillness of night the watery vapor streamed upward from garden and patio, and mingled with the scent of flushing roses and tropical buds in a fragrant mist suffused with the moon's ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
