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More "Tongue-tied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... social position. She is constantly advising her son, when there is any occasion to preach, to be on the lookout for a virtuous wife. She tells him that, since she is an old and experienced woman, he must follow her advice. Her advice is that a good wife is always quiet and tongue-tied, and does not go noisily about the house. As Juan is an obedient son, he soon determines to get him a good wife. After a short time Juan comes home to his mother, and says to her, "Mother, I have found the girl ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... borne by those who entered blinded her. Then, above the lanthorn, the faces of La Tribe and Bigot broke upon her, and their shining eyes told her that they bore good news. It was well, for the men seemed tongue-tied. The minister's fluency was gone; he was very pale, and it was Bigot who in the end spoke for both. He stepped forward, and, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... desirous of conciliating the younger men, overwhelms us with his ready rhetoric; he drags us before the judge, presses us with questions, lays traps for us; the onslaught troubles, upsets and rends poor old Tithonus, who, crushed with age, stands tongue-tied; sentenced to a fine,[223] he weeps, he sobs and says to his friend, "This fine robs me of the last trifle that was to have ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... listen to none of those half sentences. You cannot possibly speak out, I see; in fact, you are tongue-tied by the cord of your evil fate. Upon no subject can you speak until it ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Lesley was still tongue-tied, and Mr. Brooke did not seem to know what to do or say. He walked away from the fire and began to finger some papers on a table, although it was quite too dark to see any of these. Inwardly he was wondering how much or how little ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... that his will must conquer hers; but the remorseful half, even if he had known of her broken promise, was as much out of his imagination as the other side of the moon. What he believed her to feel about Lydia was solely a tongue-tied jealousy, and what he believed Lydia to have written with the jewels was the fact that she had once been used to wearing them, with other amenities such as he imputed to the intercourse with jealous women. He had the triumphant certainty that he could aggravate ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Creede, fumbling for his hat, and as Miss Lucy took his hand the man who had put the fear of God into the hearts of so many sheep-herders became dumb and tongue-tied with bashfulness. There was not a man in the Four Peaks country that could best him, in anger or in jest, when it called for the ready word; but Kitty Bonnair had so stolen his wits that he could only stand and sweat like a trick-broken horse. As for Hardy he saw rainbows ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... momentarily ceased, and in order to demonstrate that I was not tongue-tied in the company of these celebrities, I ventured to inquire what Lord Clarenceux, whose riches and eccentricities had reached even the Scottish newspapers, had to ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... the soldiers saluted, tongue-tied and embarrassed, scuffling, and prodding one another's ribs in an attempt to urge a spokesman forward, while General Washington gazed down at them as ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... as she came, the King, making her acquainted with his project, said that he reckoned she would not oppose what her husband and her son had already agreed to. Madame, who had counted upon the refusal of her son, was tongue-tied. She threw two furious glances upon Monsieur and upon the Duc de Chartres, and then said that, as they wished it, she had nothing to say, made a slight reverence, and went away. Her son immediately followed her to explain his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of the dressing-room the prize model flew, each time wearing a new costume and looking more stunning with every change. She posed with absolute self-possession before the stricken buyer, who stood, tongue-tied and motionless, while Zizzbaum orated oilily of the styles. On the model's face was her faint, impersonal professional smile that seemed to cover ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... He felt tongue-tied, more than usually awkward, terribly and shamefully nervous. Yet the grey eyes were on his face, and he knew that he must speak, must put all to the hazard. And he knew also that if to-day he lost her, it would be the biggest and the ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... left, but not enough, to swear by. Then the doc would say, "You better come in about 10:30 tomorrow, as we bury them all at that hour, and I guess he'll croak by that time." I tried to speak and tell them that I was alive, and that I was going to get well, but it, wasn't any use. I was tongue-tied. Again I would hear the sweet rustle of a dress, and feel a warm hand on my head, and I knew that the rebel angel had rode her mule to town to see me. Then I would try hard to tell her that I was going to ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... interruption or undignified confusion. There was a peace-party, of course, and a war-party, but the latter prevailed. It too often does so in human affairs. Chingatok was understood to favour the peace-party, but as his sire was on the other side, respect kept him tongue-tied. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... a tongue-tied brood at the best. The bands can declare on our behalf without shame and without shyness something of what we all feel and help us to reach a hand toward the men who have risen up to save us. In the beginning ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... mighty roar of laughter and acclaim from all who heard, only Sir Palamon scowled, and, for once mute and tongue-tied, was led incontinent away ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... much as from the rattling tongue Of saucy and audacious eloquence: Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity, At least speak most to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... with words. But they looked at each other, those two, and although there were no more words, yet we gained the impression they were communing. Men and mates, we gaped, curious and tongue-tied. This was something quite beyond us, outside our experience. Bully Fitzgibbon, across the deck from me, pulled wildly at his mustache, and every movement of his ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... tongs. Voyageurs tried to shoot the big canoe over a waterfall; for when Jean tilted one end of the long bench, they landed as cleanly on the floor as if their craft had plunged. But the copper-faced Le Borgne remained taciturn and tongue-tied. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... never seen anything so enchanting as her face, as she looked at him, laughing, with wavering lights, filtered through young beech leaves, in her eyes. He felt a delirious desire to show her that he was not a tongue-tied fool; that he also, like Larry, was a ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... basest metal be not mov'd! They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. Go you down that way towards the Capitol; 65 This way will I: disrobe the images, If you do find them ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... laughed Peter Grimm. "She loves you. Are you going to let her slip through your fingers just because you haven't the courage to speak? You were brave enough early this evening when you didn't have a chance. Now that she's yours for the asking, why be tongue-tied? It was the fear of losing you that made her cry out 'No!' ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... stopped him with a grave face and a solemn word. At last his jubilant spirit was conquered; he realized that something was amiss. Then she told him what happened at the Ghyll on Monday night. He turned white, and at first stood tongue-tied. Next he tried to laugh it off, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... English what they say to each other? Why should not all creation speak to me so that I could understand? Why should I not know what the dog says when he barks—what words the hen addresses to her chicks when she clucks to them to follow? Why should I not know the secrets of what is now to us a tongue-tied world of nature? ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... pavement, close by Belgrave Square, deg. deg.1 A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... reassured him to go back to his foundations and to find them still standing. He lost his tongue-tied clumsiness and spoke rapidly, clearly, with brief, strong gestures. His haggard youth gave place to a forcible, aggressive maturity. He was like an architect who had planned for every inch and stone of his masterpiece. Next year he would pass his finals. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honor shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive Good attending captain Ill: Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,— Save that, to die, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... woe, The billow of earthquake underneath the seas, And sit at ease, Or stand agape, Without so much as stepping back to 'scape, Mumbling, 'Perchance we perish if we stay: 'Tis certain wear of shoes to stir away!' Who could have dreamt That times should come like these! Remnant of Honour, tongue-tied with contempt, Consider; you are strong yet, if you please. A hundred just men up, and arm'd but with a frown, May hoot a hundred thousand false loons down, Or drive them any way like geese. But to sit silent now is to ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... and showing us yet another chapter. These two people each thought their hearts belonged irrevocably to the past; but they both found their walk up that hill very pleasant. Rosemary thought the Glen minister was by no means as shy and tongue-tied as he had been represented. He seemed to find no difficulty in talking easily and freely. Glen housewives would have been amazed had they heard him. But then so many Glen housewives talked only gossip and the price of eggs, and John Meredith was not interested in either. He talked ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Fanny, piteously tongue-tied in the presence of the man she loved, glanced up at Wesley Elliot with a timidity she had never before felt in his company. His eyes under close-drawn brows were searching the crowd. Fanny divined that she was not in ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... spirit of the church has suffered by that necessary evil, the Reformation, and the sects which have sprung up subsequently to it! All our modern prayers seem tongue-tied. We appear to be thinking more of avoiding an heretical expression or thought than of opening ourselves to God. We do not pray with that entire, unsuspecting, unfearing, childlike profusion of feeling, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Tongue-tied and doubly embarrassed by his calm scrutiny, the young lady stood with flushed cheeks, and with long black lashes dropped to hide a pair of very shamed eyes, the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... 'Some fool left this here,' Bully bellowed, tearing around. 'And that's what started the fire. I'll kick the man off the works that owns the stick.' Still nobody said anything. He caught me grinnin'. 'You know who it was,' says he. 'Sure I do,' says I, 'but I'm a little tongue-tied.' Then he told me he'd fire me if I didn't say who it was. 'Give me my time-check,' says I, and he gave it. He found out afterward I was the man that dragged him out, and sent a letter up to Colusa askin' me to come back, but ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... eyelids; but he was silent still. That was not his idea of Heaven; but then he was less weary of earth. He felt almost vexed that the only passage of Scripture which would come to him was one utterly unsuited to the occasion—"They rest not day nor night." Usually fluent and fervent, he was tongue-tied just then. ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... repeated hopelessly. "Why, if we had a million, I would still be just common, ornery, doless pore folks—tongue-tied and helpless, and I couldn't give you nothin—nothin!" he cried, "but just rubbish! Yet there are so many things I'd like to give you, Laura—so many, many things!" he repeated. "God Almighty's put a terrible hog-tight inheritance tax on experience, girl!" He smiled ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... touch of anxious respect towards him. In the old days, what with her literary cultivation and her social success, she had always been the flattered and admired one of their little group. Delafield felt himself clumsy and tongue-tied beside her. It was a superiority on her part very natural and never ungraceful, and it was his chief delight to bring it forward, to insist upon it, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... never certain when to ring the bell or move the missal. I was all of a tremble when we gathered two on this side and two on that, with genuflection's, in the middle of the sanctuary, to intone the Domine, salvum fac regern at the end of mass. Let me make a confession: tongue-tied with shyness, I used to leave ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... a fortune-hunter. Her wealth loomed between them as a wall which it were dishonorable even to attempt to scale. His brain was busy phrasing things which he longed to say to her, words seemed to seethe in his head, yet he found himself strangely tongue-tied and awkward. When most of all he desired to appear at his ease, he was most completely uncomfortable and ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... exactly tongue-tied, though," says I. "And you ain't startin' out on this expedition with both arms roped ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... right has risen, and in shockingly bald and barren verbiage has stated the issues which are to be tried, and, being evidently no Heaven-born orator, sits abruptly down, completely gravelled for lack of a more copious vocabulary. A poor tongue-tied devil of a chap ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... together in a community of intelligence, and whose eyes, accustomed to economize expressions, knew how to say so many things silently—these two old friends, one as noble as the other in heart, if they were unequal in fortune and birth, remained tongue-tied whilst looking at each other. By the exchange of a single glance they had just read to the bottom of each other's hearts. The old servitor bore upon his countenance the impression of a grief already old, the outward ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... appearance in his court—extravagantly dressed, almost insolent, to listen indifferently to his severe homily upon Clark's Field—than she suspected. So they chatted for a few minutes about the view, the city, the old house, and then, as Adele still seemed tongue-tied, the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... give a Christmas tree and entertainment—and when a school-teacher promises anything to a neighborhood, nothing short of death or smallpox will be accepted as an excuse for failing to keep the promise; and I've seven tongue-tied kids to work with!" (The schoolma'am was only spasmodically given to irreproachable English.) "Of course, I relied upon my friends to help me out. But when I come to calling the roll, I—I don't seem to have any friends." The schoolma'am was twirling the Montana sapphire ring which Weary ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... yourself!" Her voice was hard to follow, she handled the clumsy Korean with a bird-like quickness and an utter disregard for the nature of the language. Her eyes burned into my own, and I sat embarrassed beside her, tongue-tied, while Holaf smiled quietly and kept his hand ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... feller only could be tongue-tied for a few weeks, he might git out o' this mess in some way," Walky Dexter said. "He talks more useless than th' city feller that was a-sparkin' one of our country gals. He talked mighty high-falutin'—lots dif'rent from what the boys she'd been ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... instrument that linked us together. Yet I was quite incapable of answering her simple question! I can't imagine what I expected her to say, for upon reflection her remark was a very ordinary one, and indeed under the circumstances quite natural, but, as I say, in actual fact I was tongue-tied. ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... his sweetheart is of no importance. Men are so circumscribed in their utterances—so tongue-tied in love. They all say one thing; so it need not be set down here what Bob Hendricks said. It was what the king said to the queen, the prince to the princess, the duke to the lady, the gardener to the maid, the troubadour to his dulcinea. And Molly Culpepper ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... they must be regarded as incurable. The re-educational process used in the successful method of curing stuttering and stammering will not replace a defective organ of the body with a new one. It will not cure harelip or cleft palate, nor will it loosen the tongue of the child who has been hopelessly tongue-tied from birth. ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... needed it not, but to man, who did. I besought him, for the good of all, and as he valued his soul's health, to detail the particulars of his crime, but his eye fell. That dark enemy, who takes care to leave in the heart just hope enough to keep despair alive, tongue-tied him, and he would not—even now, at the eleventh hour—give up the vain imagination that the case of his companion might yet be confounded with his, to the escape of both—and vain it was. It had not been felt advisable so far to make him acquainted with the truth, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... hostess herself shone by quality of intellect rather than by charm of feature; she greeted him with subtlest flattery, a word or two of simple friendliness in her own language, and was presenting him to her husband, when, from the doorway, sounded a name which made Otway's heart leap, and left him tongue-tied. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... "I've talked to you in the nights and made up speeches. Now when I want to make them I'm tongue-tied. But to me it's just as if the moments we have had lasted for ever. Moods and states come and go. To-day my light ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... whiskers, a long pedigree, and a first-rate opinion of themselves, were the only gentlemen who had the temerity to approach the goddess of the ball—oh! excepting the Reverend Augustus Clare, who, in his intense admiration, was almost tongue-tied, and Doctor Danton, who, to the surprise of every one except the master of the Hall, walked in, the last guest ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... they were merely clear and searching, and the Knight sat tongue-tied. But presently there flicked into them a look so human, so tender, so completely understanding, that straightway the tongue ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... shouted a hearty welcome to Gerrard, commanded him to dinner that evening, to meet his eldest son, who was on the Headquarters Staff, and turned judiciously to speak to some one else. Honour's eyes were on her horse's mane, Gerrard's were devouring her face, but for the moment both of them were tongue-tied. Honour recovered herself first, and ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... yet: I must sit down. Attend, young Bruce, and listen to the queen; She'll not be tongue-tied: we shall have a stir Anon, I fear, would make a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... wasn't surprised. I couldn't quite follow some of it, but anybody could see that it was real ripe stuff, and I was amazed that even the course of treatment he had been taking could have rendered so normally tongue-tied a dumb brick ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... a certain dizziness had interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied. There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but of surprising clearness of conviction on the highest problems. He had gone nearly beside himself on the Sunday, because ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... again. Why did she not speak plainly, he was wondering. In the subtler matters of life, women have a clearer comprehension and a plainer speech than men. When they are tongue-tied—the reason is ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... the shore. Went to the bazaar with my native boy—wish I had a Burmese servant, as neither of us can speak a word of Burmese. I'd advise any tourist to try and get a Burmese servant for guide and councillor. It is horrid being tongue-tied amongst such kindly-looking people. There does not seem to be much love lost between the Burmans and the natives of India, and I think the foolish Indian natives actually ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... with Dalhousie, the future governor-general of India. He was also distinguished in two ways: he was a sincere Christian of the devout evangelical type, and he had a gift of speech that would have been remarkable in any man, but was remarkable most of all in a high official of a rather tongue-tied race. His native gift of eloquence was carefully cultivated and proved to be of great value in many points in his public career. His family ties are interesting. His first wife, a Miss Bruce, met a tragic fate. The vessel in which {99} she accompanied her ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... two German ladies-in-waiting. A carriage had met her at the railway station in Bayonne, and set her down at the doors of her Chateau, where her aunt, old Mademoiselle Henriette, awaited her. What manner of life she led there, nobody had the poorest means of discovering. Her own servants (tongue-tied by fear or love) could not be got to speak; and from the eyes of all outsiders she was sedulously screened. Paul could imagine her, in her great humiliation, solitary among the ruins of her high destiny, hiding her wounds; too sensitive to face the curiosity, too proud ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... sadly, and his many thoughts tongue-tied him a while; but at last he said: "Must thou verily go on this quest?" "Ah," she said, "now since I have seen thee and spoken with thee again, all need there is that I should follow ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... sitting-room where she sat to fill his cup and to cut him bread-and-butter, was as lovely a vision as any man could desire to see at his board. Pleasantly and gaily she chattered, waiting on him with her dainty hands. He, tongue-tied, answering little, embarrassed and ill at ease ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... dull and plodding student at the technical school, where he took the civil engineering degree, and had gone forth to lay track in Montana. He laid it well; but this job finished, there seemed no permanent place for him. He was heavy and rather tongue-tied, and made no impression on his superiors except that of commonplace efficiency. He drifted into Canada, then back to the States, and finally found a place ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... with the former, and you have human nature and the whole glorious love-making Past at your back, to give you confidence and eloquence. But with the latter you are cowed and beaten beforehand, and tongue-tied ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... moment, and never had he felt his fondness for her so genuine. Yet, when she seemed almost to offer him herself and her life—if only he would stretch out his arm and lift her across the stream of dilemma—he could not urge, but sat tongue-tied. He could think only of the difficulties; and the thought of them staggered and blinded him. This was not the indecision of a man weighing the responsibilities of a step which might ruin the life of another man; it was merely the futility of "the unlit ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... and consider Jim Wolf, I am almost persuaded that he was. He was our long slim apprentice in my brother's printing-office in Hannibal. He was seventeen, and yet he was as much as four times as bashful as I was, though I was only fourteen. He boarded and slept in the house, but he was always tongue-tied in the presence of my sister, and when even my gentle mother spoke to him he could not answer save in frightened monosyllables. He would not enter a room where a girl was; nothing could persuade him to do such a thing. Once ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... no other words, and waited there motionless for a few seconds, tongue-tied, while his eyes travelled from Chapdelaine to Maria, from Maria to the children who sat very still and quiet by the table; then he plucked off his cap hastily, as if in amends for his forgetfulness, ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... he would have caviar at least once a day; and caviar appeared in a little glass cup set in the midst of cracked ice, flanked by crisp toast. After caviar came other things to Burleigh's taste. He was having such an awesomely grand feast that he was tongue-tied; but Jack could never eat in silence until he had forgotten how to tell stories. So he told Burleigh stories of the trail and of life in Little Rivers in a way that reflected the desert sunshine in Burleigh's eyes. Burleigh thought ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... like a very lion; and I have seen the hero of a hundred fights, the master of men, the essence of intrepid resolution, stand quaking outside a drawing-room door. The debut of Robin, then, I awaited with considerable interest. I expected on the whole to see him tongue-tied, especially before Dolly and Dilly. On the other hand he might be ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... "for nobody to say nothin' as much as dat Koku does. Why, lawsy me! if he was tongue-tied an' speechless, an' a deaf an' dumb mute, he couldn't say nothin' more obstreperously dan he does—no ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... hard, Cruel Mother of sweet Love! Haste, where gay youth solicits thy regard. With thy purple cygnets fly To Paullus' door, a seasonable guest; There within hold revelry, There light thy flame in that congenial breast. He, with birth and beauty graced, The trembling client's champion, ne'er tongue-tied, Master of each manly taste, Shall bear thy conquering banners far and wide. Let him smile in triumph gay, True heart, victorious over lavish hand, By the Alban lake that day 'Neath citron roof ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... constructions of Europe. But the Church gives Europe a special nimbus and a special excellency over those ancient worlds. Secular Europe does not know that, but the Church knows it and keeps silent. She cannot announce it because she has sinned. Her sins keep her tongue-tied. ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... There must be the inflaming before there can be the mounting of the aspiration. You cannot get a balloon to go up unless the gas within it is warmer than the atmosphere round it. It is because we are habitually such tepid Christians that we are so tongue-tied in prayer. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... unwittingly committed some utterly unpardonable offence, and that all nature was breathlessly awaiting the fall of the avenging thunderbolt. For it was not only that every man present in that great open space seemed tongue-tied, they seemed to be not even drawing their breath; they were as absolutely motionless as so many statues; there was not even the faint sound of a man shifting his weight from one leg to the other, not even the scarcely perceptible touch of a spear-haft ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Nina quite unprepared. She had constructed no set speech; she had formulated no demand. For a second or so she stood tongue-tied—tongue-tied and helpless—unable to put her passionate appeal into words; then, all of ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... that. You will get tongue-tied if you keep on," warned Hippy Wingate. "We have something more serious on hand ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... mysteriously tongue-tied. Silence was particularly golden in these days, and in the stillness of the night the little click of a sheep's trotters descending a mountain pathway was often mistaken for the clank of a scabbard point, or the clink of a gun-butt striking ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... entered from the stairs, and the appearance of the worthy lady relieved him from an awkward embarrassment. The clerks surveyed him with great curiosity, and he, not knowing well what to say to this ascending and descending scale, remained tongue-tied. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... gone, sir. I feel I am all but tongue-tied. Think that it is Harry who petitions you to ensure his happiness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for her to speak; but Toni sat tongue-tied, miserably conscious that in her mind no answering enthusiasm could be born, since she had neither read nor wished to read a single word ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... on and on she talked, while I sat amazed and tongue-tied, but, oh, so happy! I tell you all this, dear Mrs. Chilton, so you can see for yourself how interested she is, how eagerly she is going to watch this boy's growth and development, and how, in spite of herself, it ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... the feeling that held me tongue-tied. To make me feel at my ease she started to tell of everything that had happened from the moment that The Waif had cleared Sydney Heads, and the time she spent in that recital was as precious to me as the two-minute interval between rounds is to a prize-fighter who has been knocked silly ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... Truth the world denies, Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; Not always right in all men's eyes, But ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... whisper &c (faintness) 405. silence; render mute, render silent; muzzle, muffle, suppress, smother, gag, strike dumb, dumfounder; drown the voice, put to silence, stop one's mouth, cut one short. stick in the throat. Adj. aphonous^, dumb, mute; deafmute, deaf and dumb; mum; tongue-tied; breathless, tongueless, voiceless, speechless, wordless; mute as a fish, mute as a stockfish^, mute as a mackerel; silent &c (taciturn) 585; muzzled; inarticulate, inaudible. croaking, raucous, hoarse, husky, dry, hollow, sepulchral, hoarse as a raven; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of doors. The company looked at each other with a perplexed interest—and inquiringly at Huck, who was tongue-tied. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... every one, and once or twice he left his seat to speak to a friend—during which absence Bob's friends shot him amazed glances, with eyebrows raised in astonishment that he should be lunching with a real Major-General. Bob was somewhat tongue-tied with bewilderment over the fact himself. But when their cold beef came, General Harran soon put him at his ease, leading him to talk of himself and his plans with quiet tact. Before Bob fairly realized it he had unfolded all his little story—even ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... plucking at her heartstrings, burning her with the remembrance that he, when he gave her everything that a man could give, had done it in a manner perfect and without flaw. And now she, with her infinitely smaller offering, sat tongue-tied and ineffectual, unable to give with a show of the purple, too poor-spirited even to yield him the truth for his truth which alone made the gift ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and mothers had come there to hide their grief. Our curate was a very old man, and the news had given him such a shock that he was unable to say a word after reaching the pulpit and stood there, tongue-tied, with the tears streaming down his face for nearly five minutes—finally retiring without uttering a sound. Not exactly the most fortunate thing that could have happened, for his attitude encouraged ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... smiling, both on the brink of laughter, all was so innocent and playful; and the Prince, when their lips encountered, was dumbfoundered by the sudden convulsion of his being. Both drew instantly apart, and for an appreciable time sat tongue-tied. Otto was indistinctly conscious of a peril in the silence, but could find no words to utter. Suddenly the Countess seemed to awake. 'As for your wife - ' she began in a ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Maltie Beeswax. We called him that, because he sticks so. If he gets in our laps, there is no getting rid of him. He will jump through my hands held three feet high. The parrot does not talk much, because it is tongue-tied. She calls "papa," and screams when she wants to get out of her cage. The dog Spry is the cunningest of all. His body and color are like a black and tan; but his nose is shaggy, like a Scotch terrier, which makes him look very funny. He will sit up, and clap his paws ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... shy, almost tongue-tied. She made him his tea, and gave him a cup; then she spoke of commonplaces, and the little kettle boiled and bubbled and sang as if there were no sorrow or sadness in ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... I have many remembrances. I see, for instance, a drawing- room full of rather tongue-tied, embarrassed guests, some Oxford residents, some Londoners; and the Master among them, as a stimulating— but disintegrating!—force, of whom every one was uneasily conscious. The circle was wide, the room bare, and the Balliol arm-chairs ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the one category of Haeckel, or possibly the two categories of Bastian—Matter and Motion! Philologically speaking, we should all be at sea, drifting, like a set of deaf-mutes, on a wide and inaudible ocean—all inarticulate, tongue-tied, voiceless—with only the screeching of the sea-mew, or some other sepulchral bird of the night, to greet us as in wide-mouthed derision of our speechlessness ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... capable of delicacy and precision and power? If he had been taught to do anything at all, he would not be sitting here tonight a wooden thing amongst living people. He felt that a man might have been made of him, but nobody had taken the trouble to do it; tongue-tied, foot-tied, hand-tied. If one were born into this world like a bear cub or a bull calf, one could only paw and upset things, break and destroy, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... rough, harsh, and hesitant; and the same poet elsewhere tells us of old men that sate on the walls, and spake with a great deal of flourish and elegance. And in this point indeed they surpass and outgo children, who are pretty forward in a softly, innocent prattle, but otherwise are too much tongue-tied, and want the other's most acceptable embellishment of a perpetual talkativeness. Add to this, that old men love to be playing with children, and children delight as much in them, to verify the proverb, that ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... that the girl he loves is inspecting him closely and making up her mind about him,' he proceeded, 'these unexpected meetings are very trying ordeals. You must not form your judgement of me too hastily. You see me now, nervous, embarrassed, tongue-tied. But I am not always like this. Beneath this crust of diffidence there is sterling stuff, Miss Warden. People who know me have spoken of me as a little ray of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... slightly, and then stopped, with all her old agitation and embarrassment. But, to his own surprise, he was also embarrassed and even tongue-tied. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Gallery by the light of noon. Although I had recalled the Jephson story so circumstantially, it never struck me that it might be interesting to attempt any conversation, and see whether I also were tongue-tied. I did not want to speak—there seemed no special reason for speaking. It was quite enough to lie there with this blissful feeling of protection and love folding me round like a cloud with golden ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... followed, abruptly broken by the sound of a girlish voice, which, though beautifully tintinnabulous, was unearthly, and full of suggestions so sinister and blood-curdling, that the fetters which had hitherto held me tongue-tied snapped asunder, and I was able to give vent to my terror in words. The instant I did so the singing ceased, all was still, and not another sound disturbed ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... looked smilingly at Alice, that young woman, usually mistress of herself in all emergencies, did not lift her eyes to meet his. Indeed, he thought her strangely embarrassed. She was as flushed and tongue-tied as a country girl in unaccustomed company. She seemed another woman than the self-possessed young beauty he had met a month before on the Limited, but he ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... the attention of the medical man to the fact, in order that he may ascertain whether he be tongue-tied. If he be, the simple operation of dividing the bridle of the tongue will remedy the defect, and will cause him to take the nipple ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... turns with her to go for a short time in every day to the village-school which their father and the rector had established: "Pray tell us, Mr. Larkyns! Mary has said nothing about it." "Then," replied the rector, "I am tongue-tied, until I have my fair friend's permission to reveal ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... that of a wet finger on the window-pane interrupted Mr. Huddlestone's tale; and in an instant we were all four as white as paper, and sat tongue-tied and ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but I don't think he introduced me. And now he has forgotten again,' I added, dryly, turning towards Davies, who, having presented himself to Frulein Dollmann, was looking feebly from her to von Brning, the picture of tongue-tied awkwardness. (The commander nodded to me and ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... practical question. And that Valeria could not answer. She could not bring herself to say that the doctor's warnings ought to be disregarded by Hadria, at the risk of her mother's life. It was not merely a risk, but a practical certainty that any further shock or trouble would be fatal. Valeria was tongue-tied. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... pleases. It isn't fair, but it's the world's way, and always will be lessen women learn some things they ought to know. They wouldn't stand for some of the things that go on if they understood them, but they don't understand. They've been tongue-tied and hand-tied so long, they haven't taken in yet they've got to do ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... robed in orange and green, of Carpaccio; or the naked babies, with dimpled little legs and arms, and filetted silky curls of Gian Bellini, seem to concentrate into music all the many things which that strong pious Venice, tongue-tied by dialect, had no other way of saying; and we feel to this day that it sounds in our hearts and attunes them to worship or love or gentle contemplation. The sound of those lutes and pipes, of those childish voices, heard and felt by the other holy persons in those pictures—Roman knight Sebastian, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... And as she said nothing he was obliged to say something, if only to prove to both of them that he was not a mere tongue-tied provincial. He said: ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... reflection in water of the trees by the shore. Memory, like the sun, paints to me bright pictures of the golden summer time of lotus; I can see them, but how shall I fix them for you? By no process can that be accomplished. It is like a story that cannot be told because he who knows it is tongue-tied and dumb. Motions of hands, wavings and gestures, rudely convey the framework, but the ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... and how people are getting on; and, though they would listen a little, and that is something, I admit, not a syllable could she get in the way of answer, or remark. She tells me that, several times, she had a mind to quit, for it is monstrous unpleasant to associate with your tongue-tied folks." ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... her head. She seemed tongue-tied. Only when Mr. Newton took her hand to say good-by she burst out, "You will send ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... which had kept Paul standing there dazed and tongue-tied, passed away. Yet it did not immediately occur to him to raise his hat and walk on, as in any ordinary case he would have done. He was conscious of the exact nature of the situation, but he felt a strong disinclination to leave the spot; nor, strangely enough, did she ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... language,—all served to stun and confuse me, fixed as I was in grave and quiet habits of mind and thought. It was amazing to me at first with what ease many of the boys had acquired clear ideas upon every question of the day, and with what brilliancy they could advance them, while I was tongue-tied from modesty or reserve. Presently, however, I discovered that these promising young gentlemen were not so wondrous wise after all. I dismissed my fears, felt less fastidious about the emphatic utterance of a thoughtless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... silent with indignation for a long time; and in his case this was not a mere figure of speech either, but a grim reality, for he was tongue-tied. ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... eloquence arose in Mr. Direck's soul, a desire so tremendous that no conceivable phrase he could imagine satisfied it. So he remained tongue-tied. And Cecily was tongue-tied, too. The scent of the roses just tinted the clear sweetness of the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... tongue-tied with astonishment. In the end she recalled herself. Mrs. Hanway-Harley scented nothing perilous in the situation. In any event, Dorothy would wed whomsoever she decreed; Mrs. Hanway-Harley was deservedly certain of that. While this came to her mind, Richard the enterprising went laying plans ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... not answer immediately. That strange, awful thought that her very own mother had been unjustly irritable held her tongue-tied. At ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... said Jahan. "The miracle is now complete, you know. I'm delighted at it. I did not know what to do with her; I had even renounced all attempts to teach her to read; I left her for days together in a corner, infirm and tongue-tied like a lack-wit.... But your brother came and took her in hand somehow or other. She listened to him and understood him, and began to read and write with him, and grow intelligent and gay. Then, as her limbs still gained no suppleness, and she remained infirm, ailing and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... most reserved, discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo's serenade. When he sang she put her head to one side and moved as if uncertain whether to descend from her balcony. When he stopped, which he did at frequent intervals, being as it were timorous and tongue-tied, she took her foot from the ladder and waited, at first patiently and then with an obvious air of boredom. Messer Romeo made a hop forward and vibrated; Juliet grew tremulous. Alarmed at his boldness he halted and made a hop back; ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... intensely to the zenith. They seem to be straining away from the spot to which they are rooted. It is a Laocoon grouping, a wordless concentrated struggle for the sunlight, and disagreeably impressive. The trippers longed to talk and were tongue-tied; they looked now and then over their shoulders. They were glad when the eerie influence was passed, though they traversed a morass to get away ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... reasons which had led me to climb those stairs. The truth was I had acted on impulse. And now that I was actually in the presence of a man who was obviously a very businesslike and matter-of-fact sort of person, I felt awkward and tongue-tied. He was looking me over all the time as if there was a wonder in his mind about me, and when I was slow in answering he stirred a bit ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... husband's refusal to let her take her meals apart from him seemed monstrous. Hardly ever did she rise from one at which she had not been abused and insulted. She realized indeed that she had been foolish to ask the question. But why should she sit tongue-tied before the brute? ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... And smoulder'd wrong that burnt him all within; But evermore it seem'd an easier thing At once without remorse to strike her dead, Than to cry "Halt," and to her own bright face Accuse her of the least immodesty: And thus tongue-tied, it made him wroth the more That she could speak whom his own ear had heard Call herself false: and suffering thus he made Minutes an age: but in scarce longer time Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk, Before he turn to fall seaward again, Pauses, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... veranda looking after Wellesly as he walked away. "What a nice looking man he is," ran her thoughts. "He is interesting to talk with, too. The people here may be just as good as he is, but—well, at least, he isn't tongue-tied." ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... poor and weak when compared with the sinking of the heart, and the trembling of the knees, which, seize upon the unhappy lecturer as he advances towards his first audience, and as before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a tongue-tied would-be speaker facing rows of listening faces, ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... awkwardness. To tell a woman he loves her has been the simplest thing in the world hitherto, but now, when at last he is in earnest—when poverty has driven him to seek marriage with an heiress as a cure for all his ills—he finds himself tongue-tied; and not only by the importance of the situation, so far as money goes, but by the clear, ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... Monmouth was in the house, but had shown neither excitement at the news nor surprise, nor, to the host's great scandal, the least desire for a sight of his Grace. His men-servants, of whom he had two, seemed tongue-tied, so that the host doubted if they had more than a few phrases of English, and set the whole party ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... was but a natural impression that was made upon him, and yet she was a little annoyed by it. She was unwilling to speak; she wanted to make Frederick understand what kind of person Mr. Thornton was—but she was tongue-tied. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... self-consciousness and shyness. They are a very irrational thing, something purely instinctive and of old inheritance. How irrational they are is best proved by the fact that shyness is caused mostly by the presence of strangers; there are many young people who are bashful, awkward, and tongue-tied in the presence of strangers, whose tremors wholly disappear in the family circle. If these were rational fears, they might be caused by the consciousness of the inspection and possible disapproval of those among whom one lives, and whose annoyance and criticism might ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... experiments in contrapuntal prose were, in particular, uncharted passages from which I stayed unique in deriving pleasure where others found bewilderment and no tongue-tied irritation: but, in general, and above every misdemeanor else, the book exasperated everybody by not being a more successfully managed re-hashing of the then ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... of the oars sounded nearer. They could hear the voices of the crew; the boat, lightened of her first load, was returning with horrible rapidity, it came dancing toward them in its malignant glee; and they sat facing each other for the last time, tongue-tied. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... have become tongue-tied. What could it be that Coverly was concealing? The idea of complicity in the crime I scouted; nothing could have induced me to believe it. Only one explanation presented itself to my mind, as evidently it had presented itself to Isobel's—another ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... her. She imagined that Kate was awed and tongue-tied in her presence. The woman was, as Prissy had assured Abram, "tickled ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... waters signalled to her beloved the three mystic letters that should make her his forever. With the faint, blinking flashes, the weight of years fell away from Jack Nickerson. No longer was he a trembling, tongue-tied captive, scorning himself for his want of will. He was a free man, the affianced husband of the most wonderful creature in the world. In his exultation he raised his lantern aloft and swung it round and round with the ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... so full, so unreserved, became inevitably hesitant and broken. Each was bearing a burden which neither was willing to reveal to the other. Ivan, concealing from the tender woman every sign of his persecution at the hands of his companions in the Corps, felt himself constantly tongue-tied before her. And though ordinarily the mother-sense would speedily have penetrated that awkward reserve, Sophia, herself all unaccustomed to deceit, was so fully occupied in hiding every sign of her own secret, that Ivan's ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... behind him. Francis came a little further into the room. His hostess, who had subsided into an easy-chair and was holding a screen between her face and the fire, motioned him to, seat himself opposite. He did so without words. He felt curiously and ridiculously tongue-tied. He fell to studying the woman instead of attempting the banality of pointless speech. From the smooth gloss of her burnished hair, to the daintiness of her low, black brocaded shoes, she represented, so far as her physical and outward self were ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... counsel, and elected to conduct her case herself, her parents and all her ill-wishers rejoiced, and looked upon her as already defeated. And that was natural enough; for who would expect that an ignorant peasant-girl of sixteen would be otherwise than frightened and tongue-tied when standing for the first time in presence of the practised doctors of the law, and surrounded by the cold solemnities of a court? Yet all these people were mistaken. They flocked to Toul to see and enjoy this fright and embarrassment ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... Marty was tongue-tied for the moment. The threatening aspect of the cavalcade and especially of Dario Gomez himself was too much for the nonchalance of the boy. Even the hidden weapon in his sash gave him no comfort, for these "forty thieves" were ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... painter passed from mouth to mouth, and in a few seconds the whole of the Uzcoques were acquainted with the important capture that had been made. For a moment astonishment kept them tongue-tied, and then a wild shout of exultation conveyed to their companions on shore the intelligence of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... of his often gives utterance to noble things so basely as to defile them, and that frequently, when what he has to say presents not the slightest difficulty, he begins to stutter or even becomes utterly tongue-tied. Come now! Suppose I had said nothing about the statue of Venus, nor used the phrase which was of such service to you, what words would you have found to frame a charge, which is as suited to your stupidity as to your powers of speech? I ask you, is there anything more idiotic than the inference ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... humorous point recurred to one or the other of the listeners. William Wetherell perceived that the conversation, for the moment at least, was safely away from politics, and in that dubious state where it was difficult to reopen. This was perhaps what Jethro wanted. Even Jake Wheeler was tongue-tied, and Jethro appeared to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... physician. "We have fed him well, and his food has done him good. He is a hundred per cent better than when he came; but he is still surly and tongue-tied. He says nothing. He is not known in the neighbourhood. I have directed hand-bills to be circulated, and placards to be posted in the villages. If he is not owned within a week, he must be given to the parish-officers. I can't help thinking that he is a runaway lunatic, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... elected for Deux-Sevres, named M. Sarigue, a poor fellow not unlike the inoffensive, ignoble animal whose name he bore,[2] with his sparse, red hair, his frightened eyes, his hopping gait in his white gaiters. He was so shy that he could not say two words without stammering, almost tongue-tied, incessantly rolling balls of chewing-gum around in his mouth, which put the finishing touch to the viscosity of his speech; and every one wondered why such an impotent creature had cared to become a member of the Assembly, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... England, and more and more my husband's special work was engrossing him. When we were together I felt tongue-tied. He had tried to be gentle with me; but I was strange in this world of his, and lonely and sensitive. I had dreamed so much of this world, and now that I was in it, it was false and petty. I longed for ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... still tongue-tied. "One thing I must do and that is see that a certain insecticide manufacturer gets a plug on Interplanetary TV," I continue. "Ha, we took the bugs out of this planet. It should work quite ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... seemed disposed to reply. Her lips parted, as if about to speak, and closed again, as glancing her eyes toward the open door, she seemed to expect the appearance of the steward's little, rotund form on its threshold, which held her tongue-tied. A brief interval elapsed, however, ere Jack actually arrived, and Rose, perceiving that Harry was curiously expecting her answer, said hurriedly—"It may ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... but nobody noticed her silence or agitation. They all went on talking; and she only thought: "He is dead. He is dead. He is dead." She was temporarily tongue-tied, awestricken, full of a strange ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Pennyloaf was in Hanover Street. She wished to see Jane Snowdon, but had a fear of going up to the door and knocking. Jane might not be at home, and, if she were, Pennyloaf did not know in what words to explain her coming and say what had happened. She was in a dazed, heavy, tongue-tied state; indeed she did not clearly remember how she had come thus far, or what she had done since leaving the hospital at midday. However, her steps drew nearer to the house, and at last she had raised the knocker—just raised it and let ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... with this, she had said too much, she grew tongue-tied again; and there was nothing more to be made of her. Taking pity on her timidity, Mahony tried to put her at ease by talking about himself. He described his life on the diggings and the straits to which he was at times reduced: the buttons affixed to his clothing ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... metal be not mov'd! They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. Go you down that way towards the Capitol; 65 This way will I: disrobe the images, If you do ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... set to make the most of my good fortune, but the thought of young Torode, and of Carette riding back with him, kept coming upon me like an east wind on a sunny day, and I found myself more tongue-tied than ever I had been with her before, ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... feeling of awkwardness. To tell a woman he loves her has been the simplest thing in the world hitherto, but now, when at last he is in earnest—when poverty has driven him to seek marriage with an heiress as a cure for all his ills—he finds himself tongue-tied; and not only by the importance of the situation, so far as money goes, but by the clear, calm, waiting eyes ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... She felt shy, almost tongue-tied. She made him his tea, and gave him a cup; then she spoke of commonplaces, and the little kettle boiled and bubbled and sang as if there were no sorrow or sadness in ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... so much! On the stage of imagination before he came—she had seen his coming so often. All was to be forgotten and forgiven, and this difficult visit was to lead naturally and without recall to another and happier relation. And now that he was here she felt herself tongue-tied, moving near him in a dumb distress. Both realised the pressure of the same necessities, the same ineluctable facts; and tacitly, they met and answered each other, in the common avoidance of a companionship ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to a sense of duty thus carried out. He had the infatuation and obstinacy of an exile. He contented himself with hollow phrases. He was tongue-tied by pride. The words conscience and dignity are but words, after all. One must penetrate to the depths. These depths Lord Clancharlie had not reached. His "eye was single," and before committing an act he wished to observe it so closely as to be able to judge it by more senses than ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... addressed got up on his legs, giggled shyly, looked round the room, and remained absolutely tongue-tied. His comrades cheered him on, Mole coaxed and encouraged him, and the Rat went so far as to take him by the shoulders and shake him; but nothing could overcome his stage-fright. They were all busily engaged on him like watermen applying the ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... Experimental Physics in King's College, London, But his first course of lectures on Sound were a complete failure, owing to an invincible repugnance to public speaking, and a distrust of his powers in that direction. In the rostrum he was tongue-tied and incapable, sometimes turning his back on the audience and mumbling to the diagrams on the wall. In the laboratory he felt himself at home, and ever after confined his duties ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... well to be cautious; for I fear that young Pratt knew you, and he'll tell all he saw, I'll be bound. Reckon though if he knew he had a brother in the scrape he'd be tongue-tied. I have tried to turn suspicion on Jeff, the negro. I picked his pocket of a knife and a handkerchief, and threw them down there somewhere. I 'spose the boss would almost be tempted to string him up if he thought him guilty; ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... had been plucking at her heartstrings, burning her with the remembrance that he, when he gave her everything that a man could give, had done it in a manner perfect and without flaw. And now she, with her infinitely smaller offering, sat tongue-tied and ineffectual, unable to give with a show of the purple, too poor-spirited even to yield him the truth for his truth which alone made the gift worth ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... sit opposite each other and feel awkward. Everyone has subjects of conversation, ladies for instance... people in high society always have their subjects of conversation, c'est de rigueur, but people of the middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don't want to deceive one another, I don't know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it looks as if you were just going, it ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... himself curiously tongue-tied. There was something in the other's measured speech, so fateful, so assured, that it seemed almost as though he were speaking of pre-ordained things. Much that had seemed to him impossible and unnatural in such an idea disappeared ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... however, there was another painful ten minutes to go through downstairs, when the mistress of the house was out of the room and Rex came in to take her place. Edna was reported to be shy, but in this instance it was Norah who was tongue-tied, and the other who made the advances. It is so extremely difficult to speak to a person at whom one is forbidden to look. Norah fixed her eyes on Edna's brooch, and said, "Yes, oh yes, she was fond of skating." Questioned a little further, she gave a rapid glance so far upward as ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... She felt she could not cope with Lancelot's quaint logic, which, however unsound, cut deeper into questions than she had yet looked for herself. Somehow, too, she was tongue-tied before him just when she wanted to be most eloquent in behalf of her principles; and that fretted her still more. But his manner puzzled her most of all. First he would run on with his face turned ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... or two," remarked his son Chester, "but dolts aren't uncommon anywhere, even when not tongue-tied. And I did run up against some chaps I liked jolly well. One of them invited me up for a week-end; I nearly fell over when he did it. I didn't know country people ever talked about week-ends. I thought they ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... frantically conscious of the fact that they have reached the end of the garden, are turning back, and still he is so cripplingly tongue-tied about the only thing he really wishes to say that he cannot even get the words out to suggest their sitting down. It is not until he stumbles over a pebble while passing a small hard marble seat set back in a nest of hedge that he manages to make ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... indignation for a long time; and in his case this was not a mere figure of speech either, but a grim reality, for he was tongue-tied. ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Heaven! And my discourse no less Must evermore sound noisome to thine ear. Yet where could I have found a fairer fame Than giving burial to my own true brother? All here would tell thee they approve my deed, Were they not tongue-tied to authority. But kingship hath much profit; this in chief, That it may do ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... kindly to even the hardest housework; there she felt able and necessary; and, doubtless, upstairs, grimly listening to prim Miss Branwell's stories of bygone gaieties, this awkward growing girl was glad to remember that she too was of importance to the household, despite her tongue-tied brooding. ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... every last hair of 'm. An' actions speakin' louder 'n' words, he tells me how he loves me by doin' these things for me. Tricks? Sure. But they make human speeches of eloquence cheaper 'n dirt. Sure it's speech. Dog-talk that's tongue-tied. Don't I know? Sure as I'm a livin' man born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, just as sure am I that it makes 'm happy to do tricks for me . . . just as it makes a man happy to lend a hand to a pal in a ticklish place, or a lover happy to put his coat around the girl he loves to keep ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... part, I never care For those lips that tongue-tied are: Tell-tales I would have them be Of my mistress and of me. Let them prattle how that I Sometimes freeze and sometimes fry: Let them tell how she doth move Fore or backward in her love: Let them speak by gentle tones, One and th' other's passions: How we watch, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... warm fragrance of her nearness overspread him. The touch thrilled him to the depths, and he flushed to his upstanding Struwel Peter hair. He tried to say something—he knew not what; but his throat was smitten with sudden dryness. It seemed to him that he had sat there, for the best part of an hour, tongue-tied, looking stupidly at the confluence of the blue veins on her arm, longing to tell her that his senses swam with the temptation of her touch and the rise and fall of her bosom, through the great ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... "She ain't tongue-tied; not as a rule," said Betty apologetically to the children; "but she hasn't been much used to presents, and it's a little too ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... angel's whisper on the other side of the bars. I could see only a faint, white clad shape inside; and, true to Fergus, I pulled the collar of my cloak high up, for it was July in the wet seasons, and the nights were chilly. And, smothering a laugh as I thought of the tongue-tied Fergus, I ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... sat there silent, disturbed, nervous, and tongue-tied. At first he did not quite comprehend what was making him afraid. After a long while he understood that it was some sort of fear of her—fear of her refusal, fear of losing her, fear that she might have—in some occult way—divined what he really ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... and grew more dolorous. Then you are something else. I suspect you of being the adroit ambassador the madmen have sent into my heaven to plead their cause. Yet why do you not plead? As an ambassador you are a tongue-tied, sniveling idiot. Therefore again, you escape logic. And without logic my madness ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... the presence of Ella, the little man's heart ached with sweet anguish and helpless worship and desire. Yet before her he was tongue-tied, incapable of uttering a consecutive sentence. With her sister, Lady Alice Santerre, who had been the intended bride of the deceased heir to the Gallowbay Estate, Kimberley felt on a different footing. He had hardly ever been so much at ease with anybody in his life as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... were perfectly dumfoundered at hearing the tongue-tied wife speaking as good English as themselves; and could not help stopping to look after her for a long way on the road, as every now and then she stuck one of her arms a-kimbo in her side, and gave a dance round in the whirling-jig ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... sketch of the late Elia (see Vol. II.), written in 1822, Lamb describes the effect of tobacco upon himself. "He took it, he would say, as a solvent of speech. Marry—as the friendly vapour ascended, how his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which tongue-tied him, were loosened, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... man says to his sweetheart is of no importance. Men are so circumscribed in their utterances—so tongue-tied in love. They all say one thing; so it need not be set down here what Bob Hendricks said. It was what the king said to the queen, the prince to the princess, the duke to the lady, the gardener to the maid, the troubadour to his dulcinea. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... smoulder'd wrong that burnt him all within; But evermore it seem'd an easier thing At once without remorse to strike her dead, Than to cry "Halt," and to her own bright face Accuse her of the least immodesty: And thus tongue-tied, it made him wroth the more That she could speak whom his own ear had heard Call herself false: and suffering thus he made Minutes an age: but in scarce longer time Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk, Before he turn to fall seaward again, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... magic out of the ground. Fontan kept always bringing them as though he was coining them. Got to admit it was an extra-double-special guaranteed champagne, that you want to go cautious with. So then, after three-quarters of an hour, nearly all the deputation were drunk. They spun round, tongue-tied, and embraced each other,—I can vouch for it. There were some that stuck it, but they didn't count, my lad! The others didn't even know what they'd come for. And the bosses; they'd had a fright, and they didn't half wriggle and roar with laughing—I'll vouch for it, my lad! ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... upon the white cloth or were placed upon knees motionless as the knees of statues. And all eyes were turned towards the giver of the feast, mutely demanding of him a signal of conduct to guide his inquiring guests. But Maurice, too, felt for the moment tongue-tied. He was very sensitive to influences, and his present position, between Maddalena and her father, created within him a certain confusion of feelings, an odd sensation of being between two conflicting elements. He was conscious of affection and of enmity, both ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive Good ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... her again. Why did she not speak plainly, he was wondering. In the subtler matters of life, women have a clearer comprehension and a plainer speech than men. When they are tongue-tied—the reason is ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... my son is coming home to-day or to-morrow! You'll find him a man you can talk to, for the boy's not tongue-tied, ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... not budge from her seat or her stocking, and seemed tongue-tied. Mrs. Plumfield pressed ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... discreet and sympathetic listener. The same is doubly true of sentimentalists. The women of Conrad—like the women of Shakespeare—while they may be garrulous enough and witty enough on other matters, grow tongue-tied and dumb when their great emotions call for ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... young man was persistent; he desired to become that easy master of the French language that his tongue-tied comrades believed him to be. So he practiced garrulously upon ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... in a trembling voice, and with a deep and earnest sincerity that showed how much she was moved. Her emotion, indeed, communicated itself to Max, and he felt as tongue-tied as the man Dubec himself. It had somehow not occurred to him that he would be thanked, and the whole thing took him by surprise. Still, he had to say something, and he struggled to find something that would ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... their basest metal be not moved! They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. Go you down that way towards the Capitol; This way will I. Disrobe the images, 65 If you do find them deck'd ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... permission now to look at this squarely. She made herself a private declaration of liberty. "This is mere nonsense, mere tongue-tied fear!" she said. "This is the slavery of the veiled life. I might as well be at Morningside Park. This business of love is the supreme affair in life, it is the woman's one event and crisis that makes up for all her other ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... answer he should return to his mother's frenzied question. He knew that the horrors suggested by Dyer were true, and the knowledge that his brother was exposed to such frightful perils—might even at that precise instant be the victim of them—held him tongue-tied, for how could he confirm this blunt-spoken sailor's statement, knowing that if he did so he would be condemning his dearly-loved mother to an indefinite period of heart- racking anguish and anxiety that might ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... later, when I found my particular friend Ewing, whom as a tongue-tied Englishman I had relieved of many embarrassments, and for whom I had secured an easel, branding it myself in twenty places with his name, and for whom I had engineered a good position next to mine in the Life School—when ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... course, which would have placed country above party, the Duke shrank; and his followers were left to sort themselves at will. There was a general expectation that Portland would publicly declare against Fox; but friendship or timidity held him tongue-tied. Malmesbury sought to waken him from his "trance," but in vain.[144] He lay under "the wand of the magician" (Pitt's phrase for the witchery that Fox exerted), even when so staunch a Whig as Sir Gilbert Elliot saw that the wizard's enchantments were ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... least idea as to the exact reasons which had led me to climb those stairs. The truth was I had acted on impulse. And now that I was actually in the presence of a man who was obviously a very businesslike and matter-of-fact sort of person, I felt awkward and tongue-tied. He was looking me over all the time as if there was a wonder in his mind about me, and when I was slow in answering he stirred a bit ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... have—the girls here, I know is due to your—special generosity, and some day I hope I'll have a chance to tell you what it has meant to me. Just now," he smiled broadly, "those freshies have me bound in their riddle game and I can't talk intelligently; tongue-tied," he finished. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... seen it? You really should.' But this elicited even less response. Fenwick glared at him—apparently tongue-tied. Then Madame de Pastourelles and her neighbour talked to each other, endeavouring to draw in the stranger. In vain. They fell back, naturally, into the talk of intimates, implying a thousand common memories and experiences; and Fenwick found himself ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a sense it had been her fault. They were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, in a lonely little wood, Jack, as he seldom was, tongue-tied and dull. Piqued, she had twitted him on his silence. And then, all at once, he had turned and, seizing her roughly, had kissed her with the pent-up passion of a man in love who till now has ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... when she lifted a wee white hand and motioned me back. I obeyed because I could not help myself—her action was accompanied by a peculiar,—an unpleasantly peculiar, expression that held me spellbound; and without exactly knowing why, I stood staring at her, tongue-tied and trembling. As her face was turned towards the patient, and she wore, moreover, a very wide-brimmed hat, I could see nothing of her features; but from her graceful little figure and dainty limbs, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... their mightiest to abide strictly by conventionalities in order to keep within bounds. It was as if neither of them dared to give their tongues a free rein. Never had Lord Henry felt so utterly tongue-tied in a woman's presence; never had Cleopatra looked so serene while ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... to tell her that he would defend her against a host of savages if he were endowed with many lives, but he was perforce tongue-tied. He even reviled himself for having spoken, but she saw the anguish in his face, and her woman's heart acknowledged him ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... decorations, and the beauty of the music, and asked her if she had been to the pantomime, and whether she played golf. Small talk is an art, and though Quenrede had many interests, and in ordinary circumstances could have discussed them, to-night she felt tongue-tied, and let the ball of conversation drop with a "yes" or "no" or "very." Dances with strangers who expected her to talk were bad enough, but the gaps in her program were worse. No doubt Mrs. Desmond tried to look after all her guests, ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... open, however, and a beaked-nosed woman, absurdly like the witch of the fairy story, confronted the girls, Beryl stood tongue-tied and Robin had to ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... grave and quiet habits of mind and thought. It was amazing to me at first with what ease many of the boys had acquired clear ideas upon every question of the day, and with what brilliancy they could advance them, while I was tongue-tied from modesty or reserve. Presently, however, I discovered that these promising young gentlemen were not so wondrous wise after all. I dismissed my fears, felt less fastidious about the emphatic utterance of a thoughtless opinion, and soon was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... entreaty, packed their trunks, and stoically set out for the unknown. Neither Mr. Spragg nor his wife had ever before been out of their country; and Undine had not understood, till they stood beside her tongue-tied and helpless on the dock at Cherbourg, the task she had undertaken in uprooting them. Mr. Spragg had never been physically active, but on foreign shores he was seized by a strange restlessness, and a helpless dependence on his daughter. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... often she had pictured his coming to claim her, and how she would go out as one calm controlling soul should to meet another, to be dual yet united through all eternity; and here she was shivering and tongue-tied, like any silly school-girl! Love-making and marriage were at a discount with the Advanced Club of which she was a member, and classed with dancing, fashionable dressing and other such paltry feminine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... poor Birotteau felt he was tongue-tied, and he resigned himself to eat a meal without engaging in conversation. After a while, however, the thought crossed his mind that silence was dangerous for his digestion, and he boldly remarked, "This coffee ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... and that I marvelled I had never before perceived the subtler sweetness in the cadence of her voice. I seem also to remember a severe internal struggle for my self-possession, and that I had to recall my exalted position in the sixth form to save myself from becoming tongue-tied and abashed and ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... a good social position. She is constantly advising her son, when there is any occasion to preach, to be on the lookout for a virtuous wife. She tells him that, since she is an old and experienced woman, he must follow her advice. Her advice is that a good wife is always quiet and tongue-tied, and does not go noisily about the house. As Juan is an obedient son, he soon determines to get him a good wife. After a short time Juan comes home to his mother, and says to her, "Mother, I have found the girl you will like,—the one who shall be my wife. She is ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... unreserved, became inevitably hesitant and broken. Each was bearing a burden which neither was willing to reveal to the other. Ivan, concealing from the tender woman every sign of his persecution at the hands of his companions in the Corps, felt himself constantly tongue-tied before her. And though ordinarily the mother-sense would speedily have penetrated that awkward reserve, Sophia, herself all unaccustomed to deceit, was so fully occupied in hiding every sign of her own secret, that Ivan's reticence appeared to her only the reflection ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... out of the dressing-room the prize model flew, each time wearing a new costume and looking more stunning with every change. She posed with absolute self-possession before the stricken buyer, who stood, tongue-tied and motionless, while Zizzbaum orated oilily of the styles. On the model's face was her faint, impersonal professional smile that seemed to cover something like weariness ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... two or twenty, only that you remain tongue-tied meanwhile. Shall I give you a glass, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... his own. Then there is a still more inexplicable class—the people who go greedily to entertainments, come early and go late, who seem to wish neither to learn nor to communicate, but sit staring and tongue-tied. The inveterate talker is the least tiresome of the three undesirable types, because one at least learns something of another's point of view. But the danger of general society to a person like myself, who has a desire to play a certain part in talk, is that sometimes ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... saw her as distinctly as I ever saw a marble statue in the Vatican Gallery by the light of noon. Although I had recalled the Jephson story so circumstantially, it never struck me that it might be interesting to attempt any conversation, and see whether I also were tongue-tied. I did not want to speak—there seemed no special reason for speaking. It was quite enough to lie there with this blissful feeling of protection and love folding me round like a cloud with golden lining. And as this consciousness ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... men were signing their name Dick explained that forest rangers were being paid and new ones hired. Then he introduced me officers of the service and the Chief. I knew by the way they looked at me that Dick had been talking. It made me so tongue-tied that I could not find my voice when the Chief spoke to me and shook my hand warmly. He was a tall man, with a fine face and kind eyes and hair just touched ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... this for tongue-tied churl To shorten all palaver; "Have Patience!" cried he, "dearest girl! And may I ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... I'll be able to say something once in a while, and not sit like a mute," said Diana anxiously. "All Mrs. Morgan's heroines converse so beautifully. But I'm afraid I'll be tongue-tied and stupid. And I'll be sure to say 'I seen.' I haven't often said it since Miss Stacy taught here; but in moments of excitement it's sure to pop out. Anne, if I were to say 'I seen' before Mrs. Morgan I'd die of mortification. And it would ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... from one subject to another, never at a loss for a theme. But this last time was a veritable ordeal. No sooner had Annixter appeared than her heart leaped and quivered like that of the hound-harried doe. Her speech failed her. Throughout the whole brief interview she had been miserably tongue-tied, stammering monosyllables, confused, horribly awkward, and when Annixter had gone away, she had fled to her little room, and bolting the door, had flung herself face downward on the bed and wept as though her heart were breaking, she did ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... looked, and she understood. Slowly she rose to her feet and crossed the room towards the door. I was tongue-tied. I made no protest—asked no questions. Feurgeres opened the door for her and summoned his servant, but no word of any sort passed between them. Then he turned suddenly to me. His tone was changed. He was quick ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... butcher, with the air of one to whom the question of human greatness was a matter of absolute indifference. That was the end. Shortly afterwards I left, and presently overtook Snarley Bob, who had preceded me. "Did you ever see such a lot o' tongue-tied lunatics?" said Snarley. "What made them silent?" I asked. "They'd got too much to say," answered Snarley, and then added, rather mischievously, "They were only waitin' to begin till you'd ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... neighbor's bonnets or breeches, the rise of stocks, or the fall of rain; and how Mrs. Jenkins has set up her carriage, and Mr. Higgins has been compelled to set down, and to sell out his. Interesting details, perhaps, without which the nine in ten might as well be tongueless or tongue-tied for ever. This stuff I had to hear, and requite in like currency, while my brain was boiling, and dim, but terrible images of strife, and storm, and agony, were rushing through it with howling and hisses. There I sat, thus seemingly engaged, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... last appearance in his court—extravagantly dressed, almost insolent, to listen indifferently to his severe homily upon Clark's Field—than she suspected. So they chatted for a few minutes about the view, the city, the old house, and then, as Adele still seemed tongue-tied, the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... of Heaven itself had suddenly descended upon a person hitherto hopelessly tongue-tied, Rae Malgregor lifted an utterly transfigured face to the Senior Surgeon's grimly ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... whereas the accuser, desirous of conciliating the younger men, overwhelms us with his ready rhetoric; he drags us before the judge, presses us with questions, lays traps for us; the onslaught troubles, upsets and rends poor old Tithonus, who, crushed with age, stands tongue-tied; sentenced to a fine,[223] he weeps, he sobs and says to his friend, "This fine robs me of the last trifle that was to ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... an acquaintance. He looked straight into Catherine's eyes. She answered nothing; she only listened, and looked at him; and he, as if he expected no particular reply, went on to say many other things in the same comfortable and natural manner. Catherine, though she felt tongue-tied, was conscious of no embarrassment; it seemed proper that he should talk, and that she should simply look at him. What made it natural was that he was so handsome, or rather, as she phrased it to herself, so beautiful. The music had been silent for ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... his mouth agape; he stood tongue-tied and listened to my outbreak until the end. Then he snatched his parcel from off the seat and went, ay, nearly ran, down the patch, with the short, tottering steps ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... and concludes that the statistics of stammering and the custom of cutting the frenum of the tongue do not stand in any sort of correlation with each other, and that this ancient custom, noted by Celsus, has no real scientific raison d'etre (205. 9). We say that a child is "tongue-tied," and that one "makes too free with his tongue"; in French we find: Il a le filet bien coupe, "he is a great talker," and in the eighteenth century Il n'a pas de filet was in use; a curious German expression for ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... a homebred youth, still hanging back, in dread of that august presence, Mentor renewed his friendly remonstrances, "What, still tongue-tied?" he said, taking him by the arm, and leading him forward. "Heaven mend thy wits, poor lad! Knowest thou not that thou art a child of great hopes, and a favourite ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... say that. Be assured that I shall respect your confidences." She missed his next remark because she was wondering whether she dare ask him to come to dinner on the twenty-fifth, and then the ladies had to retire, and by the time he rejoined her he was as tongue-tied as at the beginning. The cork had not been extracted; it had been knocked into the bottle, where it still often barred the way, and there was always, as we shall see, a flavour of it ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... closely and making up her mind about him,' he proceeded, 'these unexpected meetings are very trying ordeals. You must not form your judgement of me too hastily. You see me now, nervous, embarrassed, tongue-tied. But I am not always like this. Beneath this crust of diffidence there is sterling stuff, Miss Warden. People who know me have spoken of me as a little ray of sun—But ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... quite unprepared. She had constructed no set speech; she had formulated no demand. For a second or so she stood tongue-tied—tongue-tied and helpless—unable to put her passionate appeal into words; then, all ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... swear by. Then the doc would say, "You better come in about 10:30 tomorrow, as we bury them all at that hour, and I guess he'll croak by that time." I tried to speak and tell them that I was alive, and that I was going to get well, but it, wasn't any use. I was tongue-tied. Again I would hear the sweet rustle of a dress, and feel a warm hand on my head, and I knew that the rebel angel had rode her mule to town to see me. Then I would try hard to tell her that I was going to write a letter to the governor of Wisconsin, and ask ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... alone to go where he pleases. It isn't fair, but it's the world's way, and always will be lessen women learn some things they ought to know. They wouldn't stand for some of the things that go on if they understood them, but they don't understand. They've been tongue-tied and hand-tied so long, they haven't taken in yet they've got to do their ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... tongue doth wag, husband,' she said, and cried in French for the rogues to be gone. When the door closed upon the lights she said in the comfortable gloom: 'I dote upon thy words. My first was tongue-tied.' She beckoned him to her and folded her arms. 'Let us discourse upon this matter,' she said comfortably. 'Thus I will put it: you wed with me or spring from ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. "I love ye! Oh, I always loved ye! I never keered fur nobody else! an' I war tongue-tied, an' full of fool pride, an' faultin' ye fur yer ways; an' I wouldn't gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin' ter hear. But now I kin tell the pore ghost of ye—I kin tell the pore, ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... be the inflaming before there can be the mounting of the aspiration. You cannot get a balloon to go up unless the gas within it is warmer than the atmosphere round it. It is because we are habitually such tepid Christians that we are so tongue-tied in prayer. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... always pleasant and civil: he couldn't be anything else; but he wastes mighty little time on me. I don't blame him for preferring other girls' society. He would show very little taste if he did not enjoy Ella Perry's company better than that of a tongue-tied thing like me. She is a thousand times prettier and wittier and more graceful ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... apprentice in my brother's printing-office in Hannibal. He was seventeen, and yet he was as much as four times as bashful as I was, though I was only fourteen. He boarded and slept in the house, but he was always tongue-tied in the presence of my sister, and when even my gentle mother spoke to him he could not answer save in frightened monosyllables. He would not enter a room where a girl was; nothing could persuade him to do such a thing. Once when he was in our small parlor alone, two majestic old maids ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Mme. de Beauseant looked at Eugene as if asking him to speak; the student was tongue-tied in ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... steed, The Coaching Meet, the Opera's latest star, The Row, the River, the Vitellian feed,— All the munitions of the Social War, Seem fruitless now, when peal on peal afar And near, the beat of the great Party Drum Rouses M.P.'s to platform joust and jar, While tongue-tied dullards scarcely dare be dumb, When the Whips whisper ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity for him, as you would for a man with broken legs. Nor should you hate a man who has a weakness for telling falsehoods. This, too, is an affliction, like stuttering or being lame. Say to yourself, 'Poor fellow, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Zeebrugge. He seemed to know every one, and once or twice he left his seat to speak to a friend—during which absence Bob's friends shot him amazed glances, with eyebrows raised in astonishment that he should be lunching with a real Major-General. Bob was somewhat tongue-tied with bewilderment over the fact himself. But when their cold beef came, General Harran soon put him at his ease, leading him to talk of himself and his plans with quiet tact. Before Bob fairly realized it he had unfolded all his little story—even to Tommy and her ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... many years ago under a black cloud of ill report, and one sister who had married and gone West to live. Her two sons, middle-aged merchants from Ohio, gave the only personal note to the occasion by their somewhat tongue-tied and embarrassed presence, for Gridley's aunt was too aged and infirm to walk with the procession from the Gymnasium, where it formed, to the Library building, where the portrait ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... say what more might then be done, And how, by moonlight or beneath the sun, We might be happy. In a reckless mood I've talk'd of this; and dreams and many a brood Of tongue-tied fancies have my soul beset. I will not hint at fealty or the fret Of lips untrue, or anger thee therein, Or call to mind one ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... were at first somewhat tongue-tied with a nervous stiffness common to the Britisher, but they thawed a little as the meal progressed, and when the musical students, Miss Jones and Miss Allen, had elicited that she was actually a pupil of the great Baroni, envy and a certain awed admiration combined ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... anew 'Creusa,' and 'Creusa,' but in vain. From house to house in frenzy as I flew, A melancholy spectre rose in view, Creusa's very image; ay, 'twas there, But larger than the living form I knew. Aghast I stood, tongue-tied, with stiffening hair. Then she addressed me thus, and comforted ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... other as those of Dr. Etherington and those of Sir Joseph Job. On the one side, I was taught the degradation of birth; on the other, the dangers of property. Anna was usually my confidant, but on this subject I was tongue-tied, for I dared not confess that I had overheard the discourse with her father, and I was compelled to digest the contradictory doctrines by myself in the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... PLANTAGENET. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak, In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts: Let him that is a true-born gentleman And stands upon the honor of his birth, If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, From off this brier pluck a white ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... have caviar at least once a day; and caviar appeared in a little glass cup set in the midst of cracked ice, flanked by crisp toast. After caviar came other things to Burleigh's taste. He was having such an awesomely grand feast that he was tongue-tied; but Jack could never eat in silence until he had forgotten how to tell stories. So he told Burleigh stories of the trail and of life in Little Rivers in a way that reflected the desert sunshine in Burleigh's eyes. Burleigh thought that he would like to live in Little Rivers. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... plodding student at the technical school, where he took the civil engineering degree, and had gone forth to lay track in Montana. He laid it well; but this job finished, there seemed no permanent place for him. He was heavy and rather tongue-tied, and made no impression on his superiors except that of commonplace efficiency. He drifted into Canada, then back to the States, and finally found a place ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... room. His hostess, who had subsided into an easy-chair and was holding a screen between her face and the fire, motioned him to, seat himself opposite. He did so without words. He felt curiously and ridiculously tongue-tied. He fell to studying the woman instead of attempting the banality of pointless speech. From the smooth gloss of her burnished hair, to the daintiness of her low, black brocaded shoes, she represented, so far as her physical ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... evermore." Thereupon quoth one merchant, "Mine for five hundred dinars;" "And ten," quoth another. "Six hundred," cried an old man named Rashid al-Din, blue of eye[FN264] and foul of face. "And ten," cried another. "I bid a thousand," rejoined Rashid al-Din; whereupon the rival merchants were tongue-tied, and held their peace and the broker took counsel with the girl's owner, who said, "I have sworn not to sell her save to whom she shall choose: so consult her." Thereupon the broker went up to Zumurrud and said to her, "O mistress of moons this merchant hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... nervous by the precarious state of the conversation, expecting its total decease at any moment. At intervals someone lifted the limp dying body—it sank back—was lifted again—struggled feebly—relapsed. Young Siegfried was excessively tongue-tied and self-conscious, and his demeanour frankly admitted it. Jane Foley, acknowledged heroine in certain fields, sat like a schoolgirl at her first dinner-party. Audrey maintained her widowhood, but scarcely with credit. Mr. and Mrs. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... years old—a dog, and a parrot. The oldest cat is named Meow, and the other Maltie Beeswax. We called him that, because he sticks so. If he gets in our laps, there is no getting rid of him. He will jump through my hands held three feet high. The parrot does not talk much, because it is tongue-tied. She calls "papa," and screams when she wants to get out of her cage. The dog Spry is the cunningest of all. His body and color are like a black and tan; but his nose is shaggy, like a Scotch terrier, which ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Gentlemen, and the Police outside!" But my friend in mufti was spotted at once; for he marched up to the middle of the bar, looked right and left and snapped out his order; but before he opened his mouth the whaling men were shouldering into little tongue-tied groups—the quarter deck air came in like a draught and took them all slightly aback, and we got never ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... thyself, unhappy one, thine errand; For large discourse may send a thrill of joy, Or stir a chord of wrath or tenderness, And to the tongue-tied ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... ceased, and in order to demonstrate that I was not tongue-tied in the company of these celebrities, I ventured to inquire what Lord Clarenceux, whose riches and eccentricities had reached even the Scottish newspapers, had ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... lifted to the saddle a score of times in the journey Paris-wards. The sense of unworthiness which I had experienced a few minutes before in the crowded antechamber returned in full force in presence of her grace and beauty, and once more I stood tongue-tied before her, as I had stood in the lodgings at Blois. All the later time, all that had ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... object he can have in taking this appointment, or what there is of importance enough to induce him to apply for it to his political opponents, and incur all the odium that would be heaped upon him if the fact were generally known. He would not consider himself tongue-tied in the House of Lords any more than Lyndhurst was, for though the former took the situation under a sort of condition, either positive or implied, that he was to observe something like a neutrality, he considered himself entirely emancipated from ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... because I am not appearing at my best. You see me nervous, diffident, tongue-tied. All this will wear off, however, and you will be surprised and delighted as you begin to understand my true self. Beneath the surface—I speak ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... That strange, awful thought that her very own mother had been unjustly irritable held her tongue-tied. At length words, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... pedigree, and a first-rate opinion of themselves, were the only gentlemen who had the temerity to approach the goddess of the ball—oh! excepting the Reverend Augustus Clare, who, in his intense admiration, was almost tongue-tied, and Doctor Danton, who, to the surprise of every one except the master of the Hall, walked in, the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... stood on her veranda looking after Wellesly as he walked away. "What a nice looking man he is," ran her thoughts. "He is interesting to talk with, too. The people here may be just as good as he is, but—well, at least, he isn't tongue-tied." ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... I tried to excite my feelings with every class of woman, in vain. I suppose it is that my nature is so like woman's that there can be no reaction. With men I am often very shy and nervous, tongue-tied, and my hands perspire. Never ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... at each other in doubt. It was not the fear of death that kept us tongue-tied, though death lay in our rear, but each man wished to spend his life for ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... never suited Lady Dunstable; it suited Doris to perfection. Under her own simple hat, her eyes—and they were very fine eyes—shone with a soft and dancing humour. It was all absurd—her being there—her dress—this tongue-tied hostess—and these agreeable men who made much of her! She must get Arthur out of it as soon as possible, and they would look back upon it and laugh. But for the moment it was pleasant, it was stimulating! She found herself arguing ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... long-flowing turbaned Ishmaelites, astrological Chaldeans, who stand so mute here, let them plead with you, august Senators, more eloquently than eloquence could. They are the mute representatives of their tongue-tied, befettered, heavy-laden Nations; who from out of that dark bewilderment gaze wistful, amazed, with half-incredulous hope, towards you, and this your bright light of a French Federation: bright particular day-star, the herald of universal ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
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