"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... combination of the two." Burty declared that "Meryon preserves the characteristic detail of architecture... Without modifying the aspect of the monument he causes it to express its hidden meaning, and gives it a broader significance by associating it with his own thought." His employment of a dull green paper at times showed his intimate feeling for tonalities. He is, more so than Piranesi, the Rembrandt of architecture. Hamerton admits that the French etcher was "one of the greatest and most original ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... had been a total absence of either artillery or rifle fire. The advance had been made silently and comparatively quietly. On either side of the mill, in the far distance, and to the rear, however, were dull rumblings and booms that told of ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... doors, Congress listened to the special message which was to put the nation to the supreme test. Alas for those who had expected a trumpet call to battle. Never was a state paper better calculated to wither martial spirit. In dull fashion it recounted the events of Monroe's unlucky mission and announced the advance of Spanish forces in the Southwest, which, however, the President had not repelled, conceiving that "Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... this," Boone demanded, as though personally offended, "you've got the hospital color, dull lead on yellow? Here, take a drink. Yes, I know, it's mescal, out-and-out embalmed deviltry that no self-respecting drunkard would touch, but Lord ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... dinner that first evening, but Mr Armstrong, and the family circle; and the parson certainly felt it dull enough. Fanny, naturally, was rather silent; Lady Selina did not talk a great deal; the countess reiterated, twenty times, the pleasure she had in seeing him at Grey Abbey, and asked one or two ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... that he could neither cease loving her nor commence comprehending her real nature. I sometimes felt, as we took our long walks through the monotonous country, across the oak-dotted grazing-grounds, and by the brink of the dull-green, serried hop-rows, talking at rare intervals about the value of the crops, the drainage of the estate, the village schools, the Primrose League, and the iniquities of Mr. Gladstone, while Oke of Okehurst carefully cut down every tall thistle that caught his eye—I ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... happen to be passing, that coursing haply will distract me from some weighty thought, and draw me after it . . . and unless Thou, having made me see my weakness, didst speedily admonish me, I become foolishly dull." Secondly, when the knowledge of sensible things is directed to something harmful, as looking on a woman is directed to lust: even so the busy inquiry into other people's actions is directed to detraction. On the other hand, if ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... when on a pretext of the chase he can escape from the court. These, then, are the two, man and wife, on whose heads my crown shall rest, who in a short space will find themselves exposed to every passion whose dull growl is now heard below a deceptive calm, but which only awaits the moment when I breathe my last, to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the vindication of their taste, and have deemed it better to applaud at the Theatre de la Republique, than lodge at St. Lazare or Duplessis.—Thus political slavery has assisted moral depravation: the writer who is the advocate of despotism, may be dull and licentious by privilege, and is alone exempt from the laws of Parnassus and of decency.—One Sylvan Marechal, author of a work he calls philosophie, has written a sort of farce, which has been performed ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... where the whole of the eastern side of the edifice might be seen, and for the first time in my life gazed upon a truly Gothic structure of any magnitude. It was near sunset, and the light was peculiarly suited to the sombre architecture. The material was a grey stone, that time had rendered dull, and which had broad shades of black about its angles and faces. That of the chapel was fresher, and of a warmer tint; a change well suited to the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in such a state of sameness and stagnation, and so totally occupied in consuming the fruits, and sauntering, and playing dull games at cards, and yawning, and trying to read old 'Annual Registers' and the daily papers, and gathering shells on the shore, and watching the growth of stunted gooseberry bushes in the garden, that I have neither time nor sense to say ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Antiochean view as given in II. 12—64, cf. esp. 19 sensibus quorum ita clara et certa iudicia sunt, etc.: Antiochus would probably defend his agreement with Plato by asserting that though sense is naturally dull, reason may sift out the certain from the uncertain. Res eas ... quae essent aut ita: Halm by following his pet MS. without regard to the meaning of Cic. has greatly increased the difficulty of the passage. He reads res ullas ... quod aut ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... could wish to read these hundreds of volumes? For all their beautiful bindings she had a conviction that the contents would be appallingly dull; and her eyes fled gladly to the more congenial scene outside the windows where the flowers danced gaily in the sunshine and a little skiff floated by on the shimmering river, like some magic boat gliding to a haven ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... dry, at low tide, on the beach, John Wood was seated in the sand, sheltered from the sun in the boat's shadow, absorbed in the laying on of verdigris. The dull, worn color was rapidly giving place to a brilliant, shining green. Occasionally a scraper, which lay by, was taken up to remove the last trace ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... It grew dull waiting, with Miss Barbara gone so much, and with nothing to do. She read the few books at her disposal, she paced up and down in the two little back bedrooms that she and Miss Barbara occupied. She took long walks ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... seekers after conversation about dull and academic subjects may not find that conversation at a social gathering sought for relaxation after the day's work is over; but not all conversation of the kind most red-blooded and live men who do things crave consists of joining in barber-shop ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... starving and ailing, camping under improvised tents because there was no place for them to go. The sky became more and more densely overcast until at last it blotted out the light of day and left nothing but a dull red glare 'extraordinarily depressing to the spirit.' In this dull glare, great numbers of people were still living, clinging to their houses and in many cases subsisting in a state of partial famine upon the produce in their gardens and the stores ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... same thing now. There was all the difference in the world between Jerrold's going away from her because he didn't want her, and her going away from Jerrold because he did. It was the difference between putting up with a dull continuous pain you had to bear, and enduring a sharp agony you could end at any minute. Before, she had only given up what she couldn't get; now, she was giving up what she could have to-morrow by simply ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... A resonant cry rang out above the dull thud of the stampeding cattle that were almost upon them. Down the steep sides of the gorge two riders were galloping recklessly. It was a race for life between them and the first of the herd, and they won by scarce more than a length. Across ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... has not anything to show more fair; Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... the King. Blansac, who saw the wavering this caused among the troops, sharply told Denonville to hold his tongue, and began himself to harangue the troops in a contrary spirit. But it was to late. The mischief was done. Only one regiment, that of Navarre, applauded him, all the rest maintained a dull silence. I remind my readers that it is Blansac's version of the story ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... table. A good weathered oak stain may be made by mixing a little drop black ground in oil with turpentine and a little linseed oil. Put this stain on with a brush and allow to stand until it begins to flatten or dull, then rub off across the grain with a rag or piece of cotton waste. When thoroughly dry, apply one coat of very thin shellac. After this has dried, finish with two coats of wax. The shellac prevents the turpentine in the wax from rubbing out the stain. ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor
... on the arm of her brother's chair and, despite the freckles across her nose, presented a charming picture of a pretty girl in a dull rose frock. ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... show no bad effects from it: one mule is, however, dull and out of health; I thought that this might be the effect of the bite till I found that his back was so strained that he could not stoop to drink, and could only eat the tops of the grasses. An ox would have been ill in two days after the biting ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... stood the pathetically-patched old implements that told the tale of patient saving of every cent even at the cost of much greater labor to the fast weakening old back and shoulders. A new plow-shaft had meant a dollar and a half, so Uncle Tucker had put forth the extra strength to drive the dull old one along the furrows, while even the grindstone had worn away to such unevenness that each revolution had made only half the impression on a blade pressed to its rim and thus caused the sharpening to take twice as long and twice the force as would have been required on a new one. But ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... thrillingly familiar feminine voice calling "Kitty, kitty, kitty." He tried to move, a dull pain throbbed in his breast, and a groan escaped him. In a moment Helen appeared; the gray kitten was forgotten. She looked very anxious and solicitous—and ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the liquor had a different effect, his temperament being totally different. He was a rather phlegmatic man, and, having drunk enough to have driven two men like the blacksmith raving mad, he only stood before him with a dull heavy look of stupidity, mingled with an idiotic sneer ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... that they should get up a show to pass these dull evenings away. If the enemy allowed them sufficient time they could even give a public performance, and give the proceeds to the ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... but inferior to the Versailles or the Ice Cabbage. Head large, regular, a little oblong, of a dull, pale-green color, and not compactly formed; the outside leaves are large, rounded, undulated or waved on the borders, thin in texture, and of a soiled or tarnished light-green color; diameter fourteen inches; weight twelve to ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maitre Houlbreque had of finding or of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... occasionally, and has a tottering gait. The ears and horns are alternately hot and cold; in cows the secretion of milk is much diminished, and that which is secreted has a bitter taste; sometimes the animal has a dry, painful cough and presents a dull, stupefied appearance. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... Moslem and Christian feeling. Rajah Dris lives in a good house, but it is Europeanized, and consequently vulgarized. He received us very politely on the stairs, and took us into a sitting- room in which there were various ill-assorted European things. His senior wife was brought in, a dull, heavy-looking woman, a daughter of the Rajah Muda Yusuf, and after her a number of slave women and babies, till the small room was well filled. The Rajah hospitably entertained us with tea, milk, and preserved bananas; but ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... along in the afternoon, a little past the middle of October. For our three young friends, Jack, Hal and Eph, things were dull just at the present moment. They were drawing their salaries from the Pollard company, yet of late there had been little for them ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... alone for an hour or two, and, to tell the truth, she felt rather dull. Miss Brooke went away to her circle of select souls, and her father, as she knew, had gone to Mrs. Romaine's. She took out her much-prized volume of "The Unexplored," and began to read it again; wishing that she could talk to her mother about it, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... attention to the brakes of that heavy Pullman than it would to a feather or to a small boy, all the way from New York to Stamford, hanging on behind. As I came in I looked again at the train—the long dull train that had been pulled along by the Invisible, by the kingdom of the air and the sky—the long, dull, heavy Train! And the spirit of the far-off ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... know why I said that," I replied. "My head's rather dull this morning. All right, Sis, I'll tell him." Still I watched her pityingly. Poor old Sue. What ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... at home. Her tremors about Freddie departed; but the depression remained. She felt physically as if she had been sitting all evening in a stuffy room with a dull company after a heavy, badly selected dinner. She fell easy prey to one of those fits of the blues to which all imaginative young people are at least occasional victims, and by which those cursed and hampered with the optimistic temperament are haunted and harassed and all ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... such dimensions that they even broke over the deck of the Flying Fish, and dashed themselves into a cloud of spray against the strong walls of the pilot-house. Other fragments now began to detach themselves with dull heavy roaring crashes from the rocking berg; and, as though the action were contagious—or more probably, in consequence of the jarring vibration of the air from such a strong volume of sound—one after the other, the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... your teaching well; Had the scholar means to tell How grew the vine of bitter-sweet, What made the path for truant feet, Winter nights would quickly pass, Gazing on the magic glass O'er which the new-world shadows pass; But, in fault of wizard spell, Moderns their tale can only tell In dull words, with a poor reed Breaking at each time of need. But those to whom a hint suffices Mottoes find for all devices, See the knights behind their shields, Through dried grasses, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... cold lips did softest accents flow? Round that pale mouth did sweetest dimples play? On this dull cheek the rose of beauty blow, And those dim eyes diffuse ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... spreading the letter before the Lord is an eloquent symbol, which some prosaic and learned commentators have been dull enough to call gross, and to compare to Buddhist praying-mills! Its meaning is expressed in the prayer which follows. It is faith's appeal to His knowledge. It is faith's casting of its burden on the Lord. Our faith ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... too sore enpearced with his shaft, To soare with his light feathers, and to bound: I cannot bound a pitch aboue dull woe, Vnder loues heauy burthen ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... seen you about. Well, it's a nice, quiet place for a walk, but the grounds ain't kep' up quite the shape they used to be: there ain't so much occasion for it. Seems as though the buryin' business was dull, like pretty much everything ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... my thoughts? I had but one regret — That I was doomed to live and linger yet In this dark valley where the stream of tears Flows, and, in flowing, deepens thro' the years. My lips spake not — my eyes were dull and dim, But thro' my heart there moved a soundless hymn — A triumph song of many chords and keys, Transcending language — as the summer breeze, Which, through the forest mystically floats, Transcends the reach of mortal music's notes. A song of victory — a chant of ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... till they gradually sink to ruin and oblivion. It is a grief that mortal eyes cannot see; it is only keenly felt; its tears are the wasting away of health, and its lamentation is the low beating of a sinking pulse. The loudest cry of its woe is but the dull, bitter sigh of its lonely unhappiness, engendered by the deep misery of the secret depression of its mental complaining, making the heart like a faded flower in a gloomy wilderness; like a blighted tree in a sultry waste. Weep! weep! and sigh from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... lightning in the southwest continued; the wind freshened, blowing in cooler streaks across acres of rattling rushes and dead marsh-grass. A dull light grew through the scudding clouds, then faded as the mid-day sun went out in the smother, leaving an ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... ballad or by the prose of the Book of Job. And Badawi poetry is a perfect expositor of Badawi life, especially in the good and gladsome old Pagan days ere Al-Islam, like the creed which it abolished, overcast the minds of men with its dull grey pall of realistic superstition. They combined to form a marvellous picture—those contrasts of splendour and squalor amongst the sons of the sand. Under airs pure as aether, golden and ultramarine above and melting over the horizon into a diaphanous green which suggested ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The bishop must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad; he did not find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the women who sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their teachers uncultivated and at times savage. And the documents coming in and going out were reckoned by tens of thousands; and what documents they were! The higher clergy in the whole diocese gave the priests, young ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that the evil was too strong for him. Presently the beast desisted from its play, and looking wickedly about it, came near to the Father's bed, and seemed to put up its hairy forelegs upon it; he could see its narrow and obscene eyes, which burned with a dull yellow light, and were fixed upon him. And now the Father thought that his end was near, for he could stir neither hand nor foot, and the sweat rained down his brow; but he made a mighty effort, and in a voice which shocked ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... jolly party aboard the Merry Seas, as she bowled along on her way from New Haven to New York. It was composed of Frank Merriwell and a number of his intimate friends; and wherever Frank and his friends were, Dull Care usually hid his agued face and gave ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... listened to the strangely muffled roar of a London hoarse with cold. And he shivered and had feelings of a man bound on some tremendous and novel quest. As he came out of the hotel the wintry air met him and embraced him. He entered the station, dull and sinister in the night, with its haggard gas-lamps and arches yawning to the snow. There were few passengers, and they looked anxious. The train drew in. Maurice had his carriage to himself. The porter wished ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... reasons which led him to undertake the work, and of the results which followed its completion. It has often been said that the inscriptions of the ancient Sumerians are without much intrinsic value, that they mainly consist of dull votive formulae, and that for general interest the best of them cannot be compared with the later inscriptions of the Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia. This reproach, for which until recently there was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... any passion. Perhaps the nearest approach to the latter that Hetty had manifested was to be seen in the sensitiveness which had caused her to detect March's predilection for her sister, for, among Judith's many admirers, this was the only instance in which the dull mind of the girl had been quickened into an observation of ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... artisans now give their lives for illusory dreams of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," now fight their feudal lords, and now turn on their pretended liberators, the bourgeoisie. For already it begins to dawn on the dull masses that "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" are chiefly ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... servant laid the dinner things on the deck of the gunboat, then went below for something and, coming up again, accidentally walked into the middle of the crockery and glass, causing considerable destruction." Also, I think he quotes his testimonials—those never very candid and always very dull documents—much too freely. The best of the book is concerned with his administration work in Penang and district, where on the evidence he seems to have kept his end up with skill and no ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... He was a dull man, Tammas, who could not read the meaning of a sign, and laboured under a perpetual disability of speech; but love was eyes to him ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... were crimson and his nose was the same hue, yet he was quite convinced that all the young lady dolls envied him his complexion. His eyes were dull as lead, but in his boundless conceit he always compared them to ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... wholly in myself," said Mr. Prohack. "I want to live a great deal in other people. If you do that you may be infernally miserable but at least you aren't dull. Marcus Aurelius was more like a potato than ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... of this eminently lawless example was instantaneous. The splendid regulation blankets and flannel shirts were at a premium among the natives, and the market was never dull. They could be coined into pesos on sight. There was a grand rush, and soon the blankets and spare articles of clothing went forth into the night, lugged by their respective owners. Shortly the darkies, wet and steaming, began to stamp ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... stiffness in it, or that he should be regarded with disfavor by many, even the most temperate, of the judges trained in the system he was breaking through, and with utter contempt and reprobation by the envious and the dull. Consider, farther, that the particular system to be overthrown was, in the present case, one of which the main characteristic was the pursuit of beauty at the expense of manliness and truth; and it will seem likely, a ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... fair Hear the dull summons and gather there: No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale; No knight whispers love in the chatelaine's ear, His next-door neighbor this five-hundred year; No monk has a sleek benedicite ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... silver lining to any little old cloud. You remind me of the fellow that fell from the top of a skyscraper, shouting as he passed the second-story window: 'I'm all right, so far.' We may be 'all right so far,' but the dull thud's coming and ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... little over-confident, and was inclined to boast of my skill and make somewhat rash statements as to the size of loads which I could lay. The others probably saw that I needed discipline. I must have been dull, or I should have been on my guard for set-backs from Halse, Addison, or the mischievous Doanes. When a boy's head begins to grow large and his self-conceit to sprout, he is sometimes singularly blind ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... THE QUEEN.—Louis XVI. differed from his two predecessors in being morally pure, and benevolent in his feelings; but he was of a dull mind, void of energy, and with an obstinacy of character that did not supply the place of an enlightened firmness. He had married (1770) Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa. The vivacious young queen, as well as the youthful king, at first charmed the people. But her ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... look very dull, and expected the ruin of all their party, which had certainly happened had the cardinal ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... To the dull baying of the alligators in the saw grass, and the melancholy croak of the great blue herons, Keela's wagon penetrated the weird and terrible wilds of the Everglades, winding by the gloomy border of swamps where the deadly moccasin ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... liar and a skunk," and whose editor works with a revolver on his desk and another in his hip-pocket. Graduating from this, he had proceeded to a reporter's post on a daily paper in a Kentucky town, where there were blood feuds and other Southern devices for preventing life from becoming dull. All this time New York, the magnet, had been tugging at him. All reporters dream of reaching New York. At last, after four years on the Kentucky paper, he had come East, minus the lobe of one ear and plus a long scar that ran diagonally ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... gathered in little circles and heard various inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was uniformly that of scorn, or sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh often rose at my expense; the dry jest; the wise calculation of losses and expenditures; the dull, but endless repetition of 'the Fulton Folly.' Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish cross ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... with the true meaning of a treatise, is said to have studied that treatise to purpose. Questioned regarding the meaning of a text, it behoveth one to communicate that meaning which he has comprehended by a careful study. That person of dull intelligence who refuses to expound the meanings of texts in the midst of a conclave of the learned, that person of foolish understanding, never succeeds in expounding the meaning correctly.[1618] An ignorant person, going to expound the true meaning of treatises, incurs ridicule. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... then, let us have crowds of people about us! Keep open house! Plunge into something that can deaden and dull our thoughts! ...
— Little Eyolf • Henrik Ibsen
... to have lost all powers of interesting its readers. It is as dull as political economy; it suspects a stylist, questions the accuracy of its authorities, tends to minimise personal influence on events, specialises on a narrow period, emphasises constitutional development, insists on the "economic interpretation" ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... dull business this, overdrive," he said somnolently. "And it's amazing how much a man can sleep when everything's in hand, and there's nothing ahead but a wedding and a few things like that. Just routine, Willis. ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... window, and finally rested on the sill. His feathers were sky-blue and gold, his feet and his beak of such glittering rubies that no one could bear to look at them, his eyes made the brightest diamonds look dull, and on his head he wore a crown. I cannot tell you what the crown was made of, but I am quite certain that it was still more splendid than all the rest. As to his voice I can say nothing about that, for the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... to bring over consignments of perfectly trained Indian cooks, and thus trim the balance between dining room and kitchen; and to the other Mrs. Gradinger, a gaunt, ill-dressed lady in spectacles, with a commanding nose and dull, wispy hair, was proclaiming in a steady metallic voice, that it was absolutely necessary to double the school rate at once in order to convert all the girls and some of the boys as well, into perfectly equipped food-cooking animals; but her audience ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... we gave a few formal dinners. My husband wished it, and he was a cheerful, magnetic host, though he accepted few invitations to dinner himself. No wine was served at these dinners, and yet they were by no means dull or tiresome. Our guests were men of ideas, men like Justice Brewer, Speaker Reed, Senator Burrows, Justice Harlan, Vice-President Fairbanks, Governor Stone, and Senators who have since become members ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... my duty to punish you, Ermengarde. This morning I had a letter from the Russells—Lily Russell's father and mother. They have asked me to come to them for a week, and to bring two of you with me. I intended to take you and Basil. Now I shall take Marjorie and Basil. Perhaps, when you are having a dull time at home, you will reflect that it is not always worth while to disobey your father. You can go ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... freedom, that normal girlhood feels, from responsibility and care. She longed to go out, as other girls went, to face the battles and make the conquests of life. It seemed to her that unless she made a bold dash for freedom her whole life would be given up to dull ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... skilled romancers, fact was clay in their hands. Nobody had ever taught them such a dull lesson as exact truthfulness. If they built the bare bones of their structures fairly accurately, they placed the whole in an artificial light, altering in some effective way the spirit of the facts. Education had impressed the importance of technical truthfulness on Kew. ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... and direction of their elders. For these reasons, also, the task was held in special detestation by children in direct proportion to their amount of life, and their ingenuity and love of variety. A dull child took it tolerably well; but to a lively, energetic one, it ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hunger-sleep. The snow turned into a cold rain. He awakened many times to feel it falling on his upturned face. Day came—a gray day and no sun. It had ceased raining. The keenness of his hunger had departed. Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted. There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it did not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more he was chiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... Dark and dull night, flie hence away, And give the honour to this day That sees December turn'd to May. * * * * * Why does the chilling winter's morne Smile like a field beset with corn? Or smell like to a meade new-shorne, Thus on the sudden?—Come ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... temper, which were not infrequent, his face turned a dull purple, while the top of his bald head shone by contrast like white marble, and the bags under his eyes swelled till it seemed they would presently explode with a pop. And at these times he ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... the curtain of the large bow-window, so common in the West Indian houses, and the rich moonlight, now unvexed by the dull glare of the taper, flowed into the apartment, bathing every object it touched with silvery radiance. Clara sat in the window, in the full glow of the light, leaning forward toward the open air, and I, with a beating ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... autumn at Brighthelmstone. The place was very dull, and I was not well; the expedition to the Hebrides was the most pleasant journey that I ever made[272]. Such an effort annually would give the world ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... taught him did not change his natural self. Gothard, who possessed all the craft of a woman, the candor of a child, and the ceaseless observation of a conspirator, hid every one of these admirable qualities beneath the torpor and dull ignorance of a country lad. The little fellow had a silly, weak, and clumsy appearance; but once at work he was active as a fish; he escaped like an eel; he understood, as the dogs do, the merest glance; he nosed a thought. His good fat face, both round and red, his sleepy brown eyes, his hair, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... fellow captive and follower John Curzon that as their deaths were so near he felt a sudden interest in what had never interested him before—the story of John’s life before they had been brought so close to each other. The heroic but dull-witted soldier acceded to his master’s request, and the incoherent, muddle-headed way in which he gave his autobiography was full of a dramatic and subtle humour—was almost worthy of him who in three or four words created the foolish fat scullion ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... vigorous moments, when he is bubbling over with epigrams and paradoxes, ridiculing the dull people who do not agree with him, and laughing to scorn those who think they can maintain the Christian spirit outside the mysterious traditions of the Catholic Church, or when he is describing a recent church as a Blancmange ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... a fright in my whole life. The knife was that dull that it wouldn't have cut butter; but, true as I sit here, Mr. Martin's whole scalp came right off in my hand. I thought I had killed him, and I dropped his scalp, and said, "For mercy's sake! I didn't go to do it, and I'm awfully sorry." But he just caught up his scalp, stuffed it in his pocket, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he repeated, staring with a dull intentness at the ground between his feet. "It's an old story, and the less said about it the better. I can't discuss it with you or any one. I think it was a pity you took the trouble ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... introduced into the building by a back door, but the women and children think it is made by the devils, and are much terrified. Then the priests enter the shed, followed by the boys, one at a time. As soon as each boy has disappeared within the precincts, a dull chopping sound is heard, a fearful cry rings out, and a sword or spear, dripping with blood, is thrust through the roof of the shed. This is a token that the boy's head has been cut off, and that the devil has carried him away to the other world, there to regenerate and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the veteran's advice, and moved at so dull a pace over the difficult roads, that, although the distance was not more than nine leagues, he found, on his arrival, the bridge completed, and so large a body of the enemy already crossed, that he was in no strength to attack them. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the Intrepid, placed the nose of his ship neatly on the mud of the western bank, ordered his crew away, and blew up his ship by switches in the chart room. Four dull bumps were all that could be heard, and immediately afterward there arrived on deck the engineer, who had been in the engine room during the explosion, and reported that all was ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... "Very dull, I think," says Mrs. Chichester, who can't hold her tongue. "An everyday sort of thing. Lady Rylton, what do ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... before day-light we resumed our seats near the fire, and C—— C——, seeing how dull I was, was delicately attentive to me. She attempted no allurement, all her movements wore the stamp of the most decent reserve, and her conversation, tender in its expressions and perfectly easy, never conveyed the shadow of a reproach ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... handle resting on a splint-bottom chair, and a teakettle swung from a log pole, with myself setting the table, or turning the meat. Then came the blowing of the conch-shell for father in the field, the howling of old Lion, the gathering around the table, the blessing, the dull clatter of pewter spoons on pewter dishes, and the talk about the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... carelessness. She found herself at tea-time sitting next Canon Wrottesley, whose patriarchal mood seemed to her unnecessarily affected, and she requested him to ask Miss Sherard to come and speak to her. 'Kitty amuses me,' she said, with one of her characteristic shrugs, 'and most people are so dull, are they not?' ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... all his toys to play with, but he soon grew weary of them, and he kicked them under the table, saying, 'Nasty dull toys, I hate you, for you do not amuse me or make me happy. I will go to father, and ask him to give me something to please me that I am not ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the ill-managed dinner of wits and scientific men I have often felt. There must be a mixture of nonsense with sense, or it will not amalgamate: all wits and no fools, all actors and no audience, make dinners dull things. The same men in their boots, as you say, are quite other people. "Two or three ladies, too"—we were delighted with your finding them useful as well ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... special trip in the lifeboat and would wear special clothes and compose special faces for the ordeal. The Mayor of Ashby-de-la-Zouch for that year ordered two hundred copies of a photograph which showed himself in the centre, for presentation as New Year's cards. On the mornings after very dull days or wet days, when photography had been impossible or unsatisfactory, Llandudno felt that something lacked. Here it may be mentioned that inclement weather (of which, for the rest, there was little) scarcely interfered with Denry's receipts. Imagine a lifeboat being deterred by rain or by ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... a long period of dull prosperity coming to our friends. Go on two years. See Baroona, the Buckley's place, now. That hut where we spent the pleasant Christmas-day is degraded into the kitchen, for a new house is built—a long, low house, with deep, cool verandas all ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Ah, my fine fellow, you don't know the world yet. Those sort of men, dull drones like Neverbend, are just the fellows who go the deepest. I'll be bound he will not return without a few Mary Janes in his pocket-book. He'll be a fool if he ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... will be luxurious—houseboat life on the Upper Yangtze is decidedly not luxurious. Were it not for the magnificence of the scenery and ever-changing outdoor surroundings, as a matter of fact, the long river journey would probably become unbearably dull. ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... that the Catholic religion is unattractive, and that its worship is a dull, meaningless round of ceremony. Here they mistake. While Romanism is based upon deception, it is not a coarse and clumsy imposture. The religious service of the Roman Church is a most impressive ceremonial. Its gorgeous display and solemn rites fascinate the senses of the people, and ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... The room where the court was being held was already stirring with commotion; his judge-advocate was there, as was Colonel Forrest, Mr. Anderson, several members of the General's staff, and Mr. Allison, who had sought entry to learn the decision. Suddenly a dull solemn silence settled over all as the members of the court filed slowly into ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... but, as I saw it under those circumstances from those exalted heights, it might also be much worse. And, as for us men—oh, well, we have our faults, no doubt, but we are very good company for all that. It would be a dull world without us, I am sure. Let us take life as it comes, my dear Svava! (Comes nearer to her. She gets up.) What is the matter? Are you still in a bad temper?—when you have had the pleasure of boxing his ears with your own gloves, before the whole family circle? What more can you reasonably ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... go in!" cried our hero, stepping forward. The others followed. For some time they went on, and saw no traces of the precious metal. Then Ned uttered a cry, as he saw some dull, grayish particles imbedded in the earth walls ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... specimen, making six in all. The rustic element varies in each case, but it assumed the form of burlesque comedy in all except the purely didactic 'Coventry' cycle of the Cotton manuscript. Here, indeed, the treatment of the situation is decorously dull, but in the others we can trace a gradual advance in humorous treatment leading up to the genuine comedy of the alternative Towneley plays. Thus, like Noah and his wife, the shepherds of the adoration early became recognized comic characters, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Or you may find more touching proof of the ageing effect of worry, in the careworn face of the man of thirty with a growing family and an uncertain income; or the thin figure and bloodless cheek which testify to the dull weight ever resting on the heart of the poor widow who goes out washing, and leaves her little children in her poor garret under the care of one of eight years old. But still, the cottages of Humboldt's 'unwrinkled people' were, we have little doubt, much infested with vermin, and possessed ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... as if his head were about to fly away from his shoulders; but his whole figure rose lightly into the air and Perseus followed. By the time they had ascended a few hundred feet the young man began to feel what a delightful thing it was to leave the dull earth so far beneath him and to be able to flit about like ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... killed himself with the same dagger which he had made use of against Caesar. The most signal preternatural appearances were the great comet, which shone very bright for seven nights after Caesar's death, and then disappeared, and the dimness of the sun, whose orb continued pale and dull for the whole of that year, never showing its ordinary radiance at its rising, and giving but a weak and feeble heat. The air consequently was damp and gross, for want of stronger rays to open and rarify it. The ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to have hearts to feel the greatest enjoyment in tender love for others. See that you keep that love in constant exercise, or, like others of our best gifts, it may grow dull by disuse or abuse. The time may come when, deprived of your parents or brothers and sisters, you will bitterly mourn the sorrow you have caused by your evil temper ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... of their lives—the reputation of stalwart patriots. For example, late in October, General Scott suggested to the President a division of the country into four separate confederacies, roughly outlining their boundaries. Scott was a dull man, but he was the head of the army and enjoyed a certain prestige, so that it was impossible to say that his notions, however foolish in themselves, were of no consequence. But if the blunders of General ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... boisterous and threatening; the master said he was apprehensive that we should have bad weather; and when I was desired to go on deck and look at the appearance of the sky, I observed that it was troubled and red, with great heavy clouds flying in all directions, and with a sort of dull mist surrounding the moon. On repeating this to the other passengers, two of whom had been at sea before, they said we should certainly have a stormy night, and indeed it proved so very tempestuous that no rest was to be obtained. ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... the long, low house of Sigurd Syr, at Vigen, all is excitement; for word has come that Olaf the sea-king has returned to his native land, and is even now on his way to this his mother's house. Gay stuffs decorate the dull walls of the great-room, clean straw covers the earth floor, and upon the long, four-cornered tables is spread a mighty feast of mead and ale and coarse but hearty food, such as the old Norse heroes drew their strength and muscle from. At the door-way stands the Queen Aasta with her maidens, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... sit in dull routine Schooled to the scholarship of books, My truant spirit outward looks And Fancy fills the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... unpopular like P—, does a satanically brave thing. Boys have no admiration for the boy who defies them; what they like to see is the defiance of a common foe. They admire gallant, modest, spirited, picturesque behaviour, not the dull and faithful obedience ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and sometimes Kioways, with perhaps others that we didn't know. They did much to prevent our life from becoming dull," added the brave little lady, with ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... works some years before, when I was a philosopher, I found on opening it at various places by chance that I could not understand the meaning in the least; accordingly I joined with the French and other ignorant pretenders in condemning him, and as I considered him a dull and prosy writer, I treated his invaluable manuscript ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... modern colouring of this part of the building, including the low eastern aisle immediately behind the reredos, is claimed to be an exact restoration of the original, but it is hardly agreeable. The black of the newly polished marble shafts, the dull green of other parts, with the red, green, and white of the vaulting ribs, is more bizarre than beautiful. In regarding traces of mediaeval colouring one often forgets that time has blended harmoniously a scheme otherwise entirely ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... day for his little protege, and spent several hours patiently teaching the lad, in order that he might compete favorably with the baroness's charges. The task was by no means an easy one, as the lad possessed a very dull brain. This was, it must be confessed, an excellent thing for the orphans. If the motherly care which the baroness lavished on her charges were to be given to all destitute orphans in children's asylums, then the "convict system" certainly was a perfect one; while, on ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... the eastern division of the enemy, consisting of nine boats. Our boats gave the enemy showers of grape and musket balls as they advanced; they, however, soon closed, when the pistol, sabre, pike and tomahawk were made good use of by our brave tars. Captain Somers, being in a dull sailer, made the best use of his sweeps, but was not able to fetch far enough to windward to engage the same division of the enemy's boats which Captain Decatur fell in with; he, however, gallantly bore down with his single boat on five of the enemy's western division, and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... author of "Con Cregan," was coming to eclipse him. In short, he eclipsed himself, and he did not like it. His right hand was jealous of what his left hand did. It seems odd that any human being, however dull and envious, failed to detect Lever in the rapid and vivacious adventures of his Irish "Gil Blas," hero of one of the very best among his books, a piece not unworthy of Dumas. "Con" was written after midnight, "The Daltons" in the morning; and there can be no ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... "Now God pardon me this!" and striking his father a heavy blow, he flung him off and leaped free. Before he could take a single step, another figure, that of a woman, glided from the trees, and with a cry as of a wild cat, threw herself upon him. At the same instant there was a dull, thick roar; they were hurled stunned to the ground, and in the silence that followed, through the trees came hurtling a rain of broken rock ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... each other. Horble's hand felt for the gin again. His speech had grown a little thick. He was angry and flustered, and a dull resentment was ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... at one of the hotels, to wait there until the coach started at midnight. The place was very dull, the streets were very dull, and everybody seemed to have gone to bed. At length the hours passed, and the coach drew up. It was an odd-looking vehicle, drawn by four horses. The body was simply hung on by straps, innocent of springs. There were ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... congested with lengthy periods, and accumulated superlatives and relative clauses, which, in its endeavour to maintain itself and its subject at the highest possible pitch, only succeeds in being intensely and almost uniformly monotonous and dull. It is perfectly true that the work possesses some at least of the qualities of its defects. There are passages which argue a feeling for beauty, none the less real for being of a somewhat conventional order, while we not seldom detect a certain rich luxuriance about the descriptions; but it ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... "Well, it was dull work, uncle, I allow," said the young man, laughing. "But these gatherings are, I suppose, useful and necessary, if people are to keep up friendly acquaintance with one another, and do what ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... a dull hue, somewhat lighter than that of lead, and were of a convenient shape for handling. Each cake had its weight, and value, and result of assay stamped upon it, and I was told that it was assayed again at St. Petersburg to guard against the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... less than a minute even the galloping hoofs had muffled their dull thunder in the darkness and distance. With wild dread spurring him on, the father was gone to the rescue of his children, leaving old Plummer and his faithful sergeant shocked ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... aerated); but after a few moments this would not do, and I went out to a bench, of the rows beside the gravelled walks. It was no better there; but I fancied it would be better on the little isle in the little lake, where the fountain was flinging a sheaf of spray into the dull air. This looked even cooler than the bubbling spring in the glass vases, and it sounded vastly cooler. There would be mosquitoes there, of course, I admitted in the debate I had with myself before ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that every room in that sumptuous dwelling was dull as a wilderness on that particular Sabbath day. Rachael kept her room; Clara would not make herself agreeable; and he felt it a relief when night came and took him to the little bijou of a mansion where Olympia was waiting the ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... mentioned the sombre and dull character of the evergreen forests, [3] in which two or three species of trees grow, to the exclusion of all others. Above the forest land, there are many dwarf alpine plants, which all spring from the mass of peat, and help to compose it: these plants are very ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... appearance in the Southern States the last of April and, during the breeding season, which lasts until July, two broods are raised. The nests are made of fine grass and rest in the crotches of twigs of the low bushes and hedges. The eggs have a dull or pearly-white ground and are marked with blotches and dots of purplish and ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... themselves. Unless the spectator recognizes in it an image of the life he is himself fighting his way through, it must needs appear to him a monstrous development of the Christmas pantomimes, spun out here and there into intolerable lengths of dull conversation by the principal baritone. Fortunately, even from this point of view, The Ring is full of extraordinarily attractive episodes, both orchestral and dramatic. The nature music alone—music ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... smiled. But there was no reproof in her tone, only pure comradeship and affection, which Benton returned so openly and unaffectedly that Stella got up and left them with a pang of envy, a dull little ache in her heart. She had missed that. It had passed her by, that clean, spontaneous fusing of two personalities in the biggest passion life holds. Marriage and motherhood she had known, not as the flowering of love, not as an eager ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sleepy usher's nod, a sleepy boy would rise and recite the perfunctory evening prayer in a dull singsong voice—beginning, "Notre Pere, qui etes aux cieux, vous dont le regard scrutateur penetre jusque dans les replis les plus profonds de nos coeurs," etc., etc., and ending, "au nom du Pere, du Fils, et du St. Esprit, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... children taken silently through a museum of curiosities, the one active and lively, the other dull and listless. It would be found on retiring, that the former would be able to give an account of many things which he saw, and that the other would remember little or nothing. In this case, all the objects in the exhibition ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... grew up in prison. Ingenuity at lifting the dull monotony of imprisonment brought to light many talents for camaraderie which amused not only the suffrage prisoners but the "regulars." Locked in separate cells, as in the District Jail, the suffragists could still communicate by song. The following lively doggerel to the tune ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... is more than I can explain. I never have a chance to know all about my neighbors, for I am kept busy in looking to myself; but if all the energy that is devoted to other people's business in Bartley were expended on house-building, trade would soon be so dull that I should be longing for a mansion ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... moment possessed her—jealousy of youth and love and opening life. She felt herself thwarted and forgotten; her sons were all against her, and her daughter had no need of her. The memory of her own courting days came back upon her, a rare experience!—and she was conscious of a dull longing for the husband who had humored her every wish—save one; had been proud of her cleverness, and indolently glad of her activity. Yet when she thought of him, it was to see him as he lay on his death-bed, during those long ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dawn in silence moves the mighty stream, The silver-crested waves no murmur make; But far away the avalanches wake The rumbling echoes, dull as in a dream; Their momentary thunders, dying, seem To fall into the stillness, flake by flake, And leave the hollow air with naught to break The frozen spell ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... dark smoky brown than those of the Herring Gull: this difference of colour is even more apparent on the under surface, including the breast, belly, and flanks. The shoulder of the wing and the under wing-coverts of the Lesser Black-back are much darker, nearly dull sooty black, and much less margined and marked with pale whitey brown than those of the Herring Gull. The dark bands on the end of the tail-feathers of the Lesser Black-back are broader and darker than in the Herring Gull: this seems especially apparent ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... unselfish high motives.— Being the patrician state, and the admired of all, it was she naturally who assumed the hegemony when the Persian came. But she had foregone the graces of her position, and her wits, through lack of culture, were something dull. She lost that leadership presently to a young democratic Athens endowed with mental acumen and potential genius; who, too, gained immeasurably from Sparta, because she knew how to turn everything to the quickening of her wits—this having at her doors so contrasting a neighbor, for ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... skin is to be prepared the inside layer of skin over the fat tracts must be sheared off carefully with scissors and the fat then removed with a skin scraper or dull knife blade, care being exercised not to tear the outer skin or to pull through ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... consider a great man, is of no interest whatsoever to the modern mind, at least to the mind which is not French. He is almost as dull as Rousseau. La Religieuse is an utterly false little book. Some years ago I loaned a copy to a young lady who had just come from a convent. "I have never seen anything like this," she said to me. "It is a fantasy with ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... that with voice sorrowful Must oft for lost happiness long. To make the time pass in this prison so dull, I now will ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Possession On Censure The Furniture of a Woman's Mind Clever Tom Clinch Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope A Love Poem Bouts Rimez Helter Skelter The Puppet Show The Journal of a Modern Lady The Logicians Refuted The Elephant; or the Parliament Man Paulus; an Epigram The Answer A Dialogue On burning a dull Poem An excellent new Ballad On Stephen Duck The Lady's Dressing Room The Power of Time Cassinus and Peter A Beautiful young Nymph Strephon and Chloe Apollo; or a Problem solved The Place of the Damned The Day of Judgment Judas An Epistle to Mr. Gay To a Lady Epigram on Busts in Richmond ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... His hand nor the words He spoke were the real agents of the child's returning to life. It was His will which brought her back from whatever vasty dimness she had entered. The forth-putting of Christ's will is sovereign, and His word runs with power through all regions of the universe. 'The dull, cold ear of death' hears, and 'they that hear shall live,' whether they are, as men say, dead, or whether they are 'dead in trespasses and sins.' The resurrection of a soul is a mightier act—if we can speak of degrees of might in His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... spinners it is again run off on reels to be taken to the dye house. First the yarn is boiled off in soapy water to remove the remaining gum. Now the silk takes on its luster. Before it was dull like cotton. The silk is now finer and harder and is known ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... nothing to think about to keep her from continually talking, life, my dear child, is so full of little rubs, that constant chatter of this kind must almost certainly be constant grumbling. And constant grumbling, Selina, makes an ugly under-lip, a forehead wrinkled with frowning, and dull eyes that see nothing but grievances. There is a book in the library with some pictures of faces that I must show you. Do you draw at all, ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... edification: "So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in sleep, we find it difficult to have any experience at all." We did not, however, tamely accept such a state of affairs, for we made various and restless attempts to break through this dull obtuseness. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... also engaged as sporting prophet to the Tipster, and was not less successful than my contemporaries as a vaticinator of future events. At the same time I was contributing a novel (anonymously) to the Fleet Street Magazine, a very respectable publication, though perhaps a little dull. The editor had expressly requested me to make things rather more lively, and I therefore gave my imagination free play in the construction of my plot. I introduced a beautiful girl, daughter of a preacher in the Shaker ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... striking natural appearances on one side of this satellite. On the other there is some difference. The sun pursues the same path in the corresponding latitudes of both hemispheres; but being without any moon, they have a dull and dreary night, though the light from the stars is much greater than with us. The science of astronomy is much cultivated by the inhabitants of the dark hemisphere, and is indebted to them for its most important discoveries, and its present high ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... man he was! That was her first thought as he paused for an instant in the doorway, scrutinising her. Big and rather clumsily built, with awkward, slow movements. He had a student's stoop, and his skin was brownish and dull, his whole heavy person suggesting the sedentary worker. His low forehead, receding into a bald head, was oddly flattish in shape. It reminded Esther of something—she couldn't think what. He stood with his head slightly lowered and ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... murmured repetition the mother fell asleep, and the daughter, who had slumbered little the night before, could not but likewise drop into the world of soothing oblivion, though with a dull feeling of aching and yearning towards the friendly kindly Humfrey, yet with a certain exultation in the fate that seemed to be carrying her on inevitably ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge |
