"Insensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... jester or sage, croupier or harridan—lend her what personality you please—Fate hath the reins and so the laugh of the universe. Ever at its rump, her pricks are insensible alike to kicks or kisses. Folly, sceptre or rake in hand, she stands or sprawls upon Eternity, bending the ages to her whim. And we, poor things, at once her instruments and butts, stumble about her business, thinking it ours, setting each ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... ourselves. There was a remarkable instance to the point in the evidence, and which he would quote. In one of the slave-ships was a person of consequence; a man, once high in a military station, and with a mind not insensible to the eminence of his rank. He had been taken captive and sold; and was then in the hold, confined promiscuously with the rest. Happening in the night to fall asleep, he dreamed that he was in his own country; high in honour ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... forward with clasped hands and shining, imploring eyes. The duke was not insensible to the charm of her beauty, or to the appeal of her pleading voice. He was even more sensible to the tribute she had paid to his power in the matter of the Bellingham Home. But he was in a captious mood; and he did not wish to oblige her. His mind was chiefly ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... romances (which is mere romancing!), but that there are a few who will write and be written to by me without a sense of injury. Dear Miss Mitford, for instance. You do not know her, I think, personally, although she was the first to tell me (when I was very ill and insensible to all the glories of the world except poetry), of the grand scene in 'Pippa Passes.' She has filled a large drawer in this room with delightful letters, heart-warm and soul-warm, ... driftings of nature (if sunshine could drift like snow), and which, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... D'Orbigny).—The Wealden beds pass upward, often by insensible gradations, into the Lower Greensand. The name Lower Greensand is not an appropriate one, for green sands only occur sparingly and occasionally, and are found in other formations. For this reason ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... rolled down, and the rails were a wreck. But the engine and half the train had kept on: neither driver nor stoker was hurt, and they were hurrying to fetch help from the next station. At the foot of the bank lay George Crawford insensible, with the guard of the train doing what he could to bring him to consciousness. He was on his back, pale as death, with no motion and scare a sign ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... in parts, fifty miles from the Mountains, Silesia slopes somewhat rapidly; and is still to be called a Hill-country, rugged extensive elevations diversifying it: but after that, the slope is gentle, and at length insensible, or noticeable only by the way the waters run. From the central part of it, Schlesien pictures itself to you as a plain; growing ever flatter, ever sandier, as it abuts on the monotonous endless sand-flats ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the history to their own fancy Inconsiderate excuses are a kind of self-accusation Inconveniences that moderation brings (in civil war) Indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us Indocile liberty of this member Inquisitive after everything Insensible of the stroke when our youth dies in us Insert whole sections and pages out of ancient authors Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not Intemperance is the pest of pleasure Intended to get a new husband than to lament ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... beautiful, but she was young, amiable, lively, and more susceptible than we in Germany are accustomed either to allow or to pardon. Deffant, on the other hand, was witty and intelligent, but old, bitter, and withal egotistically insensible. The boldest scoffers assembled around L'Espinasse, and there was afterward formed around her a circle of her own. Deffant turned day into night, and night into day. She and the Duchess of Luxembourg, who was inseparable from her, received learned distinguished personages and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... his friend were not insensible to the picture. They were remarking upon it when the old man came into their midst. There was something more of keenness and brightness in his mien than was common to him; some influence, either of the healing summer or of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... wrecked vessel, who was one of the boat's crew, was rescued from a watery grave by the further exertions of Moir and his companions, and was carried in a perfectly insensible state to the house. Some hours elapsed before he was conscious of anything that was passing around him. He seemed, indeed, so completely gone, that every one had given him over, when some faint symptoms of returning ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... tenacity to his original purpose of planting a colony in the New World. This he resolved to do in the face of many obstacles, and notwithstanding the withdrawment of the royal protection and bounty. The generous heart of Henry IV. was by no means insensible to the merits of his faithful subject, and, on his solicitation, he granted to him letters-patent for the exclusive right of trade in America, but for the space only of a single year. With this small boon from the royal hand, De ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... It is such a pretty room that he cannot fail to be impressed. Any one coming from a hot city, and proving insensible to the charms of the roses that are now creeping into my window, would be unfit to live. Even a hussar must have a soft spot somewhere. I foresee those roses will be the means of reducing him to ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... obligation gave motive that certain of the Zimarron Indians whom he was endeavoring to establish soundly in the Catholic faith gave him certain death-dealing powders in his food, which although they did not deprive him of life rendered him insensible and he became most pitiably insane. Many other religious, whom we shall not mention for various reasons, suffered so much while ministers of those islands, by shipwreck, bad weather, and persecution, that if they did not obtain the crown ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... done a beneficent action, and which disposes it to receive pleasure from every surrounding object. 'I remember that in my youth this gloom used to call forth to my fancy a thousand fairy visions, and romantic images; and, I own, I am not yet wholly insensible of that high enthusiasm, which wakes the poet's dream: I can linger, with solemn steps, under the deep shades, send forward a transforming eye into the distant obscurity, and listen with thrilling delight to the mystic murmuring ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... her admirers was Julian Fitzorphandale. Seraphina was not insensible to the worth of Julian Fitzorphandale; and when she received from him a letter, asking permission to visit her, she felt some difficulty in replying to his ?[3]; for, at this very critical .[4], an unamiable young man, named Augustus St. Tomkins, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... searched about, and at last found him stretched on his couch, with the knife through his heart, for I had not had the courage to draw it out. On seeing this, they uttered such lamentable cries that my tears flowed afresh. The unfortunate father continued a long while insensible, and made them more than once despair of his life; but at last he came to himself. The slaves then brought up his son's body, dressed in his best apparel, and when they had made a grave they buried it. The old man, supported by two slaves, and his face covered with tears, threw ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... without cause. The puddler, one of the strongest men in the shops, struggled to his feet and rushed at his assailant. Bennington had knocked him down again, and this time the puddler remained on the ground, insensible. Bennington had gone back to his office, shutting and opening his fists. Ay, they had long since ceased calling him the dude. The man of brawn has a hearty respect ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... is courage," answered the Countess. "Real valour consists not in being insensible to danger, but in being prompt to confront and disarm it;—and we may have present occasion for all that we possess," she added, with some slight emotion, "for I hear the trampling of horses' steps on the pavement of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... hue was changed; it was livid and moveless, like a face cut in gray stone. He staggered back a little and a little more, and then a little more, and fell backward. Fortunately, the chair in which he had been sitting received him, and he lay there insensible as a corpse. When at last his eyes opened, there was no gleam of triumph, no shade of anger, nothing perceptible of guilt or menace, in the young woman's countenance. The flush had returned to her cheeks; her dimpled chin had sunk ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... When his frequent outings take him beyond the city fortifications, he is generally provided with, both saddle-horse and carriage, thus enabling him to change from one to the other at will. The Shah is evidently not indifferent to the fulsome flattery of the courtiers and sycophants about him, nor insensible of the pomp and vanity of his position; nevertheless he is not without a fair share of common-sense. Perhaps the worst that can be said of him is, that he seems content to prostitute his own more enlightened and progressive views ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... there was no more passed. But as I was rising to gang hame, 'Come, tak' anither, Mr. Stuart,' said he; 'I'm next the wa' wi' ye—I'll stand treat.' Wi' sair pressing I was prevailed upon to sit doun again, and we had anither and anither, till I was perfectly insensible. What took place, or how I got hame, I couldna tell, and the only thing I remember was a head fit to split the next day, and Jeannie very ill pleased and powty-ways. However, I thought nae mair about it, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... the lantern here!' cried Julia, who had strayed a few yards from me. I hastened to her, and found her lifting up the body of a man who was apparently insensible. The rays of the lantern fell full upon his face, and we both, at the same instant, recognized Robert Barnet. Julia did not shriek nor faint; but, kneeling in the snow, and still supporting the body, she turned towards me a look of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... support. The differences of government, of laws, of language, of manners, and of character, which hitherto had kept whole nations and countries as it were insulated, and raised a lasting barrier between them, rendered one state insensible to the distresses of another, save where national jealousy could indulge a malicious joy at the reverses of a rival. This barrier the Reformation destroyed. An interest more intense and more immediate than ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... which, owing to her long period of seclusion, had the opportunity of applying to all the things of common life so remarkable a skill and artistry, should be so little conscious of the pace at which her industrial rake's progress is proceeding, so insensible to the degree to which she is prodigally sacrificing that which, when it is lost to her, can never be recovered. It is no doubt true that when our own handicrafts were dying we also were insensitive. But ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... advanced to the insensible negro, and were in the act of stooping to pass the rope once more about his chest, when my father, who could bear the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... answer came. The man was insensible. And then the danger of his position came upon Montgomery, and he turned as white as his antagonist. A Sunday, the immaculate Dr. Oldacre with his pious connection, a savage brawl with a patient; he would irretrievably lose his situation if the facts came out. It was not much of a situation, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fainted. I don't know how long I was insensible, but it must have been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was all gone and there was the loveliest sunshine and the balmiest, fragrantest air in its place. And there was such a marvellous ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... my arms, or that, at least, he would go mad, as he almost did once before, you remember? I felt I was going to yield, I was going to recant first, I was going to clasp him in my arms, for really one must have been utterly heartless to remain insensible to such grief. But I recollected the words he had said to me the day before, 'You have no spirit if you stay with me, for I no longer love you,' Ah! As I recalled those bitter words I would have seen Rodolphe ready to die, and if it had only needed a kiss from me ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... in his mother's face, and saw that the time had come. After a long embrace he rushed away, and they carried her away, insensible. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... chamois-hunter. For along these elevated crags runs and bounds the nimble rupicapra; in certain favorite tracts is occasionally met the ibex, roaming solitary over his scanty pastures; and on the very highest rocks, where in winter they lie with faces to the wind, insensible to the most intense cold, are seen herds of still another species of the wild goat resembling in shape the tamed one, but larger, having long beautiful horns, and flesh with the ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... element shall have resumed for ever its calm, dread vacuity. But the hope is short-lived, and the hands disappear. Even so did Plushkin's face, after its momentary manifestation of feeling, become meaner and more insensible than ever. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... other than insensible to these representations: the danger, indeed, appeared to her so formidable, that her inclination the whole time opposed her refusal; yet her repugnance to giving way to the overbearing Baronet, and her fear of his resentment if she listened ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... a pause: "But the world is not likely to be impressed by anything not immediately gratifying it. People change, I find: as we increase in years we cease to be the heroes we were. I myself am insensible to change: I do not admit the charge. Except in this we will say: personal ambition. I have it no more. And what is it when we have it? Decidedly a confession of inferiority! That is, the desire to be distinguished is an acknowledgement of insufficiency. But I have still the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... vicious, they have never been indolent, and that their minds have never slumbered and lost by disuse the power of exertion. Reflections of this sort make me very uncomfortable, and I am ready to cry with vexation when I think on my misspent life. If I was insensible to a higher order of merit, and indifferent to a nobler kind of praise, I should be happier far; but to be tormented with the sentiment of an honourable ambition and with aspirations after better ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... all the satisfaction she could gain from the insensible, immovable colonel. However, her ladyship, after sending a whisper along the line, gained the desired information, that the young gentleman was Lord Colambre, son, only son, of Lord and Lady Clonbrony—that ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... except La Trappe and Solesmes and a few other corners where the old observances linger on. 'It was so ugly, so painfully adorned with images, that only by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in Notre Dame de la Breche.' Yes, but what sort of convert is this who is so insensible to substantials, so morbidly sensitive about mere accidentals? We come to the Church for the true faith and the sacraments, not for 'sensations.' In fine, Durtal has not observed the route prescribed by the apologetics for reaching the door of the ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... very much older than that of the dwellers in Olympus. We are the offspring of Eros; there are a thousand proofs to show it. We have wings and we lend assistance to lovers. How many handsome youths, who had sworn to remain insensible, have not been vanquished by our power and have yielded themselves to their lovers when almost at the end of their youth, being led away by the gift of a quail, a waterfowl, a ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... room, had returned to his apartment, where his parents were seated, who, on hearing the alarm, rushed to the parlor, where they discovered Fostina lying insensible on the floor. ...
— Fostina Woodman, the Wonderful Adventurer • Avis A. (Burnham) Stanwood
... above him. It is a matter, however, very doubtful to me, whether it is not still more the man than the apostle that Mrs D—— looks to in the present alliance. Though at the age of forty, she is, I assure you, very far from being cold and insensible; her fire may be covered with ashes, but it is not extinguished.—Don't be deceived, my dear, by that prudish and sanctified air.—Warm devotions is no equivocal mark of warm passions; besides, I know it is ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... relished this adventure, he was too stanch and too honest hearted to turn back now. The priest lay insensible at the bottom of the boat, his head pillowed upon the cloaks the youths had sacrificed for his better comfort. It was plainly a matter of consequence that he should soon be housed in some friendly shelter. His gray face looked ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... so before, and she was helped on this occasion by a sense of the ridiculous appearance her passion might wear in the vulgar eye. Her secret kept itself, as she was supposed in the college to be insensible to the softer emotions. Love wrought no external change upon her. It made her believe that she had left her girlhood behind her and was now a woman with a newly-developed heart capacity at which she would childishly ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... was not too easy. Mr. Fordyce hurried in, and took Anne in his arms; but, even with his height and strength, he found his feet slipping away under him, and could only hand the little insensible girl to Mr. Reynolds, bidding him carry her at once to the house, while he lifted Martyn up only just in time, and Ellen clung to him. Thus weighted, he could not get out, till the bailiff and another man had brought ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the son of Roderick, with messages to Henry, and awaited his return with anxiety. David brought him a satisfactory response from the English King, and the last anxiety only remained. In death, as in life, his thoughts were with his country. "Ah, foolish and insensible people!" he exclaimed in his latest hours, "what will become of you? Who will relieve your miseries? Who will heal you?" When recommended to make his last will, he answered, with apostolic simplicity—"God knows, out ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... confines around the body sufficient of its own warmth, while it allows escape to the exhalations of the skin. Where the body is allowed to bathe protractedly in its own vapours we must expect an unhealthy effect upon the skin. Where there is too little allowance for ventilation, insensible perspiration is checked, and something analogous to fever supervenes; foul tongue, ill taste, and lack of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... weird, fierce, unearthly, but it seemed to pierce like a knife through the stillness that had fallen. Awed, sobered, paralyzed, the Indians stood motionless. Then from their ranks ran Chief Trotting Wolf, picked up the rifle of the Indian who still lay insensible on the ground, and took ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... drama, which might be usefully introduced among us? I mean, Recitation. A work of genius, recited by a man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and powers of elocution, is a very pure and high gratification. Were this art cultivated and encouraged, great numbers, now insensible to the most beautiful compositions, might be waked up to ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... and improved, like his letters; and fond eyes said that fond hopes had not been mistaken. If they looked on him once with pride, they did now with a sort of insensible wonder. His whole air was that of a different nature, not at all from affectation, but by the necessity of the case; and as noble and graceful as nature intended him to be, they delightedly confessed that he was. Perhaps by the same necessity, his view of things was altered ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... fantastic, full of surprises and full of disillusions; but on the whole more stimulating and more beautiful than anything the imagination has pictured regarding it. And this is of supreme importance in the practice of our daily life - that the insensible world is in part our own creation, subject to our will, built up from the conclusions gathered in our day-life, with the faculties and powers which by practice and use we have in this same life made our own. To say for this reason that nothing new awaits us would be ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... not how long lying in a desponding, half insensible, state upon the grass. Several hours must have elapsed; for when I got up, the sun was low in the western heavens. My head was so weak and wandering, that I could not well explain to myself how it was that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... his head in the air; his eyelids quivered; next moment he fell insensible below the table. Northmour and I had each run to the armoury and seized a gun. Clara was on her feet with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dead and I am free—free!" She paused—her wild eyes gazed upward—did she see some horror there? She put up both hands as though to shield herself from some impending blow, and uttering a loud cry she fell prone on the stone floor insensible. Or dead? I balanced this question indifferently, as I looked down upon her inanimate form. The flavor of vengeance was hot in my mouth, and filled me with delirious satisfaction. True, I had been glad, when my bullet whizzing sharply through the air had carried death to Guido, but my ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... heedful of his presence, for he is partly concealed by the thick folds of a rich damask curtain,—or, perhaps, careless of the impression produced, they rattled gaily on, for not one of them but in her heart had pronounced him a woman-hater; for were he not such, could he have been insensible to the sweetest and most fascinating ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... society, weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the security of life; harass the delicate with shame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be awakened to a sense of their crimes, by denunciations of a whipping-post or pillory: since many are so insensible of right and wrong, that they have no standard of action but the law; nor feel guilt, but as they ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... bitterness was now full to overflowing. Crawling out of the stream, he sank down on the bank in a species of lethargic torpor, from which, he awakened next morning in a raging fever. Delirium soon rendered him insensible to his sufferings. The sun rose like a ball of fire, and shone down with scorching power on the arid plain. What mattered it to Dick? He was far away in the shady groves of the Mustang Valley, chasing the deer at times, but more frequently ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... of emulation, is set by the usage of those next above us in reputability; until, in this way, especially in any community where class distinctions are somewhat vague, all canons of reputability and decency, and all standards of consumption, are traced back by insensible gradations to the usages and habits of thought of the highest social and pecuniary class—the wealthy ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... went to Isidore's heart. He stepped forward just in time, for, had he not caught her in his arms, she would have fallen to the ground insensible. At this moment they were joined by Madame de Rocheval, who had returned in haste, having heard in the town the news of Captain Lacroix's death; the fainting girl was carried to her room, and Isidore, after hurriedly explaining to Madame de Rocheval the circumstances ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... tale, singing the little rhymes she made come into it. She had of course to encounter rudeness, but she set herself to get used to it, and learn not to resent it but let it pass. One coming upon her surrounded by a child audience, might have concluded her insensible of what was owing to herself; but the feeling of what was owing to her fellows, who had to go such a long unknown way to get back to the image of God, made her strive to forget herself. It is well that so many who lightly try this kind of work meet with so little ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... and slow. I know God is often in the one place as in the other. I know there is true religious life there, and that souls are converted there. But so long as men remain human, their piety will not be insensible to such influences. So too, the influences of the city churches tend more to develop young men. My impression is that in country districts age is a prime qualification for responsibility; young men are kept back, and not expected to bear a prominent ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... frame. He seemed for a few moments to feel again all the dreadful pain and anguish he remembered having felt when he was very ill once long ago. His aching, weary little head seemed too heavy for him to bear, and with a moan of pain he fell forward, and lay where he fell insensible. ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... me how they brought me there, and took me down from the wagon as insensible as a log. But she could not finish her story; she began to choke with tears, and Anna finished what ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... dangling in the air; for two of the seven, Campbell and Slavens, being very heavy men, broke the ropes, and fell to the ground insensible. In a short time they recovered, and asked for a drink of water, which was given them. Then they requested an hour to pray before entering the future world which lay so near and dark before them. This last petition ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... quiet and as free from disturbance as the city of London. He who states these things should be prepared with proofs. I am prepared with them.' He then went into a number of horrifying details, and concluded as follows: 'You say that the Irish are insensible to the benefits of the British constitution, and you withhold all these benefits from them. You goad them with harsh and cruel punishments, and a general infliction of insult is thrown upon the kingdom. ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Mrs. Shelby both felt annoyed and degraded by the familiar impudence of the trader, and yet both saw the absolute necessity of putting a constraint on their feelings. The more hopelessly sordid and insensible he appeared, the greater became Mrs. Shelby's dread of his succeeding in recapturing Eliza and her child, and of course the greater her motive for detaining him by every female artifice. She therefore graciously smiled, assented, chatted familiarly, and did all she could to make ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... disease to lawless action, and no longer held back by legal deterrents or moral checks, they followed the instinct of self-preservation to the extent of criminal lawlessness. Familiarity with death and suffering dispelled the fear of human punishment, while numbness of the moral sense made them insensible to the less immediate restraints of a religious character. These phenomena are not unusual concomitants of protracted wars. History records numerous examples of the homecoming soldiery turning the weapons destined for ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... clear ringing voices, the morning hymn; while each and all gazed on the surrounding scene with happiness and delight, worn out as we were with aching arms, blistered hands, and utter weariness, we could not be insensible to the beauty of the little island we ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... in the cane-brake sometimes under the covert of a limestone cliff, often made aware on his return to the cabin that the Indians had discovered it, and visited it during his absence. Surrounded with danger and death, though insensible to fear, he neglected none of those prudent precautions of which men of his temperament are much more able to avail themselves, than those always forecasting the fashion of uncertain evils. He was, however, never for an hour in want of the most ample ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... Giraud stood upon the floor holding her already insensible form in her arm'. She was obliged to lay her upon the floor while she rang the bell to alarm the servants. She sent for Valentin and a doctor. The doctor, arriving, regarded the beautiful face with manifest surprise and alarm. It was no longer pale, but darkly flushed, and the stamp ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... consequent jealousy and aversion with which it is sure to be regarded by the depositaries of political authority. He was neglected by them; he knew it, and expected it; it never gave him a moment's chagrin. "He was not insensible," says D'Alembert, "to glory; but he had no desire to win but by deserving it. Never did he attempt to enhance his reputation by the underhand devices and secret machinations by which second-rate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... to the Christian doctrines or the predominance of the Celtic nations. Whatever of evil their agencies may have contained sprang from the extinction of the poetical principle, connected with the progress of despotism and superstition. Men, from causes too intricate to be here discussed, had become insensible and selfish: their own will had become feeble, and yet they were its slaves, and thence the slaves of the will of others; lust, fear, avarice, cruelty, and fraud, characterized a race amongst whom no one was to be found capable of creating in form, language, or institution. The moral anomalies ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... A good many people were hurt, some of them seriously, and among them Philip Sterling was found bent across the seat, insensible, with his left arm hanging limp and a bleeding wound on ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... a stone, and tied it with a wisp of grass. With a sudden flexile turn of a wrist that had thrown many a reata, he flung it straight through the open window. Elena read the meaningless phrases, then fell insensible to ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... fellow citizens, at an earlier day than was contemplated by the act of the last session of Congress, I have not been insensible to the personal inconveniences necessarily resulting from an unexpected change in your arrangements, but matters of great public concernment have rendered this call necessary, and the interests you feel in these will supersede in your ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... favorable change in their condition, what folly for them to reject blessings in another land, because it is prejudice which debars them from such blessings in this! But in truth no legislation, no humanity, no benevolence can make them insensible to their past condition, can unfetter their minds, can relieve them from the disadvantages resulting from inferior means and attainments, can abridge the right of freemen to regulate their social intercourse and relations, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... into sobs and moans and agonizing expressions of despair, mingled with shouts of wild laughter and mad thanksgiving. "Pardon, pardon!" "O Jesus, save me!" "O Saviour of sinners!" "O God, have mercy upon me!" "O my heart, my heart!" Some threw themselves on the ground, stiff and motionless and insensible as dead men. Others stood over the stricken people and prayed for their relief from the power of Satan. Others fell into convulsions, and yet others, with wild and staring eyes, rejoiced in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... on the march to Port Colborne, after leaving Ridgeway. I became weak and exhausted and was taken into a house about 250 yards south by two of my comrades, where Dr. Neff, assisted by two others, set my left arm and left me alone. I became insensible, and in that state had lost all recollection of the fight. After I came to myself I heard a volley and ran to the door. I saw the Fenians surround the village. I ran to try to catch up to our force, which had all left, and they fired ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... idea came to him—he would walk through the mirage and end it. He advanced furiously against an imaginary tree, struck his forehead, and toppled over insensible. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... the conquered Romans, were their special sins; while their special, and indeed only virtue, was that indomitable daring which they transmitted to their descendants for so many hundred years. The buccaneers of the young world, they were insensible to all influences save that of superstition. They had become, under Clovis, orthodox Christians: but their conversion, to judge from the notorious facts of history, worked little improvement on their morals. The ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... injunction would shew them insensible of his wrongs, and make them shew like enemies. I read shew, not ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... notice no other expression in their faces than one of hunted stupor, I can never help commenting to myself upon the misery of their condition. For them all, art exists only that they may be still more wretched, torpid, insensible, or even more flurried and covetous. For incorrect feeling governs and drills them unremittingly, and does not even give them time to become aware of their misery. Should they wish to speak, convention whispers their cue to ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... one rebellious symptom. Matter yields to spirit; the soul is the master of the body; while the perceptions of the intelligence attain an exquisite sensibility, and the mind is gifted with faculties absolutely new, the flesh submits, almost insensible to its condition of servitude, and scarcely murmurs at the daily death it is ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... cordials filtered, exquisitely rich. For such a host, my friend! expends much more In oil than cotton; solely studying love! To a philosopher, that animal, Voracious, solid ham and bulky feet; But to the financier, with costly niceness, Glociscus rare, or rarity more rare. Insensible the palate of old age, More difficult than the soft lips of youth, To move, I put much mustard in their dish; With quickening sauces make their stupor keen, And lash the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... exactly, despite the natural tendency to exaggeration into which his jealousy led him, the precise effect of Lord Henry's persuasive and emphatic tongue upon the female ear. He had seen its effect on Mrs. Delarayne, on Vanessa, on Agatha, on Mrs. Tribe. Was it likely that Leonetta would long remain insensible to the difference between himself ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... gods to be born with a hatred and contempt of all injustice and meanness. Yours is a higher lot, never to have lied and truckled, than to have shared honours won by dishonour. There is strength in scorn, as there was in the martial fury by which men became insensible ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Industrious? Where we are grown so heedless and unthinking, that our political Creed, must be as often repeated in our Ears, as our Religious one, before we will take care to understand, or shew we believe it by our Practice? Where we are so notoriously Dull, or so artificially Insensible, that we must be told our true Interest a thousand Times over, before we'll regard it, or where those who know our true Interest best, will Sacrifice it either to their Vanity, Ease, Pleasure or Ambition, or at least to their giddy, senseless, Carelessness? What must become of a Kingdom, where ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... amongst the common Lumber of the Stage. And when that resistless Splendor, which now shoots all around him, had, by degrees, broke thro' the Shell of those Impurities, his dazzled Admirers became as suddenly insensible to the extraneous Scurf that still stuck upon him, as they had been before to the native Beauties that lay under it. So that, as then he was thought not to deserve a Cure, he was now supposed ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... societies, sailors' boarding-houses, and "dives" of every complexion of the disreputable and dangerous. I have seen greasy Mexican hands pinned to the table with a knife for cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran high) knocked down upon the public street and carried insensible on board short-handed ships, shots exchanged, and the smoke (and the company) dispersing from the doors of the saloon. I have heard cold-minded Polacks debate upon the readiest method of burning San Francisco to the ground, hot-headed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in his head; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one of his lords. A physician, who had charge of the royal retorts and crucibles, happened to be present. He had no lancet; but he opened a vein with a penknife. The blood flowed freely; but the King was still insensible. ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... her father, Simon, derived his surname from the trade which he practised—showed no inclination to listen to any gallantry which came from those of a station highly exalted above that which she herself occupied, and, though probably in no degree insensible to her personal charms, seemed desirous to confine her conquests to those who were within her own sphere of life. Indeed, her beauty being of that kind which we connect more with the mind than with the person, was, notwithstanding her natural ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... lover of natural scenery, alike find here the amplest gratification of their tastes. This is so still; but in the sixteenth century the Italian cities were the only homes of an ancient and decaying civilization, Not insensible to other impressions, it was specially the desire of social converse with the living poets and men of taste—a feeble generation, but one still nourishing the traditions of the great poetic age—which drew Milton ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... first strangely cool to the incomparable father, though at last she proved not wholly insensible to his charm, providing for his refection her very choicest cake and the last tumbler of crab-apple jelly. She began to suspect that a man of manners so engaging must have good in him, and she gave him at parting the tracts of "The Dying Drummer ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Not that he was insensible to reason or the fitness of things, he had always known and acknowledged that when in a passion he was not accountable for his acts; he admitted the fact with regret and also with a certain pride. To-night he might have felt the regret without any pride to leaven it but for the fact that his ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... his fellow-jurymen charged her only with concealment of the birth. "The poor desolate creature dropped upon her knees before us with protestations that we were right (protestations among the most affecting that I have ever heard in my life), and was carried away insensible. I caused some extra care to be taken of her in the prison, and counsel to be retained for her defense when she was tried at the Old Bailey; and her sentence was lenient, and her history and conduct proved that it ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of this argument is that made by Lamarck, and we give it as he presents it: "The greater the abundance of natural objects assembled together, the more do we discover proofs that everything passes by insensible shades into something else; that even the more remarkable differences are evanescent, and that nature has for the most part left us nothing at our disposal for establishing distinctions, save trifling, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Johnson's last quoted letter to Mr. Cave concludes with a fair confession that he had not a dinner; and it is no less remarkable, that, though in this state of want himself, his benevolent heart was not insensible to the necessities of an humble labourer in literature, as appears from the very ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... enough to see clearly in the sunlight. It is those whose faith pierces through the cloud and keeps the smiling, sunlit face of Christ in view that have the truest, sweetest joy. Their rejoicing is in the Lord. By bravery and force of will some may shut themselves against sorrow and soon become insensible to it. But the heart that is steeled against sorrow is in all probability so calloused that it can not experience joy. Those who know the deepest sorrow may ofttimes know the fullest joy, and that in the midst of their sorrow. Do not harden your heart against sorrow, but look to ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... to conceive and act when danger pressed, at once stepped forward and gave the man of blood a right-hander on the top of the nose which instantly Romanised that feature and laid its owner on his back insensible. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... diagnosis of her case the young man may have thought it best to conceal with a smile the historian is unable to state, but for himself he feels bound to say that fingers looking less stiff, and showing fewer evidences of even insensible pain, have seldom been submitted for medical inspection by even the fairest patient desiring a prescription ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... in his present security, insensible to his past disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him. He proposed this ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... bleeding head, he staggered toward Brooks who continued the shower of blows until his victim fell fainting to the floor. Not then did the southern brute stay his hand, but struck again and again the prostrate and now insensible form of Mr. Sumner with a fragment ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... his famous technical work, called "Practique et Enchiridion des Causes Criminelles" (1544), also recommends that the hair should be carefully shaved from the bodies of persons about to undergo examination by torture, for fear of their concealing some countercharm which would render them insensible to bodily pain. The same author also recommends, as a rule, when there are several persons "to be placed on the rack" for the same deed, to begin with those from whom it would be most probable that confession would ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... and skilled in tracing fraud's sly path, And eloquent, insensible to wrath; To friend, foe, kinsman showing equal grace, Reserving judgment till he know the case; Untouched by avarice, in virtue sound. The weak he must defend, the knave confound; An open door to truth, his heart must ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... to gain, if possible, a more wise and legal manner, her ladyship thus resumed: "Sir Thomas, you must certainly be aware of my motives in thus requesting an interview. You cannot be insensible to the fact that it entirely concerns the ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... would be indifferent both to its honors and to its disgrace, and would be no more concerned about its trifles than if he was alone in the world. He would despise sufferings, scourges, and dungeons, as if they were endured in another's body, not in his own; and would be as insensible to the pleasures and enjoyments of the world; as we are to the bodies of the dead, or as the dead are to their own bodies. He would be as pure from the stain of any inordinate passions, as gold perfectly ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... turned to the fly-leaf, and, having apparently satisfied himself, by the perusal of the name written thereon, that it really belonged to Mullins, handed it to him without a word. I fancied, however, from the stern expression of his mouth and a slight contraction of the brow, that he was not as insensible to their impertinence as ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... him anxiously and yet without interrupting his reading. Beyond the simple facts, she had told him nothing, and it was characteristic of her that she did not embellish these facts with picturesque phrases. She herself was so insensible to the appeal of rhetoric that she hardly thought of it as likely to influence anybody. Then, too, in moments of intense feeling she had ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... with a cry of despair, precipitated himself into the empty air and came fluttering down like a wounded bird, to fall insensible into the arms that for the moment saved him from death or mutilation. An instant later there was a shriek from the negligent nurse, and the man- at-arms ran along the battlements, a bolt on his cross-bow which he feared to launch at the flying abductor, for in the speeding of it he ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... heavily on her knees beside the bed insensible, her dark head lying on Cecile's arm. Dora, in a pale trance of terror, closed little Cecile's weary eyes, the nurse cleared the room, and they laid ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "I am not insensible to the misfortune of your family. I shall contribute with pleasure to the comfort ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... him then? Good heaven, how stupid, and how dull is she? How most invincibly insensible! No woman does deserve to live, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... 'It was no quality of this kind that got him the name, but the loftiness and elevation of his style, and his great power of expression in slow movements, which, when exercised on his noble music, fixed his hearers, and made them insensible to any fault ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... Gibbon tells us, to 'view the glaciers' now that he can view them without personal inconvenience. This, again, suggests that there is nothing radically new in the so-called love of nature. Any number of poets from Chaucer downwards may be cited to show that men were never insensible to natural beauty of scenery; to the outburst of spring, or the bloom of flowers, or the splendours of storms and sunsets. The indifference to nature of the Pope school was, so far, the temporary complacency ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... centuries of progressive Civilization and refinement, which have gradually converted the mere creature into the semblance of all that is elevated and grand; while the other, after the lapse of the same period, has not advanced one step in the career of improvement, 'Yet, after all,' quoth I to myself, 'insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, may not the savage be the happier man of the two?' Such were the thoughts that arose in my mind as I gazed upon the novel spectacle before me. In truth it was an impressive one, and little likely to be effaced. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... had been told by her brother that the Prince earnestly desired to see her, knew well how dangerous it was to approach an inviting flower growing on the edge of a precipice. She was not, of course, insensible to his coming in such a manner, with an excuse for the sake of seeing her, but she did not wish to increase her dreamlike inquietude by seeing him. And again, if he ventured to visit her apartment, as he did before, it might be a serious compromise ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the object of their sarcasms from those feminine smiles and gestures, she was perfectly insensible to them. In the first place, anybody must see that her companion was a poor relation from the country, an affliction with which any Parisian family may be visited. And, in the second, when her cousin had spoken to her of her dress with manifest ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Antonio's mind, that the affections of his unknown beauty might be engaged. She was young, and doubtless susceptible; and it was not in the nature of Spanish females to be deaf and insensible to music and admiration. The surmise brought with it a feeling of dreariness. There was a pleasant dream of several days suddenly dispelled. He had never before experienced any thing of the tender passion; and, as its morning dreams are ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... hawser, and Vespasian, on deck, lowered it with a line, so that Thompson presently drifted right athwart it. "All right, sir!" said he, grasping it, and, amidst thundering acclamations, was drawn to land full of salt water and all but insensible. The piano landed at Dunkirk three ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... to the British commerce in Europe, and obtain noble indemnity. The appearance of American cruisers in those seas has amazed the British merchants, and insurance will now be on the war establishment; this will give the rival nations a great superiority in commerce, of which they cannot be insensible; and as our vessels of war will be protected in the ports of France and Spain, the whole of the British commerce will be exposed. I hope to have a liberty for the disposal of prizes here, but dare not engage for that. The last season the whole coast of England, Scotland, and Ireland ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... it as soon as her eyes fell upon it, and after that she could no longer doubt that he had indeed married Turritella. In despair she cried, 'Take away these miserable gauds! what pleasure has a wretched captive in the sight of them?' and then she fell insensible upon the floor, and the cruel Queen laughed maliciously, and went away with Turritella, leaving her there without comfort or aid. That night the Queen said to the King, that his daughter was so infatuated with King Charming, in spite of his never having shown any ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... are but the readings of a literary vagrant. One book led to another, one study to another. The first was published with trepidation. Since no bones were broken, the second was launched with greater confidence. So, by insensible degrees, a young man of our generation acquires, in his own eyes, a kind of roving judicial commission through the ages; and, having once escaped the perils of the Freemans and the Furnivalls, sets himself up to right the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and insensible young man, walking by my side, who has learned to interpret Greek and Latin at college, but not ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... on unmoved: "I reproved the others, and they resented it. There was a great battle with the natives one day, of which I remember but little. I seem to have been left insensible on the field. When I recovered, I saw dawncing off across the sea the figures of all these different persons except Sir Harry—who, of course, was with me in the battle. Sir Harry was still with me, quite sober at lawst, and quite dead, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... are apt to calumniate what we fear. She was depicted under the features of a Messalina. The most infamous pamphlets were in circulation; the most scandalous anecdotes were credited. She may be accused of tenderness, but never of depravity. Lovely, young, and adored, if her heart did not remain insensible, her innermost feelings, innocent perhaps, never gave just ground for open scandal. History has its modesty, and we ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... present state I could quit it with a smile." And in a letter to his old friend Davison he said, "Believe me, my only wish is to sink with honour into the grave; and when that shall please God, I shall meet death with a smile. Not that I am insensible to the honours and riches my king and country have heaped upon me—so much more than any officer could deserve; yet am I ready to quit this world of trouble, and envy none but those of the estate ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... barren sands. We have not any authority to say, with some learned and ingenious authors, that there were no mountains on the original earth, no unevennesses on its surface, yet it is highly probable that they rose and fell, by almost insensible degrees. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... always swallowed as Gospel; and for more than twenty-five years she kept herself and family in this way with sufficient money to keep them in luxury, loose living, and idleness, till the year of 1859, when, by some unaccountable means, her conscience, which, up to this time, had been insensible, dull, and without feeling, became awakened, sharp, and alive. Probably this quickening took place in consequence of her hearing a good Methodist minister in a mission-room in the neighbourhood. The result was that the money she took by telling fortunes began to burn ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... one as definitely concluding the life of the ancient world, and marking the beginning of what St. Augustine for the first time called by the name, which has ever since adhered to it, of the Middle Age. The old world slid into the new through insensible gradations. In nearly all Latin literature after Virgil we may find traces or premonitions of mediaevalism, and after mediaevalism was established it long retained, if it ever wholly lost, traces of the classical tradition. Thus, while ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... honest to detract from beauty as a quality. There cannot be a refined soul insensible to its influence. The story of Pygmalion and his statue is as natural as it is poetical. Beauty is of itself a power; and it was ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... me; he had been struck on the head while swimming for a lifeboat, and had been insensible for hours. The doctors said his skull was fractured. They had done everything they could; there was nothing to do now but ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart. "I never," said he, "met with a person so unfeeling." This sally, though the poet had evidently brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply. "Call me cold-hearted—me insensible!" he exclaimed, with manifest emotion—"as well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a precipice, and lies dashed to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... Kansas. May God bless you for it! By doing this you will step to my side; perhaps you may share something of that abuse which they who "know, not what they do" heap upon all who so feel for the right. I assure you, dear friend, I am not insensible to the fiery darts which thus fly around me. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Lequinio, Saintes, Nivose 1, year II.) "Citizens generally in all communes, are requested to celebrate the day of the decade by a fraternal banquet which, served without luxury or display... will render the man bowed down with fatique insensible to his forlorn condition; which will fill the soul of the poor and unfortunate with the sentiment of social equality and raise man up to the full sense of his dignity; which will suppress with the rich man the slightest feeling ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... out of the water, and whirled round the wheel with such force that the man who was steering was lifted off his feet, and as he grasped the spokes with desperation, was dashed down on the deck with an awful impetus, which knocked him insensible. Dave, followed by Johnny, immediately rushed aft, and took the helmsman's place, although it required all the strength of the two boys to hold on and save the ship from broaching-to, when her spars would have been swept off like ninepins, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson |
