"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been left by nature just a beer-loving serf, devoid of grief for his dead wife, devoid of longing for the nearest he could get to her again, devoid of susceptibility to this young man's influence? And the thought of all that was before the mute creature, sitting there in heavy, hopeless patience, stung Felix's heart so that he could hardly bear to look him in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... an actor and possibly a victim in the changing scenes of a revolution, it was only then that I had the first vision of a twilight country which was to become the province of Sulaco, with its high shadowy Sierra and its misty Campo for mute witnesses of events flowing from the passions of men ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the front room with the negress whom Madame had brought with her. They were not talking. I supposed then this was because Lindy did not speak French. I did not know that Madame de Montmery's maid was a mute. Both of them went into the bedroom, and I was left alone. The door and windows were closed, and a green myrtle-berry candle was burning on the table. I looked about me with astonishment. But for the low ceiling and the wide cypress puncheons ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... shop-windows of themselves, and their names placed in 'the first row of the rubric,' with those of Rubens, Raphael, and Michael Angelo, swearing by themselves or their proxies that these glorified spirits would do well to leave the abodes of the blest in order to stand in mute wonder and with uplifted hands before some production of theirs which is yet hardly dry! Oh! whatever you do, leave that string untouched. It will jar the rash and unhallowed hand that meddles with it. Profane ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... wrought in me the dangerous ecstasy which was to prove so cruel a requital of it; for it is of the nature of love to be inflamed by the least hint of a neighbouring, answering fire. I believe that I could have been for ever Aurelia's mute, adoring, unasking slave, but for the fact that she had sighed, and whispered me "Checho," and twice suffered me to kiss her hands. Fatal benevolence that lifted suddenly the meek! Fatal wealth bestowed that made the pauper purse-proud! ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... himself without uttering a word, and followed the slave to the door of Vaninka's room. Having arrived there, with a motion of his hand he dismissed the informer, who, instead of retiring in obedience to this mute command, hid himself in the corner of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... seemed at this moment to have reached the point at which insensibility begins. She took no notice of her sister's remark, but threw back her capstrings and dispensed the pudding, in mute resignation. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... 'Quietness,' Then quietly itself was gone: Yet echoes of its mute caress Were with me as the ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... chant at this midnight hour the Christmas hymn, and at last (in some out-of-the-way towns) the priests, in gaudiest robes, bring out from under the altar and expose aloft to the crowds, in swaddling-clothes of gold and white, the Babe new-born, and all fall down and cross themselves in mute adoration. This service is universal, and is called the "Misa del Gallo," or Cock-crow Mass, and even in Madrid it is customary to attend it. There are three masses also on Christmas Day, and the Church ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... been deranged. The table was still set for supper. Two places, side by side, bore mute witness that the King had been ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... repelled me felt my heart beat. She struggled to get away, but fell back overcome with tenderness. We talked together through that silence in the language of thought. Nothing is more rapturous than these mute conversations. Madame de T——- took refuge in my arms, hid her head in my bosom, sighed and then grew calm under my caresses. She grew melancholy, she was consoled, and she asked of love all that love had robbed her of. The sound of the river broke the silence of night with a gentle murmur, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... there: "We have not made ourselves" (Augustine in the sublime description of Christian, that is, Neoplatonic exercises), it must, as it were, lose sight of itself in a state of intense concentration, in mute contemplation and complete forgetfulness of all things. It can then see God, the source of life, the principle of being, the first cause of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment it enjoys the highest and indescribable blessedness; it is itself, as it ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... ye wild winds! a mightier Power than yours In chains upon the shore of Europe lies; The sceptred throng whose fetters he endures Watch his mute throes with terror in their eyes; And armed warriors all around him stand, And, as he struggles, tighten every band, And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand, To pierce the victim, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... to finish it and make it famous, the ground on each side as far back as the daisied slopes that bounded the interior valley being a mere layer of blown sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile inland had, in the course of ten centuries, responded many times to that mute appeal, with the result that the tides had invariably choked up their works with sand and shingle as soon as completed. There were but few houses here: a rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a residence or two, a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the chief features ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... to his master's tricks of circumlocution, the bravo was so far from expecting this question, that at first he stood mute, and only after a few moments' pause ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in man, to the other fingers; we next trace the type upwards among the wonderfully developed reptiles of the Secondary periods; then among the mammals of the Tertiary ages, higher and yet higher forms appear; the mute prophecies of the coming being become with each approach clearer, fuller, more expressive, and at length receive their fulfilment in the advent of man. A double meaning attaches to the term type; and hence some ambiguity in the writings which have appeared on this curious subject. ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... waiting upon people down to the coach, and such other troublesome ceremonies as our courtesy enjoins (O servile and importunate custom!) Every one there governs himself according to his own method; let who will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up in my closet, without any ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... a quick motion forward. Then she stopped short, and lifted her eyes to the door. Her cheeks burned, and her heart beat fast. Sir Allan Beaumerville was standing on the threshold, looking at her in mute amazement, and over his shoulder was the pale stern face ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... women are! She knew inside of ten minutes, I am sure, as well as Sarah Bradley had known, how matters stood with me, and whenever I spoke of Margarita an inscrutable look was in her eye and she stroked my arm in a delicate, mute sympathy. Nor did she refer to my children any more or her hopes that I would ranger myself and settle down. If she sighed a little at the news of my projected wander jahr, she did not beg me to set any term for it, and cheerfully congratulated ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... and combine them together as the capture of the successor of Saint Patrick, with all his relics, and his imprisonment among a Pagan host, in Irish waters. National humiliation could not much farther go, and as we read we pause, prepared for either alternative —mute submission or a brave uprising. King Nial seems to have been in this memorable year, 843, defending as well as he might his ancestral province—Ulster—against the ravagers of Lough Neagh, and still another party whose ships flocked into Lough Swilly. In the ancient plain of Moynith, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... sweeping away the water which had accumulated in front of her cottage, and seeing a kettle inside the door, I walked gravely into the house, took it, and filled it at a pump close by. The old woman was dumb-struck. Not a word did she say, but stood looking on with mute amazement, which was still more intensely exhibited when I went to the fire-place, raked out the cinders, took up some sticks and commenced making a fire. Not a word passed between us. It was with great difficulty I could keep my countenance. We must have looked a curious couple. The woman standing ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... Men-Servants belonging to my House. Upon which he rise up likewise, and catching me by the Arm, pull'd out a short Constable's Staff, Commanding me to sit down, or otherwise I should find it was in his Power to take another Course with me. This indeed increas'd my surprise, and made me a little mute for the Present; which he seeing, got between the Door and us, and then was so uncivil as to tell me, That I was a Vile Woman; and all the difference he knew between a Bawd and a Procurer, was only such ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... cured woman is made the bold confessor, is all shaped so as to correct and confirm her imperfect faith. We note this purpose in every part of it. She had thought of the healing energy as independent of His knowledge and will. Therefore she is taught that He was aware of the mute appeal, and of the going out of power in answer to it. The question, 'Who touched me?' has been regarded as a proof that Jesus was ignorant of the person; but if we keep the woman's character and the nature of her disease in view, we can suppose ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Hamburg early one morning, after a long night in the crowded cars. We were marched up to a strange vehicle, long and narrow and high, drawn by two horses and commanded by a mute driver. We were piled up on this wagon, our baggage was thrown after us, and we started on a sight-seeing tour across the city of Hamburg. The sights I faithfully enumerate for the benefit of my uncle include little carts drawn by ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... and to know that another Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been disappointed. Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's compassion, Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was near her, She in turn related her love and all its disasters. Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had ended Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the tale of the Mowis; Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded a maiden, But, when the morning came, arose and passed from ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... volumes; and the parted lips, on which played a fitful, exulting smile, the heightened colour, and thick-coming breath, told eloquently of her anticipated delight in these new regions, which seemed so utterly different from the shores of the bay: but her tongue was mute. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... agony (xiv. 36). Here alone have we the tiny parable about the growth of the blade of corn (iv. 26), and that of the porter commanded to watch until the master's return (xiii. 34). There are two miracles peculiar to Mark, the cure of the deaf-mute (vii. 32) and of the blind man at Bethsaida (viii. 22). Among the miracles recorded in Mark, the cures of demoniacs are prominent. This is in peculiar contrast with John, where we find no cure of ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, That makes the Heavens be mute. ...
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... mute explosion of hatred and revolt against the ungrateful birds. Never had he had the courage to kill a single one of them. He lived only for the purpose of keeping the pigeon-house in order, thinking ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... could with certainty be read! He flies much about from place to place; now at Potsdam, now at Berlin, at Charlottenburg, Reinsberg; nothing loath to run whither business calls him, and appear in public: the gazetteer world, as we noticed, which has been hitherto a most mute world, breaks out here and there into a kind of husky jubilation over the great things he is daily doing, and rejoices in the prospect of having a Philosopher King; which function the young man, only twenty-eight ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... deny the existence of another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind, no Catholic opinion held semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus. The intellectual faculties (perception and reflection) are mute upon the subject: they bear no testimony to facts; they show no proof. Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate that receptive mood which, marching under ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... with the tips of my fingers. Her eyes turned toward me, and again I was sure that no madness was in them. You, too, would have said that, awakened from the intermittent coma, the little thing, though mute and helpless, was none the less still the mistress of ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... lower clime) Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall, Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn. Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound Within the visible diurnal sphere. Standing on Earth, not rapt above the pole, More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days, On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, And solitude; yet not alone, while thou Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... Something in its mute appeal made her reckless. "Yes," she said, raising her voice, "I do hope he will." Then she went to the carriage and murmured, "The old man hasn't been told; I knew it was all right." Mrs. Honeychurch followed her, ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... down upon her. A vast compassion shone in the grey eyes, that she had only seen hard and penetrating. The gesture of mute abandonment, the ready compliance had appealed to his complex nature, which he kept hidden under an armour of coldness and cynicism. For an instant his years of outlawry and poverty were blotted out and he ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... in doubtful mood, All motionless and mute I stood, Like one by charm opprest: By turns from each to each I rov'd, And each by turns again I lov'd; For ages ne'er could one have prov'd More ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... failed, that's all. And I've tried so hard—to do something, something for the world! Oh, can a woman—can she, ever?" For once shaken, she dropped her face an instant in her hands, he standing by, mute, and suffering much as herself at seeing ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... her aunt, that strange creature whose brain had always risen superior to the sufferings of the human body. Now she was crushed to earth in mute submission to the powers which overwhelmed her. She lay huddled upon the ground utterly lost to all consciousness. Terror had mercifully saved her from a contemplation of those things which ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... cannot baptize one at the same time: because an action is multiplied according to the number of the agents, if it be done perfectly by each. So that if two were to combine, of whom one were mute, and unable to utter the words, and the other were without hands, and unable to perform the action, they could not both baptize at the same time, one saying the words and the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... with a degree of excitement so intense, that it almost deprived her of breath. She could not believe that the lad could perish within the reach of help, and so near the shore. The shrieks of the mother, and the mute despair of the old fisherman, who had been summoned to the spot, too clearly corroborated the report of Lyndsay, that ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Behind your clear and wondering eyes, O grave and tiny citizen? And who, of wise and valiant men, Can answer those mute questionings? I think the captains and the kings Might well kneel in humility Before you on your mother's knee, As knelt, beside a stable door, Other great ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... firm united kingdom, and in the early part of his life his power was respected and his people happy; but as the Bashaw declined in life, he again disorganized everything, and Tripoli was rent in pieces." Went to visit a member of the Divan. All these despotic Bashaws consult or prompt a mute Divan. Let us hope the Consulta lately assembled by Pius IX. will turn out something better than these mute Divans, or a Buonaparte Senate. We were treated with coffee, and milk, sour milk (or leben), but not skimmed, which is considered a great luxury, and only ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the avenue, The sombre pines are mute of song, The blue is dark, there moves no breeze ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... Joachim was mute. He had a voice, though not a remarkable one, but he had shirked the labour of trying to improve it by practice. He made one effort to sing like the Master, but overpowered by a sense of incapacity, his voice failed, and he felt ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... voice the black woman would sing the song, when Israel was out of hearing; and the joy Naomi found in it, and the simple silent arts she used, being mute and blind, to show her pleasure while it lasted, and to ask for it again when it was done, ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... of Lucas, "The land where we lay dreaming," or why those lines should come back to me now when her feet are treading the path where silence is. It may have been because of her sweet voice, "Which did thrill until at eve the whip-poor-will and at noon the mocking-birds were mute and still," or because of the exchange of memories of those days of shot and shell and red meteors, of the camp, of the march, of the sick and wounded to whom she ministered, and of the realization that "All our glorious visions ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... the traitors who had left their comrades to meet the most terrible death by starvation, and who now voluntarily came to encounter their revenge. This thought moved even Barthelemy so much that a burning flush crimsoned his pale face. His mute lips refused to give utterance to his feverish joy, ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... blustering and humming, And the cattle all wondered whatever was coming. It pulled by their tails the grave, matronly cows, And tossed the colts' manes all about their brows, Till, offended at such a familiar salute, They all turned their backs and stood silently mute. ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... place mute of all light, Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest, If by opposing winds 't ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... and drag it down to his lair, and Slid shall dive from the Threshold into the sea to see if it be there, and coming up when the fishermen draw their nets shall find it not, nor yet discover it among the sails. Limpang Tung shall seek among the birds and shall not find it when the cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go Umborodom to seek among the crags. And the hound, the thunder, shall chase the Eclipse and all the gods go seeking with Their stars, but never find the ball. And men, no longer having light of the golden ball, shall pray to the ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... mute at the end of a word, except in monosyllables that have no other vowel, as the; or proper names, as Penelope, Phebe, Derbe; being used to modify the foregoing consonants, as since, once, hedge, oblige; or to lengthen the preceding vowel, as b[)a]n, b[a]ne; ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... by his genius and his jack-knife driven, Ere long he'll solve you any problem given; Make any jim-crack, musical or mute, A plough, a couch, an organ or a flute; Make you a locomotive or a clock, Cut a canal, or build a floating dock, Or lead forth Beauty from a marble block;— Make anything, in short, for sea or shore, From a child's rattle, to a seventy-four;— Make it, said I?—Ay, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing at his door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as he saw the unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth's mute appeal, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... instant responded to the call. Involuntarily my thoughts recurred to Dante's beautiful description of the Comte Ugolino's children and their piteous end in the Torre della Fame—but here, a sickening sense of the dreadful reality of the horrors, which it was evident from these mute memorials of man's cruelty to his fellow had been endured, quite oppressed me, and I wished I had never visited the spot. I felt myself so much harrowed by this sad scene, that I endeavoured to distract my attention; but what was my astonishment when my eye fell upon the ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... knelt against the bank, Staring across the morning blear with fog; He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; And then, of course, they started with five-nines Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... friend of all my days Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute The song saluting friends whose songs are mute With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise. That since our old young years our several ways Have led through fields diverse of flower and fruit, Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the root We set long ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ancient Rome the slaves were not allowed to wear a distinctive dress lest they should recognize each other and learn their numbers and their power. So, in herself, she discerned for the first time instincts and desires, which, mute and unmarked, had gone to and fro in the dim passages of her mind, and now hailed each other with ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... depositing a human figure in a seat, they withdrew without speaking. It was before this personage that the Rover now found himself. The gaze was mutual, long, and uninterrupted by a syllable from either party. Surprise and indecision held the Rover mute, while wonder and alarm appeared to have literally frozen the faculties of the other. At length the former, suffering a quaint and peculiar smile to gleam for a moment across his countenance, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... her, and she had to stand still and press her hands against her heart. Then the weight on her breast lifted, and she went on again, upward and upward, the great dark building dropping away from her, in tier after tier of mute doors and mysterious corridors. At last she reached Dick's floor, and saw the light shining down the passage from his door. She leaned against the wall, her breath coming short, the silence throbbing ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... as a wind that wails out on the night And moans itself mute. Through the indistinct light A voice clear, and tender, and pure with a tone Of ineffable pity, replied to his own. "And say you, and deem you, that I wreck'd your life? Alas! Duc de Luvois, had I been your ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... watchful, mute, the crouching guns that guard the strait sea lanes— Watchful and hawklike, plumed with hate, the desperate aeroplanes— And still as death and swift as fate, above the darkling coasts, The spying Wireless sows the night with ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... he said. They proved to be wax vestas. She gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimmingly as his pipe had been filled with bird's eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. Raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. She tip-toed to reach the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... yet appeared, except the Dairyman's dog, keeping a kind of mute watch at the door; for he did not, as formerly, bark at my approach. He seemed to partake so far of the feelings appropriate to the circumstances of the family, as not to wish to give a hasty or painful alarm. He came forward to the little wicket-gate, then looked back at ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... only one who has said that." There was a curiously significant ring in Kathleen's voice that made Evelyn look at her in mute inquiry. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... I lay mute and breathless, and drank in every note of this siren strain. It thrilled through my whole frame, and filled my soul with melody and love. I pictured to myself, with curious logic, the form of the unseen musician. Such melodious sounds and exquisite inflections ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... sense shut fast except the eye, Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires; 90 In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute. ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... in every blade and leaf To blind the eyes of grief; Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit That sorrow may be mute; ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... my hair, while the fingers of the other still lingered among my curls, she pointed to the plant, and looked wistfully at Johnny. The good German was not usually quick of comprehension; but he understood the mute appeal now, and he asked in a voice even more husky than his usual ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... give her and her attendant a passage, and any lady who might be able to accompany her. He would, however, consult Commander Babbicome and ascertain whether the Tudor could be got ready for sea in time. Commander Babbicome was mute. When the colonel had gone, he expressed himself somewhat ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... was being drawn in around him, and he himself were powerless. Yet, even in that moment of intoxication, his reason did not altogether desert him. He knew that if he opened his arms to receive that clinging figure, and drew the delicate, tear-stained face, full of mute invitation, down to his, to be covered with passionate kisses,—he knew that at that moment he would sign the death-warrant to all that had seemed fair and sweet and comely in his life. Forever he must live without self-respect, a dishonoured ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of gloom, By the ray that leads us home, By the Light we claim to share, By the Fount of Light, we swear. Prompt obedience, heart and hand, To the Signet's each command: For the Symbols, reverence mute, In the Sense faith absolute. Link by link to weld the Chain, Link with link to bear the strain; Cherish all the Star who wear, As the Starlight's self—we swear. By the Life the Light to prove, In the Circle's bound to move; Underneath the all-seeing ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... rise to the higher abstract ideas which may be generated by such reasoning. The thought of deaf-mutes always assumes the most concrete form, and one who was educated late in life informed Romanes that he had always before thought in images. I know no instance of a deaf-mute who has independently attained to an advanced intellectual stage, or who has been able without education to form any conception of a supernatural world. R.S. Smith asserts that one of his deaf-mute pupils believed, before his education, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... an obvious inside bitterness, "it is a mistake to argue with persons of limited intelligence in terms of courtesy. This, doubtless, was the meaning of the philosopher Nhy-hi when he penned the observation, 'Death, a woman and a dumb mute always have the last word,' Why did I have you conducted hither to convince you dispassionately, rather than send an armed guard to ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... word was already on her lips, the look of mute apology was struggling to her eyes, when to her astonishment the praefect, without a word, was down ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... pomp of the merciless slave-raider's court was dazzling. Before their ruler all men salaamed. His officers surrounding him, watched every movement of his face, and the four-score slaves behind him stood mute and motionless, ready to do his bidding ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... night above a swamp, The darkness throbbing with their golden pomp! And long my dazzled sight did they entrance With the weird chaos of their dizzy dance! Quicker than yellow leaves, when gales despoil, Quivered the brilliance of their mute turmoil, Within whose light was intricately blent Perpetual rise, perpetual descent. As though their scintillant flickerings had met In the vague meshes of some airy net! And now mysteriously I seemed to guess, While watching their tumultuous loveliness, What fervor ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... use seemed reluctant to fly in the still air, missing probably the excitement of sounds that urge them to revel in multitudinous cross-currents when shells are about; and long-tailed Namaqua doves flitted mute about the pine branches, as if unable to coo an amorous note without the usual accompaniment. Quiet did not reign all day, however. Towards evening the enemy's gun on Rifleman's Ridge, or Lancer's Nek, opened straight over the general's new quarters, ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... their airy pranks, Giving them, unrequested, the floor. They never had glittered so bright before; The light it flew in flashing splinters Away from those burning, revolving centres; While the gems on the lady's flying skirts Gave out their light in jets and spirts. Poor Mackerel gazed in mute dismay At this unprecedented display. "Oh, stop, love, stop!" he cried at last; But she only flew more wild and fast, While the flutes and fiddles, bugle and drum, Followed as if their ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... sailless sea Came messenger bark or schooner With news from the far-off realm whence we Set sail for that isle of mystery, Or a whisper of apology From our mute, malign marooner. ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... instruments of torture appear to be considered a necessary mark of competence in Western Ireland, just as a big watch-chain is in certain parts of England. Not a soul on Omey Island could play the pianoforte, thank heaven; so it remained with its back against the wall, as mute evidence of solvency. There was no carpet on the floor, which was of a fine dirt-colour, and the chickens, ducks, and ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... wall were rows of shaving mugs, now dusty and abandoned, mute witnesses of a former era of glory. Indeed, they remained an historical record of earlier life ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... herself resolutely through the group of men and made a frenzied survey of the bank's interior. Her single quest was for Vaniman; he was nowhere in sight. The books of account were open on the desk, mute evidence for her that he ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... lives. They were kept seated in their tent while the fanatics discussed the subject. The travellers sat in silence. At last Mr Richardson exclaimed: "Let us talk a little. We must die. What is the use of sitting so mute?" For some minutes death seemed really to hover over their heads. Mr Richardson proposed trying to escape for their lives, when the kind-hearted Sliman rushed into the tent, exclaiming in a tone of sincere sympathy: "You are ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and sweetness of its sound, which have gained it the appellation of the Italian of the East. This is owing to the prevalence of vowels and liquids in the words (with many nasals which may be thought an objection) and the infrequency of any harsh combination of mute consonants. These qualities render it well adapted to poetry, which the Malays are passionately ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... beck, in the hush of the noontide heat, when all was silent and solitary about her except the gauzy wings of insects moving above the grasses, a certain face would start up against the background of her thoughts—a pair of dark, wistful eyes would appeal to her out of the silence. That mute farewell, so suggestive, so full of pain—even the strong warm grasp with which her hand had been held—recurred to her memory. Was he still missing her, she wondered, or had Miss ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... been some kindly relentings towards her; but there seemed none. So she answered him sadly, and the two sat down to their gloomy, silent breakfast. And thus it was all that day. Mr. Greylston still mute and ungracious; his sister shrank away from him. In that mood she scarcely knew him; and her face was grave, and her voice so sad, even the servants wondered what was the matter. Margaret Greylston ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... out with laughing at this description; even Briggs and Lady Jane, who was sitting mute during the interview between Miss Crawley and her nephew: and Bowls, without ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in storm piercing tones). Bring in the prisoners. Tell the lady those are my orders. Do you hear? Tell her so. (The bluejacket goes out dubiously. The officers look at one another in mute comment on the unaccountable ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... made one spring back over the interval. In the urgency of action, Diana's colour had hardly changed until now; now she turned deadly white, and for one instant sank on her knees by her bedside with her heart full of a mute, unformed prayer for help. It was fearful to go on, but she must go on now; she must see Evan; he was there; questions were done; and as she went down-stairs, while her face was white, and pain almost confused her senses, there was a stir of keen joy at her heart—fierce, like that of a ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... keeper, to whom poverty was first cousin to poaching, and who hated tramps as he hated vermin, approached him with a heavy cart whip in his hand, he cast his eyes down at his white sides, very white between his brown arms and brown legs, and then lifted them in a mute appeal, which somehow looked as if it were for somebody else, against what he could no longer fail to perceive the man's intent. But he had no notion of what the thing threatened amounted to. He had had few hard blows in his time, and had never felt ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... urns, mute springs Pour out the river's gradual tide, Shrilly the skater's iron rings, And voices fill ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... melodic emanations. Lilith, disdaining the shelter of her nymphs and their clowneries, stood forth in all the hideous majesty of AEnothea, the undulating priestess of the Abominable Shape. His nerves macerated by this sinful apparition, Baldur struggled to resist her mute command. What was it? He saw her wish streaming from her eyes. Despair! Despair! Despair! There is no hope for thee, wretched earthworm! No abode but the abysmal House of Satan! Despair, and you will be welcomed! By a violent ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... nature was incapable of sullen perseverance in a state of enmity. To see Hugh still patiently waiting—still risking the chances of insult—devoted to her, and forgiving her—was at once a reproach that punished Iris, and a mute appeal that no true ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... she spoke, and Grace's work dropped in her lap as she listened. What an exquisite voice it was! So clear, so sweet, so powerful. The mute-wrapped stillness that followed the song was the best applause. Miss Danton rose up, laughing ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... a chair and glanced at his cousin's profile. The delicate oval of her face was firelit; her night-black hair one with the deeper shadows of the room. There was mystery in the lovely dusk of Diane's eyes—and discontent—and something mute and wistful ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... sacred edifice crowds of devotees, priests, and penitents are continually wandering; here, casting themselves upon their knees, and bowing down before some gold-covered shrine; there standing in mute and rapt adoration before some pictured symbol of eternity—grandees, beggars, and all; the priests bearing tapers and chanting; the air filled with incense; the whole scene an indescribable combination of moving appeals to the senses. All the churches of the Kremlin ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... farther I saw what I had not observed before, Dinah's black head, as she peered out from among the bed-clothes, rolling two of the most astonished white eyes that ever asked the question, 'What's you g'wine to do next?' Not seeing any practical way in which I could answer her mute question, I said to Sambo, 'Call the dogs into the house.' This he did hastily. I then asked, 'Uncle, what road must this rebel take for Tinker Creek?' 'De right han' one, out dar', I reckon,' he answered. Again bidding him keep the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... to fame than even Horace suspected. The road to immortality is not one but manifold. A man can but do what he can. As the poet writes and the painter fills with his inspiration the mute and void canvas, so doth the Cook his part. There was formerly apopular work in France entitled "Le Cuisinier Royal," by MM. Viard and Fouret, who describe themselves as "Hommes de Bouche." The twelfth edition lies ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... one else was allowed that privilege when the 13th came, excepting Mrs. Frost herself. James, afraid that a scene would hurt his wife, severely forbade Clara to give way; and the poor girl, mute and white, did as she was told, and ventured not a word of farewell, though her embraces were convulsive, and when she went down stairs she could ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and stood beside her in mute sympathy while he finished his cigarette. There was a certain depression in his attitude of which presently she became aware. She summoned her resolution and turned herself from the great vision that ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Their mothers hurried on before the foe; Their men defend and screen them as they go, And fight a rearguard action with the brute, Who cares not for their agony or woe, But only for the blood-streams and the loot. And now she sees us watching one poor little mute: 'Ah! this one?' and she pointed to the dot Who sat alone, and smiled to vacant space, 'Waits for her mother; very hard her lot; For years now has she waited in her place. "Where is her mother?" I can never trace Somewhere beyond across "the no man's way." Some day, perhaps,' she cried, with ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... after day, all day long, with his eyes fixed upon a certain point of vacancy; what he saw, what he thought, no one knew. His hands lay before him on his bony knees, lax and inert. Half a lifetime in prison, and now he was nearing the end, mute and motionless, making no complaint or protest—the power for that had gone by. He no longer spoke of parole; and no parole came. No doubt, the great officials were busy, and what was Dennis that they should remember him, and draw out that ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... They were mute; not a breath was drawn; they scarcely dared move their eyes lest he should be disturbed. Cochrane touched the lock lightly and then rubbed his fingertips vigorously back and forth on the carpet— anything to stimulate those fine nerves ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... within her own and trotted upstairs to the bedroom, where Bella arrayed herself in total silence, and her friend, beyond a vigorous sigh or two, was mute also. ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... a burst of laughter shook the room As might dispel a desert anchorite's gloom. Flushed faces keen and clever Contorted wildly; such mirth-moving shape Was taken by that genial histrion's jape As mobs are mute at never. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... vain: they do not err Who say, that when the poet dies, Mute nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies; Who say, tall cliff and cavern lone For the departed bard make moan; That mountains weep in crystal rill; That flowers in tears of balm ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... astonishment, she suddenly saw the figure of a man in kilts, with a bagpipe under his arm, emerge through the half-open door of the boudoir, and with a peculiar gliding motion advance towards her. A curious feeling, with which she was totally unfamiliar, compelled her to remain mute and motionless; and in this condition she awaited the approach of the stranger. Who was he? she asked herself, and how on earth had he got there, and what was he doing? As he drew nearer, she perceived that his face was ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... immediately takes her up; 'There are some people who fancy, if other people—' Autumn repartees, 'People may give themselves airs; but other people, perhaps, who make less ado, may be, perhaps, as agreeable as people who set themselves out more.' All the other people at the table sat mute, while these two people, who were quarrelling, went on with the use of the word 'people,' instancing the very accidents between them, as if they kept only in distant hints. 'Therefore,' says Autumn, reddening, 'there ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... dew and shines the river, Up comes the lily and dries her bell; But two are walking apart forever, And wave their hands for a mute farewell. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... greedily. "Before thy departure thou wast mute, stricken as a dumb man, neither wouldst thou speak in response ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... That she should have been walking there just at that time was not a coincidence to raise conjectures in any one besides Mr. Gilfil. Except in answering this question, she had not broken her silence. She sat mute in a corner of the gardener's kitchen shaking her head when Maynard entreated her to return with him, and apparently unable to think of anything but the possibility that Anthony might revive, until she saw them carrying away the body to the house. Then she followed by Sir ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... meaning of the savage primordial beast. But the man heeds them not. He is deaf to their raucous song as he is blind to the mighty encompassing hills. What cares he if the earth links up with the blue heavens above him? What cares he for the everlasting silence of those heights, or the mute Spirits which repose upon the icy beds of the all-time glaciers? He is beyond the knowledge of Storm or Calm. He knows nought of the meaning of the awesome voice of Nature. The vision is all to him, and he gazes upon it with hungry, ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... Sidonia allowed him to kiss her every moment. She never even appeared to offer any resistance, but looked over at me languishingly every time to see what I would say. What could I say? I became pale with jealousy, but said nothing. At last I rushed from the hall, mute with despair, when I observed him finally draw her on his knee. I only heard the peal of laughter that followed my exit, and I was just near leaving the whole wedding-feast, and Stramehl for ever, when Sidonia called after me from the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... captives to leap out into freedom, they are made, not by one kind in displeasure at being shut up with another, but by every kind indifferently in displeasure at being shut up at all. Like the indefinite terror of mute fishes when they feel the net coming closer in, is the instinctive alarm of human beings when the hand of death is felt gradually contracting the space in which the pulses of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... first sky-lark that was a song-fountain, dashing up and sparkling to the ear's eye, ... out of sight, over the cornfields on the descent of the mountain on the other side—out of sight, tho' twice I beheld its mute shoot downward in the sunshine like a falling star of silver"—so he described the conception of the poem in the original MS., printed by Mr. Campbell in the Notes to the Globe edition. It was a flash of poignant memory of the old days ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... answer; on their hill The murdered Caesars make no sign; Their myriad subjects, too, are still,— Mute as the voiceless Palatine; Yet overhead the fixed stars shine, And bid ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... hideous. I cursed the yellow sunset light glaring on their snowy crests. A tiny hand was laid upon my arm. I writhed under its deadly if delicious touch. But I could not put it away, nor keep from turning to the sweet face beside me, to mark once more its mute appeal—now more than mere appeal; it was supplication that was in her eyes. Her red lips were parted as though they voiced an unspoken prayer. At last a prayer did ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... door. It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there, forgotten, a mute symbol ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... hand words like vernall, youthfull, and monosyllables like hugg, farr, lose their double letter. Many monosyllables, e.g. som, cours, glimps, wher, vers, aw, els, don, ey, ly, so written in 1645, take on in 1673 an e mute, while words like harpe, windes, onely, lose it. By a reciprocal change ayr and cipress become air and cypress; and the vowels in daign, vail, neer, beleeve, sheild, boosom, eeven, battail, travailer, and many other words are similarly modernized. On the other hand there are ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... lost much of the dignity of men. Their masters possessed over them the power of life and death, and it is shocking to read of the cruelty with which they were often treated. An accidental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was punished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves had to stand by while their masters supped; A brutal and stupid barbarity often turned a house into the shambles of an executioner, sounding with scourges, chains, and yells.[20] One evening the Emperor Augustus was ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... to protect her and give her an excellent musical education. He was always very careful of her, never permitting her to sing except in his presence, and never letting her appear on the stage, unless as a mute figure in some ballet, such, for instance, as Cupid and the Graces, till she was sixteen, when she at once executed her part in 'Der Freyschutz,' to the full satisfaction and surprise of the public of Stockholm. From that time she gradually became the favorite of every one. Without beauty, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... dog yelling hideously as he was dragged by the hook. The people ran to the doors holding up their hands in astonishment. The Doctor soon shook off the dog and he trotted home little the worse. Next day when he saw the fisherman's caleche coming he limped into the house "as mute as a fish" with ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... myriad clapping hands, the Lieutenant-Governor resumed his seat, shaken by a novel, tremendous emotion. Yes! a thousand times yes! The star-spangled banner, symbol of loftiest ideals and purest purposes, mute memorial and reminder of devotion incalculable and sacrifice without bound, guarantee of liberty and brotherhood, mercy, equality, and justice—yet waved! And, part and indissoluble portion of its ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... wayfarer! But, on the other hand, what strength of will was lent them by the conviction that the entire heavens, with their innumerable habitants, were looking at them with a sympathy, unalterable, though mute!... And we, their miserable descendants, roaming over the earth, without faith, without pride, without enjoyment, and without terror—except that involuntary awe which makes the heart shrink at the thought of the inevitable end—we are no longer capable ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... justify myself, To be a mute spectator of such ruin, As hourly threatens this respected family. [Aside.] To flatter, or conceal would ill become That friendship you have said you so esteem. My heart is open then, and can't acquit you. You've lost that fortitude you ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... also to visit my dear Annie's grave before I die. I have always desired to do so since the cessation of active hostilities, but have never been able. I wish to see how calmly she sleeps away from us all, with her dear hands folded over her breast as if in mute prayer, while her pure spirit is traversing the land of the blessed. I shall diverge from the main route of travel for this purpose, and it will depend somewhat upon my feelings and somewhat upon my procuring an escort for Agnes, whether I go ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... Most High, Creator of the earth and sky, The four-faced God, to meet the sage Came to Valmiki's hermitage. Soon as the mighty God he saw, Up sprang the saint in wondering awe. Mute, with clasped hands, his head he bent, And stood before him reverent. His honoured guest he greeted well, Who bade him of his welfare tell; Gave water for his blessed feet, Brought offerings,(48) and prepared a seat. In honoured place the God Most High Sate down, and bade the saint ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... commonplace end; but it was the end; all three men knew it. John Steele's burning glance swept from Lord Ronsdale to Gillett; lingered with mute contemplation. What now remained to be done should be easily, it seemed almost too easily, accomplished. He felt like one lingering on the stage after the curtain had gone down; the varied excitement, the fierce play of emotion was over; ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... saw the man vanish from the spot like a ghost, of course I cannot tell. It certainly looked surprised, and, if it was a bear of ordinary sensibility, it must undoubtedly have felt astonished. At any rate, after standing there, gazing for nearly a minute in mute amazement at the spot where Heywood had disappeared, it let itself down on its forelegs, and, turning round, walked slowly ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... mute with surprise scarcely believing the evidence of her senses almost deeming that the words must have been uttered in a dream. But it was no dream, but one of those strange, stern realities which we meet with in life. Her husband indeed stood before ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... not thinking to see Vaura, had, before going into the garden, gone to her boudoir, and placed this mute ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... the gigantic war raging somewhere under the sky. We begin to laugh bitterly, offended and even wounded to the quick in our new impressions. Tirette collects himself, and some abusive sarcasm rises to his lips; but the protest lingers and is mute by reason of our total transportation, the ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse |
