"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her right to break the engagement, Lord Rutherford in vain entreated Janet Dalrymple to declare her feelings; but she remained "mute, pale, and motionless as a statue," and it was only at her mother's command, sternly uttered, she summoned strength enough to restore the broken piece of gold—the emblem of her troth. At this unexpected act Lord Rutherford burst into a tremendous passion, took leave ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... Sophocles. In either case the whole tone is essentially religious. To choose such a theme as Lear, to treat it as Shakespeare has treated it, to leave it, as it were, bleeding from a thousand wounds, in mute and helpless entreaty for the healing that is never to be vouchsafed—this would have been repulsive, if not impossible, to a Greek tragedian. Without ever descending from concrete art to the abstractions of mere moralising, without ever attempting to substitute a verbal formula for ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... nervous spasm, it is safe to suppose he is frightened. But when terror, turning into rage, changes one of the most attentive and respectful of servants into a madman, it is scarcely safe to suppose anything. As it was, I stared in mute amazement, and he glared at me as though I had struck him. While waiting for a light, I carelessly put my hand into a basket of hot-house vegetables. The small egg-plant I took up certainly did weigh twenty pounds, and when I attempted to lift ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... village Hampden, that with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the reins, and the dear girl turned half round on the cushion of the seat, gazing at me in mute astonishment! I had been cursing in my heart the lank locks of the miserable wig I was compelled to wear, ever since I had met with Mary Warren, as unnecessarily deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... shed their blood in the doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the sacred apartments of their women. Nay, it seemed as if even the faint-hearted Bengalee, who had crouched at the feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had been mute during the administration of Vansittart, would at length find courage in despair. No Mahratta invasion had ever spread through the province such dismay as this inroad of English lawyers. All the injustice of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the noblest charitable institutions of Boston. It is in a magnificent situation, overlooking all the beauties of Massachusett's Bay. It is principally interesting as being the residence of Laura Bridgman, the deaf and blind mute, whose history has interested so many in England. I had not an opportunity of visiting this asylum till the morning of the day on which I sailed for Europe, and had no opportunity of conversing with this interesting girl, as she was just ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... with distaste. 'I warn you not to discourage my talking,' he said dejectedly. 'Believe me, men who don't talk are even worse to live with than men who do. O have a care of natures that are mute. I confess I'm shirking writing this thing. It is almost an indecency. It's mixing two moods to write the sort of letter I mean to write, and at the same time to be sitting in the ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... words to it, as if she were in her husband's arms. With the same fancy she would try to make it understand how she loved him. That is a thing very few girls so much as know, and still fewer can utter even to their own hearts; and so it proved with her. She was as mute and shamefaced before the ring as before the master of the ring. So she would sigh, put it back in its nest, and hide her face in the pillow to cool her cheeks. At last in tears she would fall asleep. So the ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... become silent about Midsummer reassume their notes again in September; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, etc.; hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, summer, and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again because the temperament of autumn ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... the reign Of conquering, lovely Davies. My muse to dream of such a theme, Her feeble pow'rs surrender: The eagle's gaze alone surveys The sun's meridian splendour: I wad in vain essay the strain, The deed too daring brave is! I'll drap the lyre, and mute admire ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... black-clad cricket bear a second part, They kept one tune, and played on the same string, Seeming to glory in their little art. Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise? And in their kind resound their Master's praise: Whilst I, as mute, can ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... old friend Nikolas Laister, the Vicar of Saint Sebald's. He would have no one to see him save ourselves and Hans Richter the churchwarden, a man after his own heart, and the Pernharts; and at first he marked not our coming, inasmuch as he was just then giving a toy to the deaf-mute boy, which he had carved with his own hand, and Dame Giovanna had much pains to carry away the child, who had cast himself on the old man with passionate love. Everything that moved the little one's soul he was forced, as it were, to express with unreasoning ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... himself, would probably have secured for his country advantageous conditions, even though he might be unable to add Fiume to those secured by the secret treaty. But he was not left to himself. He had to reckon with his Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was as mute as an oyster and almost as unsociable. Baron Sonnino had his own policy, which was immutable, almost unutterable. At the Conference he seemed unwilling to propound, much less to discuss it, even with ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... turn away, Hast thou no word, wilt thou dismiss me then In mute disdain, nor tell me why thou art wrath? O ye his daughters, sisters mine, do ye This sullen, obstinate silence try to move. Let him not spurn, without a single word Of answer, me the suppliant of ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... the ladies, not comprehending what had occurred, had sat as mute as stones; but now having so far recovered themselves as to find a voice, the younger of the two fell to screaming, at which the Sieur Simon called out to her to be still, for these were friends who had ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... to the progress of ancient letters, while the native literature, instead of redeeming the promise of its infancy, remained at this time mute and inglorious. Yet the resources of poets and orators were multiplying a thousand fold. The exalted characters, the austere laws, the energetic virtues, the graceful mythology, the thrilling eloquence of antiquity, were annihilating the puerilities of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... burned completely to the ground, they supposed that their victim had perished in the flames; but their guilty consciences had never permitted them to venture near the debris to see if her charred bones remained a mute witness ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... granted, he set off on his journey, and in the course of it he one day came to a large pond, on the edge of which he noticed three fishes which had got entangled in the reeds and were gasping for water. Though fish are generally supposed to be quite mute, he heard them grieving aloud at the prospect of dying in this wretched manner. Having a very kind heart he dismounted and soon set the prisoners free, and in the water once more. They flapped with joy, and stretching up their heads cried ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... are nearly all in leaf. Never did spring burst forth with greater rapidity than it has done this year. The verdure of the leaves is most vivid. A thousand lovely flowers are expanding in the woods and clearings. Nor are our Canadian songsters mute: the cheerful melody of the robin, the bugle-song of the blackbird and thrush, with the weak but not unpleasing call of the little bird called Thitabecec, and a wren, whose note is sweet ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Vienna's silence was prolonged, a latent, ill-defined uneasiness took hold of us more and more. Yet we were far from anticipating that in the space of a few days we should be driven into the midst of a diplomatic maelstrom, in which, after a week of intense anguish, we should look on, mute and helpless, at the shipwreck of European peace and of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... this order, Ellen was dragged by the rough hands of two piratical officers into the brig's cabin, where she was locked up in a small state room, whilst Arthur Huntington, was heavily ironed and confined in the steerage. As the fair Ellen sat in her narrow prison, brooding in mute despair over the horrid scenes she had just passed through, she covered her face with her ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... asked greedily. "Before thy departure thou wast mute, stricken as a dumb man, neither wouldst thou speak in ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... turned and went towards the city; crushed hearts, heavy footsteps, no word amongst them, a shadow upon all. The shadow was in Asgard, too —had walked through Frigga's hall and seated itself upon the threshold of Gladsheim. Odin had just come out to look at it, and Frigga stood by in mute despair as the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... into this stillness there passed, like an invisible current, the very essence of womanhood. The longing of all the dead women of her race flowed through her into the softness of the spring evening. Things were there which she could know only through her blood—all the mute patience, all the joy that is half fear, all the age-long dissatisfaction with the merely physical end of love—these were in that voiceless entreaty for happiness; and mingled with them, there were the inherited ideals of self-surrender, of service, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... age, true to its characteristic of being at all times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs Sparkler began to wonder how long the master-mind meant ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and gingham is Malay. As far as we know at present, the sedan came from Italy in the 16th century, and it is there, among derivatives of Lat. sedere, to sit, that its origin must be sought, unless indeed the original Sedan was some mute, inglorious Hansom.[41] ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... with the names given in the preceding paragraph; and so far as it does not, I judge the author to be wrong. The reader will observe that the Doctor's explanation is neither very exact nor quite complete: K is a mute which is not enumerated, and the rule would make the name of it Ke, and not Ka;—H is not one of his eight semivowels, nor does the name Ach accord with his rule or seem like a Latin word;—the name of Z, according to his principle, would be Ez ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... until I came to a narrow path, on one side of which was a beautiful garden blooming with flowers and fruit, with gay birds skimming through the air, while on the other side the grass and flowers lay withered, the trees leaned over, leafless and dead, and perched in their branches were mute, broken-winged birds. I went on until I came to the Witch of the Woods, who stood leaning on her hazel staff, with her red cloak wrapped around her, and her long, silvery hair falling, ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... blind and cruel, and the end Of every joy is sorrow and distress. And when immortal creatures lightly bend To kiss the lips of simple loveliness, Swords are unsheathed in silence, and clouds rise, Some God is jealous of the mute ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... as opposed to nodding the head which signifies assent. These are two items, apparently instinctive and universal, of man's gesture-language which has been so highly cultivated by sundry North American tribes and by the surdo-mute establishments ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... crescent-shaped niche of the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked him up, looked at him for a moment, ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... a shudder, he beheld the white form of Liana herself leaning against the linden. He believed some dream had drawn down the airy image from heaven, and he expected to see it pass away. It lingered, though quiet and mute. Kneeling down, he exclaimed, "Apparition, comest thou from God? Art ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... no earth, no time, No check, no change, no good, no crime— But silence, and a stirless breath Which neither was of life nor death; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... stopt to hear in the copse at the foot of Quantock, and the 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 ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... tapestries and sombre furniture glide noiselessly from room to room young women on whose sloping shoulders and lissome figures the "creations" of Messieurs les Couturiers show to the best advantage. These are the demoiselles-mannequins, or essayeuses,—mute but breathing models, who seem to have lost all human animation in their occupation of mere clothes-wearers, automata with weary faces, whose sole business is to carry on their backs from morning until ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... the Conference, not as a mute, To act as the CHANCELLOR'S chief substitute, And in this extremely responsible post He mingled with those ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Gilbert longed for his appearance. He grew impatient of being alone, when a companion was so near at hand; the place was strange, and there were no well-known objects to stand in the place of friends, supplying by the thousand associations they conjure up, and their mute appeals to ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... Nicless, Govicum, Fibi, Vinos, Ursus, Homo. He tried every shout and every sound against this wall. At times he waited and listened; but the house remained mute and dead. Then, exasperated, he began again with blows, shouts, and repeated knockings, re-echoed all around. It might have been thunder ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... deserted. A bracket lamp on the wall opposite was crooked; one of the crystal pendants beneath it was broken short off. Someone had dropped a burnt match on the floor in front of the desk and it lay there in mute sacrilege. All at once the silence seemed fraught with a tumult of hateful suggestions, and, without ringing for the elevator, she sprang to her feet, rushed for the steps, and fled up to ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... few, madam; for if I should continue to see you some hours longer, you look so killingly that I should be mute ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... Euphrasia had stood mute as she listened to these words which she had so little expected, but her eyes flashed and her breath came quickly. Never had she been so spoken to! Never had any living soul come between her and her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... softly over the strings every heart was hushed, filled with a sense of balmy rest. The lark soaring and singing above his head paused mute and motionless in the still air, and no sound was heard over the spacious plain save the dreamy music. Then the bard struck another key, and a gentle sorrow possessed the hearts of his hearers, and unbidden tears gathered to their eyes. Then, with bolder hand, he swept his fingers across his ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... mute. The Americans saw in this a very singular variation to the events of the evening, and, as they could no more account for this than for those which had preceded it, they waited to ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Several 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 other ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... The exercises of sails and spars, under the varying exigencies of service, bewildering as they may have seemed to the uninitiated, to the appreciative possessed fascination, and were their own sufficient reward for the care lavished upon them. In their mute yet exact response was some compensation for external neglect; they were, so to say, the testimony of a good conscience; the assurance of professional merit, and of work well done, if scantily recognized. Poor ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... sash with my closed hand, for I would now give my life a new direction, and it was fettered. But I would be resolute, and break the fetters; had I not endured a "mute case" long enough? Manuel, who had been throwing snowballs against the house, stopped, and looked toward the gate, and then ran toward it. A pair of tired, splashed horses dashed down the drive. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... "The mute bird sitting on the stone, The dark moss dripping from the wall, The thorn-tree gaunt, the walks o'ergrown, I love them; how ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... King was walking up and down in a very serious mood. "You must," said she, "pass some days in a house in the Avenue de St. Cloud, whither I shall send you. You will there find a young lady about to lie in." The King said nothing, and I was mute from astonishment. "You will be mistress of the house, and preside, like one of the fabulous goddesses, at the accouchement. Your presence is necessary, in order that everything may pass secretly, and according to the King's ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... 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 Frances contrived ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... still in full bloom; through the window of a house in the market-place, he saw a young girl, Elizabeth's dearest friend, dressing her hair at a looking-glass, and as he passed the churchyard, the old dumb sexton, who appeared to be hunting about for a place for a grave, nodded his head in mute recognition. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... having made his appearance, a letter was put in his hand, which he perused, and immediately after left the ship, without even going below for his clothing. While in the boat he waived his hand, and bade us be of good cheer. We could only return a mute farewell; and in a few minutes the boat had left the ship, and was on ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... these my topic Muse I might entice; But war has left her mute, and me despairing. They call for horses; must I sacrifice The steed with whom I've taken many an airing? Poor Pegasus—and none too well-conditioned! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... after that wicked kiss on the lawn at Fulham, Ralph Newton walked into Neefit's shop during the hour of Mr. Neefit's absence, and ordered,—three pair of breeches. Herr "Bawwah," the cutter, who never left his board during the day for more than five minutes at a time, remained, as was his custom, mute and apparently inattentive; but the foreman came down from his perch and took the order. Mr. Neefit was out, unfortunately;—in the City. Ralph Newton remarked that his measure was not in the least altered, gave his order, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... love the bleak shore and barren sands that had proved so inhospitable to others. There was a new meaning to the roar of the surges, an honest, loyal sturdiness in the unchanging persistency of the uncouth and blustering trade-winds, and a mute fidelity in the shining sands, treacherous to all but him. With such bandogs to lie in wait for trespassers, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... singular magnificence remained almost entire, beyond which appeared wild cliffs retiring in grand perspective. The sun, which was now setting, threw a trembling lustre upon the ruins, and gave a finishing effect to the scene. They gazed in mute wonder upon the view; but the fast fading light, and the dewy chillness of the air, warned them to return. As Julia gave a last look to the scene, she perceived two men leaning upon a part of the ruin at some distance, in earnest conversation. As they spoke, their looks were so attentively bent ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... voiceless through excess, Waves mute appeal and sore, Above the midriff's deep distress, For breath to ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... us. The stars were hid. Suddenly a frightful noise was heard from the west, and all the waves of the sea rushed to founder our frail bark. A fearful silence succeeded to the general consternation. Every tongue was mute; and none durst communicate to his neighbour the horror with which his mind was impressed. At intervals the cries of the children rent our hearts. At that instant a weeping and agonized mother bared her breast to her dying child, but it yielded nothing to appease the thirst of the little innocent ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... was standing with the helmet.) "The Grand Duchess asked him to give her the helmet; he doesn't give it to her. What do you think of that? Well, every one's winking at him, nodding, frowning—give it to her, do! He doesn't give it to her. He's mute as a fish. Only picture it!... Well, the...what's his name, whatever he was...tries to take the helmet from him...he won't give it up!... He pulls it from him, and hands it to the Grand Duchess. 'Here, your Highness,' says he, 'is the new helmet.' She turned the helmet the other side up, And—just ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... other sources of amusement. The noise was something terrific. Hand-organs, street-pianos, and German bands were all playing at the same time, while people hurried about from one place to another, enjoying the hundreds of games and riding the various scenic railways and carrousels. Archie stood mute with delight at it all, but before five minutes had passed he had shot the chutes, and had ridden over a steeplechase which took him through dark caverns, where dragons glared at him and where electrical sparks were constantly flying through the air. It was all so new, so different ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... and it gave not a throb. Men stood by their open stores saying, with hands on each other's shoulders, 'Our President is dead.' Over and over, in a dazed way, they said the fateful syllables, as if the bullet that tore through the weary brain at Washington had palsied the nation. The mute news-boy on the corner said never a word as he handed to the speechless buyers the damp sheets from the press; only he brushed, with unwashed hand, the tears from his dirty cheeks. Groups stood listening ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... happy for ever,—the noble strong man Who would race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom a God loved so well: He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began So to end gloriously—once to shout, thereafter to be mute: 'Athens is saved!' Pheidippides dies in the shout ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the stoop, conversing with their gossips, she preferred to take her distaff or needle among the roses, sometimes tending them, sometimes beguiling Grisell to come and take the air in company with her, for they understood one another's mute language; and when Lambert Groot was with his old friends they sufficed for one another—so far as Grisell's anxious heart could find solace, and perhaps in none so much as the gentle matron who could caress but ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the mute one wished to say, And therefore waited not for my demand, But said: "Speak, and be brief, and ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... were needed, it has been preserved for us in the imperishable stones of Egypt.[34] The famous obelisk, known as Cleopatra's Needle, now in Central Park, New York, the gift to our nation from Ismail, Khedive of Egypt in 1878, is a mute but eloquent witness of the antiquity of the simple symbols of the Mason. Originally it stood as one of the forest of obelisks surrounding the great temple of the Sun-god at Heliopolis, so long a seat of Egyptian learning and religion, ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... stick tapping across the bricks roused Mrs. Ansell from her musings, but she showed her sense of his presence simply by returning to the bench she had just left; and accepting this mute invitation, Mr. Langhope crossed the terrace and seated himself at ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... Douglas placed a chair for him, and waited, mute, and a little put out. Mr. Lind's eyes and voice shewed that he also was not at his ease; but his manner was courtly and his expression grave, as Douglas had, in his boyhood, been accustomed ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... find the One and Highest Essence there, as the call always comes to it from 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 ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... were the only exception; men of English speech remained mute. They barely recopied the manuscripts of their ancient authors, the list of whose names was left closed; they listened without comprehending to the songs the foreigner had acclimatised in their island. The manner of speech and the subjects of the discourses ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... while the caliph, at the monstrous scene, Such as before ne'er shock'd a caliph's eyes, Stares at thy confidence in mute surprise, Then, as the Easterns wont, with lowly mien Fall on the earth before his golden throne, And gain (a trifle, proof of love alone) That it may please him, gift of friend to friend, Four of his grinders at my bidding send, And of his beard ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... drink this at once," she said. Then she went on, in response to a mute inquiry, "Oh, yes, there's plenty here for me. And when I come back I'm going to make some more, and cook a nice light supper, while you watch the boy, and we can sit here together with his door open ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... a dim and ghostly figure of mute distress, by the grave in the thicketed burial ground where the clods had that day fallen and the mound still stood glaringly raw with its freshly spaded earth, and Parish Thornton ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... disproportionate, and I am sure that those on whose brows the laurels are still green would not grudge a little room to those the green of whose laurels is withered and the music of whose lyres is mute. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... all the dark world through, And beats a noisy, wild tattoo On every winter door. And when again with joy I saw The frosty sunshine glow, I quickly drew the blind aside, And through the frosty window spied The letters he had scattered wide In drifts of dazzling snow. The leafless trees stood mute and still By snowy field and lawn; Each twig was graced with whiteness new, And everything that met the view Showed how the Storm, the Postman true. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... of comeliness belonging to his mixed race. He was more quadroon than mulatto, with Saxon features, Spanish complexion darkened by exposure, color in lips and cheek, waving hair, and an eye full of the passionate melancholy which in such men always seems to utter a mute protest against the broken law that doomed them at their birth. What could he be thinking of? The sick boy cursed and raved, I rustled to and fro, steps passed the door, bells rang, and the steady rumble ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... most individual and isolated experiments. He often found a figure following him like his shadow, in silent and almost secret clearings in the plantation or outlying nooks and corners of the old wall. The dark-mustached mouth was as mute as the deep eyes were mobile, darting incessantly hither and thither, but it was clear that Brain of the Indian police had taken up the trail like an old hunter after a tiger. Seeing that he was the only personal friend ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... tone had suddenly become so imperious that his colleague dared offer no resistance. Like a soldier at the command to halt, he remained erect, motionless, and mute, following his colleague's movements with an inquisitive, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... judge, with an oath, "was there ever such a villain on the face of the earth? Dost thou believe that there is a God? Dost thou believe in hell fire. Of all the witnesses that I ever met with I never saw thy fellow." Still the poor man, scared out of his senses, remained mute; and again Jeffreys burst forth. "I hope, gentlemen of the jury, that you take notice of the horrible carriage of this fellow. How can one help abhorring both these men and their religion? A Turk is a saint to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... interview, had been standing mute in attention, now stepped up to him and bending with a hurried "Pardon," whispered something in his coarse ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... to thrill him through and through,—to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire. He dreaded lest he should go forwards to meet her, with his arms held out in mute entreaty that she would come and nestle there, as she had done, all unheeded, the day before, but never unheeded again. His heart throbbed loud and quick Strong man as he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how it might be received. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... diminish'd pass'd. Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye, Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood, Then weep ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... would understand if you could see into my soul. All its surgings and clashings, its vortexes of pain and joy, the anguish that somehow produces an audible beauty, and the ecstasies that are struck mute by these fears! If I could explain all that, you would forgive me for these moments that are beyond my control. But I can't explain it. Not even in my music. One is always alone ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... was free to go to her room she read John Cameron's letter again, and then, feeling almost as if she were childish in her haste, she sat down and wrote an answer. Somehow that second reading made her feel his wish for an answer. It seemed a mute appeal ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... sinking ship which threatened to engulf them as she went down. However, they had gained a safe distance before the doomed vessel, rocking back and forth, gained a dreadful momentum, showed her splintered and shattered hull as if in mute excuse for her action, and disappeared forever in ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... flood-gates were open, and the soft verbal oceans of Mary were upon him. He listened two minutes, mute with astonishment, and then he rose up in his ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... O'Neil escorted them to his headquarters. It was a sharp, clear morning; the sky was as empty and bright as an upturned saucepan; against it the soaring mountain peaks stood out as if carved from new ivory. The glaciers to right and left were mute and motionless in the grip of that force which alone had power to check them; the turbulent river was hidden beneath a case- hardened armor; the lake, with its weird flotilla of revolving bergs, was matted with a broad expanse of white, across which meandered dim sled and snow-shoe trails. Underfoot ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... it was as though each of his heavy words had to be fetched from a distance. "No doubt about it, it's the wife that wears the breeches," was Mahony's inward comment. And as one after another of his well-meant remarks fell flat: "Become almost a deaf-mute, it would seem, under the eternal ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... darted his eye incensedly for a moment; but without quailing, Israel, now that all was out, still stood with mute respect before him. The king, turning suddenly, walked rapidly away from Israel a moment, but presently returning with a less hasty pace, said, "You are rumored to be a spy—a spy, or something of that sort—ain't you? But I know you are not—no, no. You are a ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... Lady Helena's guests drive home. In the carriage of Sir Victor Catheron there is dead silence. Ethel, shrinking from her husband almost as much as from his cousin, lies back in a corner, pale and mute. Inez Catheron's dauntless black eyes look up at the white, countless stars as she softly hums a tune. Sir Victor sits with his eyes shut, but he is not asleep. He is in a rage with himself, he hates his cousin, he is afraid to ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... swords; Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, And clings around the soul, as the sky clings Round the mute earth, forever beautiful, And, if o'erclouded, only to burst forth 170 More all-embracingly divine and clear: Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born, that drops into its place, And which, once circling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... fearlessly, and dipped its head to drink. Again it lifted it up, and looked around. On a sudden it caught sight of those beautiful eyes. Instantly its limbs began to tremble. It seemed to have no power to fly, but stood looking with mute wonder at the object which fascinated it. The monster uncoiled itself, and glided from the tree. Still the stag did not attempt to fly, yet in fleetness it could have outstripped the wind. There it stood, a willing victim. In another moment the serpent had sprung upon ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Nancy before leaving to bring the Erskines back with him were these: "You are to look your very best; I desire the Hon. Mrs. Erskine struck mute with admiration," and when she came down the stairs I could but think that she had taken his counsel to heart, whether because she was to meet "her rival," as she laughingly called Isabel Erskine, or by reason of the expected presence of his ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... who ventured to introduce several persons in the same scene; before his time they rarely exceeded two persons; if a third appeared, he was usually a mute actor, who never joined the other two. The state of the theatre was even then very rude; the most lascivious embraces were publicly given and taken; and Rotrou even ventured to introduce a naked page in the scene, who in this situation holds a dialogue with one of his heroines. In another ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... thy firm even hand Or lost by feebleness or held by force! Behold thy cares and perils how repaid! Behold the festive day, the nuptial hour!" Thus raved Charoba: horror, grief, amaze, Pervaded all the host; all eyes were fixed; All stricken motionless and mute: the feast Was like the feast of Cepheus, when the sword Of Phineus, white with wonder, shook restrained, And the hilt rattled in his marble hand. She heard not, saw not, every sense was gone; One passion banished all; dominion, praise, The world itself was nothing. Senseless man! What ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... the mute, obscure forces of habit, which are doubtless the strongest forces in human nature, were dragging him back to her. Because their lives had been united so long, it seemed impossible to sever them, though their union had been so ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... come to him in a great hurry and say, "that he was wanted immediately in the eighth committee." So that the poor Nabob, persecuted everywhere, driven from the corridors, the Pas-Perdus, the restaurant, had adopted the course of never leaving his bench, where he sat motionless and mute ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to sound my father as to the cause of so sudden a departure. But my father was impenetrable in all that related to his brother's secrets. Whether or not the Captain had ever confided to him the cause of his displeasure with his son,—a mystery which much haunted me,—my father was mute on that score both to my mother and myself. For two or three days, however, Mr. Caxton was evidently unsettled. He did not even take to his Great Work, but walked much alone, or accompanied only by the duck, and without even a book in his ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pleases me, O Lord, and it is as I would have it. But there is another thing at which I greatly marvel—how it is that when the soul is faint from desire of the sweetness of Thy presence, Thou art wholly mute, and dost not utter a single word that can be heard. And who, O Lord, would not be grieved, when Thou showest Thyself so strange, so silent, to the soul that loves ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... their navigation. They perceived a crowd of soothsayers who were offering a sacrifice to their famous idol of Ratscha, conjuring it to save them from these terrible strangers. The idol remained mute, the Russians advanced with their "thunder," and the frightened soothsayers ran to hide themselves in the thickness of the forests. It is there that the colony of Ratscha is found to-day, above the Demiansk. Farther ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... luckless author; and from the sale of the book he obtained no profit. Leonora d'Este died upon February 10, 1581. A volume of elegies appeared on this occasion; but Tasso's Muse uttered no sound.[54] He wrote to Panigarola that 'a certain tacit repugnance of his genius' forced him to be mute.[55] His rival Guarini undertook a revised edition of his lyrics in 1582. Tasso had to bear this dubious compliment in silence. All Europe was devouring his poems; scribes and versifiers were building up their reputation ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Claude, of everything but Mrs. Beale. The immensity didn't include THEM; but if he had an idea at the back of his head she had also one in a recess as deep, and for a time, while they sat together, there was an extraordinary mute passage between her vision of this vision of his, his vision of her vision, and her vision of his vision of her vision. What there was no effective record of indeed was the small strange pathos on the child's ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... it!" he murmured, as his sister tucked her arm in his in mute understanding. "Think of the architect that could ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... some rosy bower, Sit mute, with thy finger on thy lip; Like him, the boy, who born among The flowers that on the Nile-stream blush, Sits ever thus,—his only song To Earth and Heaven, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch |
