"Numb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occupied much time, for the hands of the sailors were numb with cold, the ropes stiff with ice, while the wild and angry wind snatched at the tackle and tore at ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... again at his companion. It mattered nothing to him who or what he was; he would have done much to still that pleading voice and pacify him, but since he could not do this, he would go for a little while out of sight and hearing. He was fast growing numb with the fierce cold. He would come back and renew his care, but just now he would go home. He walked fast, and gained his own door with ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... shock than I had, I suppose. They got struck numb for a second. I'm a coarser kind. I have seen lots of sickening things; and I suppose they don't stun me. We get callous, I fancy, we veld-rangers ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... . . How could he wait? He paced the floor, his mind in its chaotic desperation, numb and inelastic. With his glance upon the psaltery stick, a dim notion of accounting filtered curiously into his mind and became obsessional. He went shaking to Brian's room and put the key of the chiffonier in his pocket. Thank God the studio ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... trembled. His legs felt weak, his hands numb. It was with an effort he refrained from dropping the revolver. Like his chums, Frank was a crack shot, for Mr. Temple early had accustomed them to the use of rifle and shotgun, and the previous summer in New Mexico Tom Bodine, their cowboy friend, had given all three valuable instructions ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... I was quite numb from the waist down, from my tumble and from running, and it was some time before I could breathe quietly. Suddenly Sperry ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... do. I have to, we're so nigh the wind. Well, you hadn't been gone long before Johnnie had a kind of a fall. 'T wa'n't much of a one, neither,—down the ledge. I dunno how he done it—he climbs like a cat—seems as if the Old Boy was in it—but half his body he can't move. Palsy, I s'pose; numb, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... does not leave a son to be heir, God will heap wrath upon him. (Scripture is quoted in proof of this, compare Numb. xxvii. 8 with Zeph. i. 15.) (Bava ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... last, to find her dead body lying there, cold and pale in the lightning flashes that broke against the windows. He found me alone with my dead sister, numb with sorrow, dead at ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Thank you ever so much," the girl replied, too numb and worn out to say much, or to notice or care whither she was bound or who was her boatman. She had been swept along too swiftly to reason or fear for ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... in that hearthstone fight so hot and brisk took so short a space of time, and happened in so confused and terrible a moment, that all but my personal feeling escapes me. My every sense stirred with something horrible—the numb sound of a musket-butt on a head, the squeal of men wounded at the vitals, and the deeper roar of hate; a smell of blood as I felt it when a boy holding the candle at night to our shepherds slaughtering sheep in the barn at home; ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene, The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw, A holy calm descends like dew upon me, I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise, I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses; Thy song expands my numb'd imbonded spirit, thou freest, launchest me, Floating and basking ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... high went numb. She made a gesture, as to the same reason and with the same words she'd made before, of weariness with this thing, "Ah, my God, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... too thorough a believer in the productive powers of fiction, used to drop conversational depth-bombs, they treated him with easy tolerance as one who was entitled to his racial peculiarities. Sometimes they would even put to sea clinging to the raft of one of his ideas, but one by one would grow numb and drop off into the waters of mental indifference. They had a nice sense of satire, and it was a delight for the American to indulge in an easy, inconsequential banter which was full of humour without being labelled funny; but it used to fill him with ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... pilot's point of view, often a serious one. There is a case on record of an aviator who, his hands being so numbed that his fingers refused to move, found he could not switch off his motor when the time came to descend; and so he had to fly round above the aerodrome, several times, while he worked his numb fingers to and fro, and beat some life into them against his body. At last, having restored their circulation to some extent, he was able to operate the switch and make a landing. While on active service in winter, after flying several hours at ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... people, and the tumbril went up to the steps, and there stopped. The executioner got down, removed the board at the back, held out his arms to the marquise, and set her down on the pavement. The doctor then got down, his legs quite numb from the cramped position he had been in since they left the Conciergerie. He mounted the church steps and stood behind the marquise, who herself stood on the square, with the registrar on her right, the executioner on her left, and a great crowd of people behind her, inside ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... riveted on the goal to be fascinated by any special route leading towards it, and that it is sufficiently free and disengaged to turn with eager interest to any problem, however novel, with which it may be suddenly confronted. Use and want are not its masters, sluggish contentment cannot numb its activity. The customers' requirements, nay, their whims and fancies, are ever sure to receive close attention and prompt satisfaction. The contrast between this unflagging alertness and the drowsy apathy ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... and we were obliged to distribute our stock of clothing among the men, in order to protect them better against the frost, yet in spite of every precaution, hands and feet which were wrapped up in thick furs and cloths, became stiff and numb, when only a few paces from the fire. The best protection against the cold, we found to be heated stones. We felt the want of spirituous liquors sadly; those we had, froze, and when thawed lost both strength and flavour. Our health, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... "They are numb," he said, in surprised apology to his host. A moment later he shivered violently, beads of sweat burst out on his forehead, and the color swept from his face. He started up, staring wildly about him; he tried to speak, but his words stumbled into incoherent babbling. It ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... each other. One thing stood uppermost in Conniston's mind: the foreman, with every deep breath he drew, was shaking off his dizziness, was regaining his strength. The spirit within him, with all of the battering he had received, was still unbroken. And Conniston himself felt his right arm growing numb to the elbow. In a very few seconds he would be like a rag doll in the ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... lion, its hot breath upon his face, its rough tongue upon his cheek. The ape-man had often been close to death; but never before so close as this, he thought, for he was convinced that death was but a matter of seconds. His brain was still numb from the effects of the blow that had felled him, and so he did not, for a moment, recognize the lion that stood over him as the one ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his veins: he no longer felt numb with the cold. A passion of rage was seething in him, and he longed to attack with fists and heels those curtained windows which now looked like eyes turned mutely and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... would get the body ashore with him, or go down trying. He bumped into a log and instinctively grasped it. It turned, and when he came up again it was bobbing five feet ahead of him. Ages seemed to pass before he flung his numb arm over it and floated with it. He was not alone in the flood; a coyote was pushing steadily across his path towards the nearer bank, and on a gliding tree trunk crouched a frightened cougar, its ears flattened and its ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... servants are summoned for their edification, and in front of them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brought from the lock-up. It's a gloomy, cold, foggy autumn day, a capital day for hunting. The general orders the child to be undressed; the child is stripped naked. He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry.... 'Make him run,' commands the general. 'Run! run!' shout the dog-boys. The boy runs.... 'At him!' yells the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds on the child. The hounds catch him, and tear him to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the books in question not only speaks of Moses in the third person, but also bears witness to many details concerning him; for instance, "Moses talked with God;" "The Lord spoke with Moses face to face; " "Moses was the meekest of men" (Numb. xii:3); "Moses was wrath with the captains of the host; "Moses, the man of God, "Moses, the servant of the Lord, died;" "There was never a prophet in Israel like unto Moses," &c. (34) On the other hand, in Deuteronomy, where the law which Moses had expounded to the people ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... answer, he guided his horse close to the machine and reached down to snatch away the rug already heavy with snow. To his surprise, it was a girl's despairing face that looked up at him. She tried to rise, but fell back, her muscles too numb to serve. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... the spring. He struggled back to consciousness, to find his left leg numb and useless. When the ball struck him he felt only a sharp pinch. His fainting was caused by a shock to his weakened body, but not from fear or pain. With the return to his senses came a horrible, burning thirst, and a horrible sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... when he was stackin' straw, Old Pearson told him flat 'n' plain as if he was n't goin' to marry Tilly, he need n't count on spendin' the winter as their company. Well, he says you can maybe realize what a shock that was. He says his nose was just smashed numb 'n' his sleep was full o' grabbin' at 'em in his dreams 'n' now it looked like all was for nothin' a tall. Still he says he scraped up a smile 'n' a cheerful look 'n' told Old Pearson as he was more 'n willin' to marry Tilly for his winter's board but it ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... Graindorge,' who makes this proposal to the Parisian world, has lived long in America, and doubtless received his inspiration in the United States. Hearts? We modern belles compress our hearts, as the Chinese do their feet, until they become numb and dwarfed; and some even roast theirs before the fires of Moloch until they resemble human pate de foie gras. There are a great many valuable truths taught us in the ancient myths, and for rugged unvarnished wisdom commend me to the Scandinavian. Did you ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... went to the roof, and for fully twenty minutes he watched the glowing patch where a sunbeam struck the canvas cover, and there was in his face something of the wonder of a creature born into a new world. Aurora was very grave: she did not smile, her heart felt no elation—it was numb and old. Jim had a perplexing sensation of feathery lightness; he felt like a frail snowflake in an unsubstantial world. The bed under him was a bed of gossamer, if not wholly visionary. He might fall through at any moment, and if he did he might go on falling endlessly, a pinch of down in ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... young man with a chuckle, tightening the upper bandage until Rhoda's foot was numb. "But I always carry this little outfit with me; rattlers and scorpions are so thick over on the ditch. Somebody's apt to be hurt anytime. I'm ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of comfort and luxury with a numb feeling at her heart. All this, and such as this, would have to go. How would the children endure life without it. Was this lavish amount of food "extravagance"? she asked herself, for the first time. Was it possible ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... exclaims, "Give him the grace-blow, my dear; give it him under the fifth rib!" when Captain Night cries, "Go home to your mother, Milksop!" and he catches his own sword by the hilt, hits his Enemy a blow on the right wrist enough to numb it for a month, twists his fingers in his cravat, flings him on one side, and right into the middle of a punch-bowl, and then, upon my word, he himself jumps out of Window, shouting out, "Follow ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... remember the truth always, because the truth is bound up with Marie, and Marie with the truth. Why need I be shy now about her? Why should I hesitate, under the fear of my own later timidity, of saying exactly now what I feel? God knows what I do feel! I am confused, half-numb, half-dead, I believe, with moments of fiery biting realisation. I'm neither sad, nor happy—only breathlessly expectant. The only adventure I have ever had in my life is not—no, it is not—yet ended. And I know that Marie could not have left me like that, without a word, unless ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... a moment. I sat numb in my chair. Finally the inspector looked up. He actually tried ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... he thought of traveling North, the vision of the honeymoon he had just planned revived his numb brain into a dismal aching. He looked back through the dusk at the Dildine roof. It stood black against an opalescent sky. Out of the foreground, bending over it, arose a clump of tall sunflowers, in whose silhouette hung ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... physical strain they were enduring their bodies moved automatically. During this unconscious process of locomotion one can dream over one's thoughts and still go on. Legs and arms move themselves; sore muscles become reconciled to their burden—they become numb; the mind is thus left alone ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... not matter. For my restless heart Is numb to sorrow, or to pleasure's touch. Since it must be that we two drift apart, Why, ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... if we stay here!" cried Alessandro. "Come, my Benito, come!" and he took him by the head, and pulled him by main force back into the road, and led him along. It was terrible. Ramona's heart sank within her. She felt her arms growing numb; how much longer could she hold the baby safe? She called to Alessandro. He did not hear her; the wind had risen again; the snow was being blown in masses; it was like making headway ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the express command of God, erected a brazen serpent upon a pole, in the view of the camp of Israel [Numb. xxi. 9.]. Such of the people as were stung by the fiery serpents, were directed and commanded to look up to the brazen serpent. They who did so were healed. But if any resisted, they were sure to die. For no other means or physicians could relieve ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... may believe me if you like, but when a fellow's almost starving it isn't disagreeable to keep quiet. Yes, one gets numb amidst silence; it's like an inside coating that stills the gnawing of the stomach a bit. Ah, that Chaine! You haven't a notion of his peasant nature. When he had spent his last copper without earning the fortune he expected ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... please.'... For a long time there was silence.... Then the day-light faded quite, and the Prince got up and lit a small oil lamp. There was a deadly silence.... Ah! She must fight against this horrible lethargy.... Her arm had grown numb.... Strange lights seemed to flash before her eyes—yes—surely—that was Gritzko coming towards her! She gave a gasping cry and tried to pull the trigger, but it was stiff.... The pistol dropped from her nerveless grasp.... ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... skates, and turned away in that utterly helpless frame of mind which will overtake the strongest men on similar occasions. He had been sitting too long in the cold, and was chilled through and stiff, and his wounded leg seemed numb. Leaning heavily on his stout stick, he began slowly and painfully the ascent to the railway, and chose for the purpose a winding path that was far less steep, though considerably longer, than the sharp climb the girls and their escorts made so light of. One after another the glowing ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... the spring grew too wonderful to resist. Even Fanny's numb heart and flayed spirit was warmed with the golden heat. She had some money that she wanted to deposit in the bank for John. For Fanny was saving now as only Fanny knew how when she set her mind to it. And she had set ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... secure any great amount of sleep. Their hard resting-place prevented such a thing. After a nap of possibly half an hour Frank would awaken to find one of his legs numb under him, while his muscles fairly ached with the severe strain to which they ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... from its sterile misery, must take refuge in other lives till she regained courage to face her own. At the opera, in the illumination of the first entr'acte, as she gazed about the house, wondering through the numb ache of her wretchedness how others could talk and smile and be indifferent, it seemed to her that all the jarring animation about her was suddenly focussed in the face of Clemence Verney. Miss Verney ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... or nothing. He thought it was the right one, but couldn't be sure. He could no longer see. His vision had gone completely. The pain was a numb thing now, far away, hardly a part of himself. Maybe Mayhem was absorbing the pain-sensation for him, he thought. Maybe Mayhem took the pain and suffered with it in the shared body so he, Larry, could ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames
... be sustained indefinitely? Grim as were results of sun-fishing on the rider, they were hardly less vitiating for the horse. The forelegs of Alcatraz began to grow numb below the shoulder; his knees bowed and refused to give the shock its primal snap; to the very withers he was an increasing ache. He must vary the attack. As soon as that idea came, he reared and flung himself back to ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... too numb to thank her, but he was grateful. His mother was dead. The ship he had named for her was dead. He ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... life, for whom there is no respite and no deliverance, to whom the world is a prison, a dungeon of torture, a tomb! With the voice of the little child who toils tonight in a Southern cotton mill, staggering with exhaustion, numb with agony, and knowing no hope but the grave! Of the mother who sews by candlelight in her tenement garret, weary and weeping, smitten with the mortal hunger of her babes! Of the man who lies upon a bed of rags, wrestling in his last sickness and leaving ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... coal smoke and a smell of freshly-cut boards. The captain and the top sergeant had disappeared. The men sat about, huddled in groups, sinking as far as they could into their overcoats, stamping their numb wet feet on the mud-covered cement of the floor. The sliding doors were shut. Through them came a monotonous sound of cars shunting, of buffers bumping against buffers, and now and then the ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... on her turret-bearing head dispers'd, 190 And arms all naked; who, with broken sighs, And staring, thus bespoke: "What mean'st thou, Caesar? Whither goes my standard? Romans if ye be, And bear true hearts, stay here!" This spectacle Struck Caesar's heart with fear; his hair stood up, And faintness numb'd his steps there on the brink. He thus cried out: "Thou thunderer that guard'st Rome's mighty walls, built on Tarpeian rock! Ye gods of Phrygia and Ilus' line, Quirinus' rites, and Latian Jove advanc'd 200 On Alba hill! O vestal ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... impressed upon his mind, but they were subconscious impressions. His active mind was at the moment wholly concerned with his arms. They ached cruelly. Would they fail him? When he jerked them free, would he be able to use them? Or would they drop numb and useless by his sides? No, he decided after cautious experiment, they were not numbed. He could wriggle his ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... intense suffering, to the half-fed travellers. The necessity of frequently wading the Sweetwater chilled the stronger men who were bearing the brunt of the labor, and when morning dawned the occupants of the tents found themselves numb with the cold, and quite unfitted to endure the hardships of the coming day. Chislett draws this picture of the situation at ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... being idiotic falsehoods. He must stamp out their delicate and lovable redundancy, leaving the Catholic to shudder at his literalness. He appears to the latter as morose as if he were some hard-eyed, numb, monotonous kind of reptile. The two will never understand each other—their centres of emotional energy are too different. Rigorous truth and human nature's intricacies are always in need of a mutual interpreter.[305] So much for the aesthetic ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... heart of the salmon could brave that end of toil. The sound of the rivers of Ireland racing down to the sea came to me in the last numb effort: the love of Ireland bore me up: the gods of the rivers trod to me in the white-curled breakers, so that I left the sea at long, long last; and I lay in sweet water in the curve of a crannied rock, exhausted, three parts ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... hard work. Finally he got one limb free, then the other. They were numb, and felt ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... thoughts of men in extremity? Who shall say whether they thought at all—those men half dead with cold, clinging for dear life with numb hands to a slender rope that might give way at any moment? Would ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... rather numb. But it might be worse," I answered mendaciously. If anything in this world could be worse, I ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Christina's, that it was their duty to begin training up their children in the way they should go, even from their earliest infancy. The first signs of self-will must be carefully looked for, and plucked up by the roots at once before they had time to grow. Theobald picked up this numb serpent of a metaphor and ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... I had on my back, and the hair chiefly worn off) was frozen stiff round my knees, like a hoop, as were my snow-shoes and shoe clouts to my feet. Thus I marched the whole day without fire or food. At first I was in great pain, then my flesh became numb, and at times I felt extremely sick and thought I could not travel one foot farther; but I wonderfully revived again. After long travelling I felt very drowsy, and had thoughts of sitting down, which had I done, without doubt I had fallen on my final sleep. My Indian companion, being better clothed, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... words! Had the oracle but threatened punishment to him, he would have endured any torture before subjecting his child to such a fate; but as a king, he dared not bring ruin on all his people, who trusted him. Psyche, herself, numb with horror, commanded quietly that preparations be made for the procession which should accompany her to the rock described by the oracle. Some days later, this procession set out, the priests in their white robes preceding Psyche, who, in mourning garments, with bowed head and clasped hands, walked ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... perhaps, as with that student of whom your brother has told us, who is as poor as a rat, and yet must read; and so in winter he lies in bed with an empty stomach, until day is far advanced; and he has his book before him, and first he takes out one hand to hold his book, and then, when that is numb with cold, the other. Ah! tongue cannot tell how poorly the man must live; and yet your brother has told me, if he has but a few pounds, he does n't think at all of himself; he always looks out for one still poorer than he is, and ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... at once, but at first it was with a chastened people. Audrey herself felt numb and unreal. She moved mechanically with the shifting crowd, looking overhead as a captured German plane flew by, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. But by mid-day the sober note of the crowds had ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... glanced at her mother when she heard this. Her knees ached and her fingers felt stiff and numb, but she dared ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... evening, and they would probably make no effort to learn of his whereabouts until after midnight. The night, too, was already growing very cold, with a raw, gusty wind that soughed drearily among the willows; his bare hands and wet feet were fast becoming chilled and numb. ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... recognised and lots of landmarks. And then suddenly they drive past some lodge gates, and there—in the middle of the road—stands a dreadful man smoking a cigar with a band round it. All the glory has gone from the drive, and the girl feels numb and sick and mad ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... shone two long, obliquely set, pale eyes, ablaze with devilry and malice. The thing, after the nature of all terrifying phantasms, was endowed with hypnotic properties, and directly its eyes rested on me I became numb; my muscles slept while my ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... believe—" As he paused he caught Ida's eyes shining into his, and at the moment the one thing in all the world worth doing was to follow her wish. "I do believe, and I'm with you from this time forward." He ended there, but he stood for a moment numb, and tingling with emotion. He had uttered a resolution which changed the course ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... stepped to ward her again with piteous pleading face,—a face that she had never seen before, yet seemed always to have known,—she felt that numb sense of familiarity with it all, and it did not pain her as she feared it would when he cried, "Oh—God, Molly—nothing you ever could do would make you unworthy of me—Molly, Molly, what is it?" The anguish in his face flashed back from some indefinite past to her, and then the illusion was gone, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... for Dr. Graham after all he had had to vex him. It must have been quite a long while after, so soundly had Plume slept, when she bent over him and said something was amiss and Mr. Doty was at the front door waiting for him to come down. He felt oddly numb and heavy and stupid as he hastily dressed, but Doty's tidings, that Mullins had been stabbed on post, pulled him together, as it were, and, merely running back to his room for his canvas shoes, he was speedily at the scene. Mrs. Plume, when briefly told what had happened, had covered her face with ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... scarcely been a breathing spell for the onlookers in this rapid-fire game. Every inning had held them, one moment breathless, the next wildly clamorous, and another waiting in numb fear. What did these last few moments hold in store? The only answer to that was the dogged plugging optimism of the Denver players. To listen to them, to watch them, was to gather the impression that baseball fortune always ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... hoped that the end of the world for which she had so fondly prepared would come, but as the days wore on she sank into a numb despondency. When she thought of the loss of her property, she groaned and turned her face to the wall. And Samuel Anderson sat about the house in a dumb and shiftless attitude, as do most men upon whom financial ruin comes in middle life. The disappointment of his faith and the overthrow of ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... last Garth could get out of him. He was presently alarmed to find the boy growing increasingly numb and drowsy; even he knew what this portended in the North. He pulled him out of the saddle; and made him walk; supporting him with one arm, while with the other he led the horse. The animal took advantage of his partial helplessness, to plant his legs and pull back anew. If there was ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... that great comforter in ordinary, began to assuage the violence of my suffering, and to-numb my feeling of them. My health returned to me, though I still retained an air of grief, dejection, and languor, which taking off from the ruddiness of my country complexion, rendered it rather ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... private devotions, first tortured him like fiends, and then, dispatching him, flung his body into a pit. His daughter, following them, clung fast to her father, and, though her heart bled and her brain grew numb between the gashes and the groans, she still cheered him with her passionate endearments; and, holding before his eyes a cross of gold that always hung on her bosom, inspired him to die like a brave man and a Christian. After that the lovely heroine ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... large claws are furnished with nobs, and those of the other, are always serrated. With the former, it keeps firm hold of the stalks of submarine plants, and with the latter, it cuts and minces its food with great dexterity. The knobbed, or numb claw, as it is called by fishermen, is sometimes on the right and sometimes ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... swam to another part of the ice edge. He rested his hands on that edge, not heavily, but just enough for some support. At the same time he kept his tired, aching, almost frozen legs in motion just to keep himself from growing any more numb. ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... in a tent in Otago (New Zealand) during a severe winter, we were perfectly numb with cold at nights, until we adopted the Maori plan, which is to dig a hole about a foot square in the clear, to cover the bottom with a stone or stones, and to fill it at night with red-hot cinders from the camp ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... up her work again. She had quite regained her composure, only she was utterly weary—too weary to feel anything but a numb aching. All violent emotion ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... I was numb and cold for a moment. Then I slowly began to boil, like a kettle freshly placed on the fire. So I was facing a rival? Well, and he would get such a facing as few men had received. And he was my rival and in the breast of my coat I wore a note—"God spare you!" Ha, ha! He little knew the ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... the following day when the watchman at the Uyak cannery beheld a native canoe creeping slowly up the bay, and was astonished to find it manned by three white men in the last stages of exhaustion—so stiff and cramped and numb that he was forced to help them from their places when at last they effected a landing. One of them, in fact, was unconscious and had to be carried to the house, which did not surprise the watchman when he learned whence they had come. He ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... back through the profitless years for the mislaid energy of youth. It travelled far and wide, wherever a man lived and toiled; and wherever it sounded, men's eyes grew bright, and hope came again to faces that had long since lost it, and to hearts that had long since grown numb. ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... He had kept his head at singlestick, held his own with the foil against other lads, and never before faced a point. The little man had the speed and certainty of a maitre d'armes. So Harry fought, breathing hard, every muscle aching, mind numb and dazed under the strain, expecting—hoping—every moment the thrust that would ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... had to extricate ourselves, put the poor horse on the track again, and afterwards right the sleigh. Then we found that the harness was broken in several places, and we had to mend it the best way we could with numb fingers. I had stopped laughing, for there ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... half crazed with pain and growing numb when two young gentlemen came along. One stooped and picked up something lying ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... to it and fought him through every court in the country," she had declared, in a passion of reproach. "You're so numb, Jerry! You just go pokin' along from day to day, lettin' folks walk over you—and ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... the oven] Well, it is cold. My hands are quite numb. [Akm takes off his leg-bands and bast-shoes. Ansya ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... reduced the third stage of a $5,000,000 rocket to junk was evident to him only as a brilliant blue-white flash, a hammer-like shock through the antennae support that left his wrist and forearm numb. Then a violent wrench as a long cylinder, expelled from the split hull, caught the loop of his life line and dragged him in till he clashed hard against it, the suddenly increased tension or a sharp edge parting the line close to the anchored ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... fish, well known elsewhere, and also called elsewhere, the Numb-fish and Cramp fish. For ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... bodies for the whole time. We suffered from thirst. I had a craving for canned peaches. Twice a drizzle came on, wetting the pontoon. We turned on our stomachs and lapped up the moisture, but the paint came off, with salt, and nauseated us. Our limbs grew numb. From time to time the wreckage from torpedoed ships would pass. Two full biscuit-tins came close enough to swim for, but by then in our weakened state we knew that we would drown if we tried to get them. We did haul in a third ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... surely to grapple with lurking death than the men who faced Mauser bullets, but with none of the incidents of glorious war, the flag, the hurrah, and all the things that fire a soldier's heart, to urge them on,—clinging, half naked, with numb fingers to the ladders as best they can while trying to put on their stiff and frozen garments,—is one of the sights that make one proud of being a man. To see them in action, dripping icicles from helmet ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... pagan. As Ragueneau looked, the girl fell dead with her skull split by the chief's war-axe. The Hurons on the lake now knew what awaited them; and a cry of terror arose from the children. Then a silence of numb horror settled over the incoming canoes. The women were driven ashore like lambs before wolves; but the valiant Hurons would not die without striking one blow at their inveterate and treacherous enemies. They threw themselves together back to back, prepared to fight. ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... swooned; for, the next thing I remember, I opened my eyes, and all was dusk. I was lying on my back, with one leg doubled under the other, and Pepper was licking my ears. I felt horribly stiff, and my leg was numb, from the knee, downward. For a few minutes, I lay thus, in a dazed condition; then, slowly, I struggled to a sitting position, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... tied him securely with a sennit cord about the neck and untied the cords that bit into his legs. So numb was Jerry from lack of circulation, and so weak from lack of water through part of a tropic day and all of a tropic night, that he stood up, tottered and fell, and, time and again, essaying to stand, floundered and fell. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... but he immediately followed it with another. It struck, for my right foot felt as if it had been hit with a club, and grew numb. Four more shots came in quick succession. One of them—which I cannot tell—struck the same foot and broke the bridge, as I knew from the immediate loss of strength ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... is not altogether the soulless drudge he appears. In the midst of his work, uncheered by summer sunshine, and clinging with numb toes to the tree-trunk some bitter cold day, he still finds some tender emotion within him to voice in a "wild, sweet song" that is positively enchanting at such a time. But it is not often this song is heard south of ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal-peor." (Numb., ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... then," said Eric, "for our limbs are numb and dead because of the nipping of the cords. ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... by the new treatment? I seem alternately to be numb and perfectly indifferent to how the war is going, and then madly interested. But I am too sensitive to leave my flat for any meals—I drive whenever one of the "fluffies" (this is what Maurice calls the ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... something creepy more'n common, but after dark it scares me to pieces. I do' know but I shall be afeared to go home," and she laughed uneasily. "There! when I get through with this needle I believe I won't knit no more. The back o' my neck is all numb." ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... long time, and there was no sign of the wolves coming near us. It was very cold, but our furs kept in our warmth. By and by I fell asleep—which was not dangerous so long as I kept warm, and I thought the cold must wake me before it began to numb me. And as 'I slept I dreamed; but my dream did not change the place; the forest, the tree I was in, all my surroundings were the same. I even dreamed that I came awake, and saw everything about me just as it was. I seemed ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... countenance; the vanishing of the gleam of hope, the gloomy desperation that succeeded. The beautiful black brows met in a spasm of pain over eyes that stared at an abyss of ruin; her lips whitened, she wrung her hands unconsciously; and then, as if numb with horror, she leaned back in her chair, and her chin sank until it touched the black ribbon at her throat. When after a while she rallied, and forced herself to listen, a pleasant-faced young man was on the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... wide cornfields, with embattled lines rising thick and green; August, with reddened orchards and heavy-headed harvests of grain, October, with yellow leaves and swart shadows; December, palaced in snow, and idly whistling through his numb fingers;-all have their various charm; and in the rose-bowers of summer, and as we spread our hands before the torches of winter, we say joyfully, "Thou hast made all things beautiful in their time." We sit around ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... really very discouraging: I was cold and wet and hungry; my legs and clothes torn by the gorse, my hands scratched and bleeding; the wind brought water to my eyes by its constant buffeting, and my skin was numb from contact with the chill mist. Fortunately I had matches, and after some difficulty, by crouching under a wall, I caught a swift glimpse of my watch, and saw that it was but little after eight o'clock. Supper I knew ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... the midst, the open sand. And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire— At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, When the frost flowers the whiten'd window-panes— And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar Came seeking Rustum, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... case of mumps and goiter. The sternomastoid muscle bulged at the angle of the jaw, and was flaccid, and his "Adam's apple" was on a level with the chin. Sensation in the upper extremities was partially restored, and, although numb, he now had power of movement in the arms and hands, but could not rotate his neck. A diagnosis of cervical dislocation was made, and violent extension, with oscillation forward and backward, was practiced, and the abnormal appearance subsided ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... it again? We tried to urge Felicity on, but she only repeated drowsily that she must lie down and rest. Cecily, too, was reeling against me. The Story Girl still stood up staunchly and counselled struggling on, but she was numb with cold and her words were hardly distinguishable. Some wild idea was in my mind that we must dig a hole in the snow and all creep into it. I had read somewhere that people had thus saved their lives in snowstorms. Suddenly Felix ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... death, resistless and horrible, with clearer vision than was ours as that group of savages pronounced our doom. It was by exercising the greatest effort of will that I conquered the dread sense of utter hopelessness which seemed to numb my every faculty; for, although I was to be tortured to the end, and perish at last in utmost physical agony, yet before that moment came there still remained a duty to be performed for one I loved. For that ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... rise up to the bluffs on either hand, and the blue-streaked ice stretches between. We all suffered a good deal. Against that cruel wind it was impossible to keep warm. The hands, though enclosed in woollen gloves, and they in blanket-lined moose-hide mitts, grew numb; the toes, within their protection of caribou sock with the hair on, strips of blanket wrapping, and mukluks stuffed with hay, tingled with warning of frost-bite; the whole body was chilled. We all froze our faces, I think, for the part of the face around and between the eyes cannot ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... of the brook and started toward home. His little round body and his sturdy little legs were not warm now, as they had been when he sat down beneath the tree to get cool. For the mountain brook was ice-cold; and Cuffy felt quite numb from standing in it so long. But cold as he was, his face felt like fire. And for some reason, which Cuffy couldn't understand, he could hardly see to pick his way through the ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the floor of the landing. "My feet are cold and numb from waiting for life to come out of life," he said heavily. "The woman struggled ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... in too long." Potts' teeth were chattering, and he looked unspeakably wretched. "When my arm got numb I couldn't keep his head up;" and he swallowed more whiskey. "You fellers oughtn't to have left that damn ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... on beneath me, and that the ship seemed to be screaming in every timber. I could have only lain there for a few seconds, for no human clamour had mingled with the sound of the ship's agony when I staggered to my feet. My head was aching furiously, and my right wrist was numb from the fall, but my senses had now come back to me, and I knew that some great calamity had befallen the ship. In desperation I pulled myself together and ran with all speed, heedless of the darkness, to the end of the passage where the ladder was, ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... jurymen's feet; the pallor on their faces as I leant forward and tried to read the verdict on them; the very smell of the place, compounded of fog, gaol-fever, the close air, and the dinners eaten earlier in the day by the crowd—all this strikes home upon me as sharply as it then did, after the numb apathy of waiting. ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as if numb with the horror of his misfortune, he rode with fettered hands between the two officers, incapable of fleeing, as they had even bound a cord around his arms, each end held fast by ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... "Just you be tied up with your hands behind you for hours, and all pins-and-needles, and numb, and you try behind you to get that hook through the knot in the right place. You wouldn't ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... the waste area, taking deep breaths, resting, my mind numb. Then gradually it was borne in on me that the Plaza itself looked rather more empty-sided than it should. A cold hand gripped my heart. I began to skirt the smouldering embers of the shanties and wooden warehouses, trying ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... said Lannes. "Oh, not through my skull, or I wouldn't be talking to you now. I think it glanced off the bone, as I know it's gone out on the other side. But I'm losing much blood, John, and I seem to be growing numb." ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... by the kites and crows. The execution of Athenian citizens, however, is extremely humane. The condemned is given a cup of poisonous hemlock juice and allowed to drink it while sitting comfortably among his friends in the prison. Little by little his body grows numb; presently he becomes senseless, and all is over without any pain.[*] The friends of the victim are then at liberty to give his ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... our forefathers who made and took them, yet they can be no way obligatory on us who were never personally engaged therein." But let such for certainty know, that as these solemn vows have their foundation in scripture, Numb. xxx. 7. Deut. v. 3. Josh. xxiv. 25. Psal. lxxvi. 11. Isa. xix. 18. Jer l. 5. Gal. iii. 15. The duties engaged to therein being purely theological and moral, they must have respect unto all circumstances and periods ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... sighed, but nothing happened. Like children afraid of the dark, the congregation lay with their faces towards the ground, and dared not look up. A cold sweat of anxiety dropped from many brows, knees which had gone to sleep caused pain, or were numb, and felt as though they had ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... with both her hands on the harp, which is placed on her right side; her figure is full front, but she looks towards the right; round her this inscription, HIBERNIA, 1722. (Simon, plate 7, Numb. 160) ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... the police-cart did not appear; he was positively wrathful. Suddenly Nastasya, who had come from the kitchen into the passage for some reason, upset a clothes-horse there. Stepan Trofimovitch trembled and turned numb with terror as he sat; but when the noise was explained, he almost shrieked at Nastasya and, stamping, drove her back to the kitchen. A minute later he said, looking at me in despair: "I am ruined! Cher"—he sat ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of my upper arm is broken," replied Marcy, feeling of the bunch to which he had referred. "It doesn't hurt much except when I touch it. It only feels numb." ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... nerve or brain cell whereby one experiences the sensation of amazement was numb. If Paragot had informed me that he had been a boon companion of King Qa and had built the pyramids of Egypt I should not have been surprised. I could only ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... did that he could prove nothing and that the story he had to tell was completely incredible, restrained him. The captain came forward slowly. With his eyes now close to his, Powell, spell-bound, numb all over, managed to lift one finger to the deck above mumbling the explanatory words, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad |
