"Silence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the worst enemy of beauty and health of body, mind, and soul, we have not yet mentioned. It is a sin concerning which we would gladly keep silence; but we cannot see so many of our most beautiful and promising girls and young ladies annually being ruined, often for this world and the next alike, without uttering the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... Accordingly the deepest silence prevailed in that iron cave. The fire had died out in the stove, but the room was full of that tepid warmth which produces the dull heavy-headedness and nauseous queasiness of a morning after an orgy. The stove is a mesmerist that plays no small part in the reduction of bank ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... mind in that brief moment of silence after the introduction, but the thoughts of at least one of the two women had been equally active. To Alice this chance meeting recalled a time in her life sanctified by the loss of her mother, later made easier to look back upon by the rare sympathy which had existed from the first between ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... first time passes through the iron gate which opens from the Green Cloister of Santa Maria Novella into the Spezieria, can hardly fail of being surprised, and that perhaps painfully, by the suddenness of the transition from the silence and gloom of the monastic inclosure, its pavement rough with epitaphs, and its walls retaining, still legible, though crumbling and mildewed, their imaged records of Scripture History, to the activity of a traffic not less frivolous than flourishing, concerned almost exclusively with ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... present at the Niemen on the day the two Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon's arrival, saw both Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleon—reaching the raft first—stepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... respect of our fathers. The man who would not recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the name of love—in the name of mercy—in the name of the ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... in the silence of expectancy, the three made a strange picture. On Lady Bellamy's face there was a look of stern determination and suppressed excitement such as became one ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... a brooding curlew, a faint sigh from a plover, and the wild rasping cry of a lapwing greeted them overhead. Yet there was a silence, a silence broken for a moment by the cries of the birds, but a silence thick and heavy. Between the calls of the birds Mysie could almost hear her heart's quickened beat. Blood found an eager response, and the magic of the moonlight and the beauty ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... the wind was very boisterous, and the sea very rough. All we recruits—or the majority of us—were quite ready for Morpheus to take us in his arms when retiring-time came. The men's sleeping apartment was one common room. Stillness and silence—save and except, perhaps, the snoring—reigned with us until about one after midnight, when (I remember I was thinking of "Home, Sweet Home" at the time) I saw two men gliding stealthily about the cabin. One of the men carried a lighted taper, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... voices dropped to silence. In silence the town watched its men of authority as they stepped down to the boat and took their seats. And, amid silence, the coxswain called his order, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... nightshirt, and dressed myself in a few moments, and then I said: 'Did you come a short time ago?' 'No,' she said, standing like a statue petrified with horror. 'It was my servant—she knows.' And then, after a short silence, she went on: 'I was there—by his side.' And she uttered a sort of cry of horror, and after a fit of choking, which made her gasp, she wept violently, and shook with spasmodic sobs for a minute: or two. Then her tears suddenly ceased, as if by an internal ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... listening as to a benediction. Then, with a single glance to give me confidence, she was gone. And for a minute there was silence ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and, as he spoke in his pleasant, grave young voice, he noticed the portraits on the wall; and he spoke of pictures as though he had known many, and he spoke of foreign cities, and of old-world scenes. And she listened in silence and in such content that the happiness of it seemed to invade her utterly and leave her ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... in the covered way at the head of the flight of steps communicating with the Norman Tower, they descended them in silence. Just as they reached the foot of this long staircase, the earl chanced to cast back his eyes, and, to his inexpressible astonishment, perceived on the landing at the head of the steps, and just before the piece of ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ranged on the balcony in the order in which they were numbered for their places on the top of the parapet-wall; and the balance-crane, that useful machine having now lifted all the heavier articles, was unscrewed and lowered, to use the landing- master's phrase, 'in mournful silence.' ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... removing it, induce a hope in your memorialists that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia. That if possible it ought to be, some interesting considerations of a local character, peculiarly dictate. The significant and peculiar silence discovered upon the face of the constitutional compact of the land, upon the great subject of human servitude with which the country then was burthened, the care which was observed by the sages, who framed the instrument, not to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... for Captain Angus Rothesay's wife and bairn, but the woman that nursed himsel?" said Elspie, lifting up her tall gaunt frame, and for the second time frowning the little doctor into confused silence. "An' as for friends, ye suld just be unco glad o' the chance that garr'd the leddy bide here, and no amang her ain folk. Else there wadna hae been sic a sad welcome for her bonnie bairn. Maybe a waur, though," added the woman to herself, with a sigh, as she once more ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... vigil of St. John the Baptist, pull up by the roots a specimen of consolida major (comfrey) and another of consolida minor (healall), repeating thrice the Lord's prayer (oratio dominica). Let him speak to no one while either going or returning, say nothing whatever, but in deep silence let him extract the juice from the herbs and with this juice write on as many cards as may be ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... shoe.(13) Moreover, they not only remained absolutely excluded from the exercise of the magisterial prerogatives belonging to the senate (-auctoritas-), but were obliged, even where the question had reference merely to an advice (-consilium-), to rest content with the privilege of being present in silence while the question was put to the patricians in turn, and of only indicating their opinion by adding to the numbers when the division was taken—voting with the feet (-pedibus in sententiam ire-, -pedarii-) as the proud nobility expressed it. Nevertheless, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Christ himself, which can we conceive of any redeemed soul as for an instant forgetting, or as remembering without sorrow? Neither are the alternations of joy and such sorrow as by us is inconceivable, being only as it were a softness and silence in the pulse of an infinite felicity, inconsistent with the state even of the unfallen, for the angels who rejoice over repentance cannot but feel an uncomprehended pain as they try and try again in vain, whether they may not warm hard hearts with the brooding of their ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... from his proud eminence and encountered the fixed gaze of his companion. That look gave anxiety. A painful silence was the only reply, and both gazed upon the panorama before them for fully five minutes before ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... enumerated.—'He who does not speak,' because, being in possession of all he could desire, he 'has no regard for anything'; i.e. he who, in full possession of lordly power, esteems this whole world with all its creatures no higher than a blade of grass, and hence abides in silence.—All these qualities stated in the text can belong to ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... monstrous hills, with this everlasting torrent raging in his ears, and the camp-fire out of doors there flaring, flickering, glowing, dying down—here in the fog of the forest fires and the solitude of the mountains, it is so easy to see things as they truly were. A shrug, a smile, a word, a silence, the lift of an eyebrow—things which had no apparent meaning a dozen years ago, which were either unnoticed or forgotten in an instant—are alive with monitions now. Not to have seen! Not ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... to speak again, the surgeon imposed silence, observing that she must be put to bed, and should be kept quiet. Mad. de Fleury laid her upon the bed, as soon as Maurice had cleared it of the things with which it was covered; and as they were spreading the ragged blanket over the little girl, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... that the honor and the danger no longer floated vaguely over four heads, but had fixed on one, a sudden silence and solemnity took the place of ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... very opposite effect; and then read a paper, claiming to emanate directly from the chancellor himself, to the effect that he had nothing whatever to do with the bill and disapproved it. Upon Bismarck's colleagues in the ministry, who thought that his silence had given consent, this came like a thunderbolt; and those who had especially advocated the measure saw at once that they had fallen into a trap. The general opinion was that the illness of the chancellor had been a stratagem; that his sudden disclaimer, after ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Birdalone, with all my heart. Then she hung her head a while and kept silence, and thereafter looked up and spake: I would ask thee a thing and crave somewhat of thee, as if thou wert verily my mother; wilt thou grant it me? Yea, surely, child, said Habundia. Said Birdalone: This it is then, that thou wilt learn ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... the world, and in his rich days had travelled a good deal, and so it came to pass that each could always find something to tell the other. Never for one second were they dull, not even when they sat for an hour or so in silence, for it was the silence of ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... my long silence. I could not excuse myself in any other way than by a worse lamentation about the variety of circumstances, moods and occupations that have more and more encouraged my habitual dislike to letter-writing. Unless some definite object demands it of me, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... desired to be buried with him, might be alike innocent of all reference to Leonora, whether he wrote them for a friend or not. Leonora's death took place during the poet's confinement; and, lamented as she was by the verse-writers according to custom, Tasso wrote nothing on the event. This silence has been attributed to the depth of his passion; but how is the fact proved? and why may it not have been occasioned by there having been no ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... him in the dead silence—dead save for the lingering of the echo's ghost—stood the woman, her hands clutched to her thin bosom, her eyes stunned and dilated, her body wavering on legs about ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... thundered; "silence, you English dog! How dare you speak—" Then, suddenly interrupting himself, he turned to the ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... discuss the peculiarities of any member, or make unkind remarks in reference to a slight, real or fancied, or any negligence or oversight. Having eaten your hostess's salt, there is an obligation of silence imposed, unless one can speak in ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... spoke to her in a perfectly new set of tones that were being incorporated into his voice and which seemed to disturb her. To all questions, as to names, the girl in the dim room returned a dull stare and silence, but there were times when she deliriously rambled intimate confidences. When these times occurred, Cameron, if he chanced to be present, ordered the nurse from the room and listened alone. He was relieved ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... acts,—all the acts of others relative to the affair, that come to his knowledge, and may influence him,—his friendships and enmities, his promises, his threats, the truth of his discourses, the falsehood of his apologies, pretences, and explanations, his looks, his speech, his silence where he was called to speak,—everything which tends to establish the connection between all these particulars,—every circumstance, precedent, concomitant, and subsequent, become parts of circumstantial evidence. These are in their nature infinite, and cannot be comprehended within ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... deplorably adulterated and defaced, fitted to very vague and pompous words, and strained through many men's minds of everything personal or precise—this speech of the widowed duchess startles a reader, somewhat as the footprint startled Robinson Crusoe. A human voice breaks in upon the silence of the study, and the student is aware of a fellow-creature in his world of documents. With such a clue in hand, one may imagine how this wounded lioness would spur and exasperate the resentment of her children, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... desperately in love with her, but was very careful to keep his love secret. The damsel presently became aware thereof and without anywise seeking to shun the stroke, began on like wise to love him; whereat Ricciardo was mightily rejoiced. He had many a time a mind to speak to her, but kept silence of misdoubtance; however, one day, taking courage and opportunity, he said to her, 'I prithee, Caterina, cause me not die of love.' To which she straightway made answer, 'Would God thou ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a moment in silence looking out of the window. His heart went with the boy, for Jeff had grown dear to him, with his frank impulsive ways and deep ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... the duration of the war. The suppression of the senator did not proceed so much from congress or the White House, as from the press of the country. Without regard to views or party, the newspapers of the nation voluntarily and patriotically entered what has been termed a "conspiracy of silence" regarding the activities of the Wisconsin senator. By refusing to print his name or give him any sort of publicity he was effectively sidetracked and in a short time the majority of the people ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... undoubtedly be disappointment in his failure to make general psychological formulations, but, as the critics would differ amongst themselves as to what these formulations should be, Dr. Healy's silence is here probably a wise conservatism. At the same time there is certainly exhibited a tendency to be rather too individual and give too few generalizations. This is evidenced by his failure to regard as a factor in one case what ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... Columbus himself done to help matters along? The wisest thing that he could have done; he had refrained from writing to Ferdinand and Isabella. His silence spoke in his favor; for they did not learn what had happened till a lady-in-waiting at court, a friend of Columbus and of the queen, received a letter which Columbus had written during the voyage, and which the good Villejo ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... were of sound mind. Pinkerton was beside himself, his eyes like lamps. I shook in every member. To any stranger entering (say) in the course of the fifteenth thousand, we should probably have cut a poorer figure than Bellairs himself. But we did not pause; and the crowd watched us, now in silence, now ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... That is about enough. You do not want a talkative person. Walking is an occupation in itself. You may give yourself up to chatter at the beginning, but when you are warmed to the job you are disposed to silence, drop perhaps one behind the other, and reserve your talk for the inn table and the after-supper pipe. An occasional joke, an occasional stave of song, a necessary consultation over the map—that is enough ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... weakness has passed o'er; at least, It settled into tearless silence: her Pale face and glittering eye, after a glance Upon her sleeping children, were still fixed Upon the palace towers as the swift galley Stole down the hurrying stream beneath the starlight; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Such a demand would be thought, I believe, highly unbecoming and extremely unreasonable. May not my modesty, or my regard for his memory, or my unwillingness to pain his family, be accepted as sufficient reasons for silence? or would any one scoffingly attribute my reluctance to attack him, to my conscious inability to make good my case against his being "God manifest in the flesh"? Now what, if one of his admirers had written panegyrical memorials of him; ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... of the Quakers a circumstance sometimes occurs, of so peculiar a nature, that it cannot be well omitted in this place. It sometimes happens, that you observe a pause in the conversation. This pause continues. Surprized at the universal silence now prevailing, you look round, and find all the Quakers in the room apparently thoughtful. The history of the circumstance is this. In the course of the conversation the mind of some one of the persons present has been so overcome with the weight or ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... disposition is to rely on the Duke of Wellington's firmness and decision and to hope for the best. Peel's defeat at Oxford,[3] though not likely to have any effect on the general measure, is unlucky, because it serves to animate the anti-Catholics; and had he succeeded, his success would have gone far to silence, as it must have greatly discouraged, them. Then the King gives the Ministers uneasiness, for the Duke of Cumberland has been tampering with him, and through the agency of Lord Farnborough great attempts ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... I cannot say that now I felt no fear. I thought of the panic-stricken women, the doomed men, who had fled at the sword's point up these very stairs. The silence seemed to shriek at me, and I half thought I saw fear-maddened eyes peering out from the shadowed corners. Yet for all that—nay, because of that—I would not give up the adventure. I went back into the little room and carefully closed the ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... to this conversation that the Duke of Wellington listened with smiling attention.] and "Le silence est l'antichambre de ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... say, he retreats once more into silence and into shade; he leaves you alone with the creations he has called to life—the representatives of his emotions and his thoughts—the intermediators between the individual and the crowd. Children not of the clay, but of the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in silence, leaving Geraldine to the care of the matron. All he was allowed to see was a ghastly, death-like face and form, covered with rugs, lying prostrate on a mattress; but as he came in, at the sound of his step, there was ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... What their object was in thus approaching the camp at night, unless for hostile purposes, we had no means of ascertaining; but the aboriginal Australian considers it an act of positive hostility to approach a camp in silence at night. ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... which had been prepared for her. "Where's Martha? Why does not Martha come?" said Miss Stanbury. This was a hard blow, and from that moment Dorothy believed that it would be expedient that she should return to Nuncombe Putney. The broth, however, was taken, while Dorothy sat by in silence. Only one word further was said that evening by Miss Stanbury about Brooke and his love affair. "There must be nothing more about this, Dorothy; remember that; nothing at all. I won't have it." Dorothy ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... accomplished, my dear young friend, into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugenie is on a throne, and the other a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the most rigorous Orders." This convent is near Biarritz, where the nuns take vows of silence like the monks of La Trappe.[1] The empress when at Biarritz never failed to visit her former friend, who was permitted ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... prevent the existence of a constant tendency among men to obtain their part of the enjoyments of life while throwing upon others, by force or by trickery, the burdens of labor. It is not for us to belie universal history, to silence the voice of the past, which attests that this has been the condition of things since the beginning of the world. We cannot deny that war, slavery, superstition, the abuses of government, privileges, frauds of every nature, ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... representative institutions, the only result would be that power would be transferred from a limited class of Englishmen to a very limited class of natives, which would be of no advantage to the country whatever. My remarks were followed by a dead silence which was broken by one of them saying, in a desponding tone, "you have educated us, and you have made us discontented accordingly," thus illustrating very forcibly what I suppose Solomon meant when he said, "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... rustle made him start and turn round. Varvara Petrovna, whom he had left only four minutes earlier, was standing before him again. Her yellow face was almost blue. Her lips were pressed tightly together and twitching at the corners. For ten full seconds she looked him in the eyes in silence with a firm relentless gaze, and suddenly ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... melodious bells of the old tower spoke their loud summons to the house of God on festival and holiday, of the time when the faith in Christ was a matter of danger and of death, and the sanctuaries were laid among the vaults and the tombs—when in darkness and in silence Christians knelt on the cold stones, and a short hurried bell from the altar alone warned them of the moment when the blessed pledges of salvation were consecrated there. These were the joys of his childhood. These were the thoughts and the feelings ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... queer," he muttered, for indeed it had a strange and daunting effect, this sudden disappearance in the midst of the wood of the man he had followed so far, and the silence around seemed all the more intense now that those regular and heavy footsteps ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... dropped its ones, twos, and threes at every farmyard gate—like children going to and from school! The animation among the cattle in and about every farmyard in the village, when, after six months' silence, the herdman's horn was heard once more, was a sight to remember, and a remarkable instance ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... the Colonel enters, heated and out of breath. His eye pierces through the tobacco smoke and transfixes the unhappy bookmaker. He requests him to take advantage of his position to open a window. The players examine the tips of their cues in sudden silence. The Colonel refuses the offer of six vacated chairs with a slightly impatient negative and inquires as to the probable length of the game. He accepts the obvious untruth that it has just ended, smiles with satisfaction, and proposes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... often before meditated on this subject, he will have put there all his strongest convictions touching the moral cause of moral evil. There are, however, still sundry passages here and there in his works which it will be well not to pass over in silence. Very often he exaggerates the difficulty which he assumes with regard to freeing God from the imputation of sin. He observes (Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, ch. 161, p. 1024) that Molina, ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... in a sort of contented amusement and let that do for an answer to his question about Maude Adams. Then the smile transmuted itself into a look of thoughtful gravity and there was a long silence which, though it puzzled him, he ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the performances. The best hours are from two to six or from eight to eleven P.M. The rooms should be arranged so as to allow a clear space at one end for the performers; the guests should be seated, and a general silence prevail excepting during the intervals of the performance. If the concert is divided into two parts, it is quite permissible to rise during the intermission, promenade if agreeable, meet friends, and change seats, being ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... called; unconsciously all voices were hushed. "Five seconds!" The silence was broken only by the restless moving of the people and the barking of the ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... even looked out with awe upon the dreadful spectacle which lay before and below. One of them stepped with folded arms to the door-way, looked out in silence, and shaking his head said—"So that's the cage our bird ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... elephants charging down those narrow trails, perhaps from two directions at once, was one that started a copious flow of cold perspiration. We waited for several years of intense apprehension. There was absolute silence. The elephants also were evidently ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... behave unseemly." He went, visited his friends, and forgot Puapae. He tried to marry again, but Puapae came and stood on the other side. The chief called out, "Which is your wife, Siati?" "The one on the right side." Puapae then broke silence with, "Ah, Siati, you have forgotten all I did for you;" and off she went. Siati remembered it all, darted after her crying, and then fell ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... of the Spartans received but little favour in the assembly. After a dead and chilling silence, up rose Sosicles, the ambassador for Corinth, whose noble reply reveals to us the true cause of the secession of the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mrs. Redburn, after the long silence that followed the reading of the hymn, "I feel very weak and ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... and fro, casting suspicious glances around; los Yankees at El casa Americano drank their juleps, and puffed their cigarettes in silence. ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... was trembling and his teeth were chattering. I obeyed, and sat down on the edge of the sofa. Ten minutes passed in silence. I sat silent, looking about the room into which fate had brought me so unexpectedly. What poverty! This man who was the possessor of a handsome, effeminate face and a luxuriant well-tended beard, had surroundings ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of the ships were examined to see that they were in proper order for such a dangerous voyage, the sailors were stationed at their respective posts, the anchor chains were loosened, ready to release the vessels, and the ropes held in hand. There was a brief silence, then upon the elevated "castle" or stern of each ship, the young army of Crusaders commenced to chant that dear old hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" which the church in all ages has used on solemn occasions, and as its words floated from one vessel, they were taken up on another ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... his senses, he found himself lying still upon his face; and so bitter was his loneliness and grief, that he lay still and did not move. He was astonished, however, by the (as it seemed to him) unusual silence. The noise of the carriage had been deafening, and now there was not a sound. Was he deaf? or had the crowd gone? He opened his eyes. Was he blind? or had the night come? He sat right up, and shook himself, and looked again. The crowd was gone; so, for matter of that, was the coach; ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... said dolefully, shifting his gaze so that he did not have to look directly at Goil or me. He hesitated for moments, then when the silence was ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... his hard-set teeth, "back to your gutters and your garbage, or follow, if you can, in silence, and learn, if ye lack not courage to look on, how ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... silence for a time, and perhaps we were all thinking of the same thing—namely, what a poor figure we had cut in that adventure as contrasted with Joan's performance. I tried to think up some good way of explaining why I had run away and left a little girl at the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... she spoke first. I do not remember saying anything, and I think it must have been at least a full minute before either of us broke the silence. She lay, or sat, upon the cockpit floor, her shoulders supported by the bench surrounding it, just where I had placed her after lifting her over the rail. I knelt beside her, staring as if she were a spirit instead of a ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Hoar has just reason to complain of my long silence. But, the truth is that I was unwilling to tell him that my hopes of sending him a letter for publication had come to an end, until I was really certain that this was the case. I am afraid however that even if I am able now to overcome the objections ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... brought together before we fail to understand the harmony of existence and the wonderful co-operation of every part for the maintenance of the rest? Say what you will of combinations and probabilities; what do you gain by reducing me to silence if you cannot gain my consent? And how can you rob me of the spontaneous feeling which, in spite of myself, continually gives you the lie? If organised bodies had come together fortuitously in all sorts of ways before assuming ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... reason to be shewn, it should teach us silence, for he doth nothing without the highest reason; and there doth appear some reasons in the Old Testament, why those ordinances of Urim and Thummim, &c. were suffered to be lost in the captivity, that they might long and look for the Lord Jesus, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... allowed herself to hope that she had frightened her rival out of the field, and the disappointment made her feel irritable. She buried herself in a short story, and countered Ashe's attempts at renewing the conversation with cold monosyllables, until he ceased his efforts and fell into a moody silence. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... apartment deserted. His shout of welcome wasn't answered: his whistle, in the private code which everybody uses, met with dead silence. Henry hung up his hat with considerable pique, and lounged into the living-room. What excuse had Anna to be missing at the sacred hour of his return? Didn't she know that the happiest moment of his whole day was when she came flying into his arms as soon as he crossed ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... burst upon the mental powers of Beauman, like a sudden and tremendous clap of thunder on the deep and solemn silence of night. Unaccustomed to disappointment, he had calculated on success. His addresses to the ladies ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... having received good information that he would be attacked the next day, did not go to bed. The night was very dark. He thought he saw a long way off in the valley a long line of lighted matches; but there was profound silence; and the king and his officers puzzled themselves to decide if they were men or glow-worms. On the 21st, at five A. M., the king gave orders for every one to be ready and at his post. He himself repaired to the battle-field. Sitting in a ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... he might kiss her again. But he had asked her to go to the theatre, and he did not wish to disappoint her. They entered the theatre by the Early Door, and sat in the middle of the front row of the pit. There was a queer silence in the theatre, for the ordinary doors had not yet opened, and the occasional murmur of a voice echoed oddly. John put his arm in Maggie's and wound his fingers in hers, and felt the pressure of her hand against ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... the two friends strolled slowly up the winding road to the parade, the last officers to return homeward. Sick-call was sounding as they passed the barracks, and Captain Devers met them on the walk. Both officers saluted the post-commander, Davies in silence, Cranston with an accompanying "Good-morning, sir." Devers responded in the briefest possible way and went ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... myself, after all, forced to reply, it is in the persuasion that a longer silence will add to the erroneous conclusions which my hitherto resigned attitude has already given rise to; at the same time I believe that, precisely by reason of the peculiar interest with which I have throughout followed Virchow's scientific achievements, I am specially qualified to ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... struggle was wearing her out; she kept silence at last, lest she should show disrespect to ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... most grotesque appearance as he crawled about over the floor in the very limited space allowed him by the presence of so many others. The yearlings enjoyed it all in mirthful silence. ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... the face, and the people too," he answered proudly. "I thank God I am no more afraid of death, but as cheerfully put off my doublet at this time as ever I did when I went to bed." As the axe fell, the silence of the great multitude was broken by a universal shout of joy. The streets blazed with bonfires. The bells clashed out from every steeple. "Many," says an observer, "that came to town to see the execution rode in triumph back, waving their hats, and ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... of the naive provincial delight of "going visiting"; of New York and the Dunleavys. But their talk lulled to a nervous hush. It seemed to him that a great voice cried from the clouds: "It is beside Ruth that you are sitting; Ruth whose arm you feel!" In silence he caught her ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... have always a little to do, and a great deal to say. In France, they dictate almost every thing that is said, and direct every thing that is done. They are the most restless beings in the world. To fold her hands in idleness, and impose silence on her tongue, would be to a French woman worse than death. The sole joy of her life is to be engaged in the prosecution of some scheme, relating either ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... to me serious and quiet, like I had good ears, and says, 'My man, you can understand every word I say, I'm sure, and what your object is in maintaining this ridiculous silence, I don't know. You're accused of a crime, and ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... spoke, and up from the stone then arising, Drew from his seat her son, who willingly followed. In silence Both descended the ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... crest our boat was lifted like a cork, and as suddenly dropped into a vast trough, out of which as it closed upon us with the rush of a whirlpool, none expected to emerge. In a few minutes nothing but a heavy rolling sea had to be encountered, all having again become silence and darkness." ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... Does anyone here know me?' That is the word with which he breaks the silence of that dumb amazement, that paralysis of frozen wonder which Goneril's first rude assault brings on him. 'Why, this is not Lear; Ha! sure it is not so. Does any one here know me? Who is it that can tell me who ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... dead stop. Much violent language had been used, even where the provocation was slight. The outbreaks of crime which had repeatedly occurred in Ireland had been, not, indeed, defended, but so often passed over in silence by Nationalist speakers, that English opinion was inclined to hold them practically responsible for disorders which, so it was thought, they had neither wished nor tried to prevent. (I am, of course, expressing no opinion as to the ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... two thunderous words). One moment. (Dead silence.) Pray allow me. Sit down everybody. (They obey humbly. Gloria takes the saddle-bag chair on the hearth. Valentine slips around to her side of the room and sits on the ottoman facing the window, so that he can look at her. Crampton sits ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... allowed your first hours of grief to pass in silence. I was in no condition to give details, nor you to receive them. Now I may write, and you ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... point,—that had made him a great lawyer and diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she had learned to see around corners as he did, and she liked a problem, a test of wit, a contest of powers. She knew how to wait and ponder in silence, and therein lay the joy of the saddle, when she could ride alone with no groom to bother her, and watch enchantments unfold on ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... brought him little relief. He drank his coffee in comparative silence and crossed the street to his work with only a slight bend of his head toward Kitty, who was helping Mike tag some baggage. She noticed then how pale he was and the wan smile that swept over his face as she waved her hand at him in answer, but she ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Leonard. Then, turning round to the twenty men who followed him, he said, "Men-at-arms, as you saw and heard, there is death here. Draw up here in silence. This good esquire will see that you have food and fodder for the horses. Kemp, Hardcastle," to his squires, "see that all is done with honour and respect as to the lady of the castle and mine. Aught unseemly shall ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they themselves had broken their arms or legs. In another corner of this house there sat around a fire, forming another household, a party whose faces were entirely blackened, who observed a gloomy silence and looked very singular. They were in mourning for a deceased friend. The Indian, having made himself ready, took both our sacks together and tied them on his back for the purpose of carrying them, which did not suit us ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... sight. The path to the hills lies by way of little pools where the frogs have a croaking chorus that Aristophanes might have envied. On the approach of strange footsteps they hurry off the flat rocks by the pool, and one hears a musical plash as they reach water. Very soon the silence is resumed, and presently becomes so oppressive that it is a relief to turn again and see our modest lights twinkling as though ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... The silence seethed. Carlos had a temper of fire and so had his wife. But neither spoke, till he had gained sufficient control over himself to remark ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... his Majesty rose and saluted us; received us, in short, as though we were still his honoured guests, and not the heralds from a great Power he had recently so grossly insulted. We were told to sit down. A few minutes of silence followed, and we saw advancing from the outer gate our countrymen guarded as criminals, and chained two by two. They were arranged in a line in front of his Majesty, who, after observing them for a few seconds, "kindly" inquired ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... what made the girl more sure, was the silence preserved by her companion in the brougham on their way home. They rolled along in the June darkness from Prince's Gate to Seymour Street, each looking out of a window in conscious prudence; watching but not seeing the hurry of the London night, the flash of lamps, the quick roll on the ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... In the course of the evening he had a private interview with the young lady, and after extorting a solemn pledge from her that she would not inform me of it till we were married, he gave her his consent and promised to acknowledge her as his daughter-in-law. This solemn pledge to keep silence till our union was completed he made her give, because he wished to see how far I would go without his consent; and she kept her word; although the fact certainly came to my knowledge through a third person. My father took the first opportunity ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... should one such from prudent silence swerve The chatterer who prates of me and thee Shall learn, too late, why Venus, whom I serve, Was born of blood upon a ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... forward to give information and to set forth the crimes with which you now charge me? {23} If I had covenanted with Philip for money that I would prevent the coalition of the Hellenes, your only course was to refuse to keep silence—to cry aloud, to protest, to reveal the fact to your fellow countrymen. On no occasion did you do this: no such utterance of yours was ever heard by any one. In fact there was no embassy away at the time on a mission to any Hellenic state; the ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... to was a little company given in honor of Helen Keller. It was fascinating to watch her, and to realize with what a store of knowledge she had lighted the black silence of her physical life. To see Mark Twain and Helen Keller together was something not easily to be forgotten. When Mrs. Macy (who, as Miss Sullivan, had led her so marvelously out of the shadows) communicated his words to her with what seemed a lightning touch ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to silence all my fears, He lives to wipe away my tears, He lives to calm my troubled heart, He lives all ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... spectators in this place, And time, 'tis to no purpose; for I know What you resolve already to bestow, Will not be alter'd, what so e're I say, In the behalf of us, and of the Play; Only to quit our doubts, if you think fit, You may, or cry it up, or silence it. ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Armine spoke little, but ever to the purpose, and chiefly to the Count Mirabel, who pleased him. Being very handsome, and, moreover, of a distinguished appearance, this silence on the part of Ferdinand made him a general favourite, and even Mr. Bevil whispered his approbation to ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... more and more distant; the shouts and noise of men traversing the apartments subsided, and gradually the place became restored to its original silence. The mob, after having searched every other part of the house, and not finding the object of their search, they concluded that he was not there, but must have made ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... he could see the yellow circle of a flashlight splotched upon dim shelves of books. He saw Weintraub pull a volume out of the case, and the light vanished. Another instant and the man reappeared in the doorway, closed the door behind him with a gesture of careful silence, and was off up the street quietly and swiftly. It was all over in a minute. Two yellow oblongs shone for a minute or two down in the area underneath the door. Through the glasses he now made out these patches as the cellar windows. Then they disappeared also, and all was placid ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... charge of them sat at the head of the table, and the meal was eaten in silence. After it was over and they had retired to their own rooms discipline was at an end, and they were free to amuse themselves as they liked. There were many questions to be asked and answered, but his ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... i. e. if, by such untruth, the death be averted. If from testimony either way, the alternative of the death of the plaintiff or defendant must ensue, the witness should maintain silence, the monarch assenting. In case the monarch do not assent, the testimony may be rendered of no avail by confusing the witness: if this cannot be effected, then let the truth be spoken; for by so doing one fault only is incurred, viz. causing the death, whereas from untruth would arise the sin ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya |
