"Stupefaction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrests that followed immediately, and filled the country with stupefaction, made havoc on all sides of her. Among the victims were comrades of her childhood, numbers of her friends and acquaintance and their relatives—as well in Berry as in the capital—many arrested solely on suspicion of hostility to the President's views, yet none the less exposed to chances ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... her and stepped to the door. He could not see or hear anything. When he turned and again approached her, his face was white. He looked at Mallory, who was standing with a look of stupefaction on his ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... get over it; that's all there is about it." And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person in a state of voiceless stupefaction. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... night, a black city, and snow falling, and no train that night across to the Gare de Lyon. In a state of semi-stupefaction after all the questionings and examinings and blusterings, they were finally allowed to go straight across Paris. But this meant another wild tussle with a Paris taxi-driver, in the filtering snow. So they were deposited in ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... also several monstrance-like reliquaries, and one fine monstrance of a later period with something of German style in its foliated ornament; but the objects which are exhibited with most pride and with evident expectation of the stupefaction of the tourist are a ewer and dish of silver-gilt, which are covered with representations of sea creatures and weeds, worked with the most extraordinary realism and fineness, and proving very satisfactorily that the copying of nature and the production of a work of art are not necessarily ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... Madame Omber, eh?" Now by Roddy's expression it was plain that, if Madame Omber's name wasn't strange in his hearing, at least he found this news about her most surprising. He was frankly staring, with a slackened jaw and with stupefaction ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... you, this fact of the stupefying effect of mere material civilization; and remember that plenty and comfort do not diminish but increase that stupefaction; that Hebrew prophets knew it, and have told us, again and again, that, by fulness of bread the heart waxeth gross; that Greek sages knew it, and have told us, again and again, that need, and not ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the death of any one a kind of stupefaction; so difficult is it to grasp this advent of nothingness and to resign ourselves to ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... fled for forgetfulness to the vice which bound her in so heavy a chain. All the cunning of her nature, so strangely perverted, was put into action to procure a supply of the stimulants she craved; and she escaped from her misery for a little while by losing herself in suicidal lethargy and stupefaction. ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... glass. Had artificial means been used to reduce him to his present condition? She tasted the claret. No; there was nothing in the flavour of it which betrayed that he had been drugged. If the waiter was to be believed, he had only drunk claret—and there he was, in a state of helpless stupefaction, nevertheless. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... hours. And it is recorded, that the dying SAVIOUR, "who knew all things," when offered "wine mingled with myrrh," "received it not." The truly wise will not barter visions of glory for mere animal excitement and mental stupefaction. ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... thus:—"Since they have neither sagacity to foresee, nor justice and humanity to shun, these calamities—since not even severe experience can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of their country awaken them from their stupefaction—the guardian care of parliament must interpose. I shall, therefore, propose an amendment to the address, to recommend an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the commencement of a treaty to restore peace and liberty to America, strength and happiness to England, security and permanent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... leaving the good woman in a state of stupefaction, since, for the first and only time in our long and controversial association, had I retired with the last word. Taking a second turn in the garden I encountered Malachy, and my conscience reproached me. "Am I doing ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... intellectual improvement. There would be little national hesitation of choice, (at least in the central regions of the dominion of this hateful imposture,) between the introduction of any general system of expedients for driving them from their stupefaction into something like thinking and learning, and a general plague, to rage as long as any remained for victims. [Footnote: In the interval since this was written, some change has taken place in favor of the admission of the elements of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... have found water at the period of great inundations. In proportion as the pools become dry, these animals penetrate into the mud, to seek that degree of humidity which gives flexibility to their skin and integuments. In this state of repose they are seized with stupefaction; but possibly they preserve a communication with the external air; and, however little that communication may be, it possibly suffices to keep up the respiration of an animal of the saurian family, provided with enormous pulmonary sacs, exerting no muscular motion, and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... late; the aneurism had burst, and the colonel was dead. I went into the adjoining room, and for two hours I did not dare to return. It is impossible for me to express all that I felt during that time. It was intense stupefaction, a kind of vague and vacant delirium. It seemed to me that I saw faces grinning on the walls; I heard muffled voices. The cries of the victim, the cries uttered before the struggle and during its wild moments ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... fibre, that evil tortures us like a diseased nerve; and it always will till we get rid of it. Therefore, Egbert, remember—O that I could burn it into your consciousness—the best that you can gain from your proposed evil course is a brief respite in base and sensual stupefaction, or equally artificial and unmanly excitement, and then endless waking, bitter memories, and torturing regret. Face this truth now, before it is too late. Good-by for a time. I will come again when I can; or you can send for me when you ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... thee: poison when she turns away?[21] Or hast thou never tasted nectar, even in a dream? Remember, sunset! And she shook at me her forefinger, and suddenly she opened the door, and slipped out, and shut it, and was gone; leaving me staring at it in stupefaction, and almost believing I was dreaming, so abruptly had she come and gone. And I said to myself in wonder: Beyond a doubt, she spoke at random, knowing nothing of my dream; and yet she made me jump, for her arrow hit the mark exactly ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... not an affair which can be arranged by a friendly agreement. Farewell! Good-day to you, too, gentlemen," he continued with the same dignity, turning to them all. "I hope that my plaint will lead to proper action being taken;" and out he went, leaving all present in a state of stupefaction. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... exit.) (A moments pause, during which Starkweather, Chalmers, and Hubbard look at each other in stupefaction.) ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... rides, sails, or walks. To the end of his life the hours of the night seemed to him quite as fit for any sort of occupation as those of the day, and it made little difference to him whether it was dark or light; indeed at one time, years later, when at Pre-Charmoy, he began, to the stupefaction of his country neighbors, to call upon them at nine or ten in the summer evenings, and then to propose a row on the pond or a walk by moonlight; but it happened not unfrequently that he could get no admittance, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... drifting rapidly away to leeward, and the full length of our warps was almost paid out; it was therefore imperative that the men on the wreck should act quickly. I shouted to them to this effect, and, awaking from the momentary stupefaction produced by the painfully sudden loss of their comrade, the remaining eight men made a dash for the brig's quarter, and succeeded in reaching it just as the vessel was uphove upon the crest of another tremendous sea. We saw ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... self-effacing that it is discoverable only by the sharpest-eyed of pilgrims. Narrow roadways, flanked by proportionately narrower pavements, lie ribbon-like between huddled shops and squarely-spacious Georgian houses; and an air of leisure and content, amounting almost to stupefaction, is the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... not matter—they went away," she answered. She was looking at me with wide-open eyes, in which I noticed the sincerest amazement, if not stupefaction. "Syvorotka, you! How perfectly crazy you look with this beard! If you only knew!" and silvery laughter unexpectedly sounded in my poor quarters—in this place of mourning and sorrow—for the first time since ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... this brigand, this scoundrel Macquart, whom Adelaide had chosen! In twenty months she had two children by him, first a boy and then a girl. There was no question of marriage between them. Never had the Faubourg beheld such audacious impropriety. The stupefaction was so great, the idea of Macquart having found a young and wealthy mistress so completely upset the gossips, that they even spoke gently of Adelaide. "Poor thing! She's gone quite mad," they would say. "If she had any relatives she would ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... who had been bitten by this reptile fell into a state of melancholia and stupefaction. While in this condition they were very susceptible to the influence of music. At the very first tone of a favorite melody, they sprang up, shouting for joy, and danced without intermission until they ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... the sole of the feet, to nail you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this nature, a sort of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful when the relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this was not stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her face seemed to say: 'What, is it you, my ideal! The creation of my thoughts, of my morning and evening dreams! What, are you there? Why this morning? Why not yesterday? Take me, I am thine, et cetera!' Good, I said to myself, another ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Senarega: 'The matter at first sight seemed praiseworthy, as regarding the honor done to our religion; yet it involved some amount of cruelty, if we look upon them, not as beasts, but as men, the handiwork of God.' A critic of this century can only exclaim with stupefaction: Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum! Thus Spain began to devour and depopulate herself. The curse which fell upon the Jew and Moor descended next upon philosopher and patriot. The very life of the nation, in its commerce, its industry, its free thought, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... bewildered manner of the passengers that he must have spoken the words aloud, and very quickly takes advantage of the conductor's call, "Saint-Philippe—Pantheon—Bastille—" to alight, feeling greatly confused, amid general stupefaction. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... and could scarcely keep back a chuckle of satisfaction. He longed to make Spruce understand what was going on, but that unfortunate individual was slightly stunned by Leach's heavy blow, and sitting on the grass with his head between his two hands, was gazing, in a kind of stupefaction at the 'new Missis'; so that any 'bellowing' into his ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Our stupefaction was complete when General St. Leger made a peculiar gesture, and straightway two soldiers led forward a half-grown man whose vacant look proclaimed him to be one of those unfortunates whom God has deprived of wits, and in his wake came ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... noticed the stupefaction produced by the injection of a fluid from the sting of certain insects before. It is particularly observable in a hymenopterous insect called the "plasterer" ('Pelopaeus Eckloni'), which in his habits resembles somewhat ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... In their utter stupefaction at the unexpectedness and seeming wildness of the statement, neither mother nor son could find a word to say. No more could Mr. Templeton for a moment. Then, suddenly, wrathfully: "What are you saying, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... could not cultivate, or had been forcibly deprived of their beards, were wont to go into battle clad in heavy false whiskers, which, when an enemy seized hold of them, came off instantly in his hand, and the ancient Egyptian was enabled to despatch him while in a trance of stupefaction and horror. Clean-shaved men became, by this cowardly stratagem, very much prized as fighting men, and thus the foundation of the shaving habit ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... incubus of babyhood that weighs so heavily upon them, they burst open the back door of their shell and slowly creep out backwards. It takes about five minutes for them to get entirely out, head, legs and all, and then for a moment or two they gaze in stupefaction at their old shell, amazed to find that they have, by their own efforts, unaided and alone, accomplished such a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... malefactors,—men, who had their minds seasoned with theories perfectly conformable to their practice, and who had always laughed at possession and prescription, and defied all the fundamental maxims of jurisprudence. To the horror and stupefaction of all the honest part of this nation, and indeed of all nations who are spectators, we have seen, on the credit of those very practices and principles, and to carry them further into effect, these very men placed on the sacred seat of justice in the capital city of your ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... men stared at him in silent stupefaction. He seemed about to pass them on his way to the waiting car, but then paused and confronted them, his head back. He ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... clouded. In regard to supersensible worlds he is like a person in the sense-world who makes observations in a state of lethargy. The latter, however, will not be able to make any statements of consequence, whereas the spiritual observer, even in his stupefaction, is more awake than a person in the ordinary state of consciousness, and the results of his observations will therefore be erroneous in regard to ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... soon as he had mastered his initial stupefaction, Amber stepped forward and past the girl, placing himself between her and this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He was neither overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he entertained a passing ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... The look of stupefaction, not to say consternation, on the faces of the new arrivals was patent to every man in the room—most patent and most unpalatable to the leader of the gang. Staupitz thrust his red, Teutonic face forward with a mocking look and a mocking ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... New Englander beside her out of his first momentary apathy of stupefaction. He now put his own competent hand to the helm ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... moment's stupefaction following on the horrid revelation, a murmur of indignation ran ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... inquiry had a singular, devastating effect upon her hearers. They looked upon each other with fallen jaws and complete stupefaction. The old man began to grow pale, and Parker glared about him with a wild eye. Fortunately, the editor was too busy at her work to notice their agitation; she applied herself to making alterations here and there, sometimes frowningly crossing out ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... own race, yet even among us large numbers of dabblers in this ancient art adopt some plan of self-hypnotization, such as the gazing at a bright spot or the repetition of some formula until a condition of semi-stupefaction is produced; while yet another school among them would endeavour to arrive at similar results by the use of some of the Indian systems of ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... the garden, occupied in weaving the belt of dragon-sinew. The stupefaction of Li Ching may be imagined. "You have brought most awful misfortunes upon us," he exclaimed. "Come and give an account of your conduct." "Have no fear," replied No-cha superciliously; "his son's sinews are still intact; I will give them back to him ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... 1787 by Don Diego Nicholas Eduardo, whose fine fronting staircase has been much admired. The Holy Tribunal broke up in 1820, when, the Constitution proving too strong for St. Dominic, the college-students mounted the belfry; and, amid the stupefaction of the shuddering multitude, joyously tolled its death-knell. All the material was sold, even the large leather chairs with gilt nails used for ecclesiastical sitting. 'God defend us from its resurrection,' mutters the civil old huissier, as he leads us to the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... mule, and help me fasten the chest upon him. We must reach higher ground before the waters overtake us. And now——" She turned to Freeman, who by this time was sitting up and regarding her with stupefaction. ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... dismiss that poor Dominic. She made no answer, gave no sign. She stood there lost in a vision—or was it a sensation?—of the most absorbing kind. I hurried out into the hall, shamefaced, as if I were making my escape while she wasn't looking. And yet I felt her looking fixedly at me, with a sort of stupefaction on her features—in her whole attitude—as though she had never even heard of such a thing as a kiss ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the helm. In half an hour Newton called the boy aft to steer the vessel, and lifted the trunk into the cabin below, where he found that Thompson had finished the major part of the contents of the mug, and was lying in a state of drunken stupefaction. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... just then I saw one of them unroll a sheet of paper and lay his finger down, as though identifying features in a map. Meanwhile a third was walking to and fro, poking among the rocks and peering over the edge into the water. While I was still watching them with the stupefaction of surprise, my mind hardly yet able to work on what my eyes reported, this third person suddenly stooped and summoned his companions with a cry so loud that it reached my ears upon the hill. The others ran to him, even dropping the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... found elsewhere in the country. Its marvel is of course the season which corresponds to our winter. The visitor coming, let us say in February, from the ice-bound and frost-locked East through the flat, dreary Middle West, and stalled possibly on the way, remains glued in stupefaction to the car window. In a very few hours he slides from the white, glittering snow-covered heights of the evergreen-packed Sierras through their purple, hazy, snow-filled depths into the sudden warmth ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... But the sympathy which softens affliction, and even soothes despair, was here unknown. Lady Bellingham's false views of religion had, indeed, so far skinned over the wounds of her ulcerated conscience, as to produce a stupefaction, which might last as long as health and prosperity continued. But when, what she conceived to be a supernatural visitation, had terrified her into a dangerous indisposition; the anchor of absolute election trembled in her grasp, and her bodily ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... megaphoned order. Again the peaceful street was thrown into panic by this snorting dragon from the outer world. The old men hobbled affrightedly within doors, the mothers saved their children. And this time, to the stupefaction of Merton Gill, even the old horse proved to be an actor of rare merits. As the car approached he seemed to suffer a painful shock. He tossed his aged head, kicked viciously with his rear feet, stood absurdly aloft on them, then turned and ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... beat the door and shutters with bludgeons and hatchets. Suddenly a light appeared from a window above, and Cortingos and his two friends were seen standing there. By the side of each stood a trooper, holding a rope with a noose round the prisoners' necks. For a moment there was a silence of stupefaction outside, followed by a yell of fury from the mob. Herrara went to the window and shouted: "My friends." Again there was a moment of silence, as each wanted to hear what he said. "My friends, at the first shot that is fired, or the first blow that is struck at the doors ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... reproduction of a melon; and inside this teapot a canvas bag containing ten guineas in silver, and a wash-leather bag containing twenty guineas in gold, and a slip of paper, which Rosa, being now half recovered from her stupefaction, read out to her father ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Parliament is to encourage the King to cast aside his evil counsellors, and come face to face with his loyal people. The student of Mr. Gardiner's account of the Benevolence will smile to think of the rage with which the King must have received Raleigh's proffered good advice, and of Raleigh's stupefaction at learning that his well-meant volume was forbidden to be printed. His manuscript, prepared for the press, still remains among the State Papers, and it was not until ten years after his death that it was first timidly issued under the imprints ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... mind, in a few days sent the manuscript of "The Luck of Roaring Camp" to the printer. He had not yet received the proof-sheets when he was suddenly summoned to the office of the publisher, whom he found standing the picture of dismay and anxiety with the proof before him. The indignation and stupefaction of the author can be well understood when he was told that the printer, instead of returning the proofs to him, submitted them to the publisher, with the emphatic declaration that the matter thereof was so indecent, irreligious, and improper that his proof- reader—a young ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the troops held in regard to the person of their chief. "See," said one, "he needed only the time necessary for the journey. That man must be a god."—"He is a devil rather," said the Austrians, whose stupefaction was indescribable. They had reached a point when many allowed the arms to be taken out of their hands without making the least resistance, or without even attempting to fly, so deep was their conviction that the Emperor and his guard were not men, and that sooner or later ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... heavy labour they broke up the sacred chains, detached the time-worn rivets, and dragged off the famous timber, the "Boise" of St. Nicaise, the palladium of the obnoxious parish. The next morning the gossips discovered to their stupefaction that there was no log to sit upon! Following a few traces that were left here and there, the horrified drapers and tanners found the smoking remnants of their cherished wood scattered in the square of St. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... ever seen in all my life! How could I have been so slow in grasping this great, bewildering truth? The prettiest woman I had ever looked upon! Of course I had known it from the first instant that I looked into her eyes, but I must have been existing in a state of stupefaction up to this ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... permits private judgment in spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are more reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have private judgment without its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by means of stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows that where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr. Gladstone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hursel." Then opening the door, he led the way, and ushered them into the presence of Sir Sampson, who was reclining in an easy chair, arrayed in a robe de chambre and nightcap. The opening of the door seemed to have broken his slumber; for, gazing around with a look of stupefaction, he demanded in a sleepy peevish ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... heard that?" asked Miller, with mingled wrath and stupefaction in his face,—wrath at the doctor's contemptuous disregard of all other opinions, and stupefaction at the suddenly presented view of ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... thought droll enough that the Minister and Prefect of Police should be imprisoned by the men who only the day before were their prisoners. Next day I went to see Savary, who had not yet recovered from the stupefaction caused by his extraordinary adventure. He was aware that his imprisonment; though it lasted only half an hour, was a subject of merriment to the Parisians. The Emperor, as I have already mentioned, left Moscow on the day when Mallet ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of general stupefaction, then a second "Ah!" of not less general satisfaction. Another bidder had presented himself! There was going to be a fight ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... upon you!" cried I, emerging from the temporary trance of stupefaction which seemed to have seized me while this frightful tragedy was in progress. "You have taken a human life, and branded yourselves as murderers. And for what? Simply because that poor craven of a fellow appropriated a small morsel of putrid meat and ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... his own bouquets, faded, stood in a glass; the ashes of a fire were barely cold; little scraps of paper strewed the hearth; already the room smelt musty. He went into the bedrooms, and with a feeling of stupefaction stood staring at the girls' beds, side by side against the wall. A bit of ribbon caught his eye; he picked it up and put it in his pocket—it was a piece of evidence that she had once existed. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... phenomenon has occurred; there has been a violent storm while you slept, and, strange to tell, it has rained pieces of broiled meat and fish, which now lie at the door!" The husband, still in a state of stupefaction from the bang, got up, went to the door, and seeing the provisions, was persuaded of the truth of his wife's story. The fish and flesh were gathered up, and he partook with much glee of the miraculous treat; but he still threatened ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Alec gazed at each other in stupefaction for a second, then Blue Bonnet glanced hastily about for Gertrudis. The change in the old woman was instantaneous. She turned to Blue Bonnet ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... held her friend, yet only, it seemed, for a stupefaction that was almost amusement. "Can you want or not want as you like? Where in the world, if you ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... this, in stupefaction Water stood; no words, no action, Now restrained her sobs of woe. Wine exclaims, "Why art thou dumb then? Without answer? Is it come then To thy ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... the effect of what he had said upon the girl. She turned deadly pale, and seemed about to sink upon the floor. Spikeman took her hand, which she no longer withdrew, but yielded passively, as if in a state of stupefaction, and pressing it within his own, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... it was, she must be going—her boat was not safe. At the same time she rose to go, or rather slid herself along the sofa, for rising was impossible. We sat like mannerless louts, in blank amazement. Davies at the outset had said, 'What's the matter?' in plain English, and then relapsed into stupefaction. I recovered myself the first, and protested in some awkward fashion about the cocoa, the time, the absence of fog. In trying to answer, her self-possession broke down, poor child, and her retreat became a blind flight, like that of a ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... he listened with stupefaction blended with fright as the scholars by turns unwound their bobbins. To think that to-morrow he must do the same! He never would be able. M. Tavernier frightened him very much, too. The yellow-complexioned ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... man has drained the dregs of the bitterness of life, hope and fear no longer exist in him, only indifference which produces stupefaction. ...
— Crankisms • Lisle de Vaux Matthewman
... mute stupefaction, embraced his old nurse, who was in a swoon; shook hands with his servants, who were bathed in tears, and followed the magistrate, who put him in a coach as a prisoner of state and had him driven at ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... thine importance," Khalid asks himself in the K. L. MS., "when a little ptomaine in thy cheese can poison the source of thy lofty contemplations? Why this inflated conception of thy Me, when an infusion of poppy seeds might lull it to sleep, even to stupefaction? What avails thy logic when a little of the Mandragora can melt the material universe into golden, unfolding infinities of dreams? Why take thyself so seriously when a leaf of henbane, taken by mistake in thy salad, can destroy thee? But the soul is not dependent ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... when he was supping at the Cafe de Paris, he threw all the plates out the window. It cost him twenty thousand francs. Bravo! One morning gossiping Paris learned with stupefaction that he had eloped to Italy with the wife of X—-, the banker, a lady nineteen years married. He fought a duel, and killed his man. The week after, he was wounded in another. He was a hero! On one occasion he went to Baden, where he broke ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... his influence by a mere effusion of paradox. He was a brilliant writer, who would have been admired in any language, but whose appearance in a literature so stiff and dead as that of Holland in the 'fifties was dazzling enough to produce a sort of awe and stupefaction. The posthumous correspondence of Busken-Huet has been published, and adds to our impression of the vitality and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... appreciation. The young man regarded the ponderous figure of Carrington with something approaching stupefaction over the sheer bravado of ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... curved sides of George's wife's lemonade-glass; Aunt Em's shattered souvenir pitcher; Abbie Carter's cracker-jar with its smashed wheat-heads. Myra only looked bewilderedly; but on Nell's gaping face apprehension succeeded stupefaction and dissolved in its turn into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the origin of this fete which caused such stupefaction in the Bohemian world across the water. For about a year past, Marcel and Rodolphe had announced this sumptuous gala which was always to take place "next Saturday," but painful circumstances had obliged their ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... around her waist, and his lips so closely pressed to hers, that through her soft thick hair she could feel the throbbing of his temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he waked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter though not incensed stupefaction—to stammer: ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... their instincts, rouse them from their stupefaction; and both, turning from the direction of the danger, looked to the other ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... accompanied my father, and saw placid Luther's cows, placid as himself, with their broad, wet noses, amiable dark eyes, questionable horns, and ambrosial breath. Mr. Tappan, our landlord, had horses, and once he mounted me on the bare back of one of the largest of these quadrupeds, which, to the stupefaction of everybody, instantly set off at full gallop. Down the road we thundered, the rider, with his legs sticking out at right angles, screaming with joy, for this transcended any rocking-horse experiences. A hundred yards away there was a bend in the road. Just at that point there was a manure-pile, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... a minute in a state of stupefaction. The beast, whatever it was, clawed at the interior of the dome, and then something flapped almost into his face, and he saw the momentary gleam of starlight on a skin like oiled leather. His water-bottle was knocked off his little ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... that they are getting out of hand; he knows then that it is time he threw them a bun. So he says a soothing word to each of them and runs his pen savagely through almost everything on their papers. The bears growl in stupefaction and rage, and take deep breaths to begin again. But meanwhile the keeper has shouted for a fresh set of bears, who surge wildly into the room. The old bears are swept aside and creep out, grunting. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... the general stupefaction I told them what I knew, and what good fortune had enabled me to ascertain. I told them how I had overheard the plan of Faruskiar and his Mongols, when it was too late to stop it, but I was silent regarding the intervention of ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... year since we had driven to Laleham with darling Tommy[38] and the other two boys to see Basil's[37] grave; and now we went to see his grave, poor darling." "I cannot write Budge's[39] name without stopping to look at it in stupefaction ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... marks of impatience, and adds, 'write a few kind words to Phillimore, for he really loves you and feels this matter deeply.' Oxford, scene of so many agitations for a score of years past, was once more seized with consternation, stupefaction, enthusiasm. A few private copies of the draft were sent down from London for criticism. On the vice-chancellor it left 'an impression of sorrow and sad anticipations'; it opened deplorable prospects for the university, for the church, for religion, for righteousness. The dean of Christ ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... that mirror; and I can say that I saw for once in my life the perfect image of stupefaction. But I made proper allowance for myself; I approved myself for being so stupefied by a really ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... D'Artagnan looked with stupefaction at a man who thus employed the unlimited power with which he was clothed by the confidence of a king in the prosecution of his intrigues. Buckingham saw by the expression of the young man's face what was passing in his ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one wheel of the omnibus to finish when Miles came hurrying toward them. There was an expression on his face which neither of the twins could comprehend. It was a blending of fear, joy and stupefaction. ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... of the Spaniard's stupefaction, he raised the barrow by the shafts with his robust arms and prepared to fling it down, calling in thundering tones as it left his grasp, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... enough to rouse him from his state of stupefaction a little more, and then as he straightened his neck and looked about he fully awoke ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... a minute or two of stupefaction, they thought again of the desperateness of their situation, and turned from staring at the strange idol to consider what they ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the stairs, finger on lip. "Hush! Don't make any more noise than you can help. Mother's still asleep." At his gaze of stupefaction she broke into her charming light laugh, "Why, I always seem to strike you speechless. What's ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... any one in all Rouen was in the secret of the deep game which Cauchon was playing except the Cardinal of Winchester. Then you can imagine the astonishment and stupefaction of that vast mob gathered there and those crowds of churchmen assembled on the two platforms, when they saw Joan of Arc moving away, alive and whole—slipping out of their grip at last, after all this tedious waiting, all ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... There happened on that day what twice more in this war snatched victory from him—the general had underestimated his enemy and had expected the impossible from his own brave army. After a short period of stupefaction Frederick arose with new strength. Instead of an aggressive war, he had been forced to wage a desperate war of defense. His foes attacked his little country from all sides. He entered upon a death struggle with every great power ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... was not in a condition to throw much light upon the affair, being dazed and confused. When she recovers from her temporary stupefaction she may be able to give the police a clew that will lead to the arrest of the man who ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... presence somewhat unpleasantly felt by a choking sensation, the herald of epilepsy. But if it reaches such strength as to attack the heads of men when they are wide awake, then their minds grow dull with a sudden cloud of stupefaction and they fall to the ground, their bodies swooning as in death, their spirit fainting within them. Men of our race have styled it not only the 'Great sickness' and the 'Comitial sickness', but also the 'Divine sickness', ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... chemist who subjected to hydrofluoric acid, to chloride of nitrogen, and to the action of the voltaic battery the mysterious "magic skin" of Raphael de Valentin. To his stupefaction the savant wrought no change on the tissue. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... gaped at him and at each other, and to our imagination his appeal had almost the force of a command. "I wonder if half-a-crown would help?" I privately wailed. And our fasting botanist went limping away through the park with the grace of controlled stupefaction ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... religious teaching; the first and last, and fatalest sign of it, is that "puffing up." Your converted children, who teach their parents; your converted convicts, who teach honest men; your converted dunces, who, having lived in cretinous stupefaction half their lives, suddenly awaking to the fact of there being a God, fancy themselves therefore His peculiar people and messengers; your sectarians of every species, small and great, Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low, in so far as they ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for; again fraud; again the universal stupefaction ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... on past the central apparatus toward the back wall. The men followed him. Then as they rounded the apparatus and saw for the first time the incredible things lining that rear wall, tier upon tier, they stopped short in utter stupefaction. Before them was Life, but Life so hideously and abysmally alien that their brains ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... this unwontedly long speech. A dumb sense of stupefaction seemed to possess the priest, and he passed his shrunken hands before his eyes as if he would brush ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... excitement, stood aside and awaited her orders. But when, as she was about to leave the room, they stopped her to ask for instructions, for the first time in her life the despotic old maid, who saw to everything at Prebaudet with her own eyes, said, to their stupefaction, "Do what you like." This from a mistress who carried her administration to the point of counting her fruits, and marking them so as to order their consumption according to the ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... lion, with a terrible gesture, "if I am not master of myself, I will be, I promise you, of those who do me outrage. Come with me, M. d'Artagnan, come." And he quitted the room in the midst of a general stupefaction and dismay. The king hastily descended the staircase, and was about ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... first stupefaction, however, the Pasteur could not conceal his innocent joy. A legacy of L200, a trusteeship "of the most important," as he called it, and an allowance of L100 for years to come, were to him wonderful ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... the Mantak al-Tayr (Colloquy of the Flyers) the Birds, emblems of souls, seeking the presence of the gigantic feathered biped Simurgh, their god, traverse seven Seas (according to others seven Wadys) of Search, of Love, of Knowledge, of Competence, of Unity, of Stupefaction, and of Altruism (i.e. annihilation of self), the several stages of contemplative life. At last, standing upon the mysterious island of the Simurgh and "casting a clandestine glance at him they saw thirty birds[FN250] in him; and when they turned ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... men in a slightly better condition, but all more or less showing the same symptoms of stupefaction. Those that could mutter words said that it was an irresistible passion that they could never stop. The opium gave them no dreams, they told me, but a delicious feeling of absolute contentment and happiness, which they could never ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... her with YOU?" she exclaimed in droll stupefaction. "Take care you don't have, before you go much further, rather more of all ces dames than you may know what to ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... to Hutchinson; he had the short-breathed, eager manner of a man who bore tidings of an unusual nature; his gestures were short and expressive of subconscious restraint The manager of the pool room stood listening, a look of stupefaction upon his face; and as Bat watched, he put out his hand and touched the other as though to assure himself that the situation was a reality and not a thing of the imagination. Then he emerged from his dazed state, becoming immediately ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... a fuss," I said, "I'll give you an ostrich in place of your goose!" While she sat upon the cot and, to my stupefaction, bewailed the death of the goose, Proselenos came in with the materials for the sacrifice. Seeing the dead goose and inquiring the cause of her grief, she herself commenced to weep more violently still and to commiserate ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... am still dazed by it. I suppose the sharper grief will come when this dull, unreal sense of stupefaction wears away. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... would choke up my mouth and eyes, and seal me into silence forever! My mind quailed at this idea—my brain tottered on the verge of madness! I laughed—think of it!—and my laugh sounded in my ears like the last rattle in the throat of a dying man. But I could breathe more easily—even in the stupefaction of my fears—I was conscious of air. Yes!—the blessed air had rushed in somehow. Revived and encouraged as I recognized this fact, I felt with both hands till I found the crevice I had made, and then with frantic haste and strength ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... of his russet face looked like a layer of dirt upon a super-whited skin. He scarcely seemed to breathe, so still he sat. As yet his despair was so terrible that his mind and heart were numbed to a sort of stupefaction, deadening the horror ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... recover somewhat from my stupefaction, and to realize the magnitude of my loss, the misery of it almost drove me mad. I wished that I had never made this fatal discovery, that I might have continued still hoping and dreaming, and wearing out my heart with striving after the impossible, since any fate would have been preferable ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... of these things, and Mary's expressions, impressed on my mind, almost bereaved me of my senses, and left me in such a state of stupefaction that I seemed to have no manner of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... house, that used to be so thronged, now empty since the Opera begun; and so will continue for a while, I believe. Called at my father's, and there I heard that my uncle Robert—[Robert Pepys, of Brampton, who died on the following day.]—continues to have his fits of stupefaction every day for 10 or 12 hours together. From thence to the Exchange at night, and then went with my uncle Wight to the Mitre and were merry, but he takes it very ill that my father would go out of town to Brampton on this occasion and would not ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... last two centuries, when torturing the accused was in vogue, some individuals were found to be insensible to the most fearful tortures, and some even, who were plunged into a species of somnolence or stupefaction, slept in the hands of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... by dawn of the 2nd of December; all the leading men of the assembly were arrested; Paris was filled with troops. After struggles on the part of the assembly, and many casualties in the streets, the eventful day of the 2nd of December wore away. On the 3rd the people awoke from the stupefaction with which the suddenness of the coup struck them, and preparations were made by the republicans and red republicans for resistance. On the 4th that resistance was offered; barricades were erected, and every token of a fierce contest ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... years, Cansu Alguri quailed before the outburst of popular fury. He ordered Tangriberdy to conduct the obnoxious visitor from the capital without further delay. Peter Martyr, however, received this intimation with unruffled calm and, to the stupefaction of Tangriberdy, refused to leave until he had accomplished his mission. Such audacity in a mild-mannered ecclesiastic was as impressive as it was unexpected. The Grand Dragoman had no choice but to report the refusal to the Sultan. By what arguments he prevailed upon Cansu Alguri to rescind his ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... so lightly and so daintily Kelley stared in stupefaction. "Guess I've miscalculated somewhere. Old Harf must have more drag into him than I made out. How did the old seed get a woman like that? 'Pears like he's the champion hypnotic spieler when it comes ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... but she had not been a week in her sordid London lodgings with the woman she calls Mrs. Quickly, before she blundered in her innocent German way—into the lodging-house kitchen. Figure to yourself the stupefaction and the indignation of Mrs. Quickly, probably engaged, though the Idealist does not say so, in dining off the foreign woman's beef. "I went down to the kitchen," says Fraeulein von Meysenbug, "with a muslin gown on my arm to ask for an iron so that ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Stupefaction! terror! I sat overwhelmed as if with a sudden deadly blow. What! that which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had had the audacity ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Bishop ran his knife into the calf's-head, the Devil changed it to the head of Hans Ruprecht, which, wild, horrible, and bloody, now stared the Bishop in the face. His reverence let fall his knife, and sank back in a feinting fit; while the whole company sat in lifeless horror and stupefaction. ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger |
