"Insensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sincerity. His constancy in suffering so astounded his judges that they believed him supported by witchcraft. "Ecce homo!" he exclaimed, from time to time, with insane blasphemy, as he raised his blood-streaming head from the bench. In order to destroy the charm which seemed to render him insensible to pain, they sent for the shirt of a hospital patient, supposed to be a sorcerer. When clothed in this garment, however, Balthazar was none the less superior to the arts of the tormentors, enduring ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... confederates without curtailing or cheating them of what he had promised, and in particular had fought to secure the agrarian law proposed in the interest of Pompeius, just as if the case had been his own, with dexterity and energy; Pompeius was not insensible to upright dealing and good faith, and was kindly disposed towards the man who had helped him to get quit at a blow of the sorry part of a suppliant which he had been playing for three years. Frequent and familiar intercourse ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... articulate, churned him to a frenzy. Seizing the coffee pot which he had replaced on the gas stove he hurled it too against the wall. It struck, splathered the hideous liquor over a hideous calsomining which had once been blue, and fell to the floor like a living thing knocked insensible. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... of the old Calvinistic divines, that the doctrine of the Trinity should have been less and less frequently mentioned, that at last it should have ceased to be mentioned, and that thus, in the course of years, preachers and hearers should, by insensible degrees, have become first Arians, then, perhaps, Socinians. I know that this explanation has been treated with disdain by people profoundly ignorant of the history of English nonconformity. I see that my right honourable friend near me (Mr Fox Maule.) does not assent to it. Will he permit ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... service of a hasty master, yet there be occupations—How now, brother?" said he, interrupting his harangue to look towards Isaac, who had but glanced at the scroll which Higg offered, when, uttering a deep groan, he fell from his mule like a dying man, and lay for a minute insensible. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... overlooking the ocean, in the paths of the forest or on the mountain side. My brother was not of this order. That he was primarily and essentially a poet of humanity and not of nature does not argue that he was insensible to natural beauty or natural grandeur. Nobody could have been more keenly susceptible to the influences of nature in their temperamental effect, and perhaps this may explain that he did not love nature the less but that he prized companionship more. If nature pleased ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... great man, they a disobedient child; we track him through his glory, they are wearied by the sullen resistance of one who is obscure and seems useless. The career of genius is rarely that of fortune or happiness; and the father, who himself may not be insensible to glory, dreads lest his son be found among that obscure multitude, that populace of mean artists, self-deluded yet self-dissatisfied, who must expire at the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... glow of enthusiasm, the pride of virtue, which made our hero brave, could not render him insensible. As he drew nearer home, many melancholy thoughts pressed upon his heart. He passed the door of his own cottage with resolute steps, however, and went through the village in search of the man who had engaged to be his substitute. He found him, told him how the matter stood; and luckily the man, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... who was not insensible himself to Sara's delightfulness, "the British public is absurdly fond of a love-match. They adore a sentimental Prime Minister. They want to see him either marrying for love, or jilted in his youth for a richer man. These things enlist the popular sympathy. What made ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... reason appears, to those who have the least spark of humanity, by far the most dreadful; and they behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper commiseration than any other. But the poor wretch who is in it laughs and sings, perhaps, and is altogether insensible to his own misery. The anguish which humanity feels, therefore, at the sight of such an object cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must arise ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... piano charmingly: she had a delicate, firm touch: with her little head bowed over the keyboard, and her hands poised above it and darting down, she was like a pecking hen. She was talented and knew more about music than most Frenchwomen, but she was as insensible as a fish to the deeper meaning of music: to her it was only a succession of notes, rhythms, and degrees of sound, to which she listened or reproduced carefully: she never looked for the soul in it, having no use for it herself. This amiable, intelligent, simple woman, who was always ready to do ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... I am loth to say no to so gracious an invitation. Believe me, I am not insensible of the graciousness that prompts it. Ah, here we are in sight of the Abbey. I shall stand and watch till I see you safe within ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... companions, which was very heavy with a nervous and sensitive boy like myself. But though I had all through my attendance on the revival meetings earnestly desired to attain to that exaltation, and considered it an indication of my graceless state, that I was so insensible to the "spirit," which was another term for the frenzy, I found it impossible to provoke it. It is a curious subject, this usurpation of the reasoning faculties by the irrational, which is permitted when religion becomes emotional, either in the revolutionary condition of the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... her and me. The will of one woman came between and parted us, and that will was as the magic line over which no effort of will or strength could enable the enchanted knight to make a single stride. And this consciousness of being fettered by insensible and infrangible bonds, this need of doing something with nothing tangible in the reach of the outstretched hand, so worked upon my mind, that it naturally sought relief, as often as the elemental strife ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... distasteful after dinner to do anything but read, or walk the streets aimlessly, until it was time to go to the play. When that was over, he was in no mood to go anywhere but to his rooms. So he dropped away by insensible degrees from his habitual haunts, was missed, and began to be talked about at the club. Catching some intimation of this, he ventured no more in the orchestra stalls, but shrouded himself behind the draperies of the private box in which Delaney and I thought ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... hoped, as he recognized the familiar names, that Dr. Armitage's absence would be indefinitely prolonged. He glanced into the room where Ben Phillips lay. He was insensible, and had been from the first. Two more physicians were in attendance there, but seemed to be doing nothing, and shook their heads very gravely in answer to Theodore's inquiring look. Mr. Phillips had been seen down town, ...
— Three People • Pansy
... natural domestic affections, must, for the most part, afford the greatest good of which they are capable. To the evils which sometimes attend their matrimonial connections, arising from their looser morality, slaves, for obvious reasons, are comparatively insensible. I am no apologist of vice, nor would I extenuate the conduct of the profligate and unfeeling, who would violate the sanctity of even these engagements, and occasion the pain which such violations no doubt do often inflict. Yet such is the truth, and we ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... showed quod est, not quid est, that it was, but not what it was; secondly, that such demonstration was against the nature of a man's soul, being a spirit; for as a thing, being sensible, was subject to the sense, so man's soul, being insensible, was to be discerned by the spirit. Nothing more certain in the world than that there is a God, yet being a spirit, to subject him to the sense otherwise ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... replied the King, when once a Woman has charmed the Mind, she soon makes her Way to the Heart, and since the Queen has been pleased to return me mine, which I had so affectionately given her, I will be always upon my Guard to keep it free and insensible. ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... tenderness, in which alone at certain hours of torment the distracted mind finds God's face reflected. It preaches renunciation of all vain aversions and desires; but it repels sweet impulses that are not vain. By exalting apathy in regard to personal suffering, it becomes insensible to others' pain also. In the conviction that appeals for sympathy are avowals of unworthiness, it will have no part in the love of comrades, and it never discovered the truth that the strength and the compassion of the ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... leisurely to make the necessary arrangements for departure. As the time drew on, however, a perpetual flush on his countenance, and an unusual brilliancy about his eye, showed that he was not quite insensible to the pleasures of a change, and relished the idea more than he got credit for. The Indian who had brought the letter was ordered to hold himself in readiness to retrace his steps, and conduct the young men through the woods to Norway House, where they were to await further orders. ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... for from Jorgenson. She expected him to vanish, indifferent, like a phantom of the dead carrying off the appropriately dead watch in his hand for some unearthly purpose. Jorgenson didn't move. His was an insensible, almost a senseless presence! Nothing could be extorted from it. But a wave of anguish as confused as all her other sensations swept Mrs. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... the enthusiasm of his own oratory, riveted themselves on the arm-chair. (It could not properly be said that his eyes riveted themselves on Trenta, for he was stooping down, his face covered with his hands, altogether insensible to any possible appeal that might be addressed to him.) "I, Manfredi Marescotti, consecrated priest of the people"—and the count drew himself up to the full height of his lofty figure—"I am as devoted to my cause—God is ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... the victim, where it soon took effect, producing dreadful ulceration and intolerable pain. The infection of the venom after a short time pervaded the whole system of the sufferer, and brought him to the brink of the grave; and at last, finding that he was speechless, and apparently insensible, his ruthless murderers, fearing, perhaps, that he might revive again, hurried him to the funeral pile before life was extinct, and the fire finished the work that ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... uttered no word of recognition or surprise. He gave Davidson only a dumb look of unutterable awe, then, as if possessed with a sudden fury, started tearing open the front of the girls dress. She remained insensible under his hands, and Heyst let out a groan which made Davidson shudder inwardly the heavy plaint of a man who falls ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the pavement. I was disappointed in many of the public buildings; I would be understood, however, to refer to them only as works of architecture, for to the interest attaching to their historical associations I could not be insensible. Protestantism has built no churches. St. Paul's is its best effort, and that is a failure. It is, indeed, a wonderful building, considered per se, but compare it with the Continental cathedrals, or with York Minster. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Yet the swells were terrific, and carried them onward with fearful velocity—where, only the All-seeing knew—and when the dawn appeared in the east, exhausted, chilled to the heart, bruised and nearly naked, Phil and his insensible companion were flung ashore like two poor fragments of stranded sea-weed. He had just strength enough left to crawl up out of reach of the breakers, and that ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... revealing at a glance that outline of the criminal skull, which is so common among them. The Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and convenient example of all our current laws about education, sport, liquor and liberty in general. Well, the law has passed and the masses, insensible to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The ignorant peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with nothing to flap. Her father, his mind already poisoned by Bolshevists, begins to wonder ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... mind, incapable of discriminating excellence from inferiority proved incontrovertibly that a right sense of art in the spectator can only be acquired by long and frequent observation, and that without proper opportunities to improve the mind and the eye, a nation would continue insensible of the true value of the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... I sat by the window, insensible to the charms without, which had before been so fascinating, when I was suddenly aroused by the opening of the door. I looked around, and saw Don Pedro. 'Where's Donna Clara?' ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... not trouble to pay me compliments; I assure you I am by no means insensible of my merits. But with regard to Walter Hornby, I should be sorry to apply the term 'mercenary' to him, and yet—well, I have never met a young man who showed a stronger appreciation of the value of ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... "let me have your proposal for putting an end to our present way of living first, for that is the case before us, and you and I will talk of the other afterwards. I am not so insensible," said I, "as you may think me to be. But let us get out of this hellish condition ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... ignoble of mankind. Yet the intellect of Guildford was clear, his industry great, his proficiency in letters and science respectable, and his legal learning more than respectable. His faults were selfishness, cowardice, and meanness. He was not insensible to the power of female beauty, nor averse from excess in wine. Yet neither wine nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine, even in his earliest youth, into one fit of indiscreet generosity. Though of noble descent, he rose in his profession by paying ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Securing a rope round his body, while some of the crew on whom he could depend held on, he boldly threw himself into the midst of the smoke. Not a quarter of a minute had passed before he sang out to be hauled up again. When he reappeared he was insensible, and it was some time before he recovered. They brought him up to the forecastle close to me, and the first words I heard which he uttered were: "She's all on fire below, and I doubt if ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... addressed him, and to see the affectionate deference with which he appealed to Red, until that worthy was drawn into the conversation. When Black succeeded in this latter-named operation, he would, by insensible stages, draw himself away, and give himself up to enthusiastic admiration of his partner, or, apparently, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... understand that," replied the monk, who had known Alessandro since he was a little fellow playing in the corridors of San Luis Rey, the pet of all the Brothers there. "That is quite right of you, and the Senora will not be insensible of it. It is not for such things that money can pay. They are indeed in great trouble now, and only the two women in the house; and I must soon be going ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... continued dancing, regardless of the by-standers, for hours together in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterward asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... back. Bowers organised a sledge party in three minutes, and fortunately Atkinson was on the spot and able to join it. I posted out over the land and found Ponting much distressed and Clissold practically insensible. At this moment the Hut Point ponies were approaching and I ran over to intercept one in case of necessity. But the man party was on the spot first, and after putting the patient in a sleeping-bag, quickly brought him home to the hut. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... he was sent for, and was making his way with a heavy load up the companion ladder, when a sudden heave of the vessel threw it over him, and he fell to the bottom. He was stunned with the fall and lay insensible for awhile—how long he could not tell—but he recovered after some time, and the ladder being jerked back into its place, he scrambled up on deck. He saw no one. On looking over the side he discovered the boat, with the captain and crew, pulling away a few fathoms off. He shouted to ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... offenses against the white man." These things occurred shortly prior to the Tippecanoe campaign, but a condition similar to this had existed for some time before the Treaty of Fort Wayne. The Governor was not insensible to the true state of affairs. He once said: "I wish I could say the Indians were treated with justice and propriety on all occasions by our citizens, but it is far otherwise. They are often abused and maltreated, and it is rare that they obtain any satisfaction ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... any single one as definitely concluding the life of the ancient world, and marking the beginning of what St. Augustine for the first time called by the name, which has ever since adhered to it, of the Middle Age. The old world slid into the new through insensible gradations. In nearly all Latin literature after Virgil we may find traces or premonitions of mediaevalism, and after mediaevalism was established it long retained, if it ever wholly lost, traces of the classical tradition. Thus, while the beginning of Latin literature may be definitely ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... abstract arguments, by which the study of physical science may be shown to be indispensable to the complete training of the human mind; but I do not wish it to be supposed that, because I happen to be devoted to more or less abstract and "unpractical" pursuits, I am insensible to the weight which ought to be attached to that which has been said to be the English conception of Paradise—namely, "getting on." I look upon it, that "getting on" is a very important matter indeed. I do not mean merely for the sake of the coarse and tangible results of success, but because ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... woman was ever courted more passionately than she has been by me. As Rousseau said of Madame d'Houptot (forgive the allusion) my heart has found a tongue in speaking to her, and I have talked to her the divine language of love. Yet she says, she is insensible to it. Am I to believe her or you? You—for I wish it and wish it to madness, now that I am like to be free, and to have it in my power to say to her without a possibility of suspicion, "Sarah, will you be mine?" When I sometimes think of the time I first saw the sweet apparition, ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... feeling changed; Amabel became more reserved, and held little intercourse with Leonard, who, busied with his own concerns, thought little about her. But, as he grew towards manhood, he could not remain insensible to her extraordinary beauty—for extraordinary it was, and such as to attract admiration wherever she went, so that the "Grocer's Daughter" became the toast among the ruffling gallants of the town, many of whom sought to obtain speech with her. Her parents, however, were ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... nos sens, notre intelligence ne nous disoit pas, qu'il y a un saut, une distance meme infinie, entre le plus petit degre d'organization propageante, et la matiere unie par la simple cohesion: entre le plus petit degre de sensibilite, et la matiere insensible: entre la plus petite capacite d'observer et de transmettre ses observations, et l'instinct constamment le meme dans l'espece. Toutes ces differences tranchees existent dans la nature; mais notre incapacite de ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... despotism! O abettor of Carthaginian faith! Blush! Can you for a moment suppose that the hearts of the yeomanry of America are becoming chilled and insensible to the feelings of insulted humanity like your own? Can you think that gratitude, the most endearing disposition of the human heart, is to be argued away by your dry sophistry? Do you suppose the people of the United States prudently thumb over Vattel and Pufendorf to ascertain the sum and ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... insensible to the sad plight of a widow in needy condition, but our pension laws should deal with soldiers' widows. I understand that only the existence of this relationship to a deceased soldier creates through him the Government's duty and ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... time, Stephen began to speak to Maria on behalf of Stent, the lady at last hinted that she had another attachment, and, on further pressure, it appeared that the object of the attachment was Stephen himself. He was not insensible, as he then discovered, to Maria's charms. 'I have been told,' he says, 'that no man can love two women at once; but I am confident that ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... eluding all pursuit, fled swiftly down the stair-case. I pressed my hand tightly on my throbbing head, and gaining the kitchen, burst suddenly in, exclaiming, "O! Jane! Jane! do not leave me again!" I sunk down insensible; and remember nothing but a scream of horror which proceeded from Jane, who, having just seated herself beside me as I sprang out of bed, had followed me in a state of breathless alarm to ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... go to the person of whom you want to hear, wherever he is, to see what he is doing, and then show you the person in the crystal. A dinahgurrerhlowah, or moolee, death-dealing stone, which is said to knock a person insensible, or strike him dead as lightning would by an ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... considerably less enthusiastic appraisal of freedom of speech and press. Thus while alluding to "the preferred position of freedom of speech in a society that cherishes liberty for all," Justice Reed went on to say, that this "does not require legislators to be insensible to claims by citizens to comfort and convenience. To enforce freedom of speech in disregard of the rights of others would be harsh and arbitrary in itself."[181] And Justice Frankfurter denied flatly the propriety ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... beneficially exerted. If the modesty which conceals the mysteries of love among civilized nations be the offspring only of their intellectual culture, it is not surprising that a wholly uninstructed people should be insensible to such a feeling, and in its unconsciousness should even have established public solemnities which would ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... a personal friend. This is my excuse (if one is needed) for giving you more fully than I otherwise should, my reasons for declining. Those reasons are not in any way connected with the parish at Wheathedge. I am not insensible to the attractions which the place possesses as a residence, nor to that which the parish possesses as a field of labor. But I resolved when I first entered the ministry that I would never preach as a candidate. I never have, and I ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... sell appeared at the house at an early hour, and these being purchased, he retired until about two hours after breakfast was concluded. By this time the whole family were insensible, and the thieves robbed the house at their leisure. None of these cases terminated fatally; but, from the instant that I heard of it, I made every cake-seller who appeared at the door devour one of his own cakes before I became a purchaser. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... loyal people of this great nation have enjoyed the blessings of our excellent Constitution too long and too well, to be insensible of its value or to permit its destruction. They have not yet been schooled to the heresy, that this noble Government is a mere myth, or that it is destitute of the inherent power of perpetuating its own existence. On the contrary, next to their religion, they love and cherish ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... and accomplished, but egregiously fond of admiration. To gratify this passion, he paid his addresses to Sempronia, whose beauty and fortune attracted a crowd of suitors, and made her the belle of the town in which she lived. The lady was not insensible of his attentions, and he succeeded in gaining the prize, for which so many had sighed in vain. His vanity was highly gratified with the preference he had obtained, and nothing could exceed his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... before the murderer succeeded in undoing the fastening, a crowd had collected with a policeman in its centre, and escape was out of the question. Only one shot had been fired, but at such close quarters that the bullet went through the body. John Forder was not dead, but lay on the grass insensible. He was carried into the house and the family physician summoned. The doctor sent for a specialist to assist him, and the two men consulted together. To the distracted woman they were able to give small comfort. The case at best was a doubtful one. There was some hope ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... infrequently happens that a patient is found in an insensible condition under circumstances which give no clue to the cause of his unconsciousness. He is usually removed to the nearest hospital, and the house-surgeon under whose charge he comes must exercise the greatest care and discretion ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... of terrible loss, I was proud and glad to have contented him. He talked to me intimately, and discussed my plans for the future. I was to enter college the next year, and he pointed out the fact, to which I was not insensible, that our old life at home would necessarily have been broken up when I left Belfield. He spoke of my pecuniary means, and frankly informed me that his property amounted to three hundred thousand dollars, and that this amount he had divided ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... however lauded and honored, is too often allied with ambition and selfishness to secure the highest favor of philosophers or Christians. It does not reveal the soul in its loftiest aspirations. Men of a coarser type are often most successful,—men insensible to pity and to reproach, whose greatest merit is in will, nerve, energy, and power of making rapid combinations. We revere the intellect of the Greeks more than that of the Romans, though they were inferior to the latter in military success. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... I could not be insensible to the beauties of the region, and in that mild atmosphere I could not help enjoying it. On the shore were the dwellings of wealthy men who spent their winters in this delightful locality. Soon we came to a house, on the ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... chiefly in her left leg and in her face—the lower part of her face. The surgeons, taking their cursory view of her, as they did of the rest of the sufferers, were not sparing in their remarks, for they believed her to be insensible. She had gathered that the leg was to be amputated, and that she would probably die under the operation—but her turn to be attended to was not yet. How she contrived to write she never knew, but she got a pen and ink brought to her, and did succeed in scrawling ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... were rustling, eyes challenging. But outside the light wind was singing in the palm trees, the warm air entered through the window beside him laden with the sweet perfumes of the tropics. The sky was as blue as heaven. He reflected gratefully that at least he had never grown insensible to the beauty of his island, never even contemplated deserting her for either the superior advantages or the superior dissipations of the great world. To live his life on Nevis and with Anne Percy! Oh God! He almost groaned aloud, and then came to himself ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... nights. Dizziness, violent headache, seeing spots before the eyes, nausea, and attempts at vomiting, usher in the attack. Compare it with heat prostration, and note the marked differences. The patient becomes suddenly and completely insensible, and falls to the ground, the face is flushed, the breathing is noisy and difficult, the pulse is strong, and the thermometer placed in the bowel registers 107 deg., 108 deg., or 110 deg. F., or rarely higher. The muscles are usually relaxed, but sometimes there are twitchings, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... sage, croupier or harridan—lend her what personality you please—Fate hath the reins and so the laugh of the universe. Ever at its rump, her pricks are insensible alike to kicks or kisses. Folly, sceptre or rake in hand, she stands or sprawls upon Eternity, bending the ages to her whim. And we, poor things, at once her instruments and butts, stumble about her business, thinking it ours, setting each other up, bringing each other low, spoking each other's ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... these spiritual assets, being of the nature of habit, are also bound to change character more or less radically, by insensible shifting of ground, but incontinently,—provided only that the conditions of life, and therefore the discipline of experience, undergo any substantial change. So the immediate interest shifts to the presumptive rate and character of those changes that are in prospect, due ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... gratitude in Sally's eyes was made clear to me, and a helpless rage at my own blindness, my own denseness, flooded my heart. George, because of some inborn fineness of perception, had discerned the existence of a sorrow in my wife to which I, the man whom she loved and who loved her, had been insensible. He had understood and had comforted—while I, engrossed in larger matters, had gone on my way unheeding and indifferent. Then the anger against myself turned blindly upon George, and I demanded passionately if he would stand forever in my ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... sympathy. Her beauty was without loveliness, her character without charm; every proportion in her form might allure the sensualist; but there stopped the fascination. The mind was trivial, though cunning and dissimulating; and the very evenness of her temper seemed but the clockwork of a heart insensible to its own movements. Vain in prosperity, what wonder that she was so abject in misfortune? What wonder that even while, in later and gloomier years, [Grafton, 806] accusing Richard III. of the murder of her royal sons, and knowing him, at least, the executioner ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... above the cassock of an abbe, and yet dreams of ambition and of glory fermented in my head, and quickened the beatings of my heart. Discontented with my obscurity, eager for fame, I thought of nothing but the means of acquiring it, and this idea made me insensible to all the pleasures and all the joys of life. The present was nothing to me; I existed only in the future; and that future lay before me robed in the most sombre colors. I was nearly thirty years ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of its unruly members transported to Siberia! This summary, informal mode of procedure seems to the peasants very satisfactory. They are at a loss to understand how a notorious culprit is allowed to "buy" an advocate to defend him, and are very insensible to the bought advocate's eloquence. To many of them, if I may trust to conversations which I have casually overheard in and around the courts, "buying an advocate" seems to be very much the same kind of operation as bribing ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... "Insensible to the seductions of Nymphs and Bacchantes, the hero devotes himself to the career of struggle and combat, at the end of which he glimpses across the flames of the funeral pyre ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... the professedly patriotic spokesman of the ill-conditioned proletariat in Coriolanus; "it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible.... Ay, and it makes men hate one another." For this distressing result of peace, the reason is given that in times of peace men have less need of one another than in seasons of war, and the crude argument closes with the cry: "The wars for my ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... own Misfortunes have made him insensible to mine— A Father sure will be more compassionate— Dear, dear Sir, sink the material Evidence, and bring him off at his Trial— Polly upon her Knees begs it ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... in the shadow of the fluttering violet arc light, with her eyes fastened to the silent, insensible windows. Ten minutes that seemed ten eternities went lagging by. Tears of disappointment rose to Patricia's eyes and she shivered as the gusts of west wind flung the drops from the saturated trees in a silver shower across ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... heart and spirit that he was possessed by and without another word led him to the room where the child lay dying. The struggle was nearly over and John was spared the awful hours of slow strangulation which had already done their work. She was not insensible. She held tight the hand of her mother, kneeling by her side, and gazed at John with eyes wearing a new, deep look as if a veil had been rent and she with open face saw things sweet and wonderful. Her pale, mute mouth smiled faintly ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... sympathy with our poor sufferers in Kansas. May God bless you for it! By doing this you will step to my side; perhaps you may share something of that abuse which they who "know, not what they do" heap upon all who so feel for the right. I assure you, dear friend, I am not insensible to the fiery darts which thus fly around ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the least sanguine. This hope was annulled when, not long after his intimacy at her father's house, she became engaged to young Lord Castleton. But he could not see Miss Trevanion with impunity (alas! who, with a heart yet free, could be insensible to attractions so winning?). He permitted the love—such love as his wild, half-educated, half-savage nature acknowledged—to creep into his soul, to master it; but he felt no hope, cherished no scheme while the young lord lived. With the death of her betrothed, Fanny ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... last of little Frank Holt if he had considered it long. The little fellow had fallen head foremost, and possibly had struck his head on one of the roots or sticks that had accumulated in the bottom of the pool, for when Davie brought him to the surface, he seemed quite insensible, and he struck out for the Ythan side of the pool. He did what he could for the boy, letting the water flow from his mouth and ears, and rubbing him rapidly for ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... that morning that he happened to have purchased a new and strong billycock the day before, else would that mace have sent him—as it had sent many a Saracen of old—to his long home. The blow effectually spoilt the billycock, however, and stretched its owner insensible on the floor. ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... those who have written upon him,[2] that this great artist never executed a drawing which could call a blush into the cheek of modesty. But those who have written upon George Cruikshank—and their name is legion—instead of beginning at the beginning, and thus tracing the gradual and almost insensible formation of his style, appear to me to have plunged as it were into medias res, and commenced at the point when he dropped caricature and became an illustrator of books. Book illustration was scarcely an art until George Cruikshank made it so; and the most interesting period ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... are all still alive, though poor Mr. Holland is, I fear, very little more than that. He was thrown from his carriage one evening last week, and brought home insensible. He is now in a raging fever, and very ill indeed. For once in their lives both doctors agree. He is delirious most of the time; and his delirium takes the very trying form which leads him to imagine that only mother can do any thing for him. The doctors think ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... the faces of these innocents, upturned to heaven in supplication and thankfulness, from the torch-flared countenances of blood and revenge which these retainers will turn on the heights of Tushielaw, in the presence of their master! Nor is my Parys insensible to this difference; but, wo for the force of education and habit over good hearts! Ask, my little Hector, of your Father in heaven that, if you live to be a Border chief, you may be loyal to your king, and a promoter of peace in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... parchmentlike person was Nugent Cassis, entirely colourless in himself and his outlook. The emotions of life never for an instant affected him. He was apparently insensible to pain, passion, triumph and disaster. His brain worked at one unvarying speed with clocklike regularity. He was always efficient, he was never inspired. He believed in himself and his judgments and doubted everyone else and their judgments. He was a machine, self-contrived, for the purpose ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... been taken to bring this poor country into ruin and disgrace, or they are of the number of those who have had a share in the actings and contrivances against it; for my lord, he must rather be an insensible stoic than an angry cynic, who can survey the measures of some men without horror and indignation—To see men act as if they had never taken an oath of fidelity to their king, whose interest is inseparable from that of his people, but had sworn to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... hand and pressed it in mute thankfulness. He was not insensible to the value of having so warm an advocate, so faithful an ally, always ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... living man proved very valuable, they could not be conducted with impunity, and were therefore not often repeated. The man operated upon was insensible for some time afterwards, and felt the effects for years. He was, however, cared for during the rest of his life, and was not expected to work. Moreover, every kind of comfort, luxury, and amusement was provided for him and for ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... manner in which Bosambo carried out this novel reform. There is the story of an Ochori wife-beater who, adjured by his chief, retired to slumber on his grievance, and came to his master the following morning with the information that he had not closed his eyes. Whereupon Bosambo clubbed him insensible, in order that Sanders's plan might have a ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... comfort is still rudimentary. He cannot warm himself before a group of statuary, or extract heat from a canvas by Raphael, nor keep his teeth from chattering by the exquisite view from the Boboli Gardens. The cold American is insensible to art, and shivers in the presence of the warmest historical associations. It is doubtful if there is a spot in Europe where he can be ordinarily warm in winter. The world, indeed, does not care whether he is warm or not, but it is a matter of great importance to him. As he wanders ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the thoughts of his sister, the more he affected to remain insensible to the natural seductions of his neighbor, to whom Lenaieff, on the contrary, addressed continually, in his soft and caressing voice, compliments upon compliments and madrigals ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... the eye of others, or, through guilt, shrink timidly from them, we flee to her for refuge. This affection is bestowed on the daughter with a fulness and a permanence, which she cannot comprehend, and remain still insensible. ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... disturbance as the city of London. He who states these things should be prepared with proofs. I am prepared with them.' He then went into a number of horrifying details, and concluded as follows: 'You say that the Irish are insensible to the benefits of the British constitution, and you withhold all these benefits from them. You goad them with harsh and cruel punishments, and a general infliction of insult is thrown upon the kingdom. I have seen, my lords, a conquered ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... night bore witness to his lonely grief. And it was to escape this loneliness—to forget for a brief time the sad memories of the past—that he went so often to Locust Grove, where as yet his child was the greater attraction, though he could not be insensible to the charms of Eugenia who spared no pains ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... that I am naturally led on to speak of I am no friend to I am not arguing the I am not ashamed to acknowledge I am not complaining of I am not denying that I am not disposed to deny I am not going to attempt to I am not here to defend the I am not insensible of I am not justifying the I am not speaking of exceptions. I am not trying to absolve I am obliged to mention I am perfectly astounded at I am perfectly confident that I am perfectly indifferent concerning I am persuaded that I am quite certain that I ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... preceding day. But night was approaching, and we had water enough in a rocky hollow, and also a cavern before which a large fire gave such warmth, that, in passing the night there in my cloak, I was quite insensible to a frost without, which, at the camp, at 4 P. M., had lowered the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer to 22 deg., or 10 deg. below ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... said, that if the seelie [Footnote 31: Simple.] King of France could cunningly have managed his fortune, he might verie well have made himselfe chiefe Steward of his Lords household, whose imagination conceived no other greatnesse than his Masters; we are all insensible of this kind of errour: an errour of great consequence and prejudice. But whosoever shall present unto his inward eyes, as it were in a Table, the Idea of the great image of our universall mother Nature, attired in her richest ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... reliance upon the great influence of that power to restore the relations of ancient friendship between the United States and France, and know, too, that our own pacific policy will be strictly adhered to until the national honor compels us to depart from it, we should be insensible to the exposed condition of our country and forget the lessons of experience if we did not efficiently and sedulously prepare for an adverse result. The peace of a nation does not depend exclusively upon ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... offends you, pluck it out; if your right arm offends you, cut it off. And if your reason offends you, become a Catholic. No, no, Lucy, I may have worshipped the Madonna in song, for how can a poet be insensible to the beauty of Catholic symbol and ritual? But a Jew I ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... count's steamboat waited for them. Without the loss of an instant, the carriage was placed on board and the two travellers embarked without delay. The boat was built for speed; her two paddle-wheels were like two wings with which she skimmed the water like a bird. Morrel was not insensible to that sensation of delight which is generally experienced in passing rapidly through the air, and the wind which occasionally raised the hair from his forehead seemed on the point of dispelling momentarily ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... valley. It was a keen frosty morning, showers of snow threatening us, but the sun bright and active. We had a task of twenty-one miles to perform in a short winter's day.... On a nearer approach the waters seemed to fall down a tall arch or niche that had shaped itself by insensible moulderings in the wall of an old castle. We left this spot with reluctance, but highly exhilarated.... It was bitter cold, the wind driving the snow behind us in the best style of a mountain storm. We soon reached an inn at a place called ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Corsican custom, his sister, in her indignation, carried away his black clothes, in order that he might not wear mourning for a dead man who had not been avenged. He was insensible to even this outrage, and rather than take down from the rack his father's gun, which was still loaded, he shut himself up, not daring to brave the looks of the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... insensible to this magic spectacle of the starry Heavens? Where is the mind that is not attracted to these enigmas? The intelligence of the amateur, the feminine, no less than the more material and prosaic masculine mind, is well adapted to the consideration of astronomical ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... a little in the shadow, and he, on his knees in the full moonlight, could not see that she had grown very pale in her tender repentance, and was too touched by his story to be able to speak. He thought that she was still insensible to his pleadings, and he joined ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... cask, and drawing forth the ghastly head of Lagrange. I held aloft the horrid trophy of my vengeance; there were the dull, staring eyes, the distorted features, and drops of wine oozed from between the set teeth. With a long, loud shriek, her ladyship fell to the ground insensible; muttering fierce curses on me, the Captain turned to raise her, and profiting by the opportunity, I escaped from the cellar and fled from the house. Making the best of my way to the 'Jolly Thieves,' in St. Giles, I sought safety and concealment there, where I had ample ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... small. The blow seemed to have no effect at all. Again and again he brought it down in an agony of haste lest his father should be strangled before the other was felled. At last he hit him with all his force behind the ear, and Graddy's grasp relaxed as he fell prone on the body of his insensible victim. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... deer and bear, of the two last however there are but few in their neighbourhood. they keep their powder in small japaned tin flasks which they obtain with their amunition from the traders; when they happen to have no ball or shot, they substitute gravel or peices of potmettal, and are insensible of the damage done thereby to their guns. The bow and arrow is the most common instrument among them, every man being furnished with them whether he has a gun or not; this instrument is imployed indiscriminately in hunting every species of ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... not be insensible or repugnant. RULE II. Pleadings must not be ambiguous or doubtful. RULE III. Pleadings must not be argumentative. RULE IV. Pleadings must not be hypothetical or in the alternative. RULE V. Pleadings must not be by way of recital, but must be positive. RULE VI. Things are to be pleaded according ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... "Why, thou insensible and unnatural animal! They are thy sisters, Alice and Edith: and do you not recognise behind them ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... me. When my comrade heard of it he wished me not to do any thing more, and that was my opinion. I could not, however, refrain from helping to the last, but I abandoned the watch, and so caused the mate to feel that we were not insensible, for there was nothing else to be done to him. He, nevertheless, invited us daily more than any one else. Finally, when the voyage was completed, there was no one, either captain, or mate, or sailor, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... bowed low, and answered, "Pardon me, O King, and deem me not insensible of thy royal munificence. I pray thee bestow the daughter of the princely Artaphernes upon one more worthy ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... aspect of the dauphine in tears, of his woe-begone courtiers, and of the two children of the Duchess de Berri, who, in their ignorance, found amusement in the novelty of every thing about them—to all this he was insensible, or at least resigned. But the sight of a bit of tri-colored ribbon, or a slight neglect of etiquette, was enough to excite his petulance. It was necessary, in the small town of L'Aigle, to have a square table made, according to court usage, for the dinner of a monarch who ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Candlestics; his Wig is caught up by one of them, and hangs dangling in the Air. All the Courtiers fall a laughing.—Menalcas unluckily loses his Feeling, but still retains the Use of his Ears. He is insensible that his Wig is taken off his Head; but yet is so happy as to hear the loud Mirth of the Courtiers, and has still so much good Humour left as to join in Company with them.—Menalcas plays at Backgammon.—He calls ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... was Jim Bosky, seemed, to the self-impanelled jury that spent its time sitting on the case, singularly insensible to his own advantages. Not only did he fail to take a proper pride in her beauty, but there were dark hints abroad that he had never tasted one of her pies. When delicately questioned on this point, at that stage of liquid refreshment ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... and hastened down the road towards the farm. He had clean forgotten his intention of bespeaking beds in the village; indeed, he walked as one insensible to all around him until he caught sight of the word GARAGE, painted in large white letters, illuminated by an electric lamp, over a gateway at the side of the road. Then he swung round and, passing through the gate, came to a lighted ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the whole treasury are his, by rights; and you must remember, Madam, that jewels may be very useful to you. You will have to work for Cacama, and unhappily there are many who are not insensible to bribes; and the possession of valuable jewels may enable you to be of great ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... endeavoured to hurry along Mrs Tarleton, but she appeared totally insensible to the dangerous position in which she and her niece were placed. Several bullets came whizzing by us, but she kept her head as erect as would the oldest veteran. I had almost to drag her on, and ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... but my watch, which I offered and he refused.—Once more, said he, will you tell? I have nothing to tell, said I. On with the rope, said the villain, and hoist away. The fellow with the noose came towards me, and I sprang overboard. They took me up, after some time, apparently insensible. They took off all my cloaths, and laid me on my back on deck, naked as I was born, except having a blanket thrown over me. Here I laid five hours without moving hand or foot. Meanwhile they robbed us of every thing of the least value. Against me they seemed to have a particular ...
— Piracy off the Florida Coast and Elsewhere • Samuel A. Green
... (fleet) steeds and which moves with swiftness. Having ascended to the top of a mountain, one should not cast one's eyes on the surface of the earth.[151] Seeing a man, even though travelling on a car, afflicted and rendered insensible by pain, the man of intelligence journeys on a car as long as there is a car path.[152] The man of learning, when he sees the car path end, abandons his car for going on. Even thus proceeds the man of intelligence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was blase, but he had a heart; his sympathies were slow, but he was not insensible to misfortune. Accordingly he responded with a cry of pity, running his eye over his friend to estimate the ravages of Temperance. Midway in its course his gaze halted, he passed a silk-gloved palm lightly across his brow, and looked again. A tiny head seemed to protrude from Bob's pocket, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach |
