"Motionless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... faint uproar. The beat has begun. We dismount from our elephants for a steady shot, leaving them behind us in a huge semicircle. Some of them scent danger, and twirl delicate trunks high in the air. They have "been there" before! The mahouts sit motionless as bronze figures—superb fellows, deeply learned in jungle-lore. The triangle's apex and flanks are in absolute silence, but the base is fiendish with uproar. Two hundred men are yelling and cursing, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... excitement. The castle was shedding its sides, lapsing, dwindling, landslipping—gone. O Nineveh! And now another—O Memphis? Rome?—yielded to the cataclysm. I listened to the jubilant screams of the children. What rapture, what wantoning! Motionless beside his work stood the builder of the cottage, gazing seaward, a pathetic little figure. I hoped the other children would have the decency not to exult over the unmaking of what he had made so well. This hope was not fulfilled. I had not ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... remaining stock still. His three attendants proposed to him once or twice that he should go to the King. He neither spoke nor stirred. I approached and made signs to him to go, then softly spoke to the same effect. Seeing that he still remained speechless and motionless, I made bold to take his arm, representing to him that sooner or later he must see the King, who expected him, and assuredly with the desire to see and embrace him. He cast upon me a look that pierced my soul and went away. I followed him some few steps ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... of the nocturnal visit of a vampyr. Your scepticism will abate pretty considerably, when you see him stealthily entering your room, yet are powerless under the fascination of his fixed and leaden eye—when you are conscious, as you lie motionless with terror, of his nearer and nearer approach,—when you feel his face, fresh with the smell of the grave, bent over your throat, while his keen teeth make a fine incision in your jugular, preparatively to his commencing his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree, and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ground, and lay quite motionless. ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as she stood, from time to time, beside the bed on which lay Genifrede. The room was so darkened that nothing was to be seen; but there she lay, breathing calmly, motionless, unconscious, while the blessings and hopes of her young life were falling fast into ruins around her. It seemed treacherous, cruel, thus to beguile her of that tremendous night—to let those last hours of the only ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... my words, placing the melon in Dost's lap; but the latter did not move or unclose his eyes, but sat there perfectly motionless, with the piece of the fruit in his lap, while I partook of mine, which was delicious in the extreme, and I enjoyed it as I saw how completely the people ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... of astonishment from Dicky. Mr. Gordon had reeled in his chair as if he were about to faint, then, with closed eyes and white lips, he sat motionless, gripping the table as ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... she carried her head, and the way her hair waved away from her, shapely forehead. He liked the quiet strength of the way her capable hands lay motionless in her lap when their services were not required. He liked to watch for the twinkle in her eye, and for the dimple in her cheek that told a smile was coming. He liked to hear her talk to Benny. He even liked to hear her talk to her father—when ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... circle for the night, the young being kept for safety within their ring, while others, grazing longer or wandering farther from the rest, were approaching the main herd. But nightfall coming upon them with dire magic turned them all to stone; and there they remain, sentient, yet motionless, awaiting the day of their release. By fancies like this we may convey the feeling of ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... attendant employed in the theatre used to come, in the costume of Mercury, to touch them with a red-hot iron to make sure that they were dead. If they moved, they were at once dispatched; if they remained icy-cold and motionless, a slave harpooned them with a hook, and dragged them through the mire of sand and blood to the narrow corridor, the porta libitinensis,—the portal of death,—whence they were flung into the spoliarium, so that their arms and clothing, at least, might be saved. Such were the ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... like cold iron. She did not move hand or foot; she sat motionless with pain and fear, yet what she feared she dared not think. When the bees'-wax was given her, she rose up from her chair, and stood gazing into Mrs. Lowndes' face as if she had ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... cannon; and the water flew up in a long white streak far past "The Curlew" as the big shot went driving by. The ship was within a mile and a half of her, and we here on the islet three-fourths of a mile away! Yet there stood "The Curlew" motionless on the waves; and there stood Capt. Mazard, waving his hat for us, his glass ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Hulda that her mother was deeply troubled, for she seated herself in her big arm-chair, and pushing aside her spinning-wheel, remained there silent and motionless. ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... southern sun to pour a blaze of light down to the sea marge, and gave glimpses far above of strange and stately trees lining the glens, and of a veil of perpetual mist which shrouded the inner summits; while up and down, between them and the mountain side, white fleecy clouds hung motionless in the burning air, increasing the impression of vastness and of solemn ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... be forgotten." At eleven o'clock, when the doctor left, I sent the nurse away for a couple of hours rest and took her place by the sick-bed. Lizzy, who had already begun to feel the effects of the morphine, lay motionless, and breathed somewhat heavily, but ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... slim stranger pushed forward his sallow head, with its long, lanky, and rusty black hair, between two Swiss Guards, and tried to squeeze between them. The Swiss at first stood motionless, and the stranger had actually succeeded in getting about half-way through. He was immediately in front of his Holiness, and staring at him with all his might. His Holiness saw this very peculiar face, and was so surprised that he uttered an involuntary exclamation, ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... a person was obliged to sit motionless in the sun for minutes in order to have his picture taken. The development of a century is exemplified in the "snapshot" of the present time. Photographic exposures outdoors at present are commonly one thousandth of a second, and indoors under modern artificial light miles of "moving-picture" ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... tickets, I buttoned up my coat to the throat, clutched my gun, put on my leather cap, and pulling it well down, stood up like a sentry before him. He held out his hand, deeming any remark superfluous, as his object in pausing before me must be obvious. But I stood motionless and silent, and in a moment he saw how it was with me. I ought to have spoken and told him the case, in plain, civil terms, and offered my dollar, and then waited the event. But I felt too wicked for that. He did not wait a great while, but spoke first himself; and in a gruff voice, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... saw a man. She did not scream with delight, as I suppose she should have done; she simply rose to her feet and waited in the fireplace till the door opened and Dic walked in. She did not go to him, but stood motionless till ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... was a sound of wheels in the corridor just outside the office door, followed by the sound of shuffling feet. Through the open door she could see two attendants wheeling a stretcher with a man lying motionless upon it. They waited in the hall outside under a gas-jet, which cast a flickering light upon the outstretched form. This was the next case, which had been waiting its turn while her husband was in the receiving ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... galloped across the prairie, and passed not fifty yards from the camp. A fine buck came in our direction, and two of the Indians who were left in charge started after him. They rushed in among us, and stood motionless with astonishment at finding neighbours they had not reckoned upon. We, however, gave them no time to recover from their surprise, our knives and tomahawks performed quickly and silently the work of death, and little remorse did we feel, after the scene we had witnessed in the morning. We would have ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... rested. Soon the laboring of heart and breath calmed to normal, so that she could not hear them. Then she lay perfectly motionless. With eyes shut she seemed still to look, and what she saw was the sunlight through the blood and flesh of her eyelids. It was red, as rare a hue as the blue of sky. So piercing did it grow that she had to shade her ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... after chair. They were all empty, and not till I reached the further corner did I find her, thrown at full length upon a couch, with her head buried in her arms, and motionless as any stone. Confused, appalled even, for I had never seen her otherwise than erect and mocking, I stumbled back, and would have fled, but that she suddenly arose, and flinging back her head, gave me one look, which I felt rather than saw, and bursting into a peal of laughter, ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... carried by the rush of the tides, or currents, till it reaches the comparatively deeper parts of the ocean, in which it can sink to the bottom, that is, to parts where there is a depth of about fourteen or fifteen fathoms, a depth at which the water is, usually, nearly motionless, and in which, of course, the finer particles of this detritus, or mud as we call ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... What was there to do? The snow continued to fall—a heap was rising around the kibitka. The horses stood motionless, hanging their heads and shivering ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... a moment later, a scene never to be forgotten met his gaze. One of his horses lay motionless on the ground, the other was struggling feebly to regain its feet, and Elizabeth was scrambling wildly out of the wagon. Rushing to her side, Luther drew her away from the floundering horse. A gust of rain ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... lighting on a fitting one. Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the window, and turned to where Mrs. Ray sat in her chair close by. How vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the lips that were wont to say, "God bless you!" how motionless lay the fingers that once spun with the old wheel ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... her as an angelic bete noir, of whom he was more afraid than of any other human being. He approached her in a sort of sidling stroll, as if he had no actual business with her, but thought of just asking whether she would sell her horse. He did not speak, and Kirsty sat motionless until he was near ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... circulation, he insisted on as many outdoor meals as possible, though spring had barely touched the woods and warmed the seas round that southern extremity of England. His daughter Barbara, a good-looking girl with heavy red hair and a face as grave as one of the garden statues, still sat almost motionless as a statue when her father rose. A fine tall figure in light clothes, with his white hair and mustache flying backwards rather fiercely from a face that was good-humored enough, for he carried his very wide Panama ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... standing in the study just as I had left her, standing as motionless and devoid of life as a statue of carven stone. I don't think she heard ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... to Heaven," exclaimed the attorney, alarmed, "I believe the man is dying—if not dead, he is motionless." ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... moment of seating himself, increasing in tired abstraction and dreaminess. Gradually overtaken by slumber, his flaxen head drooped, his whole lamb-like figure relaxed, and, half reclining against the ladder's foot, lay motionless, as some sugar-snow in March, which, softly stealing down over night, with its white placidity startles the brown farmer peering out from ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... yet lay motionless. So did my companion. I was right in one thing; he knew of my presence, else he would now rise and go his way. He knew of my presence, yet he did not speak; what was ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... currents. We took their direction with the compass, and some ran north-east, others east-north-east, though the general movement of the ocean, indicated by comparing the reckoning with the chronometrical longitude, continued to be south-east. It is very common to see a mass of motionless waters crossed by threads of water, which run in different directions, and we may daily observe this phenomenon on the surface of lakes; but it is much less frequent to find partial movements, impressed by local causes on small portions of waters in the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... detective had waited during nearly three hours, as motionless as the bench on which he was seated, and so absorbed in studying his case that he had thought neither of the cold nor of the flight of time, when a carriage drew up before the entrance of the prison, and M. d'Escorval alighted, followed by ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... few months previously. Her usual stealthy air had now developed into one of wary watchfulness, and the quiet noiselessness of her actions, her manner, and her movements had become intensified into a habit of motionless repose, accompanied by frequent fits of deep abstraction. On the present occasion she was reclining on her couch, with her hand shading her eyes. She had been lying thus for some time, lost in thought, and occasionally rousing ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... could have helped looking at those four colossal kings, who sat there grim and motionless, their huge hands laid upon their knees in everlasting self-assured repose, seeming to bear up the mountain on their stately heads? A sense of awe, weakness, all but fear, came over him. He dare not stoop to take up the wood at his feet, their ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... the instant. The boat responded like a live thing, quivered, came to a partial rest—stopped, undulating on the surface roughened by the powerful leverage of the oars. Champney sat motionless, the dripping blades suspended over the water. He knew that in all probability the girl was there in "lily-pad reach". Should he seek her? Should he ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... with great patches of umbrageous wood, stretched away into the distance, while opposite to her, as far as the Seine flowing at the foot of a hill, the avenues of the park intersected one another, filled at that moment with long, motionless files of waiting carriages; and in the direction of Boulogne, on the left, the landscape widened anew and opened out toward the blue distances of Meudon through an avenue of paulownias, whose rosy, leafless tops were one ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... at the telephone, had "rung up" the Verney house, and inquired if his partner were dining there. The reply was evidently affirmative; and a moment later Kate knew that he was in communication with her son. She sat motionless, her hands clasped on the arms of her chair, her head erect, in an attitude of avowed attention. If she listened she would listen openly: there should be no suspicion of eavesdropping. Gill, engrossed in his message, was probably ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... was above common, his look noble and martial. "I go first," said he, "since it must be so: adieu!" Then dashing his hat sharply behind him: "Which way?" cried he to the Brigands: "Shew it me, then." They open the folding gate; he is announced to the multitude. He stands a moment motionless; then plunges forth among the pikes, and dies of a thousand wounds.' (Felemhesi, La Verite tout ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... broke. Peter moved, with Bobby Galleon, through a cloud of enemies. It was a hostility that cut like a knife, silent, motionless, but so bitter that every boy from Ellershaw to the tiniest infant at the bottom of the first took it as the motif of his day. That beast Westcott was the song that rang through ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... having no more expectation of meeting with the nobler game than of encountering a lion, had not his tiger rifle with him. On coming to the banks of a small stream he was greatly surprised to see a tiger's fresh footmarks—a big foot, too. Making a sign to his attendants to stand motionless, he glanced up the stream, then down, and saw, not far from him, leisurely strolling along the edge of the creek, seeking a convenient ford, the largest tiger he had ever laid eyes upon, although he had shot many. "Shall I shoot with this gun?" he thought. "If I miss he will ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... motionless upon the calm surface of the sea, but differing from the former in almost everything but the name. It is nearly ten times as large; constructed out of the masts, yards, hatches, portions of the bulwarks, and other ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... looked very near, and my heart thrilled as I watched. Suddenly a stream of red sparks swooped upwards into the air and circled towards us. Involuntarily I stooped under cover, then raised my head again. High up in the air a bright flame stood motionless lighting up the ground in front, the space between the lines. Every object was visible: a tree stripped of all its branches stood bare, outlined in black; at its foot I could see the barbed wire entanglements, the wire sparkling as if burnished; further back was a ruined cottage, ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... the sparrows were already lying on the floor motionless. Some lay on their sides, some on their backs; all looked as if they were already dead. Two were still on their feet; at any other time Neale would have laughed to see the way in which they staggered about, for ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... and affected, gratified and depressed, remained almost motionless, and could not, for a great length of time, either ring for her maid, or persuade herself to go to rest. She saw throughout the whole behaviour of Mrs Delvile, a warmth of regard which, though strongly opposed by family pride, made her ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Cynthia, in awed surprise. Molly was out at the front door, seeking the messenger through the dusk, round into the stable-yard, where the groom sate motionless on his dark horse, flecked with foam, made visible by the lantern placed on the steps near, where it had been left by the servants, who were dismayed at this news of the handsome young man who had frequented ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 187] are both starving, and I cannot keep them.' Piozzi Letters, i. 218. On April 1, 1776, he wrote:—'Poor Peyton expired this morning. He probably, during many years for which he sat starving by the bed of a wife, not only useless but almost motionless, condemned by poverty to personal attendance chained down to poverty—he probably thought often how lightly he should tread the path of life without his burthen. Of this thought the admission was unavoidable, and the indulgence might be forgiven to frailty ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... rifle, and so insistent was this that she ran most of the twelve intervening miles. Reaching at last the cabin clearing, she panted up its steep side, through burnt stumps and sparsely growing corn, to the door; but there across the sill her father lay face down and motionless. He might have been drunk, and so at first she thought, until her approach revealed a little hole in the back of his head. She stared at him like an image of wood, then sank upon the floor, putting her lips close to ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... Gracie Dennis had not the slightest idea of dying. Her mood was better expressed, half an hour later, when she stood at the parlor window, and returned a low, lingering bow from Professor Ellis, with a haughty stare from flashing eyes, looking out from an erect and motionless head. ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... Simmy's intense stare convinced him that it was George Tresslyn who stood over there and gazed from beneath lowered brows at the bright doorway. He experienced a chill that was not due to the raw west wind. There was something sinister about that big, motionless figure, something portentous of disaster. He knew that George had been going down the hill with startling rapidity. On more than one occasion he had tried to stay this downward rush, but without avail. Young Tresslyn was drinking, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... glimmer that seemed not so much to shine through the air as to be part of it, took all colour out of the woods and fields and the high slopes above me, leaving them planes of grey and deeper grey. The woods near me were a silhouette, black and motionless, emphasizing the east beyond. The river was white and dead, not even a steam rose from it, but out of the further pastures a gentle mist had lifted up and lay all even along the flanks of the hills, so that they rose out of it, indistinct ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... the time when spring should breathe into it the breath of life and make it a living thing. There was silence and rest in the deep wood. The birds were away on their winter wanderings; the leaves hung motionless on the tall trees, and nature seemed resting from her ceaseless labor, and listening to the soft music of the little stream which sung a cheerful song as it rambled on over the roots and fallen branches that blocked its way. But soon a distant murmur arose, and we had ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... the suppression of pain. Hopelessness in youth, unless it be justified by some direst ruin of the future, is wont to touch us either with impatience or with a comforting sense that reaction is at hand; in a man of middle age it moves us with pure pathos. The sight of Gilbert as he sat thus motionless would have brought tears to kindly eyes. The past was a burden on his memory, the future lay before him like a long road over which he must wearily toil—the goal, frustration. To-night he could not forget himself in the thoughts of other men. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... tumultuously, but the lagoon within remains calm. The great breakers may thunder on the reef, and even send their spray over, for it is little above the level of the sea, and nowhere much more than a few yards in breadth, but inside all is peaceful and motionless. In this reef there are several openings, by which a ship of the largest size may enter and find a safe, commodious harbour. It is found that these openings occur usually opposite to any part of the islands where a stream flows into the sea; and ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... turned away, and with her foot kicked away the fallen lilies. She sat now leaning forward, motionless and still, with her elbows buried in an embroidered cushion before her and her chin resting ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... not ask understanding. It was a refuge from the riot and squalor of the whitewashed streets with a double value and a treble charm—I.H.S. among plaster gods, a sanctuary in the bazar. Stephen sat in it motionless, with his lean limbs crossed in front of him, until the half-hour was up; then he bent his knee before the altar and went out to meet a servant at the door with Hilda's letter. The chapel opened upon an upper ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... danced all day out on the larger lake had gone to sleep here in the shelter of the islands, and Algonquin lay as still as a golden mirror. A faint shimmer of colour was spread over it like a shining veil. It was scarcely discernible where the crystal water lay motionless, but as the Inverness sailed across the delicate web it broke into waves of amber and lilac and rose. The little islands did not seem to touch the water but floated in the air like dream-islands, deep purple and bronze in the shadows. From their depths ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... to flight common to so many animals, which has here been transformed into an almost contrary instinct. This moth does not fly away from danger, but "feigns death," that is, it draws antennae, legs and wings close to the body, and remains perfectly motionless. It may be touched, picked up, and thrown down again, and still it does not move. This remarkable instinct must surely have developed simultaneously with the wood-colouring; at all events, both cooeperating variations are now present, and prove that ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... eggs, that her offspring may have their proper food, so the moth seeks the hive containing combs, and where its natural food is at hand to furnish a supply. During the day a rusty brown miller, with its wings wrapped close around the body, may be often seen lying perfectly motionless on the side of the hive on one corner, or the under edge of the top, where it projects over—they are more frequent at the corners than anywhere else, one-third of their length projecting beyond it; ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... character," said Durtal, who had thoughtfully approached the window, "this Cathedral strikes me as amazingly like a motionless vessel with spires for masts and the clouds for sails, spread or furled by the wind as the weather changes; it remains the eternal image of Peter's boat which ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... look at him. De Casimir had not missed this time. His air of candid confidence had met with a quick response. He laughed again and moved towards the door. Mathilde stood motionless, and although she said no word, nor by any gesture bade him stay, he stopped on the threshold and turned again ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... turned toward the library door. Bansemer was standing close by her side. He turned to move away as David Cable stepped to the door to look in. Cable's coat collar was about his ears and he was removing his gloves. For a moment he stood motionless, gazing upon the occupants of ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... water, were left for 24 hrs. on some leaves; the hairs were then examined, but to my surprise differed in no respect from others which had not been touched by these fluids. Most of the cells, however, included hyaline, motionless little spheres, which did not seem to consist of protoplasm, but, I suppose, of some ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... flying now at a speed close to a hundred and forty miles an hour. Off to the left I could see the red and green beam of the single light of the Mercutians; it was pointing vertically up into the air, motionless. Something—I do not know what—made me decide ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... and then relinquished the idea of following the girl, seemed presently to forget her, and sat as one alone with sorrow. When Jean had mastered herself, she came slowly back. Not till she was close to the motionless figure did the girl lift ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... that hung and poised this motionless globe of the earth? Who laid its foundation? Nothing seems more vile and contemptible, for the meanest wretches tread it under foot; but yet it is in order to possess it that we part with the greatest treasures. If it were harder than it is, men could not open its bosom to cultivate it; and if it ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... had not opened her lips or said a word; that girl was Hester Thornton. She had been drawn into the circle by an intense curiosity; but she had made no comment with regard to Cecil's conduct. If she knew anything of the mystery she had thrown no light on it. She had simply sat motionless, with watchful and alert eyes and silent tongue. Now, for ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... did not appear so terrible as some he had before experienced. While he was thus employed, they shipped a sea on the starboard side, which all thought would send them to the bottom. For a moment the vessel seemed to sink beneath its weight, shivered and remained motionless. It was a moment of critical suspense, and, fancying that they were gradually descending into the great bosom of the ocean, John Stevens gave himself up for lost and summoned all his fortitude to bear the approaching death as became a ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... so much her mind as every feeling, even Apraxyeya shook her head, and sorrowfully followed him with her eyes, when he seated himself in the tarantas, in order to drive to the town. The horses galloped off; he sat motionless and upright, and stared ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... with wild gestures, were followed by his usual indistinct muttering and jabbering. I directed my gaze upon his wife. She sat in the chair, motionless, with her eyes fixed on the ground as if she had been struck with death in that position, and been stiffened into a rigidity which retained her in her place. The issues of her tenderness and affection seemed to have been sent back upon ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... the shaft, is a broad band of ornamentation, so happy and effectual in its uses, and so pure and perfect in its details, that a careful examination of it will, perhaps, afford us some knowledge of that spiritual essence in the antique Ideal out of which arose the silent and motionless Beauty of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... sequestered lot Forbids their interference, looking on, Anticipate perforce some dire event; And seeing the old castle of the state, That promised once more firmness, so assailed That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake, Stand motionless expectants of its fall. All has its date below. The fatal hour Was registered in heaven ere time began. We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works Die too. The deep foundations that we lay, Time ploughs them ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... temples, and then sank heavily back to his heart, leaving his face very pale. His fingers wrung each other fiercely for a moment. He looked away at the trees; he turned to Josephine Thorn; and then once more he gazed at the dark foliage, motionless in the hot ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Motionless there on the bed in the dim room, delicate bare arms outstretched, hair tumbled over brow and shoulder, she lay, lost in fearless retrospection—absolutely fearless, for courage was hers without effort; peril exhilarated like wine, without reaction; every ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... observing the simple. It accused her of some guiltiness, uncommitted and indefensible. She had pushed her anxiety about 'the accident at Chiallo's' to an extreme that made her the creature of her sensibilities. In the midst of this quiet country life and landscape; these motionless garden flowers headed by the smooth white river, and her gentle little friend so homely here, the contemplation of herself was like a shriek in music. Worse than discordant, she pronounced herself inferior, unfit mentally ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Esther sat so motionless that Pitt might have thought she had not heard him, but for the swift flashing colour which went and came. She had heard him well enough, and she knew what the words were meant to signify, for the tone of them was unmistakeable; ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... act of lifting his spear he grew stiff and motionless as a statue. The same fate came upon all who followed, till at last Phineus repented of his unjust conduct. All about him he saw nothing but stone images in every conceivable posture. He called despairingly upon his friends ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... with which frogs herald the spring, and it is often only in the males that the voice is well developed. But if we look forward, past Amphibians altogether, we find the voice becoming a maternal call helping to secure the safety of the young—a use very obvious when young birds squat motionless at the sound of the parent's danger-note. Later on, probably, the voice became an infantile call, as when the unhatched crocodile pipes from within the deeply buried egg, signalling to the mother that it is time to be unearthed. ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... increased violence; I entered the room a second time, and a second time saw the bell-rope in rapid motion. I then examined every corner of the room, without discovering the least trace by which I might elucidate this singular appearance. I again grasped the rope, and again it was motionless: I sat two or three minutes in the room, I believe, during which every thing was perfectly quiet. I returned to my room, when scarcely had I seated myself, ere the same noise met my ear, with a sort of hard breathing. This was more than ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... door with lighted taper, as though to offer better illumination, but each time the master of the place had waved him away, as though unwilling to have present a witness even so humble as he. Through the door, thus half opened, there might have been seen in the hall two silent and motionless figures, standing guard. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... one or two passes with her hands, Mistress Nutter dropped the weapon, and instantly became fixed and motionless, with her daughter, equally rigid, in her arms. They looked as if suddenly ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... motionless, too stunned to speak. Then shaken nerves steadied and jarred brains cleared. They all rose weakly. Trickles of earth were still coming down from the sides of the gully, and the little stream, which had been clear and ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... mine; and to my thinking, it should be an Affair of no Manner of Importance to you. After this Declaration, he drank so hard, and confounded his Ideas in such a Manner, that Zadig was not one whit the wiser. Upon which he was struck dumb, confounded, and stood as motionless as a Statue. Arbogad, in the mean while, swill'd down whole Bumpers, told a Hundred merry Tales, and swore a thousand Times over, that he was the happiest Creature upon God's Earth; persuading Zadig to be ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... yet from year to year losing none of their bulk, proves that their loss is made good in the only possible way. They are fed by snow fields above, whose surplus of snow they drain away in the form of ice. The presence of glaciers below the snow line is a clear proof that, rigid and motionless as they appear, glaciers really are in constant motion ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... which the latter was seated, sprang actively upon the top of it. Soon he again descended, and, upsetting the cask, gave it a shove with his foot that sent it rolling into the middle of the cellar. The gipsy, although motionless, and to all appearance inattentive to what passed, lost not one of the muleteer's movements. His head stirred not but his sunken beadlike eyes shifted their glances with extraordinary keenness and rapidity. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... sooner did I feel the refreshing breeze than I knew it would convey our scent direct to the giraffes. A few seconds afterwards, the three grand obelisks threw their heads still higher in the air, and fixing their great black eyes upon the spot from which the danger came, they remained as motionless as though carved from stone. From their great height they could see over the bush behind which we were lying at some paces distant, and although I do not think they could distinguish us to be men, they could see enough to ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... horse her and ride away with her and my men into Syria away from this cursed city of folly. She struggled. I crushed her. She struck me on the face, and I continued to hold and crush her, for the blows were sweet. And there she ceased to struggle. She became cold and motionless, so that I knew there was no woman's love that my arms girdled. For me she was dead. Slowly I let go of her. Slowly she stepped back. As if she did not see me she turned and went away across the quiet room, and without ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... of Indians, to make the descent of the rapids, which is one of the first things that a visitor to the Sault must think of. In the first wigwam that we entered were three men and two women as drunk as men and women could well be. The squaws were speechless and motionless, too far gone, as it seemed, to raise either hand or foot; the men though apparently unable to rise were noisy, and one of them, who called himself a half-breed and spoke a few words of English, seemed disposed to ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... space on the bolting-cloth floor, before the bins mounded high with new wheat, and the rows of millstones, motionless under their empty hoppers, was lighted by candles in tin sconces, but these were so few that they shone only on the foremost faces and left those behind a gleam of eyes or teeth. The familiar machinery had put on a grewsome strangeness which had its final touch ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... slip down his tree. The others followed, and hastened across to the rock. Five bodies lay motionless in the snow. A sixth was dragging himself around the side of the rock, and Mukoki attacked it with his belt-ax. Still a seventh had run for a dozen rods, leaving a crimson trail behind, and when Wabi and Rod came up to it the animal was convulsed ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... spirits; all appeared so ponderously sullen, so massive with concealed power, so mysteriously silent. My eyes, searching for each visible object, detected scarcely a stir of life aboard, except as some head would arise for an instant above the rail, or my glance fell upon the motionless figure of a sentry, standing at the top of the narrow steps leading downward to the water, a huge burly fellow, whose side-arms glistened ominously in the sun. These were the sole signs of human presence; yet, from ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... his carbine? But he saw plainly that there was not room enough in which to take proper aim; the muzzle would have extended beyond the animal—the bullet would miss the mark. And what if it were to wake!—this fear kept him motionless and rigid. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... with them.[347] As the Polish Revolution brought the political questions into greater prominence, Lamennais became more and more convinced of the wickedness of those who surrounded Gregory XVI., and of the political incompetence of the Pope himself. He described him as weeping and praying, motionless, amidst the darkness which the ambitious, corrupt, and frantic idiots around him were ever striving to thicken.[348] Still he felt secure. When the foundations of the Church were threatened, when an essential doctrine was at stake, though, for the first ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the death of his father produced a very different effect: as soon as he heard it, his lips trembled and his countenance grew pale; he flood motionless a moment, like a pilgrim transfixed by lightning in the desert; he then smote his breast, and looking upward, his eyes by degrees overflowed with tears, and they fell, like dew distilling from the mountain, in a calm and silent ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... pointing towards the right and the left, rear. A pile of round stones is at the road corner, left forward. A full moon, riding high overhead, throws the roads into white, shadowless relief and masses the woods into walls of compact blackness. The trees lean heavily together, their branches motionless, unstirred ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... dumb. The good-natured Dutchman had taken a fancy to the little pale-faced, sad-looking stranger, and really felt very kindly disposed towards her; but she neither knew nor at that moment cared about that. She stood motionless, utterly astounded at this unheard-of proposal, and not a little indignant; but when, with a good-natured smile upon his round face, he came near to claim the kiss he no doubt thought himself sure of, Ellen shot from him like an arrow from a ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... stirred was cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... fox struck him on the shoulder, at his feet something black and slender twisted away into a darker place. Sunni stood absolutely still, gradually letting go his hold upon the pipal twigs. Presently everything was as it had been before, except for the little dark motionless figure on the wall; and the south wind was bringing across the long, shrill, mournful howls of the jackals that plundered the refuse of the British camp half a ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Nishne Kolymsk, on the banks of the Kolyma, is—65 deg. in January. 'Then breathing becomes difficult; the Reindeer, that citizen of the Polar region, withdraws to the deepest thicket of the forest, and stands there motionless as if deprived of life;' and trees burst asunder with the cold. Throughout this area roam Elks, Black Bears, Foxes, Sables, and Wolves, that afford subsistence to the Jakutian and Tungusian fur-hunters. In the northern part countless herds of Reindeer, Elks, Foxes, and Wolverines make ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... work to do that without this occupation he would certainly have felt lost. After he had groomed his horses in the morning, he polished the floors and cleaned the rooms on the ground-floor, then he went to his garden, where weed or damaging insect was never seen. Sometimes Gasselin was observed motionless, bare-headed, under a burning sun, watching for a field-mouse or the terrible grub of the cockchafer; then, as soon as it was caught, he would rush with the joy of a child to show his masters the noxious beast that had occupied ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... He remained motionless as one of the two men approached him, reached out and adjusted the dials on his spacesuit controls. The earphones in his helmet blared with a familiar voice, "Are ...
— No Hiding Place • Richard R. Smith
... seeming actually to touch the stars and to be out of reach of human hand. So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the breeze, that if these sails had been sculptured marble they could not have been more motionless—not a ripple on the surface of the canvas; not even a quivering of the extreme edges of the sail, so perfectly were they distended by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... through Guy as he recognized the repulsive face of his old enemy, and instinctively he pulled his burnouse closer around his head. Oko Sam darted a curious glance at the two motionless figures on the camels and then advanced to meet the head man, who broke off the conference and greeted his newly arrived chief ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... knew personally had already taken their departure, he started back toward the campus alone. Near the corner of King Street he glanced up and saw something a short distance ahead that puzzled him. It looked at first like a cluster of bicycles with a single rider. But as the rider was motionless Neil soon ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Accordingly, after it became dark, a dozen boats were sent from the liner and the frigate, manned by four hundred stalwart British seamen, and commanded by the captain of one of the brigs of war. Through the night they rowed straight toward the little privateer lying dark and motionless in the gloom. As before, the privateersmen were ready for their foe, and when they came within range opened fire upon them, first with the long gun and then with the lighter cannon; but the British rowed on with steady strokes, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... smoke like a mushroom hung over the city, visible from far down the river, motionless in the summer air. A long line of steamboats —white, patient animals—was tethered along the levee, and the Louisiana presently swung in her bow toward a gap in this line, where a mass of people was awaiting her arrival. Some invisible force lifted Eliphalet's eyes to the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... skill as ropers or riders. Always there was the fascinating morning start to work to watch, and frequently there was in the afternoon some wild little broncho that needed to be broken to the saddle, or to be trained to stop, wheel instantly, stand motionless, or to start at top speed, according to his master's wishes; all of which was a never-ending source of delight to ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... gaze, motionless, at a single bright light until all my bodily sensations have faded. Then one of the "points" in our scheme has dropped out. In my mind there reigns but one thought. The transition feeling goes, for there ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... for the space of a long minute, and while it endured the man sat motionless, with his back against the wall and his hands locked over his knees. Then: "They'd all pat you on the back if yous was to let out that yell. I brought ten years with me when the warden give me my number, and I'm thinkin' they was comin' to me—all ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... throbbing, Josephine, assisted by Eugene and accompanied by Hortense, ascended the stairs to the parlor where she had so often received the caresses of her husband. She opened the door. Napoleon stood before her, pale, motionless as a marble statue. Without one kind word of greeting he said sternly, in words which ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... rapture at the marriage of Agnes, which the archangels appeared to be celebrating under a shower of white roses. Standing upon her pillar, with her white branch of palm and her white lamp, the Virgin Child had such purity in the lines of her body of immaculate snow, that the motionless stiffness of cold seemed to congeal around her the mystic transports of victorious youth. And at her feet the other child, so miserable, white with snow—she also grew so stiff and pale that it seemed as if she were turning to stone, and could scarcely be ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... Whitewater creek through familiar meadows and that standing up would bring the old home in sight. That instant there glided into view, framed in the doorway and projected high against the tinted sky above the setting sun, a giant water buffalo standing motionless as a statue on the summit of a huge grave mound, lifted fully ten feet above the field. But in a flash this was replaced by a companion scene, and with all its beautiful setting, which had been as suddenly ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... wheelwrights and the carpenters set to work at once; they sawed planks, nailed them down fast, and in the twinkling of an eye repaired the accident. The coachman cracked his whip and the horses started, when, behold! half of the carriage was left behind; the Baroness Kerver sat motionless by the side of the bride, while Yvon and the baron were carried off at full gallop. Here was a new difficulty. Three times was the carriage mended, three times it broke anew. There was every reason to ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... down the pallid cheeks; but the occasional pressure of the hands, told me how much she was gladdened by my presence. After some ten or fifteen minutes, the exhausted girl dropped into feverish and disturbed slumbers, that I would have remained motionless throughout the night to maintain. I am persuaded it was quite an hour before this scene terminated. Grace then arose, and said, with one of her ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... nothing at all about this other, a tall man stood in the deep shadow of a pine-tree, miles and miles down stream from the resting-place of the war-party. The bridle of a horse hung over his right arm, but the animal stood as motionless as did his master, and both were intently watching a dark shape that rode nearer and could be seen more and more clearly, and that paused at last upon the river-bank within thirty yards. Just as it did ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... Gala in the town; so that those inhabitants who were familiar with illustrated magazines and the lighter drama—and also possessed a sanguine temperament—no doubt went about picturing to themselves a still night with coloured lanterns hanging motionless against a deep blue sky, while a crowd of exuberant visitors disported themselves in pale garments and unusual attitudes for the amusement of ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... heather, and grey cairns and screes of granite, all sharp and black-edged against the pale blue sky; and all suddenly cut off above by one long horizontal line of dark grey cloud, which seems to hang there motionless, and yet is growing to windward, and dying to leeward, for ever rushing out of the invisible into sight, and into the invisible again, at railroad speed. Out of nothing the moor rises, and into nothing it ascends,—a great dark phantom between earth and sky, boding ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... nothing. He had known that argument and pleas for justice or mercy would be of no avail. He sat motionless, apparently indifferent to his fate. By his listlessness he had thrown his captors off their guard. When the sentence was passed he acted like a flash. Flinging his left arm around the neck of Saltese, he whipped out his revolver and held it close to the chief's temple. "Revoke that sentence, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... yet speechless, the priest and the maiden Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened before them; And as they turned at length to speak to their silent companion, Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad on the sea-shore Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed. Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her terror. Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on his bosom. Through the long night she lay in deep, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... as a groan, merely a catching at the air, the doctor fell forward upon his supposed patient, and then rolled with a dull heavy sound upon the carpet, to lie motionless—to all appearance dead. ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... astronomer cuts the cord; the slide makes an exposure of one-three thousandth part of a second, and an accurate photograph is taken. The storm all in rapid motion is petrified on the plate; everything is distinct, all the surging billows of fire, boilings, and turbulence are rendered motionless ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... bedroom. Then she became very bold. "I am engaged to be his wife," she said. "Are you the Lady Anna?" asked the woman, who had heard the story. Then she was received with great distinction, and invited to sit down in a parlour on the ground-floor. There she sat for three hours, motionless, alone,—waiting,—waiting,—waiting. When it was quite dark, at about six o'clock, Daniel Thwaite entered the room with his left arm bound up. "My girl!" he said, with so much joy in his tone that she could not but rejoice to hear him. "So you have found ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... of yonder tower, What maiden so sweetly sings, As the eagle flies through the sunny skies He stayeth his golden wings; And swiftly descends, and his proud neck bends, And his eyes they stream with glare, And gaze with delight, on her looks so bright, As he motionless treads the air. But his powerful wings, as she sweetly sings, They droop to the briny wave, And slowly he falls near the castle walls, And sinks to his ocean grave. Was it arrow unseen with glancing sheen, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... of the foremast to remind all who approached of the battle which had been fought. It was a spare sail which covered the silent and motionless forms of those whose loyalty to their country had led them through the gates of death to "the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns," but whose fadeless record is inscribed in the hearts ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... there is not a living creature in it except one or two old women gathering firewood. Then Ihle, Karl, and the two dogs make their way through the cover, emitting the most strange and horrible sounds, especially Ihle; father stands there motionless and on the alert with his gun cocked, just as though he really expected to see something. Ihle comes out just in front of him, shouting 'Hoo lala, hey heay, hold him, hie, hie,' in the strangest and most astonishing manner. ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... The Baron, however, was in the way—a strong, motionless figure, and his tone, when ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Ops turns with her lions at the terrible noise of the thunder, as also do the other Gods and Goddesses, and Venus in particular, who is at the side of Mars; and Momus, with his arms outstretched, appears to fear that Heaven may be falling headlong down, and yet he stands motionless. The Graces, likewise, are standing filled with dread, and beside them, in like manner, the Hours. All the Deities, in short, are taking to flight with their chariots. The Moon, Saturn, and Janus are going towards the lightest of ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... The stillness, the absence of storm in the taxi was so unnatural that I began to miss it. "Buck up, old fool," I said, but he sat motionless by my side, plunged in thought. I tried to cheer him up. I pointed out King's Cross to him; he wouldn't even bark at it. I called his attention to the poster outside the Euston Theatre of The Two Biffs; for all the regard he showed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... long time, Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet. Having gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, he gently undid the fastenings of the door, and ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... when he came downstairs dressed in white serge for dinner, he found his father unusually silent, very pale, and so tired that he barely tasted the dishes the butler offered, and sat for the most part motionless, head and shoulders sagging against ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... dead silence for a minute or two, and whilst it lasted one could hear the embers of the dying fire fall into ashes. On a shelf, an eight-day clock ticked ominously; the girl stood with one hand upon her father's shoulder, motionless and impassive, like some beautiful statue. There was no trace of fear of any impending tragedy to mar the proud serenity of her face. At length the sound of voices came to them from outside. It grew in volume and rose like the angry murmur of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... paper on to the table, as if dismissing it from his thoughts. He began to walk about the room Then he stood motionless for ten minutes. "What's the matter with me?" this was the current of his musing. "I used to think myself a fellow of some energy; but the truth is, I know my mind about nothing, and I'm at the mercy of every one who chooses to push ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... recklessly as if it were bright day, past the barracks, past the parade-ground, and round to the great gates on the garden side of the Chateau. These, however, are closed, and the sentry, standing watchful and motionless, with his musket made ready, ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... towards an atmosphere of unaccountable fascination, as surely as he turned it to the London smoke; and from that moment it thickened round and round him all day long, until the time arrived for going home again, and leaving it, like a motionless cloud, behind. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... him from left to right. Some of the occupants of the beds—and one of these lay in the cot next to him—were not yet awake, and he saw, with a sort of awe, that each of these lay strangely like a dead man—still, motionless, the face covered with a linen napkin. Two of the attendants seemed to have these sleepers especially in their charge, moving continually hither and thither, to the bedside first of one and then another, evidently to see if there were yet any signs of waking. As Sandy continued watching ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... time, a slight puff of air which came cool from the mountains, but grew hot before it reached the house, sent one of the vine strands swinging to and fro like a pendulum, while the other, having secured itself to an outer shutter by one of its tendrils, remained motionless. ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... and in front of the court house, was a packed crowd, people who had run forth at the sound of shots, augmented by those who had since arrived upon the scene. It was motionless. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... not lessen his speed one particle. Phil felt sure, however, that he himself would not be harmed. He knew Emperor too well. With perfect confidence in the great animal, the lad threw both hands above his head, standing motionless in the center of the street right in the path of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... sees his captor approaching, he would fain drop into a mouse-hole to render himself invisible. He crouches to the ground and remains perfectly motionless until he perceives himself discovered, when he makes one desperate and final effort to escape, but ceases all struggling as you come up, and behaves in a manner that stamps him a very timid warrior,—cowering to the earth with a mingled look of shame, guilt, and abject fear. A young farmer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various |
