"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of her shoulders—a dainty gesture which I congratulated myself I could see unmoved—she held out her hand in a mute appeal for the key, but seeing that I was not to be shaken in my purpose, reached for the wrap she had tossed on a chair and tied it again ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... rock, with giant-bound, High on their iron poles they pass; Mute, lest the air, convuls'd by sound, Rend from above a ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... for neither of the three persons who were in the room knew what reply to give; only Buvat, choking with tears, rose, and went toward the door. Bathilde understood the grief and remorse expressed in that mute withdrawal; she stopped him by a look, and extending her arms ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... wandered, restless, down into the tree-grown yard. We had sat together that night, as usual, but my lips had been mute. The time had come when there was but one thing to say, and I had resolved not to say it. And so she had left me early, saying, in her impetuous way, that I was unsociable. Back and forth the long avenue I paced, ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... we walked, were mute evidences of the fury of last night's storm: trees had been uprooted, and great branches torn from others as if by the hands of angry giants; and the brook was a raging torrent. Down here, in the Hollow, the destruction ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... some sign of guilty consciousness in the face revealed in such clear outline near him, but saw none. Again, Thalassa met him with answering look, but remained mute. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... except the Dairyman's dog, keeping a kind of mute watch at the door; for he did not, as formerly, bark at my approach. He seemed to partake so far of the feelings appropriate to the circumstances of the family, as not to wish to give a hasty or painful alarm. He came forward to the little wicket-gate, then looked back at the house door, as if conscious ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... his legs appearing to tremble under the weight of his hump, which moved fitfully up and down in his futile attempts to utter the word resurrection. As he advanced, he kept heaving one shoulder forward, as if he would fain bring his huge burden to the front, and hold it out in mute appeal to his instructor; but before reaching him he suddenly stopped, lay down on the floor on his back, and commenced rolling from side to side, with moans and complaints. Mr Graham interpreted the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Perhaps he felt that there was small chance of their passing that night so near the settlement of his people without having unwelcome visitors. Perhaps he knew only too well how the mute Barker must ere now have arrived among the shanties of the shingle-makers with his astonishing news; and that many dugouts would soon be scouring the river in search for the remarkable motor boat on which he, Tony, seemed ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... their hill The murdered Caesars make no sign; Their myriad subjects, too, are still,— Mute as the voiceless Palatine; Yet overhead the fixed stars shine, And bid us trust in ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... anything but Italian the countess had to play the part of a mute at table, except where an English officer named Walpole was concerned, who, finding her to his taste, set himself to amuse her. I felt friendly disposed towards this Englishman, though my feelings were certainly not the result of sympathy. If I had been blind or deaf Sir James Walpole would ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... God! Look again: there are the mountains, and above them the mournful glories of the anti-sunset; the mute and golden trumpetings of the dawn; —there is the sea, and over it the wistfulness and pomp and pageantry of the setting sun, and the gentleness of heaven at evening;—there is the whole drama of Day with its tremendous glories; and the huge mystery of Night-time: ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... ascends from among the waggons; the situation of those who defend them is too serious for any idle exhibition. The man who has fired the last shot only hastens to re-load, while the others remain mute and motionless—each on the look-out ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... biography. The year of his birth has been contested, and the date of his death has not been recorded; the critical occasion of his capture by the Genoese, to which we seem to owe the happy fact that he did not go down mute to the tomb of his fathers, has been made the subject of chronological difficulties; there are in the various texts of his story variations hard to account for; the very tongue in which it was written down has ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... chiefly, which does not constitute one half of the qualification of a really learned lawyer, much less that of a Professor of law for an University. And as to any other branches of science, he must have stood mute in the presence of his literary associates, or of any learned strangers or others visiting the University. Would this constitute the splendid ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... never over the sailless sea Came messenger bark or schooner With news from the far-off realm whence we Set sail for that isle of mystery, Or a whisper of apology From our mute, malign marooner. ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... unaccustomed warmth about his heart, O'Neil escorted them to his headquarters. It was a sharp, clear morning; the sky was as empty and bright as an upturned saucepan; against it the soaring mountain peaks stood out as if carved from new ivory. The glaciers to right and left were mute and motionless in the grip of that force which alone had power to check them; the turbulent river was hidden beneath a case- hardened armor; the lake, with its weird flotilla of revolving bergs, was matted with a broad expanse of white, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... (ordnance). mostrar to show. mote m. nickname. motin m. disturbance. motivo motive. mover to move. movimiento movement. mozo, -a young person; m. waiter. muchacho, -a boy, girl. muchedumbre f. multitude. mucho much. mudar to change. mudo mute, silent. muelle m. wharf. muerte f. death. muestra specimen, proof. mujer woman, wife. mulero mule boy. mulo, -a mule. multitud f. multitude. mullir to beat up; to make soft. mundanal worldly. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... mournful and appealing—not different in that respect from the gaze of any of the queer people around him, but it affected Miss Eustis strangely. To her quick imagination, it suggested loneliness, despair, that was the more tragic because of its isolation. It seemed to embody the mute, pent-up distress of whole generations. Somehow Helen felt herself to be playing for the benefit of this poor creature. The echoes of the wedding-march sounded grandly in the little church, then came a softly played interlude, and finally a solemn benediction, in which solicitude seemed ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... the scene was alike imposing. The blue mountains of Virginia, towering in the near horizon; the lovely village of Lexington, sleeping in the calm, unruffled air, and the softened autumn sunlight; the vast assemblage, mute and sorrowful; the tolling bells, and pealing cannon, and solemn words of funeral service, combined to render the scene one never ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... did not speak, did not move, something else made mute appeal. Tossed into that same beautiful plate, hidden at first by the gloves, was a bunch, a very small bunch of Russian violets. Evidently they had been worn to the reception, and while I was wondering if she ...
— A Few Short Sketches • Douglass Sherley
... thy lips a golden trump, that, though Long years have passed since other angels came To work the mighty wonders of His name,— In God's own name and man's, thyself shalt go Forever on strong pinions to and fro, And round the earth reverberating blow The mute, world-shaking music of the mind; That thou might'st make as naught all space and time, And thrill in mystic oneness through mankind, Yet dwell in ...
— The Angel of Thought and Other Poems - Impressions from Old Masters • Ethel Allen Murphy
... familiar door. It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there, forgotten, a mute ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... turned pale, dressed himself without uttering a word, and followed the slave to the door of Vaninka's room. Having arrived there, with a motion of his hand he dismissed the informer, who, instead of retiring in obedience to this mute command, hid himself in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... life we were leading which made one extremely sensitive to the beauties of nature. I have never cared much for flowers, except in a general way. But now I noticed a great change. A wild flower growing in a ditch by the wayside seemed to me to be almost a living thing, and spoke in its mute way of its life of peace and contentment, and mocked, by its very humility, the world of men which was so full of noise and death. Colour too made a most powerful appeal to the heart. The gleam of sunlight on the moss ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... axe lie at the root, Ere the winter come as king, Villanelle, why art thou mute? Hath the Master lost ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... in these mute comments which demands an explanation; the more so as they are not in accord either with the view—somewhat superficial perhaps—that we have hitherto enjoyed of Madame Merle's character or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett's history; the more so, too, as Madame Merle had a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... condolence among patricians: the mourners, on the day following the interment, repaired to the porticos of Rialto and the court of the Ducal Palace, and their friends came, one after one, and expressed their sympathy by a mute pressure of the hand. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... frantic horror and shame and fear gave him redoubled strength for an instant. He tore himself clear and reeled back. Dan planted two smashes on Silent's snarling mouth. A glance showed the large man the mute, strained faces around the room. The laughing devil leaped again. Then all pride slipped like water from the heart of Jim Silent, and in its place there was only icy fear, fear not of a man, but of animal power. He caught up a heavy chair ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... century came forth from the divine life only to pass into the great eternity—and still she toiled and still she waited. At last, in the mute agony of despair, she lifted her eyes above the earth to heaven and away from the jarring strifes which surrounded her, and that which dawned upon her gaze was so full of wonder that her soul burst its prison-house of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... into silence their just punishment and flagrant guilt? And so, turning his head to Jesus, he uttered the intense appeal, "O Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom." Then he, who had been mute amid invectives, spake at once in surpassing answer to that humble prayer, "Verily, I say to thee, to-day shalt thou be with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... It was known that two thousand Russian prisoners were marching on before, and that their guard consisted of Spaniards, Portuguese, and Poles. On this discovery, each, according to his disposition, was indignant, approved, or remained indifferent. Around the Emperor these various feelings were mute. Caulaincourt broke out into the exclamation, that "it was an atrocious cruelty. Here was a pretty specimen of the civilization which we were introducing into Russia! What would be the effect of this barbarity ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Kansas and Nebraska bill, or with my pledges to the people of Kansas." "The idea entertained by some that I should see the Federal Constitution and the Kansas-Nebraska bill overthrown and disregarded, and that, playing the part of a mute in a pantomime of ruin, I should acquiesce by my silence in such a result, especially where such acquiescence involved, as an immediate consequence, a disastrous and sanguinary civil war, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... was light, without a blot; No moment of unkindness shrouding, No speck of anger overclouding: An awful and a sweet controul, A rainbow arching o'er the soul; A soothing, tender thrill, which clung Around the heart, while, all unstrung, The thought was still, and mute ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... day by day, When to labour was to pray, Surely something vital passed To the patient page at last; Something that one still perceives Vaguely present in the leaves; Something from the worker lent; Something mute—but eloquent! ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... expression of amazement and dull terror came into her wasted and birdlike face, which at all times looked dull and scared. The little boys and the elder daughter Varvara, a girl in her teens, with a pale ugly face, laid down their spoons and sat mute. ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... With a slight deprecatory laugh she removed it and went hurriedly down the stair. Whatever had she been doing with it, I thought, and settled with a sigh of satisfaction once more to my work, now that the nightmare in red, a kind of mute scarlet "Raven," was gone from my room. How very quiet it was. Not a single sleigh passed, no sounds came from the houses opposite or from next door, the whole world seemed smothered in the soft thick pillows of snow quietly gathering upon it. After a while, however, I could distinctly ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... singular magnificence remained almost entire, beyond which appeared wild cliffs retiring in grand perspective. The sun, which was now setting, threw a trembling lustre upon the ruins, and gave a finishing effect to the scene. They gazed in mute wonder upon the view; but the fast fading light, and the dewy chillness of the air, warned them to return. As Julia gave a last look to the scene, she perceived two men leaning upon a part of the ruin at some distance, in earnest conversation. As they ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... members. She had part in the defeat of the strong lobby that sought to abolish the existing State Board of Public Examiners, which prevents incompetents from practicing medicine. She introduced a bill compelling the State to educate the deaf, mute and blind; another requiring seats for women employes; what was known as the Medical Bill, by which all the sanitary measures of the State are regulated and put in operation; and another providing ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... itself as clear In kindness, as loose appetite in wrong, Silenced that lyre harmonious, and still'd The sacred chords, that are by heav'n's right hand Unwound and tighten'd, flow to righteous prayers Should they not hearken, who, to give me will For praying, in accordance thus were mute? He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief, Who, for the love of thing that lasteth not, Despoils himself forever of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... She looked at me two or three times. I know not for my part what aspect I wore; but I could observe that the haughty Clifton felt the gaiety of his heart in some sort disturbed, and was not pleased to catch me listening, with such mute attention, to the ravishing music she ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the episode of the snake, was mute and pale as she followed close behind Mike. Nicko brought up the rear. The going was hard until Mike broke through into a comparatively open area. He pointed. "There ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... To bring cause and effect to thy son's mind, And in dire rage's room his sense returned. He towed Hipparchus back like one he'd saved From drowning, laid him out upon that ledge Where late Amyntas stood, where now he kneeled Shivering, alarmed and mute. Delphis next set the drowned man's mouth to drain; We worked his arms, for I had joined them; soon His breathing recommenced; we laid him higher On sun-warmed turf to come back to himself; Then we climbed to the cart without ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... angelic mischief-makers during the past October. The second day after a heavy fall of rain was the fairest of the fair,—not a speck or film in all the round of the sky. Where have all the clouds and vapors gone to so suddenly? was my mute inquiry, but I suspected they were plotting together somewhere behind the horizon. The sky was a deep ultramarine blue; the air so transparent that distant objects seemed near, and the afternoon shadows were sharp and clear. At night the stars were unusually numerous ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... at his face, upon which the red firelight played brightly, but could not read what was in his mind. However, she thought that the request showed a sign of yielding, and was a mute confession that he knew he was in her power. "I give you three ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... all sat, did not prevent our noting the excitement in which Cornelius came; and Mr. Faringfield looked a mute inquiry. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... man was waiting him there, nor even a body to show the loser of an unequal battle. But there was blood on the door-jamb where a body—the man's body, Thorpe was sure—had been smashed against the wood. A wisp of black hair in the blood gave its mute evidence of the hopeless fight. And the slime, like the trails on the deck, smeared with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... gestures with commiseration; "I would pity you if I durst; but I repeat, my life, and my husband's, and my children, who are now near Hermitage, would all be sacrificed to the rage of Lord Soulis. You must be content to submit to his will." Helen closed her hands over her face in mute despair, and the woman went on: "And as for the matter of your making such lamentations about your father, if he be as little your friend as your mother is you have not much cause ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... gained it the appellation of the Italian of the East. This is owing to the prevalence of vowels and liquids in the words (with many nasals which may be thought an objection) and the infrequency of any harsh combination of mute consonants. These qualities render it well adapted to poetry, which the Malays are passionately ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... books in the hook of his arm and found the two mute and not amiable. He surveyed them patronizingly, after he had placed ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... a few moments watching her at her work when she was alone, sitting by the fire or near the door, and regarding her business-like movements with a wistful air of wonder and admiration. And yet so unobtrusive were these mute attentions that Bess Janner was never roused to any form ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... close to one another, drifted far away from the breath of life, even as their pigeons were far from earth; at this moment they are merely children, knowing neither envy nor anger; free from everything, they are near to one another, they are mute, judging their feelings by the light in their eyes—and they feel as happy as the birds in ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... whereas the magician soon found that when it came to seeing visions of a stunning and marketable sort I could get along better without his help than with it. Then there was another thing: Hicks wasn't worth a tallow dip on mute mental suggestion. Whenever Simmons stood behind him and gazed at the back of his skull and tried to drive a mental suggestion into it, Hicks sat with vacant face, and never suspected. If he had been noticing, he could have seen by the rapt faces of the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... deplorable. During her husband's illness, she had never left his bedside; but neither then, nor since his death, had been seen to shed a tear. She remained in a state of stupid insensibility, sitting in a darkened apartment, her head resting on her hand, and her lips closed, as mute and immovable as a statue. When applied to, for issuing the necessary summons for the cortes, or to make appointments to office, or for any other pressing business, which required her signature, she replied, "My father will attend to all this when he returns; he is much ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... see if it be there, and coming up when the fishermen draw their nets shall find it not, nor yet discover it among the sails. Limpang Tung shall seek among the birds and shall not find it when the cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go Umborodom to seek among the crags. And the hound, the thunder, shall chase the Eclipse and all the gods go seeking with Their stars, but never find the ball. And men, no longer having light of the golden ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... infinite pathos in unsuccessful authorship. The book that perishes unread is the deaf mute of literature. The great asylum of Oblivion is full of such, making inaudible signs to each other in leaky garrets and unattainable dusty ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the soul's mute rage, Which preys upon itself alone; To curse the life which is the cage Of fettered grief that dares not groan, Hiding from many a careless eye The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... a fair supper of the dried meat. Then,—she could not tell when,—she fell into a profound slumber, which was not broken until the sun had risen high, and the birds were whistling gaily among the branches—some of them gazing at her in mute surprise, as if they had discovered some new ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... contained in their proportion or symmetry, yet shown without flesh are a spectacle that is rather horrid than entertaining, so without discourses are the orders of a commonwealth; which, if she goes forth in that manner, may complain of her friends that they stand mute and staring upon her. Wherefore this order was thus ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... wings that tire Never, they rested mute, Nor of far journeys had desire, Nor of the deathless fruit; For in and through each angel soul All waves of life and knowledge roll, Even as to nadir streamed the fire Of ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... Lactantius informs us, that every Christian could silence them by only the sign of the cross.(101) And all the world knows, that when Julian the Apostate was at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, to consult Apollo, the god, notwithstanding all the sacrifices offered to him, continued mute, and only recovered his speech to answer those who inquired the cause of his silence, that they must ascribe it to the interment of certain bodies in the neighbourhood. Those were the bodies of Christian martyrs, amongst which was that ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress of herself, and pronounced Rhoda's name softly, as she moved up to kiss her. Rhoda could not speak. Oppressed by the strangeness of the white face which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single groan, while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder. The frail touch of her hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and seemed not so real as many a dream of it. Rhoda sat by her, overcome by the awfulness of an actual sorrow, never imagined ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute;" None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... for the toad. Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; The whippoorwill is coming to shout And hush and cluck and flutter about: I hear him begin far enough away Full many a time to say his say Before he arrives to say it out. It is under the small, dim, summer star. I know not who these mute folk are Who share the unlit place with me— Those stones out under the low-limbed tree Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. They are tireless folk, but slow and sad, Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,— With none among them ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... OEDIPUS I will be mute, and thou shalt guide my steps Into the covert from the public road, Till I have learned their drift. A prudent man Will ever shape his course by what he learns. ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... Mute as Neddy's inquiry was, Mike seemed somehow aware of it. He raised his hand, as though to enjoin silence, and then pointed it in front of him, raised to the level of his head. Neddy turned round to look in the direction indicated. He saw the throne ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... talked of them with cold curiosity. But they were of worldly, sinful people, of dissolute men whose characters he could not conceive—of silly, vain, frivolous, and abandoned women whom he had never even met. But Joan—O God! It was the first time since his mute prayer on the staircase that the Divine name had been wrested from his lips. It came with his wife's—and his first tears! But the wind swept the one away and dried the others ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... distinguished, or simple syllables composed of only one consonant and one vowel, or vice versa. The Egyptians had carried this system still further, and in many cases had kept only one part of the syllable, namely, a mute consonant: they detached, for example, the final u from pu and bu, and gave only the values b and p to the human leg J and the mat Q. The peoples of the Euphrates stopped halfway, and admitted actual letters for the vowel sounds a, i, and u only. Their system remained a syllabary ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... tender sentiment in his wife, as brought home to him by this mute and undesigned evidence of her sale of his portrait and gift, was the conclusive little stroke required to demolish all sentiment in him. He paid the shilling, took the photograph away with him, and burnt it, frame and all, when he ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... must hasten to the close. Napoleon rushes to encounter Wellington. Both armies stand in mute amaze. The heroes fire their pistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that of Wellington, formed by the hand of Vulcan, and primed by the Cyclops, wounds the Emperor in the thigh. He flies, and takes refuge among his troops. The flight becomes promiscuous. The arrival of the Prussians, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... most interested in the young lady's return said nothing: they were far beyond that. They could only look at each other in mute astonishment. At last— ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... to certain ladies (I did not mention men, since they have a smattering of the science), will still seem an untruth. The writer has taken care here to give the mute reasons for this strange antipathy; I mean the distastes of Bertha, because I love the ladies above all things, knowing that for want of the pleasure of love, my face would grow old and my heart torment me. Did you ever meet a scribe so complacent and so fond of the ladies as I am? No; of course ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... are hardly worthy of Tamoszius, the other two members of the orchestra. The second violin is a Slovak, a tall, gaunt man with black-rimmed spectacles and the mute and patient look of an overdriven mule; he responds to the whip but feebly, and then always falls back into his old rut. The third man is very fat, with a round, red, sentimental nose, and he plays ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... ridiculous, Burge. You don't suppose, do you, that our friends here are in earnest, or that our very pleasant conversation has had anything to do with practical politics! They have just been pulling our legs very wittily. Come along. [He goes out, Franklyn politely going with him, but shaking his head in mute protest]. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Of the collection of his rival Capito, the two hundred and fifty-ninth book is expressly quoted; and few teachers could deliver their opinions in less than a century of volumes. In the third period, between the reigns of Alexander and Justinian, the oracles of jurisprudence were almost mute. The measure of curiosity had been filled: the throne was occupied by tyrants and Barbarians, the active spirits were diverted by religious disputes, and the professors of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... expression. Placed upon the ground, they were quite still and speechless; no throbbings of fright; no extraordinary circulation, as far as I could discover. It was at this time, however, that on looking closer, I observed a strange expression of countenance; a wild look in the eye; a kind of mute horror there expressed; wondering at which, the popular belief flashed upon me at once, and I gave small Bob a look which puzzled him exceedingly. 'Can it be then,' said I, chasing this thought about in a distracted manner, 'can it be possible that their mother would not have defended them ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... head, whether in dissent or agnosticism, but remained mute. A smell of hawthorn and of orchards came to them through the darkness, telling them that a wind was awake; the next moment it swayed their little boat and swelled their sail, and carried them onward down the winding river to happier places and the ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... generation had grown up in whose world a sense of expansion and progress was normal. There existed amongst it no tradition of the great hardship of war, such as the French possessed, to steel its mind. It had none of the irrational mute toughness of the Russians and British. It was a sentimental people, making a habit of success; it rushed chanting to war against the most grimly heroic and the most stolidly enduring of races. Germany came into this war more buoyantly and confidently than any other combatant. It ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... his vision vast The early gods have passed, They waned and perished with the faith that made them; The long phantasmal line Of Pharaohs crowned divine Are dust among the dust that once obeyed them. Their land is one mute burial mound, Save when across the drifted years Some chant of hollow sound, Some triumph blent with tears, From Memnon's lips at dawn ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... morning of the fourth, reported that the road was strewn with wounded and stragglers, ambulances and caissons, and general debris, which indicated that the enemy was retreating as rapidly as possible, and was passing through a terrible season of demoralization. The testimony of the mute witnesses of disaster was corroborated by that of the many prisoners which easily fell into Gregg's hands. Other expeditions, returning later in the day, had similar reports to render of what they had seen and heard. And now came the time for energetic cavalry movements. While our infantry was ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... substitute, had afforded abundant amusement to the company, who, so far from feeling pity for the sufferer, seemed vastly to enjoy his mortification and disappointment. But all laughter died away, and every tongue became suddenly mute, as Prince Charles, assuming the severe look and dignified deportment of a judge, commanded Clement Lanyere to stand forward, and prefer the charges he had to make against ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... worn and weary, And pierced by the rocks of old time, The windows grown dim and the key-boards Were mute to the wind's whispered chime. The pillars were trembling; the pitcher Was full to the brim, running o'er With burdens, hurled oft' at the fountain, And closed were the ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... the peaceful hours, With Thy companionship to please; But now the world is shorn of flowers, And birds are mute ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... hand now abandoned the reins, and the dear girl turned half round on the cushion of the seat, gazing at me in mute astonishment! I had been cursing in my heart the lank locks of the miserable wig I was compelled to wear, ever since I had met with Mary Warren, as unnecessarily deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a becoming as a horridly unbecoming disguise. Off went ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... man of his character. Her mind seemed to absorb his thoughts with the readiness of blotting paper; and he did not pause to observe whether the impression had come out backwards or forwards. He who had been so mute among Lady Everington's geniuses fell all of a sudden into a loquaciousness which was merely the reaction of his love for his wife, the instinct which makes the male bird sing. He just went on talking; and every day he ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... exclamation of dismay from Marjorie. Ellen was regarding her in mute appeal. Mignon's lips curled back in a sneer. It was dreadful to remain ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... supper, when the old darky had lighted the dips—there being no longer any oil or candles to be had—that the thrush, who had been going into interminable ecstasies of fluty trills, suddenly became mute. A jingle of metal sounded from the garden, a step on the porch, a voice inquiring for Mr. Westcote; and old Mose replying with reproachful dignity: "Mars Wes'cote, suh? ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... knelt against the bank, Staring across the morning blear with fog; He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; And then, of course, they started with five-nines Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... wild winds! a mightier Power than yours In chains upon the shore of Europe lies; The sceptred throng, whose fetters he endures, Watch his mute throes with terror in their eyes: And armed warriors all around him stand, And, as he struggles, tighten every band, And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand, To pierce the victim, should ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... beams of light. The pole-star paled. The breath of the new morrow stole up out of the rosy gray. The wings of the morning stirred and trembled; and in the darkness and chill and mysterious awakening, eyes looked into other eyes, hand sought hand, and cheeks touched each other in mute caress. ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... that reigned O'er fragrance sound and beauty; all was mute— Save when a dove her dear one's absence plained And the faint breeze mourned o'er the ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... Then he began to play things she did not know. It was music the like of which she had never heard, barbaric, with a plaintive weirdness that brought to her fancy the moonlit nights of desert places, with palm trees mute in the windless air, and tawny distances. She seemed to know tortuous narrow streets, white houses of silence with strange moon-shadows, and the glow of yellow light within, and the tinkling of uncouth instruments, and the acrid ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... vast assembly. A triple round of applause hailed every speech uttered by the generous Spartan. The painter of the Sabines, of Brutus, of the Horatii, of the Coronation, seemed to heed neither the noisy acclamations nor the deep silence that succeeded each other. Mute, motionless, transfixed, he heard not the plaudits: it was not Talma he saw, not Talma he was listening to. He was at Thermopylae by the side of Leonidas himself; ready to die with him and his three hundred heroes. Never had he been so deeply moved. He had talked of sleep, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... at her mute appeal for sympathy, and I am very sure he would not have me chronicle all that then occurred. Suffice it, that I employed myself by the window, some minutes perhaps, until a hasty rap on the door, and the maid bore a message which she delivered ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... shines the river, Up comes the lily and dries her bell; But two are walking apart forever, And wave their hands for a mute farewell. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... rang from the reeling steeple of St. Germain's, the great bell of the Palais on the island had just begun to hurl its note of doom upon the town. A woman crouching at the end of the chamber burst into hysterical weeping, but, at a glance from Tavannes' terrible eye, was mute again. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... Sweetly from the trembling string When wizard fingers sweep Dreamily, half asleep; When through remembering reeds Ancient airs and murmurs creep, Oboe oboe following, Flute answering clear high flute, Voices, voices—falling mute, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... of an undertaker's mute (a calling he had followed in his day), was laying out his master's clothes as mournfully as though his master were in them, instead of ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... filial appeal during the agony (xiv. 36). Here alone have we the tiny parable about the growth of the blade of corn (iv. 26), and that of the porter commanded to watch until the master's return (xiii. 34). There are two miracles peculiar to Mark, the cure of the deaf-mute (vii. 32) and of the blind man at Bethsaida (viii. 22). Among the miracles recorded in Mark, the cures of demoniacs are prominent. This is in peculiar contrast with John, where we find no ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... mute and horrified surprise, and slowly the red of mortification suffused his face. Expressions of pity and contempt tinged the features of those who looked on at the death of ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... or two, we found that these now consisted of fine open forest flats; and at length encamped on the margin, after a journey of about twelve miles. Near our camp, I saw natives on the opposite bank, first standing in mute astonishment, then running away. I held up a green bough, but they seemed very wild; and, although occasionally seen during the afternoon, none of them would approach us. We found on the banks of this river, a purple- flowered CALANDRINIA, previously unknown.[*] Lat. 26 deg. 57' 39" S. Thermometer, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... object. An instinctive protest caused her to draw back. His only reaction to this was to step forward and continue to unbutton her blouse. She wanted to resist but the fear of driving him away held her mute; that and something in his eyes that told of excitement, an unformed phantom of delight that had never materialized but still held sway over ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... to her—to help him all she could. She had been appalled when she first saw the dusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helplessness and the loneliness of the tired little face touched her, and she was straightway responsive to the mute appeal in the dark eyes that were lifted to her own with such modest fear and wonder. Now her surprise at her brother's infatuation was abating rapidly. The girl's adoration of him, her wild beauty, her strange winning personality—as rare and as independent of birth ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... and the fauns first dance in joyousness and then tremble in fear, and the buds to blossom, and the stags to bellow in their lordship of the hills. When he ceased, it was as though a tensely-drawn string had broken, and all the earth lay breathless and mute. And Pan turned proudly to the golden-haired god who had listened as he had spoken through the hearts of reeds to the hearts ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... granddaughter were roused from the mute astonishment in which they were gazing after the young cavalier by a tittering behind them; and a pair of bright eyes looked out upon, them from beneath a bundle of long, crimson-headed clover, whose rich carmine tints were touched to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... clear to him now; and for a moment he stood mute and motionless, under a sense of shame at ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... figure of the girl who stood, mute with horror, beside him. He threw her roughly to the ground, for the meaning of the viscous splash ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... The sun poured warmth; the very air renewed life. But to Klussman it was the brilliancy of passing delirium. He did not feel when gun-metal touched his hands. The sound of the incoming tide, which could be heard betwixt artillery boomings, and the hint of birds which that sky gave, were mute against his thoughts. ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the tribe is the Vervain humming-bird, found in the West India Islands. Those on the Amazon are almost mute. Small as they are, they are brave little creatures, and several of the species are ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... representations in which the affliction of Mary is a prominent part of the tragic interest of the scene. She is sometimes sinking to the earth, sustained by the women or by St. John; sometimes she stands with clasped hands, mute and motionless with excess of anguish; sometimes she stretches out her arms to her Son, as Jesus, sinking under the weight of his cross, turns his benign eyes upon her, and the others who follow him: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... make fine pets although they are not strictly in the class of birds bred by the fancier are the ornamental land and water fowl. The chief objection to these birds as pets is the expense of buying them. The list of birds in this class is very large. In swans the leading varieties are mute, American whistling, black Australian, white Berwick and black-necked swans. The largest class are the pheasants. They are exceedingly beautiful, especially the golden, silver, Lady Amherst, Elliott, Reeves, green Japanese, Swinhoe, English ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... pool, Those sleepers lay; and trampled them to earth Half-risen, helpless, shrieking in the dark, "Haha! the elephants!" Of those unslain, Some in the thickets sought a shelter; some, Yet dazed with sleep, stood panic-stricken, mute; Till here with tusks, and there with trunks, the beasts Gored them, and battered them, and trod them flat Under their monstrous feet. Then might be seen Camels with camel-drivers, perishing, And men flying in fear, who struck at men— Terror and death and clamor everywhere: While ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... this was the mute expostulation conveyed in Aristo's look, and in the fond grasp of his hand; while treading down forcibly within him his memory and his fears of her great change, he determined she should be to him still all that she had ever been. ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... receiving the list with the mute acquiescence of a modern Major Domo, carried it into the recess of one of the windows, and, adjusting his spectacles, began to read it to himself. The first names, being those of distinguished Cavalier ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott |
