"Mutely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Gunson was exhausted by his tremendous efforts, for he lay on the rocks, motioning to us with his hand not to come, and we stood looking from one to the other, mutely inquiring what was to be done next. At last he rose, unfastened his pack, threw it down behind him, and came close to the edge of the slide, to look up and about with his eyes sheltered, as if seeking for a better ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... couch pillow was topped with a soft mass of curly gray hair, the face below was thin and pale, but the eyes which rested upon the girl were the clearest, youngest blue-gray eyes that ever spoke mutely of the spirit's triumph over the body. One had but to glance at David Warne to understand that here was a man who was no less a man because he had to spend many hours of every day upon his tortured ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... She nodded mutely in assent, then with a hopeless little sigh she added: "Helas—it is not easy—when one has nothing one must work hard and ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... when it had blown down, to put more wood on his fire, to make sure that Gloria was covered and warm, sleeping heavily, and not dead. His nerves were frayed. In the long night his fears grew, misshapen and grotesque. Within his soul he prayed mutely that when morning came Gloria would be alive. When with the first sickly streaks of dawn he went to put fresh fuel upon the dying embers he found that there was but a handful of wood left. He came to stoop over the girl and listen to her breathing. Then he descended ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... could make any difference to herself! She ached to tell some one of the despair in her heart, but even to Margaret she could not speak. Since that summer morning six months before when Vickers had died without a spoken word, she had never said his name. Her husband had mutely respected her muteness. Then she had been ill,—too ill to think or plan, too ill for everything but remembrance. Now it was all shut up, her tragedy, festering at the bottom of her heart like an undrained wound, poisoning her soul.... Suddenly ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... zeal and courage, Debby caught up her hat and ran down the steps, but, as she saw Frank Evan coming up the path, a sudden panic fell upon her, and she could only stand mutely waiting his approach. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the daily domestic office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by that sense of something mutely imminent which had darkened her solitary afternoon. For a few moments she gave herself silently to the details of her task, and when she looked up from it she was struck to the point of bewilderment by the change in her husband's face. He had seated himself near the farther ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... chair, the chair of her girlhood, the chair in which she had sung through the long winter nights, in which her deft fingers had wrought needlework, the envy of Rehoboth. The old arms mutely opened as though to welcome her; the rockers, too, seemed ready to yield that oscillation so seductive to the jaded frame. And the trimmings! and the cushion! the same old pattern, somewhat faded, perhaps, but as warm and cosy as in the days of yore. It ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... obeyed him, but without argument. As each cotta-clad figure advanced, eyes were directed toward doors, and hands mutely signed what tongues feared to utter. One boy came to the sofa and gingerly smoothed a velvet pillow; whispering and pointing, the others scattered—to look up at a painting of a bishop of the Anglican Church, which hung above ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... through the hills, pursued by memories of the crucified robbers, and he went on and on, with the intent of escaping from their cries and faces, till, unable to walk farther, he stopped, and, looking round, saw the tired sheep, their eyes mutely asking him why he had come so far, passing by so much good herbage without halting. Poor sheep, he said, I had forgotten you, but there is yet an hour of light before folding-time. Go, seek the herbage among the rocks. My dogs, too, are tired, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... and read its impatience and regret. How she applied it was a reflection less of her own mind than of Isabel's; she fancied Gerard jealous of this open wooing of the other girl, and mutely ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... of Scotland for Jamie in these days, and as for Stefan he hardly saw his wife. True, she always brightened when he came in and mutely evinced her desire that he should remain, but she was never his. While he talked her eye would wander to the cradle, or if they were in another room her ear would be constantly strained to catch a cry. In the midst of a pleasant interlude ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... could be used temporarily for the detention of United States prisoners. To the last the young Turrentines muttered together and sent baleful glances toward Bonbright, whom they plainly conceived to be the author of their troubles. Poor Pony Card plodded with bent head mutely behind them, a furtive hand travelling now and ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... quivering with cross-threads of communication. At first he was aware only of those that centred in his own troubled consciousness; then it occurred to him that an equal activity of intercourse was going on outside of it. Something was in fact passing mutely and rapidly between young Leath and Sophy Viner; but what it was, and whither it tended, Darrow, when they reached the house, was ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... delve, to earn bread and butter, clothing and luxuries, houses and land, education and ease for H.B. Dickinson, of Richmond. William smarted frequently; but what could he do? Complaint from a slave was a crime of the deepest dye. So William dug away mutely, but continued to think, nevertheless. He was a man of about thirty-six years of age, of dark chestnut color, medium size, and of pleasant manners to say the least. His owner was a tobacco manufacturer, who held some thirty slaves ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... girl she had just left? Poor Beulah! For the first time her courage forsook her, and bitter tears gushed over her white cheeks. There was no stony bitterness in her face, but an unlifting shadow that mutely revealed the unnumbered hours of strife and desolation which were slowly bowing that brave heart to the dust. She shuddered, as now, in self- communion, she felt that atheism, grim and murderous, stood at the entrance of her soul, and threw its benumbing shadow into the inmost recesses. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... shoulder, his startled eye! Watch him mince his steps, lest a lingering heel be nipped! Listen to him try the foremost dog with names, to gull him to a belief that they have met before in happier circumstances! He appeals mutely to the farmhouse that a recall be sounded. The windows are tightly curtained. The ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... away with him? Formerly he had always been visible about the house or garden; his favorite place was on the lowest veranda step, where he loved to bask in the heat of the sun. And now he was nowhere visible. I was mutely indignant at his disappearance, but I kept strict watch over my feelings, and remembered in time the part I had ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... what you're to do?" he asked the maid, and she nodded mutely. "Then come along, boys," he added, and led the way back to the hall. His face was dripping with perspiration and his hands were shaking, but he managed to control them. "And now for Senor Silva," he said, in another tone, ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... released herself, and pointed again, mutely, to a passage further on—the famous passage in which the saint, already in the ecstasy of martyrdom, appeals again to the Christian church in Rome, whether he is bound, not to save him from the wild beasts of the ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... logs, crumbling low, Sent out a dull and duller glow, The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, Ticking its weary circuit through, Pointed with mutely warning sign Its black hand to the hour of nine. That sign the pleasant circle broke My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, And laid it tenderly away, Then roused himself to safely cover The dull ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... verdures of the Eighteenth Century that were thrown lightly off the looms with transient interest are sought now for coverings to antique chairs. To give the unbroken greens more charm, an occasional bird is snipped from a worn branch where he has long and mutely reposed, and is posed anew on the centre of a back or seat. It is the part of the repairer to see that he looks at home in ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... and one goes hence with another, And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet songs' sake; The same year beckons, and elder with younger brother Takes mutely the cup from his hand that we all shall take.[1] They pass ere the leaves be past or the snows be come; And the birds are loud, but the ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... his eyes, mutely, round the ghastly faces of his warriors, and still made not the signal. His lips muttered—his eyes glared: when, suddenly, he heard below the wail of women; and the thought of Inez, the bride of ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which now adorned Molly's hair, and which had since been cherished with more care. Enough, however, remained of Cynthia's to show very distinctly that it was not the one Mr. Preston had sent; and it was perhaps to convince himself of this, that he mutely asked to examine it. But Molly, faithful to what she imagined would be Cynthia's wish, refused to allow him to touch it; she only ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... too, before it was decided. Excellent Louisa, Princess full of beautiful piety, good sense, and affection—a touch of the Nassau-Heroic in her. At the moment of her death, it is said, when speech had fled, he felt from her hand which lay in his, three slight, slight pressures: "Farewell!" thrice mutely spoken in that manner, not easy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... in his voice, and her panic died. Mutely she yielded herself to him. By the strength of his will alone, she left the abyss behind. But when he lifted her from the parapet back to safety, she cried out as one whom fear catches by the throat, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... their relationship which had sent her after him was conveyed in the thrilling note of her voice when she uttered his name, and though at first he had refused to understand it thus, her lingering touch became its full interpreter. They searched each other's eyes mutely, and he knew before he began to speak ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... trouble, she had stuffed the few dollars she possessed into her hand-satchel; and so sure was she that disaster had overtaken her brother, that she stumbled forward, sobbing, into his arms, at the same time thrusting the satchel mutely ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... to that high office. Grasping my hand with a look of significance, he only uttered,—"Have you heard the news?"—then with another look following up the blow, he subjoined, "I am the future Manager of Drury Lane Theatre."—Breathless as he saw me, he stayed not for congratulation or reply, but mutely stalked away, leaving me to chew upon his new-blown dignities at leisure. In fact, nothing could be said to it. Expressive silence alone could muse his praise. This was in his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... that furnishes the sport of Kings; that with blazing eye and distended nostril, fearlessly leads our greatest Generals through carnage and the smoke of battle to glory and renown; whose blood forms one of the ingredients that go to make the ink in which all history is written, and that finally, mutely and sadly, in black trappings, pulls the humblest of us all to the ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... door closed in the face of their hope—that falling inflection, that blank of vacuity that settled over his face, and his whole drooping figure. He seemed to be only mutely awaiting their immediate departure to climb back again on his high stool. But Harry still leaned on the counter and grinned ingratiatingly. "Oh, Joe, you good flen'. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... By-and-by they reached the landing-steps. He took her hand as before, and found it as cold as the water about them. It was not relinquished till he reached her door. His assurance had not removed the constraint of her manner: he saw that she blamed him mutely and with her eyes, like a captured sparrow. Left alone, he went and seated himself in a chair ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... nostrils in an effort to fill as large a space in the atmosphere of the parlour as possible. And Malkiel continued to regard him with the staring eyes of one whose mind is seething with strange, upheaving thoughts and alarming apprehensions. Mutely the Prophet swelled and mutely Malkiel observed him swell, till a point was reached from which further progress—at least on the Prophet's part—was impossible. The Prophet was now as big as the structure of his frame permitted ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... conversation was conducted almost entirely by Williams and Dic, with a low monosyllable now and then from Rita when addressed. She, poor girl, was too sleepy to talk, even to Dic. Soon after twelve o'clock the knight from Blue, pitying her, showed signs of surrender; but she at once awoke and mutely gave him to understand that she would hold him craven should he lower his lance point while life lasted. The ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... speech, I knew, Foreboded more than mirth. Downward we drew, Silent, and all un-noted, O'er sleeping Shopdom. Sleeping? Closer quest Might prove it one vast Valley of Unrest O'er which we mutely floated. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... his school companions. Far away from there in some dark place he would murmur out his own shame; and he besought God humbly not to be offended with him if he did not dare to confess in the college chapel and in utter abjection of spirit he craved forgiveness mutely of the boyish hearts ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... imagination the contemporaries of eight generations of men, let us remember, and let us inculcate on those who are to fill the places that so soon shall know us no more, let us remember, I say, that if man seem to survive himself and to be mutely perpetuated in these fragile semblances, it is only the stamp of the soul that is eternally operative; it is only the image of ourselves that we have left in some sphere of intellectual or moral achievement, that is indelible, that becomes a part of the memory of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... he seemed to see a host of white faces lifted to him. His sister Ann, his two sisters-in-law, the children, all mutely watched him with eyes ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... loved solitude and silence, I am a great gossip with my friends, which arises, perhaps, from my seeing them but rarely. I atone for this loquacity by a year of taciturnity. I mutely recall my parted friends by correspondence. I resemble that class of people of whom Seneca speaks, who seize life in detail, and not by the gross. The moment I feel the approach of summer, I take a country-house a league distant from town, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... jarred out of his usual complacency that for once he had nothing to say. He forgot even to swear. As the significance of the movements of the intruders suddenly dawned upon him he mutely glared at Hank from beneath blackened and ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... All the latent recklessness which might have made of him a good soldier or a great scoundrel was roused in him. He was passing the boundary which divides the old Adam, which is in every man, from the veneer of early training. He was mutely—unconsciously—calling to his aid the savage instincts which the best of men are not without. His face expressed something of what was passing within his active brain, and the girl before him, as she turned and watched the working features, usually so ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the moment at which she should have spoken, but she did not. She, who had prided herself that she would make a race of it—she, who had always been able to slip out of a predicament in the nick of time—stood mutely by and let Transley and her father interpret her silence as consent. She was not sure that she was sorry; she was not sure but she would have consented anyway; but Transley had taken the matter quite out of her hands. And yet she could not bring herself to feel resentment ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... attempt to pursue the Indians. Weary and exhausted the little garrison gathered mutely round the fallen man. Ma was at Seth's side. She had raised her husband's head, and her old gray eyes were peering tenderly anxious into his. While she was still supporting him, some one pushed a way to her ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... I embrace her in a fragrant shrine Of climbing roses, my first kiss shall fall On you, sweet eyes, that mutely told me all,— Through you my soul will rise to make her mine. Upon your drooping lids, blue-veined and fair, The touch of tenderness I first will lay, You springs of joy, lights of my gloomy day, Whose dear discovered secret bade ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... from his own life but reveals to him the immediate magical presence of a real soul there, whose personality, though not conscious in the precise manner in which he is conscious, has yet its own measure of complex vision and is mutely struggling with the cruel inertness and resistance which blocks the path of the energy of life. When once, by the bold synthesis of reason and sensation with those other attributes of the complex vision which we ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... to the liquid warbling of delicious things, until the melody had run itself out. It was a melody unknown to me; wild and dainty; it came out of a famous opera, I was told afterward. When the fairy notes sunk into silence, I turned mutely ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... man instinctively drew a step nearer to Maud, as if mutely asking her sympathy and support; but she was looking down upon the oaken floor, utterly unable to comprehend what Harry could mean by ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... needed no second glance at their patient to tell the two doctors that she was in great extremity. Her pinched face was ashen in color and damp with a cold sweat, and her eyes, no longer wild and restless, looked piteous and anxious, as of one in dreadful suffering who pleaded mutely for help. An examination of her pulse showed the beat to be frequent and feeble, and on the slightest movement she gave signs of pain. Her respiration was short and very rapid. Mr. Ridley was present, and standing in a position that enabled ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... standing still for a moment to give more force to his voice; "like him!" All the ravens of the close cawed their assent. The old bells of the tower, in chiming the hour, echoed the words, and the swallows flying out from their nests mutely expressed a similar opinion. Like Mr. Slope! Why no, it was not very probable that any Barchester-bred living thing ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... omens on his eyes, Sinistre—God-sent, darkly broke; Nor from ruddy earth nor skies, Portends to him mutely spoke. ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... contradiction. I could only marvel mutely at his pathetic ignorance of woman. Indeed, his reply gave me the shock of an unexpected stone wall. He, who had but recently taught me the chart of Fanchette's soul, to be unaware of elementary axioms! Did I not remember ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... Mutely she yielded to the suggestion. They went down the long vault-like hall, and turned through the archway in the south wall close to the window. As they did so, a sudden sound rent the ghostly stillness, a sound that echoed and echoed from wall ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Mutely the gods, with a calm consultation, Pondered the fountain and pondered the tree; And the heart of Poseidon, with high expectation, Throbbed till great Jove thus pronounced the decree: "Son of my father, thou mighty, broad-breasted Poseidon, the doom that I utter is true; Great ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... insinuating itself through the half open door, testified mutely to the fact that Aunt Amy was getting breakfast. It was later than usual. After breakfast it would be time to dress for church. Every one in Coombe dressed for church. It was a sacred rite. One and all, they had clothes which were strictly Sabbatarian, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... it the most dreamlike and enchanting sunsets to be found in any planet or even in any solar system—and given, too, in the swell room of the house, with the busts of Cerretani senators and other grandees of this line looking approvingly down upon me, as they used to look down upon Dante, and mutely asking me to adopt them into my family, which I do with pleasure, for my remotest ancestors are but spring chickens compared with these robed and stately antiques, and it will be a great and satisfying lift for me, that six ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ride with me to-morrow?" continued Carmen. "Then we can talk all we want to, with nobody to overhear. Aren't you happy?" she abruptly added, unable longer to withstand the appeal which issued mutely from the lusterless eyes ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... no answer, and I saw that he was regarding me fixedly, himself pale to the lips; but with a touch of anger and even of contempt, mixed with a world of compassion and love. There was something in this look which seemed to entreat me mutely for my own sake and his own to act. I do not know what the impulse was that came to me—self-contempt, trust, curiosity, the yearning of love. I closed my eyes, I took a faltering step, and stumbled, huddling and aghast, over the edge. The air flew up past me with a sort of shriek; I opened ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... questions? Can he dispose of them? Happy if you can answer them mutely in the order and disposition of your life! Happy for more than yourself, a benefactor of men, if you can answer them in works of wisdom, art, or poetry; bestowing on the general mind of men organic creations, to be the guidance and ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... upward again he caught Bracy's eyes fixed upon him inquiringly; but he paid no heed, though he did not for the moment read them aright, the idea being that his brother officer was mutely asking him if he thought he could ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... now in gauging the barbarian mentality, undertook no direct punishment of such as had been led away by H'yemba. But he gathered all the Folk together in the palisade, and there—close to the mutely eloquent object-lesson of the little cemetery—he made them a charweg, a talk ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... mutely in the pinnace which had headed not for the Nausicaae, but toward the shore, where a few faint ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... The tears were streaming down her cheeks; she slipped her arm through mine and looked mutely ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... was in her eyes, in the way she looked at him, as if he had become a menace from which she would run if he had not taken the strength from her. As she stood there, her parted lips showing the red of his kisses, her shining hair almost undone, he held out his hands mutely. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... the steward, thrusting his pale loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and master; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But presently, catching hold of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... unannounced manner upon her. She watched Mrs. Murray greet her old friend with mingled surprise and pleasure, and then saw her look with perplexity from him to herself as she stood motionless before the fire. Why, her face mutely asked, did they not greet one another? Why did he merely glance at his granddaughter and bow slightly in his stiff, old-fashioned way as if to a stranger? and why did she give no greeting at all to ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... sunshine poured rapturously in at her open windows, touched her brown hair with mischievous golden fingers that left gleaming imprints on her curls, and mutely coaxed her to ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... Makers accompanied the war-party. Of these, two or three had escaped. How had the majority fared,—that majority which remained at the Rito for prudence's sake? Tyope dared not ask questions; he went along mutely as if in ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... was love—in the case of the man of law for those of his fellow men who suffered through foolishness or poverty or weaknesses or misfortune; and in that of his more humble counterpart, whose limitations precluded his understanding of more endowed human beings, for the dumb animals, who must mutely suffer through the foolishness or poverty or weakness or misfortune ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... and raised his hand. She followed suit. They sat staring. If she had remembered his broken promise and started to reproach, he could have found answer, but her eyes were big with sorrow alone. He put out his hand without a word. She hesitated over it, her eyes questioning him mutely, and then with the ghost of a ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... her face in her hands, mutely despairing. Her punishment was very hard to bear, and the tears which trickled through her fingers showed how much she felt it. With an effort she controlled ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Still conjugating with each failing sense The verb "to die" in every mood and tense, Pursued his awful humor to the end. When like a stormy dawn the crimson broke From his white lips he smiled and mutely bled, And, having meanly lived, is ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... him no questions; she walked mutely and patiently by his side; she hated the dull heat, the colourless waste, the hard scorch of the air, the dreary changelessness of the scene. But she did not say so. He had chosen to come ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... wherein the brave reds of autumn were judiciously mingled, at once set off a well-knit form and enhanced the dark comeliness of features less French than Italian in cast. The young man now stood silent, his eyes mutely ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... for long weeks afterward. And we boys, every night, would go to the door And, peering out in the darkness, listening, Could hear the poor fox in the black bleak woods Still calling for her little ones in vain. As, all mutely, we returned to the warm fireside, Mother would say: "How would you like for me To be out there, this dark night, in the cold ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... scenes amid the starving reconcentrados, which, greatly enlarged, were publicly exhibited in all parts of the Union. These pictures, showing the frightful distortions of the human body as the result of long starvation, showing little children, mere skeletons, looking mutely down on the dead bodies of their parents, brought home to the mind of the people the state of life in a neighboring land as no writing, however brilliant, could. A cry went up from every part of the United States that a Christian duty was imposed upon our nation to interfere for the alleviation ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... one absorbing nature of her pursuit. Some of the revelers, recognizing Mliss, called to the child to sing and dance for them, and would have forced liquor upon her but for the interference of the master. Others, recognizing him mutely, made way for them to pass. So an hour slipped by. Then the child whispered in his ear that there was a cabin on the other side of the creek crossed by the long flume, where she thought he still might be. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... spoke with a stronger note than it had found on the balcony. Isaacson let go his friend's hands. He moved. The almost emotional protectiveness that had seemed mutely to exclaim, "I'll save you! Here's a hand—here are two strong hands—to save you from the abyss!" died out of his attitude. He stood up straight. But he kept his eyes fastened on his friend. Never in his consulting-room had he looked at any patient as he now looked ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... ahead. He sympathized with the tension that held Slone; he knew why the rider's face was gray, why his lips only moved mutely, why there was horror in the dark, strained eyes, why the lean, strong hands, slowly taking up the lasso, now shook like ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... been supplied by Miss Taylor, who for sixteen years had been in Mr. Woodhouse's family, less as governess than friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly of Emma. For years the two ladies had been living together, mutely attached, Emma doing just what she liked, highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but chiefly directed by ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... monarchs as they stand in hushed amaze, Mutely in those speechless moments on the lifeless ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies? It seems to have the look of it. For ages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms and aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has kept them alive; keeps them alive yet, here and there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping them alive until the silent-assertion lie retires ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sense reached him, induced him to listen, as he generally listened, for anything she might find that would explain the situation. His fingers went from habit, as a man might play with his watch chain, to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed them, and rested mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling in them, wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. "You could not forget that?" she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself. He looked into her upturned face and saw that her eyes ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... little tired of each other's company they should find their relief not so much in sinking to the rather low level of their companions as in wishing to pull the latter into the train in which they so constantly moved. "We're in the train," Maggie mutely reflected after the dinner in Eaton Square with Lady Castledean; "we've suddenly waked up in it and found ourselves rushing along, very much as if we had been put in during sleep—shoved, like a pair of labelled boxes, into the van. And since I wanted to 'go' I'm ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... He had ceased to yell. He remained mutely holding up his hands, while the cold abyss crept upward to his waist—the wet lips swallowing, swallowing ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... happiness in store for the children of God, we are very apt to build up a heaven of our own, which naturally takes the shape and color which our sorrows, needs, and sufferings lend thereto. The poor man, for instance, who has suffered mutely from toil and want, looks upon heaven as a place of rest, abounding with all that can satisfy the cravings of nature. Another, who has often endured the pangs of disease, looks upon it as a place where he shall enjoy ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... on the performances, to the infinite satisfaction of the Viscount of Morcerf, who seized his hat, rapidly passed his fingers through his hair, arranged his cravat and wristbands, and signified to Franz that he was waiting for him to lead the way. Franz, who had mutely interrogated the countess, and received from her a gracious smile in token that he would be welcome, sought not to retard the gratification of Albert's eager impatience, but began at once the tour of the house, closely ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... twice-told 35 Folly, with whom our light mistress adultery knew. Asks some questioner here "What? a door, yet privy to lewdness? You, from your owner's gate never a minute away? Strange to the talk o' the town? since here, stout timber above you, Hung to the beam, you shut mutely or open again." 40 Many a shameful time I heard her stealthy profession, While to the maids her guilt softly she hinted alone. Spoke unabash'd her amours and named them singly, opining Haply an ear to record fail'd me, a voice to reveal. There was another; enough; his name I gladly ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... should have been of some use. But she can only think of herself then as of some strange figure, veiled and petrified with grief—grief not for her mother, but for the young hero whose magnetism had thrilled through every moment of her life—yet pointing onwards, with mutely insistent finger, to the path that her hero had trodden. And Donald, dazed also himself by grief—though from another cause—of his own accord, placed his first uncertain steps on the road that leads to military glory. No "voice" warned him ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... hacked and maimed. I caught a glimpse through the door, of the butchers and their victims; some curious people were peeping through the windows at the operation. As the processions of freshly wounded went by, the poor fellows, lying on their backs, looked mutely at me, and their great eyes ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... seemed inclined to talk. Sir Arthur sat up against the parapet in a sort of stupor, the three Hindoos were grouped on one side, and Momba mutely followed his master from point to point, as with Guy and the colonel he made the ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... spring upon the sofa by my side, I fear with a view to forthcoming worms, of which they well knew I was the purveyor; and nothing could exceed the slyness of their eyes as they looked up at me and mutely suggested an expedition ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... with a gentle, patient striving to return to their former position of antagonistic friendship; for a friend's position was what she found that he had held in her regard, as well as in that of the rest of the family. There was a pretty humility in her behaviour to him, as if mutely apologising for the over-strong words which were the reaction from the deeds of the day of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the dug-out meditating on the strange things that (p. 271) can be seen by him who goes souvenir-hunting between Souchez and Ypres. As I entered I found Bill gazing mutely at some black liquid ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Sylvia, mutely imploring her to help him out in the dilemma of answering, but she was doing all she could to help crying. Philip came ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... scrutiny, the occupants, one by one, resumed their seats, and George felt that they were mutely asking him for an explanation. As fugitives they were naturally suspicious of strangers, and he was about to speak, when he saw a slight figure ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... toward him a little and again he gathered her in his arms. The red lips were mutely raised, and he kissed ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... glanced, with the air of being recalled to a wearisome routine, at the table in the middle of the floor; it meant ham and eggs. It seemed also to occur to her that she had not taken off her cloak, and she hung it on its nail behind the door. Soon, as Tenney, still motionless there by the stove, seemed mutely accusing her, mutely imploring her not to be cruel, she did turn and look at him. The thought of Raven was uppermost in her mind. It had been there every minute since she had gone into his house in the woods, but now ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... usual sights. He loathed them, and then he cursed himself because he loathed them. His mother's love had taken a cross turn, because he had kept the tempting supper she had prepared for him waiting until it was nearly spoilt. Alice, her dulled senses deadening day by day, sat mutely near the fire: her happiness bounded by the consciousness of the presence of her foster-child, knowing that his voice repeated what was passing to her deafened ear, that his arm removed each little obstacle to her tottering steps. And Will, out ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... had lavished, unknown to himself, all the reverence and respect and love that a normal English boy feels for his own mother. He had never known another, and so to Kala was given, though mutely, all that would have belonged to the fair and lovely Lady Alice ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thrilling moment! Juve and Fandor, in this hour of decisive victory, mutely embraced. Monsieur Havard advanced with raised hands ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... the sound of the blow that was to fall upon the Vienna man's head. Then they threw aside their hats, buttoned their coats tightly, and sank down to wait, with bounding hearts and tingling nerves, the arrival of the abductors, mutely praying that they were ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... almost ludicrously discreet. Brown hands which had been in constant activity, talking as plainly, and more expressively, than voices, now lay limply upon the white cloth or were placed upon knees motionless as the knees of statues. And all eyes were turned towards the giver of the feast, mutely demanding of him a signal of conduct to guide his inquiring guests. But Maurice, too, felt for the moment tongue-tied. He was very sensitive to influences, and his present position, between Maddalena and her father, created within him a certain confusion of feelings, an odd sensation ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... life of Europe's future lies on neither side of that opposition. The real life is mutely busy at present, saying little because of the uproar of the guns, and not so much learning as casting habits and shedding delusions. In the trenches there are workers who have broken with the old slacking and sabotage, and there are prospective leaders who have forgotten ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... each other's breath on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness, or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... blaze, Mixt with the liquid light that lies In Cytherea's languid eyes. O'er her nose and cheek be shed Flushing white and softened red; Mingling tints, as when there glows In snowy milk the bashful rose. Then her lip, so rich in blisses, Sweet petitioner for kisses, Rosy nest, where lurks Persuasion, Mutely courting Love's invasion. Next, beneath the velvet chin, Whose dimple hides a Love within, Mould her neck with grace descending, In a heaven of beauty ending; While countless charms, above, below, Sport and flutter round its snow. Now let a floating, lucid veil, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... nod of the head? Strange that men will be contented with such pleasures, or if not contented, at least that they will be so eager in seeking them. Not one word did Harry, he so fluent of conversation ordinarily, change with his charmer on that day. Mutely he beheld her return to her carriage, and drive away among rather ironical salutes from the young men in the Park. One said that the Indian widow was making the paternal rupees spin rapidly; another said that she ought to have ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Nichinassis" who individually and collectively did their best to haul me and my baggage over that immense waste of snow and ice, what a host of sadly resigned faces rises up in the dusky light of the fire! faces seared by whip-mark and blow of stick, faces mutely conscious that that master for whom the dog gives up every thing in this life was treating him in a most brutal manner. I do not for an instant mean to assert that these dogs were not, many of them, great rascals and rank ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... for a while. The sun was setting, and the rays shone down through the trees; through a gap they could see the west, scarlet and gold and beautiful. Things felt very solemn. Marjorie put out one hand mutely, and Francis took it and held it closely. It was more really their marriage day than the one in New York, when they were both young and reckless, and scarcely more than bits of flotsam in the tremendous world-current that set toward ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... waited for the laughter. There was always laughter, no matter what he did or said, but he never grew calloused against it. It was the one pain which ever pierced the mist of his brain and cut him to the quick. And he was right. There was laughter again. He stood suffering mutely under it. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... sagged in bunches, a man sat staring vacantly at a hole in the rag carpet. Tied in a high chair, which stood apart as if it were the pedestal of an idol, a baby, with the smooth unlined face not of an infant, but of a philosopher, was mutely surveying the scene. ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... lady, often looked towards him as if to express his grief and to ask for advice. Jeanne listened to him, her eyes fixed on the ground. When he had finished she raised to the Selvas those great eyes of hers, so full of pitiful distress. She looked from one to the other saying mutely, involuntarily, "You know?" The sad eyes of both husband and wife replied, "Yes, we know!" There came a loud outburst of joyous music. Maria took advantage of this ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... fondness for the old barrier that we have seen draped in black for a dead hero and glittering with gold in honour of a young bride. We have shared the sunshine that brightened it and the gloom that has darkened it, and we feel for it a species of friendship, in which it mutely shares. To us there seems to be a dignity in its dirt and pathos in the mud that bespatters its patient old face, as, like a sturdy fortress, it holds out against all its enemies, and Charles I. and II., and Elizabeth and James I. keep a bright look-out day and night ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... decipher. Upon the stage Belus was like a desert cat, a gliding movement almost incorporeal, a glance of feline intensity, and then—the puissant attack upon the keyboard. As in sullen dreams one struggles to throw off the spell of hypnotic suggestion, so there were many who mutely fought his power, questioning with rebellious soul his right to conquer. But conquer he did—so all the conservatory pupils said. A steady stream of victorious tone came from under his supple fingers, and his instrument of shallow thunders and tinkling wires sang as if an archangel had smote it, ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... eyes were straight looking and clear, his fresh, clean-shaven face was undeniably handsome, and, whatever his origin, whatever his history, there was something about him, in look, in speech, in bearing, that mutely stood sponsor for the ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... drop mutely on the hill, His cloud above it saileth still, Though on its slope men sow and reap; More softly than the dew is shed, Or cloud is floated overhead, He giveth ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... incredulous hearers; Sir Wilfrid's statement carried instant conviction. A Babel-like chorus of startled exclamation arose, amid which the scientist sat mutely enjoying the first fruit of his ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... October pine Reach into this room of mine: On the pine there stands a bird; He is shadowed with the tree. Mutely perched he bills no word; Blank as I am even is he. For those happy suns are past, Fore-discerned in winter last. When went by their pleasure, then? I, alas, ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... Elinor nodded mutely, and Patricia, pulling down the shades so that the street light did not flicker on the pale wall, tiptoed out of the room, to caution Judith and await the coming ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther |
