"Numbness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feet were as heavy as logs—that they were benumbed, that they had fallen asleep, and were filled with the sharp pricking of thorns. Yet he had no control over them; he could not move them, could hardly even think of them as belonging to himself. This sensation of numbness began slowly to crawl upward like some gigantic insect. He knew it would reach his knees and then pass on to his waist, but the knowledge gave him no power to prevent its coming, and when he tried to will his hand to move, it refused to obey the action ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... one that for so long now has stayed at home, and the one that went abroad. Destitute of stimulus from without, the Indo-Aryan mind turned upon itself and consumed in dreamy metaphysics the imagination which has made its cousins the leaders in the world's progress to-day. The inevitable numbness of monotony crept over the stay-at-homes. The deadly sameness of their surroundings produced its unavoidable effect. The torpor of the East, like some paralyzing poison, stole into their souls, and they fell into a drowsy slumber only to dream in the land they had formerly ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... and three rogues fired at we had bagged thirty-one elephants in a few days' shooting. My mishap on the first day had much destroyed the pleasure of the sport, as the exercise was too much for my wounded leg, which did not recover from the feeling of numbness for ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... months of intense emotional experience had instantly been annihilated, and he was left in the midst of a great void in his consciousness out of touching-reach of anything. There was no sharp pang, but just a bewildered numbness. A few filaments only of the romantic feeling for Ida that filled his mind a moment before still lingered, floating about it, unattached to anything, like vague neuralgic feelings in an amputated stump, as if to remind him of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... a kind of peace. I was almost content in a benumbed way. Then came my arrest—and you. It was a rough awakening, but I begin to see that I still live, that I am young, that I can become breathless with excitement. This raid, this ride, has swept away all that deathlike numbness which had fallen upon me. I've had my lesson. Now I can go back. I ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... finished the first sentence, a curious dull feeling came over him, and he found that he could not understand what he was reading; he must go over the passage again. But as he re-read it the same numbness and impossibility of comprehension came over him; and yet the ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... interrupted the silence; the sea did not break upon the shore; no bird or any living thing was visible; the midnight sun, by this time muffled in a transparent mist, shed an awful, mysterious lustre on glacier and mountain; no atom of vegetation gave token of the earth's vitality: an universal numbness and dumbness seemed to pervade the solitude. I suppose in scarcely any other part of the world is this appearance of deadness so strikingly exhibited. On the stillest summer day in England, there is always ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... of tempest of darkness pale shapes hovered about him; his heart was numb with anguish; he seemed to be falling, falling—and a bottomless abyss was opening at his feet. A familiar light rustle of a silk dress roused him from his numbness; Varvara Pavlovna in her hat and shawl was returning in haste from her walk. Lavretsky trembled all over and rushed away; he felt that at that instant he was capable of tearing her to pieces, beating her to death, as a peasant might do, strangling her with his own hands. Varvara Pavlovna ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... what, he turned with a sudden swift impulse, and rushed madly, as though the furies were after him and any moment might lay a hand on him, back to where he could just see the white road gleaming in the distance. His heart thumped so he thought it would choke him, his head swam, a numbness seemed to be gripping his limbs, blackness creeping over his sight. Before he reached the road he staggered, stumbled, fell—and for a few moments lay, a small unconscious ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... delight, and streaming over, surrounded Mose, who stood at bay not far from his horse in the darkness—a sudden numbness in ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... count—or rather some strange voice, not hers, seemed to count for her; as the first numbness passed, farther and farther away she seemed to dissolve, to become a disembodied consciousness poised in a misty ether. And at that moment—so she told Thyrsis afterwards—the face of Mr. Harding seemed to appear ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... arms, and kicked its tiny moccasined feet, and cooed and laughed and squirmed until Miki strained at his thongs to get a little nearer that he might touch this wonderful creature with his nose. He forgot his pain. He no longer sensed the agony of his bruised and beaten jaws. He did not feel the numbness of his tightly bound and frozen legs. Every instinct in him was centred ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... not lived for those things which alone are worth living for. But God has sent me here to-night with a message to the people which my heart must deliver. It is a duty even more sacred in some ways than what I owe to my own kindred. I am aware that the hearts of the people are shocked into numbness by the recent horror. I know that more than one bleeding heart is in this house, and the shadow of the last enemy, has fallen over many thresholds in our town. What! did I not enter into the valley of the shadow of ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... Lyle, holding out the letter, but speaking with great effort, for the room was growing very dark, and a strange numbness seemed stealing over heart and brain, "this tells that I was stolen from the side of my dead mother who was killed in a wreck—" She could get no farther, and she knew nothing of his reply. A thick ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... engine in my wet clothing and soon fell asleep, without bedding or food. I slept from exhaustion until near midnight, when I was seized with fearful crampings, accompanied by a cold and deathlike numbness. I tried to rise up, but could not. I thought my time had come, and that I would perish without aid ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... stream and make for the higher ground. But a new misfortune now befell me: I lost my boots. They were strong laced boots, without elastic sides, or any such weak points about them. I had observed before that one was getting loose, but was unable to do anything to it from the numbness of my hands; and after struggling out of a deep drift previous to reascending the hill, I found that I had left this boot behind. There was nothing for it but to go on without, and as my feet were perfectly numbed from the cold, and devoid of feeling, I did not experience any difficulty ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... the Flopper save in a vague, inconsequential way—he was looking at Helena. She had drooped forward a little over the table, her chin in her hands, her lips quivering—and a white misery in her face seemed to bring a chill, a numbness to his heart. His Hands clenched, and he began to pace ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... is shocked. It is a peculiar case. Not once in a score of years do we find such a case. Every nerve is numb, every muscle relaxed, and whether he will live or die depends on arousing him from that numbness." ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... not flinch or start when Mr. Fullarton's words caught her ear, but a heavy, chill faintness stole over her, till she felt all her limbs benumbed, and every thing before her eyes grew misty and dim. The numbness passed away almost immediately, but still the figures around her appeared distorted and fantastically exaggerated; they seemed to be tossing and whirling round one steadfast centre, as the dead leaves in winter ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... enough little story, crude and young; I never glance at it without longing to write it over; but I cannot read it, to this day, without that tingling and numbness down one's spine and through the top of one's head, which exceptional tragedy must produce in any sensitive organization; nor can I ever trust myself to hear it read by professional elocutionists. I attribute the success of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... state of terror, from which, for a few minutes, he found it difficult to shake himself free. At length he sate upon the grass, and became sensible, by repeated exertion, that the only personal injury which he had sustained was the numbness arising from extreme cold. The motion of something near him made the blood again run to his heart, and by a sudden effort he started up, and, looking around, saw to his relief that the noise was occasioned by the footsteps of his own mule. The peaceable ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... drew up to the table, and opened Fiske. He did not finish the first paragraph. The lines blurred and ran together and his head nodded. He walked up and down, batting his head savagely with his fists, but he could not conquer the numbness of sleep. He propped the book before him, and propped his eyelids with his fingers, and fell asleep with his eyes wide open. Then he surrendered, and, scarcely conscious of what he did, got off his clothes and into bed. He slept seven hours of heavy, animal-like sleep, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... and cool. I am sorry to say I have three of the party on the sicklist—all seized first with cold shivering then excessive heat, ultimately a numbness and want of proper use of their limbs, sickness, and want of appetite and headache. They are Middleton, Hodgkinson, and Kirby. They are confined to bed; but I hope with a little care will soon recover, as it is an awkward part of the world to be taken ill in. Getting the meat jerked and ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... streams she saw, and loud exclaim'd:— "O sire, assist me, if within thy streams "Divinity abides. Let earth this form, "Too comely for my peace, quick swallow up; "Or change those beauties to an harmless shape." Her prayer scarce ended, when her lovely limbs A numbness felt; a tender rind enwraps Her beauteous bosom; from her head shoots up Her hair in leaves; in branches spread her arms; Her feet but now so swift, cleave to the earth With roots immoveable; her face at last The summit forms; her bloom the same remains. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... A great numbness passed over the man. He was dazed; and as wave after wave splashed over his head, he struggled dumbly to reach the ladder. Then under the reaction from the icy shock, an electric thrill of energy and vitality passed ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... a sharp pain, then a numbness in my right hand. I glanced at it, and saw that the back of it was cut open, and bleeding. I had to pull the lanyard with my left hand the rest of the fight. I supposed a bullet had done it, but was disgusted to see blood on one of the rails, which chocked our gun, and find that this rail ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... thankful afterwards for the merciful numbness, that was like an anaesthetic in a painful operation. She had a feeling that she would awaken soon and realise fully the terrible calamity that had befallen, but just now, if she kept still it would not ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... had an enormous influence upon my fortunes; and I was more adrift in the world than ever before, more in the dark as to what awaited me than when I was lugged along with my head in a sack. I gave her but little thought. A sort of numbness had come over me. I could think of the girl who had cut me free, and for all my resentment at the indignity of my treatment, I had hardly a thought to spare for the man who had me bound. I was pleased to remember that she hated him; that she had said so herself. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... not the energy to express our deepest sentiments, and things which were formerly pleasant were strange to us now. We had no spur to enliven our thoughts in our monotonous life. To the careless there was nothing startling in this moral numbness, but the more sensitive among us grieved over it, and were humiliated by the shallowness that ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... duty. This is my consolation. I hope to meet you all again. I left not the line until all had fallen and colors gone. I am getting weak. My arms are free but below my chest all is numb. The enemy trotting over me. The numbness up to my heart. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... circulation of the blood; my arteries pulsate violently; tears, which usually announce the end of the paroxysm, often indicate only a progressive stage which is to become much more intense. In this case there follow spasmodic contractions of the muscles, trembling in all the limbs, a total numbness in the feet and hands, partial paralysis of the optic and auditory nerves. I can no longer see, I can hardly hear: vertigo ... almost swooning...." Such was the effect of music ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... and raised her lips to his; and the kiss, which she did not give but permitted, seemed only fraught with an ineffable sadness, the end of all things, the tearing asunder and the numbness of separation. She returned to her pose, her eyes fixed on the little ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... A cold numbness seized Lorand when he heard his father's name. Then his heart began suddenly to beat at a furious pace. He felt he was standing before the crypt door, whose secret he had so often ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... confessed her alleged crime. A mole or wart on any part of the body was a sure sign of commerce with the devil. It was believed that on the body of every witch was a spot insensible to pain. To discover this she was stripped, pins were run into the body, and when excess of pain had produced numbness, some such spot was pretty certain to be found. Men regularly took up with this work in both England and Scotland, and their fame as 'prickers' depended upon the number of witches they unearthed. If a suspected witch kept a black cat, did not ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... from cold food and drink, and these grew well by reason of their abstinence and care to keep themselves from too great cold, for God had pity on them; but some that neglected these matters died after three days, or even two, being weakened by the numbness. ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... strange-looking atmosphere," Emmett remarked. The pain in his arm and the numbness that was gradually spreading throughout his body had relaxed his mind. He felt so physically detached from his surroundings that he could look at the fog-like gas that swirled about them with ...
— No Hiding Place • Richard R. Smith
... desolation, and, except at Communion, did not feel that it was the day of the Resurrection. Last night, being with the community, I heard one [1] of them singing how hard it is to be living away from God. As I was then suffering, the effect of that singing on me was such that a numbness began in my hands, and no efforts of mine could hinder it; but as I go out of myself in raptures of joy, so then my soul was thrown into a trance through the excessive pain, and remained entranced; and until this day I had not felt this. A few days previously I thought ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... large interest. Men can not draw drafts on their constitution without honoring them sometime. These minor symptoms I have described, grew until they were giants of agony. I became more nervous; had a strange fluttering of the heart, an inability to draw a long breath and an occasional numbness that was terribly suggestive of paralysis. How I could have been so blind as not to understand what this meant I ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... possibility that she was the person accused, and intended for arrest, a sickening horror seized and almost paralyzed her, blanching her face and turning her to stone. As he led her along the street, she staggered from the numbness that possessed her, and her eyes stared blankly, like those of a somnambulist. When she had been ushered into a room where several policemen were lounging and smoking, the intolerable sense of shame and indignation shook off ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... phials and a cup, measured the draught, drop by drop, then he turned and looked round him stealthily, and then he drew from his breast a pale blue, coiling serpent, which he threw into the cup, and held it to the patient's lips, who drank, and instantly felt a numbness creep over his frame which ended in death. Edward fancied that he was dead; he saw the coffin brought, but the terror lest he should be buried alive, made him start up with a sudden effort, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... his black coffee. Perhaps it might steady him and clear his head. The numbness of his faculties and senses alike exasperated him, filling him with a persuasion he would say precisely those things wisdom ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... that had cut his bonds still open in her hand. They stood face to face, a little space between them, her great eyes pouring their terrified sympathy into his soul. Neither spoke, a daze over them, a numbness on their tongues, the dull shock of death's close passing ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... an unusual sensation of numbness in Steve's arms as he climbed back on to the wooden spells, and he knew that he had been motionless quite long enough; and he could not help feeling that if he had remained there another hour clinging to the icy shrouds he would not have been able ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... heart that could leave her thus to suffer and die that was the loser. Not in its relations with the world, fair or ill—such, like all external things, are important only as we take them: but in its diminished capacity to feel greatly and tenderly, in its added numbness, in its less noble beat. It was thus that the cor cordium lost what no lyric passion, no triumphant exultation of success, could ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... collectedly, but her brain felt numb and fogged and heavy. The sight of that tortured candle flame hypnotized her. Faintly she whispered, "Then it was all—an excuse," and, at that, sharp terror, like a knife, cleaved her numbness. She turned furiously ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... of the lower third of the fissure of Rolando. A second wound of entry was found crossing the third dorsal spine; the bullet was retained and was palpable over the right scapula. There was left facial paralysis, weakness and numbness of both upper extremities, especially of the left, and some difficulty in swallowing. The man was sent to the Base, where he arrived on the fourth day. The symptoms had then become much more marked, consciousness was incomplete, and articulation slow and imperfect. ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... sensation to be free. It was still more strange that it was not a sensation. It was a kind of numbness. She could only feel that she didn't feel. In spite of her repeated silent assertions, "I'm free! I'm free!" any consciousness ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... I believe." He made a weak effort to touch her hand, but failed. He thought that perhaps it was the chill and numbness of death which stole over him and held him bound. When the nurse, whose footsteps they had heard, entered, she found him lying with glazed eyes, and Madame Villefort fallen in a ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... plague, this mischief from me, Which, as a numbness over all my body, Expels my joys, and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and torn, all mud from heel to head, and with a numbness in his brain Barnabas rides, stooped low in the saddle, for he is sick and very faint. His hat is gone, and the cool wind in his hair revives him somewhat, but the numbness remains. Yet it is as one in ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... for the numbness following the first shock was passing away and all the eating agony of my loss began to fix its ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... in the hands of the Russians in a German village, I had the consolation of finding an old philosopher, who gave me the rarest proofs of friendship. Who would have told me, when I succumbed to the numbness of the cold in the tower of Liebenfeld, that that sleep would not be the last? God is my witness, that in then addressing, from the bottom of my heart, a last farewell to Clementine, I did not even hope to see her again. I will see you again, then, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... block or two when, through her numbness, crept a dim little shadow of dread. At first it was nothing more than an inner suggestion to hasten her steps, but gradually it became a conscious impulse to outstrip something or some one behind her—some one or something whose footfalls, resounding faintly through the deserted street, ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... degrees the descending snow made a numbness steal over him, and his feeble limbs being incapable of carrying him farther, he had to sit down in the middle of an open field. He did not ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o'clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... alacrity, they showed improvement. His nervous system, which transmitted the orders of his mind to his body, seemed asleep—or broken like the telegraph lines they had torn down along the route of the raid. But slowly his nerves awoke, and strength replaced the numbness. ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... like fools. To this corrupt, wanton, crazy girl, they entrusted the right of searching about the bodies of girls and boys, for the spot whereon Satan had set his mark. This spot discovered itself by a certain numbness, by the fact that you might stick needles into it without causing pain. While a surgeon thus tormented the elder ones, she took in hand the young, who, though called as witnesses, might themselves be accused, if she pronounced ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... in the apprehension that the phantom of a dead man held the sleeper by the wrist, and endeavoured to drag him out of bed. He awaked in horror, and still felt the cold dead grasp of a corpse's hand on his right wrist. It was a minute before he discovered that his own left hand was in a state of numbness, and with it he had accidentally encircled his ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... possible to keep the truth about Mike Burton from the invalid, and Mary broke the news to him as gently as she could, The shock seemed to stun Jim's sensibilities for a time. As the numbness wore off, a bitter, blind hatred grew in his heart against the men he chose to regard as Mike's murderers, and he had a ferocious longing for vengeance. Again law and order, the forces of society, had intervened to embitter him. His ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... not fail, though coming this year somewhat later than the last, Diana felt like a person wakened up to life to die the second time. Her mood all changed. From a dull, miserable apathy, which yet had somewhat of the numbness of death in it, she woke up to the intense life of pain, and to a corresponding, but in her most unwonted, irritability of feeling. All of a sudden, as it were, she grew sensitive to whatever in her life and surroundings was untoward or trying. She read through Will Flandin's devotion; ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... as I seem, I can endure some privations better than you could. Thus hunger produces in me a sort of numbness, which leaves me very feeble—but for you, robust and full of life, hunger is fury, is madness. Alas! you must remember how many times I have seen you suffering from those painful attacks, when work failed us in our wretched garret, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... recover in myself the extreme sensibilities I felt before the fiery trial, so that I might describe for you the colours and the aspects of the drama we have passed through. But just now I am in a state of numbness, pleasant enough in itself, yet apt to hinder my vision of things present and my forecasts of things to come. I have to make an effort to keep hold of eternal and essential things; perhaps I shall succeed ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... valetudinarian, and within the same period, on using pretty quick exercise of body, she was subject to attacks of violent anguish in the upper part of the chest on the left side, accompanied with a difficulty of breathing, and numbness of the left arm; but these paroxysms soon subsided when she ceased from exertion. In these circumstances, but with cheerfulness of mind, she undertook a journey from Venice, purposing to travel along ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... craft plunging through the blow. She had not long to wait after that, for the approaching launch was a lean-lined speeder, powerfully engined, and she was being forced. Stella supposed it was one of the Abbey runabouts. Even with her teeth chattering and numbness fastening itself upon her, she shivered at the chances the man was taking. It was no sea for a speed boat to smash into at thirty miles an hour. She saw it shoot off the top of one wave and disappear in a white burst of spray, slash through the next and bury ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... For months she had fronted it in bravado, not concealing from herself that it lay in waiting. For years he had been sure that though the inevitable might happen to others it could not happen to him. There it was! He was conscious of a heavy weight in his stomach, and she of a general numbness, enwrapping her fatigue. Even then he could not believe that it was true, this disaster. As for Sophia she was reconciling herself with bitter philosophy to the eccentricities of fate. Who would have dreamed that she, a young girl brought up, etc? Her mother could not have improved the occasion more ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... curio.' He says she seemed to complain of something about her mouth and head. Her face was drawn and shrunken; her hands were cold and clammy, and then convulsions came on. He called an ambulance, but she was past saving when it arrived. The numbness seemed to have extended over all her body; swallowing was impossible; there was entire loss of her voice as well as sight, and death took place ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... there for a long while; the numbness became painful; the tension a dull endurance. Fatigue came, too; she rested her head wearily on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. But the tall clocks ticking slowly became unendurable—and the odour of ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... don't want visitors,' she said; 'little repose—and all that sort of thing—is what I quire. No odious brutes must proach me till I've shaken off this numbness;' and in a grisly resumption of her coquettish ways, she made a dab at the Major with her fan, but overset Mr Dombey's breakfast cup instead, which was in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Where'er we go it followeth; All these are dead; and we alone Remain to weep for what is gone. What is this thing? thus hurriedly To pass into eternity; To leave the earth so full of mirth; To lose the profit of our birth; 200 To die and be no more; to cease, Having numbness that is not peace. Let us go hence; and, even if thus Death everywhere must go with us, Let us not see the change, but see Those who have been or still ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... no uncommon punishment of this transgression. There are, however, several forms of this disease. Sometimes, a slight numbness of a single toe or finger is the first symptom of its approach; but at others a whole hand, arm, or leg is affected. In the present case, the first attacks are not very violent, as if to give the offender opportunity ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... seemed as heavy as lead and yet they seemed to move of their own accord without any effort of the will. Our minds became blurred and numb—a numbness that was broken from time to time by a sharp stab of pain whenever a sleeper ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... Numbness, which was in reality death in life, blunted Fern's feelings as she worked, and talked, and fulfilled her little duties. When she went up to her room and looked at Crystal's empty bed, she thought the room had never looked so desolate. She undressed slowly, with long pauses, during ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... paced the room half impatiently,—a very well-feigned expression of friendly concern and sympathy on his features. Thelma stood motionless, a little bewildered—her head throbbed achingly, and there was a sick sensation of numbness ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... in her bedroom, having fallen into that half-waking slumber which the numbness of sorrow so often produces, when word was brought to her that Mrs Askerton was in the house. It was the first time that Mrs Askerton had ever crossed the door, and the remembrance that it was so came upon her at once. During her father's lifetime it had seemed to be understood that their neighbour ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... from them. They are afterwards introduced to women of genuine innocence; and when they attempt to deceive these in like manner, by virtue of a power given to those women, they are heavily fined; for they occasion in their hands and feet a grievous numbness; likewise in their necks, and at length make them feel as it were a swoon; and when they have inflicted this punishment, they run away and escape from the sufferers. After this there is a way opened to them to ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... to the unexpected. Fatigue, neurasthenia, hysteria and certain depressed conditions render a man more liable to react excessively and badly to surprise. The tired soldier has lessened resources in wit and courage when surprised, for fatigue heightens the confusion and numbness of surprise and decreases the scope of intelligent conduct. Choice is made difficult, and the neurasthenic doubt is ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... sentinel, I rose and walked down the broad stone steps, intending to seat myself farther on in the gardens. Just as I reached the gravel-walk, I felt an arm slipped within mine, and a light hand gently pressing my wrist. In the same instant a strange intoxicating numbness passed over me, like the continuance or climax of the sensation I was still feeling from the gaze of Lucrezia Borgia. The gardens, the summer sky, the consciousness of Bertha's arm being within mine, all vanished, and I seemed to be suddenly in darkness, out of which there gradually ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... Frankland had found her proper field—a true mission field indeed, for in this world-out-of-joint there is little danger of going astray in looking for misery of one sort or another. If the sorrows of the poor are greater, they have, if not consolation, at least a fortunate numbness produced by the never-ending battle for bread; but the canker has time to gnaw the very heart out of ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... surprises which transcend the surprising, and as the finer tones of music defeat our ears and pass by us unnoticed so do these super-dramatic happenings find us unmoved. Flamby was aware of a vague numbness; she felt like an automaton, ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... coat and vest and then, baring her cruel teeth with a soft gurgle of excitement, and a smack of her red glistening lips, she prepared to eat him. Strangely enough, he experienced no pain as her nails sank into the flesh of his throat and chest and clawed it asunder. He was numb, numb with the numbness produced by hypnotism or paralysis—only some of his faculties were awake, vividly, startlingly awake. He was abruptly roused from this state by the dull crack of a rifle, and an agonising, blood-curdling scream, after which he knew no more till he found himself sitting upright ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... to the ground, drawing his stunner, knowing at the same moment that such a weapon was about as much use in meeting a blaster as a straw wand would be to ward off a blazing coal. A chill numbness held him as he waited for a second blast to charr the flesh between his shoulders. So there had been a Throg survivor, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... marked the resting-place of many generations. The snow was now gathering fast over the dreary and desolate abode, as the miser stumbled along the beaten pathway, bending against the blast and drift. A strange numbness and drowsiness crept over him. He no longer felt the cold; an uncontrollable desire of slumber possessed him. He sat down upon a flat tombstone, and soon lost all consciousness of his ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... of hope. I have never suffered any pain in my limbs, and they might have been really marble, for all the feeling I have had in them. Now I begin to be sensible of a wearisome numbness and aching, which would be hard to bear, if it were not that it gives me the expectation of returning animation. Do you think I may expect it, and that I am ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... with a coldness and numbness in her limbs, which by degrees affected the nerves (I think the physicians call them), seized the brain, and at last ended in a lethargy. It betrayed itself at first in a sort of indifference and carelessness in all her actions, coldness to ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... bloodshot eyes aflame with frenzy—great tusks upthrown—a trunk upraised to brain me—huge flat feet that raged to tread me down and knead me into purple mud! I kept the last shot with a coolness I believe was really numbness—then felt his hot breath like a blast on my face, and let him have it, straight down the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... emotions. They were really fits of ecstasy or convulsions. At first "there was feverish excitement; the veins beat violently and tears flowed freely. Then came spasmodic contractions of the muscles, total numbness of the feet and hands, and partial paralysis of the nerves of sight and hearing; he saw nothing, heard nothing; he was giddy and half faint." And in the case of music that displeased him, he suffered, on the contrary, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... thorn-back. This fish is of a most singular nature, productive of the strangest effects on the human body; for whoever handles it, or happens even to set his foot upon it, is presently seized with a numbness all over him, but more distinguishable in that limb which was in immediate contact with it. The same effect, too, will be, in some degree, produced by touching the fish, with any thing held in the hand; for I myself ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... her shoulders. The numbness passed, or she flung it angrily from her. And she had the door open and was through the doorway in an instant, and crying out in the long corridor that led to the room of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... cold. Methought, when I this poem read, No vessel but an ass's head Such frigid fustian could contain; I mean, the head without the brain. The cold conceits, the chilling thoughts, Went down like stupifying draughts; I found my head begin to swim, A numbness crept through every limb. In haste, with imprecations dire, I threw the volume in the fire; When, (who could think?) though cold as ice, It burnt to ashes in a trice. How could I more enhance its fame? Though born in ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... last twenty-four hours had been continually in his thoughts, who seemed at one moment to be sympathising with him and at another to be playing upon his face with a garden hose. Then it all faded away, and a sort of numbness crept over him. He made a desperate struggle for consciousness. There was something cold resting against his cheek. His fingers stole towards it. It was the flask, drawn from his own pocket and placed there by some ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... such numbness of spirit only that the life of the invalid resembles a premature old age. Those excursions that he had promised himself to finish prove too long or too arduous for his feeble body; and the barrier-hills are as impassable as ever. Many ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the sciatic nerve, Kuster mentions the case of a strong man of thirty, who in walking slipped and fell on his back. Immediately after rising to his feet he felt severe pain in the right leg and numbness in the foot. He was unable to stand, and was carried to his house, where Kuster found him suffering great pain. The diagnosis had been fracture of the neck of the femur, but as there was no crepitation and passive movements caused but little pain, Kuster ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... lapse, and surrendered to the sleepy numbness which assailed his brain in waves. He was riding without support by this time, but it was an automatic effort. There was no more real life in him than in a dummy figure. It was not the effect of the ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... an injury may have serious consequences. However, for nine days the wound goes on well, and Don Carlos, having had a wholesome fright, is, according to Doctor Olivarez, the medico de camara, a very good lad, and lives on chicken broth and dried plums. But on the tenth day comes on numbness of the left side, acute pains in the head, and then gradually shivering, high fever, erysipelas. His head and neck swell to an enormous size; then comes raging delirium, then stupefaction, and Don Carlos ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... daring to change his position in the slightest, with Nan's head lying against his shoulder, and her hand in his. Now and again one of the nurses fed him with milk and brandy, and after a time the intolerable torture of his cramped arms and legs dulled into a deadly numbness. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... measure of his life was a handful of fagots. One by one they would go to feed the fire, and just so, step by step, death would creep upon him. When the last stick had surrendered up its heat, the frost would begin to gather strength. First his feet would yield, then his hands; and the numbness would travel, slowly, from the extremities to the body. His head would fall forward upon his knees, and he would rest. It was ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... reasonable that we should experience some alarm at the turn events were taking-but we felt none. The countenance of Peters indicated nothing of this nature, although it wore at times an expression I could not fathom. The polar winter appeared to be coming on—but coming without its terrors. I felt a numbness of body and mind—a dreaminess of sensation ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... When the cloth was raised, the collapsed and pallid features of one in whom life was unequivocally extinct were exposed to view. Unlike most of those that perish of cold, who usually sink into the long sleep of eternity by a gradual numbness and a slowly increasing unconsciousness, there was an expression of pain in the countenance of the stranger which seemed to announce that his parting struggles had been severe, and that he had resigned his hold ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... gentle current of electricity passing along them. Sometimes there is experienced the sensation of a gentle cool breeze passing over the sitters—particularly over the backs of their hands. In other cases there may be a sense of numbness or partial loss of sensation, something akin to that experienced when a hand or arm "goes to sleep," as the popular phrase expresses it. In other cases there is manifested a peculiar jerking, twitching, or vibration ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... fissure and looked into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, small, sharp, cold, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth, steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness of fear that cannot move, as in the terror of dreams. The two sparks of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... giddiness. "Why then," asks a wise man, "may not amulets or charms, by their secret influence, produce the effects ascribed to them? Who can comprehend by what impenetrable means the bite of a mad dog produces hydrophobia? Why does the touch of a torpedo induce numbness? When these causes and effects are explained," he concludes, "so may the virtue of amulets be accounted for." Ancient philosophers laid it down, as a proof of ignorance, the condemnation of a science not easily understood. In this way the advocates ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... an envelope and gave it to the hack driver to carry to Hartley on his trip the following day. She had intended all fall to go with him and select a winter headpiece that would be no discredit to her summer choice, but a sort of numbness was in her bones; so she decided to wait until the coming week before going. She declined George's pressing invitation to go along to Aunt Ollie's and help load and bring home a part of his share of their summer's crops, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of the king or some member of the royal family. I have walked up and down these dismal chambers for hours at a time, staring at the daubs on the walls, and picking up little odds and ends of ornaments, and gazing vacantly at them, till I felt a numbness steal all over me, accompanied by a vague presentiment that I was imprisoned for life. The progress of time is a matter of no importance in Norway. To an American, accustomed to see every thing done with energy and promptness, it is absolutely astounding—the indifference ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... narcosis, lethargy, numbness, narcoma, insusceptibility, anaesthesia, stupefaction, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... theory "equal rights for all." Life, equal vitality, all the vibration and exuberance of life, driven back into the smallest structure, and the remainder left almost lifeless. Everywhere paralysis, distress, and numbness, or hostility and chaos both striking one with ever increasing force the higher the forms of organisation are into which one ascends. The whole no longer lives at all: it is composed, reckoned up, artificial, ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... beasts, as heifers, asses, rams, hares, wolves, foxes, weasels and mice, when these appeared in uncommon places, crossed the way, or ran to the right or left. They also pretended to draw a good or bad omen from the most trifling actions or occurrences of life, as sneezing, stumbling, starting, numbness of the little finger, the tingling of the ear, the spilling of salt upon the table, or the wine upon one's clothes, the accidental meeting of a bitch with whelp, etc. It was also the business of the augur to ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... At first a numbness and a deadness came over his spirit, but this condition erelong gave way to a sweet contemplation of the beauties of character that his friend possessed, and he tenderly reviewed the gracious hours they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... acknowledged that although there are cases of distress in which a well may become a place of refuge, a well is not at all calculated for a prolonged residence—so thought Jack. After he had been there some fifteen minutes, his teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled; he felt a numbness all over, and he thought it high time to call for assistance, which at first he would not, as he was afraid he should be pulled up to encounter the indignation of the farmer and his family. Jack was arranging his jaws for a halloo, when he felt the chain pulled ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and the weariness of a soul too utterly weary to care any longer. But time works so slowly, and the utter weariness of the soul is often so prolonged before, as it were, the spirit snaps and the blessed numbness of indifference settles down upon our hearts. People who can see have the whole of the wonder of Nature working for them in their woe. It is hard to feel utterly crushed and broken before a wide expanse of mountain, moorland, or sea. Something in their strength and vastness seems to ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... over his face he became aware that he was looking through his finger ends, and he noted distinctly his haggard features and the short growth of beard which made him appear jaded and unwashed. Then almost instantly the quickness died out of his perception, and he felt the old numbness creeping back. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of the nerves is deadened. The inebriate may seize a hot iron and hardly know it, or wound his hand painfully and never feel the injury. The numbness is not of the skin, but of the brain, for the drunken man may be frozen or burned to death without pain. The senses, too, are invaded and dulled. Double vision is produced, the eyes not being so controlled as to bring the image upon corresponding ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... motionless, fearing to awake her. Finally one of my legs went to sleep, and soon my other leg. Yet it was a welcome discomfort because endured for her. And I suppose the numbness must eventually have crept the length of my body, for, I, too, slept; awaking, I did not know how much ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... I set my teeth, and struggled to free myself until the veins in my forehead were knotted and my bonds cut into the flesh. But, alas! I was held as in the tentacles of an octopus. Every limb was gripped, so that already a numbness had overspread them, while my senses ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux |
