"Senseless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with him. I heard his giant laugh. I had one glimpse of the groom's face rushing at mine—and then it was as if showers of stars fell about me. What little strength I had was loosened from my joints, and more than half-senseless I fell full length upon my back. Farallone had foiled our attack by the simple method of catching us by the hair ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the cocoanut trees" the ollas of the Buddhists, and set them ablaze to light their victory—thus obliterating from the world's knowledge early Buddhist annals and treatises of great importance: though this hateful and senseless Vandalism has disgraced the career of most fighting nations—still, despite everything, there are extant abundant proofs of the history of mankind, and bits and scraps come to light from time to time by what science has often called "most curious coincidences." Europe has no very trustworthy history ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... senseless and white; not whiter than his adopted sister as she stood by his side. Her eye went ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... had a trying day of it. To begin with, his wife raked him over the coals for what she was pleased to call his senseless persistence in the face of what she regarded as unalterable opposition on the part of the Cabinet and House of Nobles. It appears that he had experienced a second encounter with the Ministry only the day before. After sleeping over the results of his first visit to the Council ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of eatables and drinkables provided, and away we went, a regular wayzgoose or bean-feast party. It was such a huge success, that I have ever since wondered why such outings cannot become usual among sailors on liberty abroad, instead of the senseless, vicious waste of health, time, and hard-earned wages which is general. But I must not let myself loose upon this theme again, or we shall never get ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... a few words, he drew his pistol upon me. Before he could bring the weapon to bear, I seized a pair of heavy tongs, and struck him a violent blow across the face and neck, which knocked him down. He lay for a few minutes senseless, but afterwards rose, and walked out of the house without a word, followed by his comrades, who also said nothing to us, but merely asked their leader, as they went out, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... and the blow was sufficient, for the body behind the curtain crashed against the hardwood casing of the window and then sank to the floor, motionless, and in another instant I had dragged into view the senseless form of a man in the livery of the palace servants—a man whom the prince instantly recognized as a trusted servitor of the czar—one who had been told that a guest was expected to occupy that chamber, and who had been detailed to wait upon me—one ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... Olympe, whom I found trying on dresses, and when we were alone she sang obscene songs to amuse me. She was the very type of the shameless, heartless, senseless courtesan, for me at least, for perhaps some men might have dreamed of her as I dreamed of Marguerite. She asked me for money. I gave it to her, and, free then ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... bitter are his words! They cut Like sharpen'd swords and burn like hissing flames! What is his will? His speech, though witless, ay, And senseless too, insults and threatens me.— It warns me too—of what?—Oh God, I quake! If but Brangaene came, or Dinas came! They come not and this creeping fear—how hard It grips my soul!—More Gaelic barons come—! How often have I stood concealed here And seen him come proud riding through ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... He did not coincide with me, and a vast revelation of the resistances to individual will of which the universe is capable, also of a terrestrial horizon, bottom upward, burst upon me during the brief space which I spent in flying over his head. Picked up senseless, I was carried to the bosom of my family on a wheelbarrow, and awoke to the consciousness that my parents had decided on sending me to a boarding-school,—a remedy to this day sovereign in the opinion of all well-regulated parents ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... dress for this ball,—this senseless rout that is coming off?" says Mr. Amherst, without looking ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... command, and has a grand idea of spurs, steel scabbards, and flogging; to his superiors he is a spaniel, to his brother officers an intolerable ass; he makes the mess-room a perfect hell with his vanity, puppyism, and senseless bibble-babble. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... been taken, she allowed herself to be led without offering any opposition, and did not find it disagreeable, when the pastor took upon himself to think and act for her in everything. But when it came to saying good-bye to her father she gave way, and was carried senseless to ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... not only great damage to his Majesty's service, but also a great delay in the settlement of the present business, on account of this vicious understanding being the cause of their trying to direct it by unsuitable and senseless methods, and to wrangle and dispute not only with the Portuguese, but even among themselves in regard to obtaining certain other things, it seems to me that the present negotiations would move more briskly and advantageously if they should do the very contrary of what they are striving to do, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... day, When senseless in the lists I lay. Thence dragged—but how I cannot know, For, sense and recollection fled, I found me on a pallet low, Within my ancient beadsman's shed. Austin—remember'st thou, my Clare, How thou didst blush, when the old man, When first our ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... tetrameter. Above all, the old strict and accurate combination of a limited amount of alliteration, jealously adjusted to words important in sense and rhythm, was exchanged for a profusion of alliterated syllables, often with no direct rhythmical duty to pay, and constantly leading to mere senseless and tasteless jingle, if not to the positive coining of fantastic or improper locutions to ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Halfman's person—once upon either breast, and the third time fair on the forehead, just between the eyes. The last blow was so surely delivered that had it been given with greater force it might have knocked the receiver senseless. As it was, however, it was given with such deliberate delicacy that, though Halfman's head hummed for the moment and his eyes saw stars, he rallied quickly enough to stare at Evander where he stood with lowered point and to tender him a ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Castle of Jewels.' So saying, she flew away forthright to find her family and friends, and Janshah fell down fainting, being well-nigh dead for despair. They carried the news to King Teghmus, who mounted at once and riding to the palace, found his son lying senseless on the ground; whereat he wept knowing that the swoon was caused by the loss of his love, and sprinkled rose- water on his face.[FN552] When the Prince came to himself and saw his sire sitting at his head, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... likely to have preceded it, hath not preceded it, this is called ERROR; to which even the most prudent men are subject. But when we Reason in Words of generall signification, and fall upon a generall inference which is false; though it be commonly called Error, it is indeed an ABSURDITY, or senseless Speech. For Error is but a deception, in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come; of which, though it were not past, or not to come; yet there was no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a generall assertion, unlesse it be a true ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... boundaries heedeth," Old Hilding said, "how much it needeth The cooling touch of the snows of age. You wrong the maid with your senseless rage. My foster-daughter beware of blaming For adverse fortune which, heaven ordaining, The wrathful norns upon men below Hurl down, for none can escape the blow. Like silent Vidar, no outward token The maiden gave that her heart was broken. Her grief was mute as in southern ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... Sahib fell and did not rise, these men jumped upon his stomach and despoiled him of all his money, and attempted to fire the pay-shed, and departed. Is it true that Dearsley Sahib makes no complaint of these latter things having been done? We were senseless with fear, and do not at all remember. There was no palanquin near the pay-shed. What do we know about palanquins? Is it true that Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place, on account of his sickness, for ten days? This is the fault of those bad men in ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... than anything else Bluewater Bill cast himself flat on his face, clinging to a ring-bolt in the deck. Dazed and almost senseless, he felt the mighty onslaught of the wave, which, strong as was his grip, plucked him from his hold and sent him tumbling and half drowned into the lee scuppers. Fortunately he managed to get a firm grip on the mizzen shrouds and clung there till the wave had passed. As he ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the hallway, a door went shut hastily, cutting off the laugh of a woman taken by surprise. A senseless noise oozed from the walls, worse than silence. From under each door a broken ray of light crept ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... Thus it occurred that, as Peyton half turned from Colden towards the two soldiers, these last-named saw Williams and Sam rush in between them and their prey. Before Williams could bring his duck-gun to bear, he was struck down senseless by one of the musket blows first intended for Peyton. Another blow, and from another musket, had been aimed at Sam's woolly head, but the negro had put up his left hand and caught the descending weapon, and at the same time had discharged his pistol at the weapon's holder. ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... scholar, deaf to Nicholas's remonstrance. "That is one of your foolish general questions, that show how little you know what you are about. But do as I have done. Work by yourself, and dig, dig. Give up your senseless gabbling in the magazines, get over your astonishment at finding that coelum and heaven contain the same idea etymologically, and that there was a large bread-bakery at Skolos, and make up your mind to believe nothing till you can't help it. You haven't ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... supposed, to relieve their consciences in any way from the burdens of guilt which oppressed them. The queen herself did not participate in these fears. She ridiculed the absurd confessions, and rebuked the senseless panic to which the terrified penitents were yielding; and whenever any mitigation of the violence of the gale made it possible to do any thing to divert the minds of her company, she tried to make amusement out of the odd and strange dilemmas in which they were ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... Not, of course, so long as the present senseless fashion prevails of regarding Codex B, (to which, if Cod. L. and Codd. 1, 33 and 69 are added, it is only because they agree with B), as an all but infallible guide in settling the text of Scripture; and quietly taking it for granted ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... tide, and for a few seconds a wild melee followed; we battled hand to hand with the desperation of fiends; it was but for an instant; my brave brother fell covered with wounds, and his death shriek was still ringing in my ears, when I received a blow upon the head which stretched me senseless upon the ground. I seemed to experience the sensation of falling from a vast height, then came a sudden shock and all ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... "I do not want your protection; I need it not; I am not a Chinese; I do not worship your senseless, helpless idols. I worship GOD; He is my FATHER; I trust in Him. I know well what you are, and what your intentions are, and shall keep my eye on you, ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... she faltered, and then the shining Virgin, the dim mystery of the shadowy room, faded out to leave her for the first time in her strong life, a bit of senseless clay. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... was smitten with the plague, which he compared to the sensation of two musket balls fired at him, one in each thigh; a giddiness and delirium succeeded, and immediately afterwards a green vomiting, and he fell senseless to the ground; a short time afterwards, on the two places where he had felt as if shot, biles or buboes formed, and on suppurating, discharged a foetid black pus; a (jimmera) carbuncle on the joint ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... human about them, too. Luckily for Perseus, their faces were completely hidden from him by the posture in which they lay, for had he but looked one instant at them, he would have fallen heavily out of the air, an image of senseless stone. ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... the boat, von Hauptwald was hauled on board. He fought desperately. For a moment it seemed as if he would more than hold his own against the four seamen, until one of them, seizing a stretcher, dealt the spy a crack on the head that laid him senseless across the thwarts. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... still seems to have kept his brain working. He found an island, thought it was Inaccessible, spent ages in coasting along it, lost it, found more pressure, and crawled along it. He found another island, and the same horrible, almost senseless, search went on. Under the lee of some rocks he waited for a time. His clothing was thin though he had his wind-clothes, and, a horrible thought if this was to go on, he had boots on his feet instead of warm finnesko. Here ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... all dressed; and Benjie had taken such a liking to him, that I thought he would have grutten himself senseless when he heard he was going away back to his own home. One would not have imagined, that such a sincere friendship could have taken root in such a short time; but the bit creature Benjie was as warm-hearted a callant as ye ever saw. Mungo told him, that if he would not ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the Kid to me, with a openly admirin' glance at the runt. "Go on with your story," he nods to him. "Never mind Senseless, here, I'm gettin' ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... applications of it? Are there no European societies at this day that in their godlessness and social iniquities are hurrying fast to the condition of carrion? Look around us—drunkenness, sensual immorality, commercial dishonesty, senseless luxury amongst the rich, heartless indifference to the wail of the poor, godlessness over all classes and ranks of the community. Surely, surely, if the body politic be not dead, it is sick nigh unto death. And I, for my part, have little hesitation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... was in her eye, She wept and laugh'd as if she knew not why; 60 And she had made a song about the wars, And sang it to the sun and to the stars! But while she look'd and listen'd, stood and ran, And saw him plain in every distant man, By treachery stabbed, on NANSY'S murderous day, 65 A senseless corse th' expected husband lay. A wounded man, who met us in the wood, Heavily ask'd her where my cottage stood, And told us all: she cast her eyes around As if his words had been but empty sound. 70 Then look'd to Heav'n, like one that would deny That such a thing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... this instant all my new friends crowded around me in astonishment. Presently, however, I felt myself sinking slowly. My legs were going, and in a moment I was resting feebly on my two stumps upon the floor. It was too much. All that was left of me fainted and rolled over senseless. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... the lantern from the collapsed canvas and lit it. Mormon and Sam took the senseless man down to the creek where they attempted to revive him by pouring hatfuls of the icy water on his head. He was a black-haired chap, sallow of face, clean-shaven. His clothes were those of ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... finger at some invisible object, in shrill and piercing accents, she would cry out: 'Mother, mother, he is gone; they have killed him; what will become of me?' And uttering a wild, unnatural shriek, she would fall senseless in my arms. ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... virtuous Wife, where thou again dost meet Both Pleasures more refin'd and sweet: The fairest Garden in her Looks, And in her Mind the wisest Books. Oh! who would change these soft, yet solid Joys, For empty Shows and senseless Noise; And all which rank Ambition breeds, Which seem such beauteous Flowers, and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... social settlements are substituting vital touch for the machine charity that reaped a crop of hate and beggary. Charity organization—"conscience born of love" some one has well called it—is substituting its methods in high and low places for the senseless old ways. Its champions are oftener found standing with organized labor for legislation to correct the people's wrongs, and when the two stand together nothing can resist them. Through its teaching we are learning that our responsibility as citizens for ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... attendance of religious meetings. On a certain occasion, she presented her petition to him, asking for this indulgence; he refused—she importuned—and he, with sovereign indignation, seized a chair, and with a blow upon the head, knocked her senseless upon the floor. The same person, for some act of disobedience, on the part, I think, of the same slave, when employed in stacking straw, felled her to the earth with the handle of a pitch fork. All these transactions were related with the utmost composure, in a bar-room within ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... man, that is to say, he who allows himself to be carried away by the impetuosity of his feelings, is, says the Psalmist: compared to senseless beasts and ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... a masquerade at the theatre at night, as dull and senseless as a London one, and only remarkable for the summary way in which the house was cleared at eleven o'clock: which was done by a line of soldiers forming along the wall, at the back of the stage, and sweeping the whole company out before them, like a broad broom. The game of the Moccoletti ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... scene had a lamentable effect upon poor Jacob Dobbin. When he found his one moss-rose gone, he burst into a violent fit of sobbing, and soon a quantity of blood began to pour from his mouth—he had broken a blood-vessel; and a neighbour, passing that way a little time after, found him lying senseless upon the ground. The neighbouring doctor was sent for, and he gave it as his opinion that Jacob could never get over this attack. "Had it been an ordinary case," said the doctor, "I should not have apprehended a fatal result; but under ...
— The One Moss-Rose • P. B. Power
... make it a description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs. Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a Mauchline—a senseless rabble. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... system of the Milanese school, he learns unerringly to draw, unerringly and enduringly to paint. His tasks are set him without question day by day, by men who are justly satisfied with his work, and who accept it without any harmful praise, or senseless blame. Place, scale, and subject are determined for him on the cloister wall or the church dome; as he is required, and for sufficient daily bread, and little more, he paints what he has been taught to design wisely, and has passion to realize gloriously: every touch he lays is eternal, ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... Then when the herald had gone over to Histaia, he gathered an assembly of the whole force and spoke these words: "Allies, king Xerxes grants permission to any one of you who desires it, to leave his post and to come and see how he fights against those most senseless men who looked to overcome ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... rescued him from his pot-house satellites, and she thought she could keep him. Presently a tug came off from the transport with a picket to collect deserters—he had to go. She sobbed and wailed, imploring the sergeant in vain; and she clung to her poor senseless husband as though she would never leave him. He hardly knew her; he laughed vacantly in her face when with streaming eyes she begged him to speak her name; then they took him away from her. As the tug steamed ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... she allowed herself to be persuaded, and opened the door. As soon as she had bought something the old woman said, "Now let me for once comb your hair properly," and Snow-White consented. But scarcely was the comb drawn through the hair when the poison began to work, and the maiden fell down senseless. ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... mighty hymn, A song of collisions and cries, Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells, Welcomes, farewells, love-calls, final moans, Voices of joy, idiocy, warning, despair, The unknown appeals of brutes, The chanting of flowers, The screams of cut trees, The senseless babble of hens and wise men— A cluttered incoherency that says at the stars; "O ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... road. After all the others were done she picked up again the communication she had shown to Mrs. McVeigh—the report from the yacht master, and from the same envelope extracted a soft silken slip of paper with marks peculiar—apparently mere senseless scratches of a thoughtless pen, but it was over that paper and the reply most of the evening was spent. It was the most ancient method of secret writing known to history, yet, apparently, so meaningless that it might pass unnoticed even by the alert, ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... shore. In this island there will be no faltering. It is shocking, undoubtedly: it is awful, and at such a moment, to hear three lords of old official standing—Lords Palmerston, Howick, and John Russell, taking occasion to propound ridiculous and senseless modifications of a plan essentially rebellious, the plan of partial confiscation, or of partial degradation, for the Protestant Church. Patience hardly can keep pace with the deliberate consideration of the contradictions which would follow—whether from tampering with the Church, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... a leper directs the youth to a hermit's house. The hermit tells Juan how to avoid the enchantment, secure the bird, and liberate his brothers. Juan successful. On the return, however, the envious brothers beat Juan senseless, and, taking the bird from him, make their way back to their father's kingdom alone. But the bird becomes very ugly in appearance, refuses to sing, and the king grows worse. Juan, meantime, is restored by an angel sent from heaven. He finally reaches home; and the Adarna ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... aren't you as glad of the danger as I am?" Every drop of Captain Marschner's blood rose to his temples. He had to look aside and his eyes wandered involuntarily up to the shrapnel clouds, bearing a prayer, a silent invocation to those senseless things up there rattling down so indiscriminately, a prayer that they would teach this cold-blooded boy suffering, convince him ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... what, sir," continued he, stopping; "you're no fit to manage a farm; you're as ignorant as yon coo, an' as senseless as its cauf. Wi' gude management, Clackandow should produce you twahunder and odd pounds yearly; but in your guiding I doot if it will yield the half. However, tak' it or want it, mind me, sir, that it's a' ye ha'e to trust to in my lifetime; so ye may ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... moments later another shout went up. Stella was safe. Paul raised himself, and called to her as they carried her towards him, but no answer to his joyful cry came from the limp and senseless little form lying in Farmer Minards' arms. Her face was as white as the clouds above, her eyes were closed. Paul gave a great cry of fear. "Stella, Stella," he called in agony. "Stella, speak! She tried to save me, and—and ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... punishment? Far from this, thrown into the midst of a ruffianly crowd in whose eyes the least sign of repentance is cowardice, or, rather, treachery, which they dearly expiate, for, in their savage obduracy and in senseless distrust, they look upon as a spy every man (if there should be such a one) who, sad and mournful, regretting his fault, does not partake of their audacious thoughtlessness, and shudders at ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... was the indulgence that Colonel Singleton yielded to his feelings. On recovering, he gave the senseless Frances into the arms of her aunt, and, turning with an air of fortitude ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... he said, "will admit the report, which I hold in my hand, signed by one of the most famous physicians in Paris, and by all the physicians in Provins, he will understand not only that the demand of the Sieur Rogron is senseless, but also that the grandmother of the minor had grave cause to instantly remove her from her persecutors. Here are the facts. The report of these physicians attribute the almost dying condition of the said minor to the ill-treatment she has received from the Sieur Rogron and his sister. ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... five of the the bullock drivers were also at another bend, collecting their cattle. One of the blacks whom they had nick-named King Peter tried to snatch the kettle of water from the hand of the man who was carrying it; and on being resisted he struck him senseless with his nulla-nulla. The companion of the wounded man shot King Peter in the groin, and his majesty tumbled into the river and swam across. The tribe now advanced against them, and two shots were fired ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... to live; to-morrow, here in this room, will lie a senseless shape of clay that all too long was I. If anyone lift the cloth from the face of that unpleasant thing it will be in gratification of a mere morbid curiosity. Some, doubtless, will go further and inquire, ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... had to return the poor fellow with a request that all experts should be completed with bratting-slats before being sent to the front line. This request only produced the senseless interrogation, "What is a bratting-slat?" to which we have not yet bothered to reply. In the meantime if we are really sitting on a mine it seems quite a tame one. It hasn't as much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... any time so unseasonable, as when it lighteth on those that might expect a harvest of their careful and painful labors. He that is once wounded must needs feel smart, till his hurt is cured, or the part hurt become senseless. But cure I expect none, her majesty's heart being obdurate against me; and be without sense I cannot, being of flesh and blood. But, say you, I may aim at the end. I do more than aim; for I see an end of all my fortunes, I have set an end to all my desires. In this course ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... she went on cutting wood, as unconcernedly as if the old war chief were her grandfather, instead of her affianced husband. He might gain the good will of her parents, he might even propitiate the spirits of the dead: She would take his life, surely as the senseless wood yielded to the strength of the arm that was ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... moments of happiness would assuredly be rare. Hence sprang many a foolish outbreak of unsatisfied desire. The less they came together, the more deeply they longed to do so. A disordered fancy sought to attain that end by means grotesque, unnatural, utterly senseless. So by way of establishing a means of secret correspondence between the two, the Witch had the letters of the alphabet pricked on both their arms. If one of them wanted to send a thought to the other, he brightened and brought out by sucking the blood-red ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... having newly committed a murder. She ought reasonably to have supposed him, at best, a highwayman; yet the virtuous virgin resolves to run away with him, to live among the banditti, and wait upon his trollop, if she had no other way of enjoying his company. This senseless tale is, however, so well varnished with melody of words and pomp of sentiments, I am convinced it has hurt more girls than ever were injured ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Fleur fell stunned and senseless as though from a heavy blow, and the mother in her terror gave a cry, which, being heard throughout the court, brought the King and Queen running in, to behold with horror and dismay their child stretched lifeless ...
— Fleur and Blanchefleur • Mrs. Leighton
... successful than those preceding. The Spaniards threw themselves boldly into the Turkish galley. They were met by the janissaries with the same spirit as before. Ali Pasha led them on. Unfortunately, at this moment he was struck by a musket-ball in the head, and stretched senseless on the gangway. His men fought worthily of their ancient renown. But they missed the accustomed voice of their commander. After a short, but ineffectual struggle against the fiery impetuosity of the Spaniards, they were overpowered and threw down their arms. The decks were loaded with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... the altar with hearts throbbing impetuously, and almost senseless from fear and anguish; Eliza murmuring a prayer with quivering lips; Anthony Wallner clinching his fists, and firmly resolved to sell his life dearly and defend himself and his child to the last ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... in a single tigerish leap sprang from his throne and knocked the mocker senseless with a powerful blow to the jaw. Then, spurning the fallen Jarmuthian with a sandaled foot, the Atlantean fixed blazing eyes upon the three other ambassadors who, nothing daunted, closed up, muttering savagely in their frizzed black beards, while their ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... carrying that ten or twenty or thirty pounds of flesh and all the time suffering the tortures of the damned just in order that they might keep it. But of what benefit are a certain number of extra pounds of flesh and how can a man explain such a senseless action? ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... which surrounded the place where they fell, in order to shoot the game as they came out, and that before they had time to make their escape, a breeze came, which brought the smoke, and which most likely stifled, or at least rendered them senseless. Let us hope that this was the case, as I should think that so their death would not have been very painful: the position in which their bodies were lying when found seems to warrant this supposition. A porcupine was found ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... sons of Morna; but we are living in spite of you," he said, "and I have but the one fault to find with your shape, and that is, that it was not put on the whole of the Fianna the same as on yourself." Caoilte made at him then; "Bald, senseless Conan," he said, "I will break your mouth to the bone." But Conan ran in then among the rest of the Fianna and asked protection from them, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... with himself for his feelings of this night, so unreasonably, motivelessly strong were they towards the lost young playmate. 'How senseless of me!' he said, as he lay in his lonely bed. She had been another man's wife almost the whole time since he was estranged from her, and now she was a corpse. Yet the absurdity did not make his grief the less: and the consciousness of the intrinsic, almost radiant, ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... to my own satisfaction And that of all 'Squires I've the honor of meeting That 'tis the most senseless and foul-mouthed detraction To say that poor people are ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... not so very many years, Arnold," she went on, "since you cared for me, or said that you did. I have not changed so much, have I? Give up this senseless pursuit of a child. Oh, you guard your secret very bravely, but you cannot hide the truth from me. It is not all philanthropy which has made you such a squire of dames. You believe that you care for her—that ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... now the trees, as if the elements were closing in on them, began to break close by, and one lurched forward towards them. Trafford, to avoid its stroke, stepped quickly aside right into the line of another which he did not see. Pierre sprang forward and swung him clear, but was himself struck senseless by an outreaching branch. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... intercourse with whites, was not until very recently and is even now seldom used by them between each other, and is clearly a foreign importation. Their fancy for affectionate greeting was in giving a pleasant bodily, sensation by rubbing each other on the breast, abdomen, and limbs, or by a hug. The senseless and inconvenient custom of shaking hands is, indeed, by no means general throughout the world, and in the extent to which it prevails in the United States is a subject of ridicule by foreigners. The Chinese, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... examples of performing a useless task, merely to satisfy feelings of savagery and revenge, that I encountered in Sennelager, although it was typical of Major Bach and his methods. He took a strange delight in devising such senseless labours. Doubtless the authorities anticipated that the priests would make some demur at being compelled to undo the work which they had done previously with so much effort and pain. But if this was the thought governing the whole ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... us to conceive of laws being given to senseless things. We cannot ourselves prescribe to iron or to sulphur the manner of its action. As Bacon says (Novum Organum, i., Aphorism 4): "Man can only put natural bodies together or asunder: nature does the rest within." That is, man cannot make the laws of nature: he can ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... nearer to his bosom; he ran his thin fingers deep down into the shining yellow heap; he pressed his pale lips to the cold and senseless metal; he whispered faintly, "My dear, dear gold!" and then ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... themselves for adjustment between the two countries were, after all, of no particular importance and were easily arranged. The days seemed to have gone by for that over-strained sensitiveness which was continually giving rise to senseless bickerings, when every trilling breeze seemed to fan the smouldering fires of jealousy. The two great English-speaking nations appeared finally to have realized the absolute folly of continual disputes between countries ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was about to push off from the shore, Pikker darted a bolt from the clouds. His chariot thundered over the iron bridges of the sky, scattering flames around it, and the sorcerer was struck down senseless. Linda fled; but the gods spared her further sorrow and outrage by transforming her into ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!—This war'll be over before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for one year—and even that seemed kind of senseless! ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... silent march. If there be upon earth a spot that of itself has power to hush the soul with noblest emotion, it should be that. Yet there I have seen a company of travelers spend their half-hour in senseless gabble and banter and the laughter of fools. Amid the squalid surroundings of a New York tenement-house, I have seen a poor Irish woman living with such fortitude and faith and generosity that it was a comfort and inspiration to meet her. That brave soul ennobled ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... perfect view 575 Exposed, and lifeless as a written book!— But let him pause awhile, and look again, And a new quickening shall succeed, at first Beginning timidly, then creeping fast, Till the whole cave, so late a senseless mass, 580 Busies the eye with images and forms Boldly assembled,—here is shadowed forth From the projections, wrinkles, cavities, A variegated landscape,—there the shape Of some gigantic warrior clad in mail, 585 The ghostly semblance of a hooded monk. Veiled ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the Monitor had fired forty-one shots, and been struck twenty-two times. Her greatest injury was the shattering of her pilot-house. Her commander, Lieutenant Worden, was knocked senseless and temporarily blinded by the shock. On board the Merrimac two men were killed and nineteen wounded. Her iron prow was gone, her armor broken and damaged, her steam-pipe and smoke-stock riddled, the muzzles of two of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the spot, he beat the senseless body with the butt of his gun till the stock snapped; then he jumped on it, and stamped the dead bird into a shapeless remnant upon the ground. At this spectacle Bevis, who, although he was always talking ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... the rapidity of a single bullet the whole contents of the automatic's magazine poured out and every missile took effect in the reptile's huge head. In its death agony it straightened out its folds and Frank's senseless body dropped from them, seemingly limp ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... preserve, and he resolves upon being 'cruel, not unnatural.' In vain one seeks here for logic, and for the boundary between two words which to ordinary common sense appear synonymous. In Montaigne, however, we discover the clue of such a senseless argumentation. In one of his Essays, [41] which contains a confusion of ideas that might well make the humane Shakspere shudder, ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... not that Aubrey was in a dead faint, and rested against him as a senseless weight, he paid no visible attention to aught but one face, on which his eyes were riveted as though nothing would ever detach them—and that face ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in search of food, and performs all the functions of life. Here then, dead matter, when applied to a living body, produces living functions; for if the heat had not been applied, the snake would have continued senseless, and apparently lifeless. In more perfect animals, the effects produced by the action of dead matter on them, are more numerous, and are different in different living systems, but are in general the following—sense and motion in almost all animals, and ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... The poor, senseless idiot, who appears to moral eyes a mere living machine, a body without a soul, sitting among the grass, and playing with the flowers and pebbles in the vacancy of his mind, is still a wonderful illustration ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... could return no answer, her shame at being seen by her servant that was, in her present condition, and the consciousness of having so ill-treated that very servant, to whose kindness she was now indebted; all together were too much for her in her weak state, and she fell senseless at Mrs. Flail's feet. ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... dance in public? What renders you more conspicuous? Do you not dress to be admired, and walk to be observed? Why then this fantastical scruple, unjustified by reason, unsupported by analogy? Is folly only to be published? Is vanity alone to be exhibited? Oh slaves of senseless contradiction! Oh feeble followers of yet feebler prejudice! daring to be wicked, yet fearing to be wise; dauntless in levity, yet shrinking from the name ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... fourth part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of those thoughts, without doing any good to itself or others, or being any way useful to any other part of the creation. If we will examine it, we shall not find, I suppose, the motion of dull and senseless matter, any where in the universe, made so little use of ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... throttled his engine and started downward, the warmer airs welcome as he came lower. At last he was in home air. A final decision to buck up and hang on was necessary to urge his weak muscles to act. He swayed in his seat. His eyes closed and his grasp on the levers slackened. Again he saw that senseless form strapped in the observer's seat. Poor Carleton. He had been hard hit. Nothing for it but to land him as gently and as safely as possible. Will power overcame the growing weakness and inertia for one more struggle against the darkness that threatened ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... the single word there was a quick move of her right hand; Tario, releasing her, staggered back, both hands pressed to his side. At the same instant the room filled with bowmen, and then the jeddak of Lothar sank senseless ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... other things they were alluding to the stale and senseless story of the sledge filled with baskets of coin sent by the Spanish envoys on their departure from the Hague, on conclusion of the Truce, to defray expenses incurred by them for board and lodging of servants, forage ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... appropriate costume, with grotesque gesticulations, and a sudden whirl of his body at the close of each verse. It took the taste of the town immediately, and for months the ears of orderly people were stunned by the senseless chorus— ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... in the world as well as braying asses; for what's loud and senseless talking, huffing, and swearing any other than a ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... met by the officer, two of the white seamen, men named "Joe" and "Sam Button," and several of the Gilbert Islanders, who beat them back with belaying-pins. Joe, who was an immensely powerful man, knocked three of them senseless with successive blows on their woolly pates, and his comrades did equally as well. Then Rawlings darted on deck, followed by Barradas, and threatening the Solomon Islanders with their revolvers, succeeded in relieving Barry and his men, and driving their assailants up for'ard, where ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... lengthen'd tale, And pity me when I am frail— But see, the sweepy spinning fly Upon the window takes thine eye. Go to thy little senseless play— Thou ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... crowded on the rocks, he tried to open their minds to the truth that the God of all dwells in no temples made with hands, that all men alike are His children, and that, since living, breathing, thinking man has sprung from Him, it is lowering His greatness to represent Him by cold, dead, senseless stone, metal, or ivory. "He bore with the times of ignorance," said Paul; "but now He called on all men to turn to Him to prepare for the day when all should be judged, by the Man whom He had ordained for the purpose, as had been shown by His ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... senseless of us to let them get in here anyway," said the Big Business Man. "That sparrow evidently has stopped getting smaller. Do you realize how big it will be to us, after we've diminished a ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... requisite to prove and convince every man of good sense that the prejudice against the miracles of the Lives of the Saints is quite unreasonable; but this does not point out its quality sufficiently; it is senseless and ridiculous, it is rash, and, what is more, it ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... cold-blooded of all the Doone murders, when they carried off the wife of Christopher Badcock, a small tenant farmer, and, in rage at finding nothing in the poor home but a little bacon and cheese, murdered her baby in a fit of senseless brutality, reciting over it ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... now among the wild heathen. How many have never heard your names and mine, or will soon forget them! How soon may those who shout my name to-day begin to revile it, because glory, and the memory of men, and all things beside, are but vanity—a sand-heap under the senseless wind, the barking of dogs, the quarrelling of children, weeping incontinently upon ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater |
