"Silent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was new to all of us, for there had been no wars on any of the three inhabited worlds for many years. Silent, electronic conflict! Not a question of men in battle. A man at a switch on the brigand ship was the sole actor so far in this assault. And the results were visible only in the movement of the needle-dials on our instrument panels. A struggle, so far, not of man's bravery, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... of voices interrupted his flight of imagination, and he saw that the room was suddenly full of moving figures. They were passing before him with silent footsteps, across the window from door to door. How they had come in, or how they went out, he never knew; but his heart stood still for an instant as he recognised the mournful figures of the Frightened ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... the individual is said to be suffering from shock. Shock expresses itself in varying degrees of apathy. The patient may or may not be conscious. If conscious he gives no evidence of feeling, he is silent and motionless although he will respond to directions and may answer questions. The eyes are dull and listless, the face pale and pinched, and the general expression is apathetic. The skin is cold and there may be perspiration; the pulse is feeble and irregular, and the breathing ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... animals which are now domesticated; and his work would have been in vain had not heredity" (memory) "come to his aid. It may be said that after man has modified a wild animal to his will, there goes on in its progeny a silent conflict between two heredities" (memories), "the one tending to fix the acquired modifications and the other to preserve the primitive instincts. The latter often get the mastery, and only after several generations is training ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... a Kshatriya and a King, I will not shrink, but perform whatever you may ask, however hard." "Then listen," said I. "Light a sacrificial fire, offer up your son: the smoke that rises will bring you progeny, as the clouds bring rain." The King bowed his head upon his breast and remained silent: the courtiers shouted their horror, the Brahmins clapped their hands over their ears, crying, "Sin it is both to utter and listen to such words." After some moments of bewildered dismay the King calmly said, "I will abide by my promise." The day came, the fire was ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... she was not deceived, and that this important event had brought no joy to poor Amelia. The lovely eyes of the princess were red with weeping; and the soft lips, so generally and gladly given to gay chat and merry laughter, were now expressive of silent anguish. Ulrica saw all this, and laid her plans accordingly. In place of receiving Amelia coldly and repulsively, which but a few moments before she would have done, she sprang to meet her with every sign of heart-felt love; the little maiden threw herself weeping convulsively ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... could be wrought by measures such as these in the opinions of the people themselves. The new episcopal reformers spoke no Irish, and of their English sermons not a word was understood by the rude kernes around the pulpit. The native priests remained silent. "As for preaching we have none," reports a zealous Protestant, "without which the ignorant can have no knowledge." The prelates who used the new Prayer Book were simply regarded as heretics. The Bishop of Meath was assured by one of his flock that, "if the country wist how, they would eat you." ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... - amber toornin' into gold, Like young maidens' hairs get yellow und more dark as dey crow old; Und dere shtood a high ruine vhere de Donau rooshed along, All lofely, yet neclected - like an oldt und silent song. ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... Twice I tried to start a conversation about some trivial thing, to take her mind off her unpleasant experience of the afternoon, but with no success. It always came back to the jury room. Our drive, for the most part, was a silent one. At length we turned back and as we walked up the steps of Mary's home, her father came from the house with a newspaper in ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... London cold—where the atmosphere clings to you, like a wet blanket. You have often received a letter from me on a Sunday, haven't you? I think I used to write you an account of the picture purchases of the week, that you might have something to reflect upon in your silent meeting. (N.B. This is very wrong, and I don't mean it.) Well, now I have bought no pictures, and sha'n't; but one I had bought is sent to be lined. A Bassano of course; which nobody will like but myself. It is a grave picture; an Italian Lord dictating ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... Priscilla sat silent for a few moments. One of the neat waiting-maids removed her plate; her almost untasted dinner lay upon it. Miss Oliphant turned to attack some roast mutton with truly ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Partha! Let prosperity be to thee! Soon do thou get, O hero, those objects that are dear to thy heart!" Blessing him thus, O tiger among men, those great car-warriors, overcome with sleep, became silent, O monarch! Some laid themselves down on horseback, some on the car-boxes, some on the necks of elephants, and some on the bare ground. Many men, with their weapons and maces and swords and battle axes and lances and with their armours on, laid themselves down for sleep, apart from ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... or eight small tables stood about on the floor, at each of which, where the forgotten candles burned dimly over the long and lengthening wicks, sat several men—some, with faces brightly haggard, gloating over their unhallowed gains—others, dark, sullen, silent, fierce, gazing furtively at their piles of lost money. Here rattled the dice-box, and yonder fell the dirty cards—all were busily engaged—all were motionless, save their hands and eyes—all were hushed, save when they uttered solitary ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... Revercombs from the beginnin'," protested Solomon, "slow an' peaceable an' silent until you rouse 'em, but when they're once roused, they're roused beyond ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... not a little fearful lest our kedge might drag. The captain's gig was brought to the stairs, and the party chosen for the expedition took their places, the first mate and ship's cousin and six stout seamen, well armed. Stewart was very nervous and silent; the only remark he made after we left the ship was when we swept by ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... save themselves by simply discontinuing perusal. The first Diabolique has metal attractive enough of its kind. A young officer boards with a provincial family, where the beautiful but at first silent, abstracted, and, as the Pleiade would have said, marbrine daughter suddenly, though secretly, develops frantic affection for him, and shows it by constant indulgence in the practice which that abominable cad in Ophelia's song put ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... soundless movement of her lips; and they both glanced anxiously at the silent bed, Cyril with a gesture of apology for having forgotten that he ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... silent, and very still, looking down at the glittering gems, then, all at once, her eyes filled, and a slow wave of colour dyed ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... Hamilton was silent. He watched anxiously Frank's varying countenance, the twitching of which, as well as the thick, quick tone in which he ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... in the absence of his father, he set out to ride, with Fritz for his only attendant. It was a splendid afternoon; the sky was of that pure exquisite blue you sometimes see, rendered deeper by a pile of snowy clouds in the west; the birds were silent, as if unwilling to disturb the holy calm of nature; not a leaf stirred, save here and there a quivering aspen, emblem of a restless, discontented mind. Rudolph was in excellent spirits, and Saladin, his good Arab steed, flew like the wind; old Fritz tried to restrain his ardor, but ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... people held their breath while the gypsies entered, silent now. In the dim light of the cave their features could not be seen, but there was something about the bent old figure of the foremost gypsy that proclaimed the leader of that other day. They were as velvet-footed as cats, and as the ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... valleys and windy moors, the land of streams and orchards, of bleak, magnificent cliff and rock-guarded bay, of shaded combe and suave, fair villages, in an unbroken tradition of name and habitation with the men of that silent and vanished race. ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... whom he possibly knew, inasmuch as his home was in New York, though he spent much of his time at West Point, where he had been educated. But certain disagreeable remembrances of Aunt Hannah's parting injunction, "not to tell everybody in the cars that she was Katy's aunt," kept her silent on that point, and so Lieutenant Bob Reynolds failed to be enlightened with regard to the relationship existing between the fastidious Wilford Cameron of Madison Square, and the quaint old lady whose very first act on entering the car amused him vastly. At a glance he saw that she was unused ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... cannot be considered as in any way his. It is not to be expected, therefore, that the Saas chapel should follow the Varallo one. The figures, four in number, are pleasing and well arranged. St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and St. Zacharias are all talking at once. The Virgin is alone silent. ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... last I saw him in life. Ruddy and joyous, with his handsome face one glow of pleasure, he vaulted gaily to his saddle under the bright moon at midnight. Curbing his restive horse, and waving a kiss to the bright faces pressed against the frosty pane, his clear au revoir! echoed through the silent street, and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... windows. On the smooth floor and under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its curtains drawn close together: this was the holy of holies of that ominous place, its inner mystery. One on each side of it dark figures crouched, either of men or women or cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent. When the awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear the man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees went up to the silk pavilion, and with a bold and nervous clutch of the hand drew one of the curtains aside, and saw the inner mystery, ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... He hadn't pushed the cut-off button, yet the ship's engines were suddenly silent. He jabbed at the power switch. Nothing happened. Then the side-jets sputted, and he was slammed ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... reticent also with his mother, whom he let follow her own conclusion, that Cyrus Robinson had been dissatisfied with their work. "Guess he won't see as much difference with this work as he think he does," she would often say, with a bitter laugh. Jerome was silent, but the inborn straightforwardness of the boy made him secretly rebellious ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... pious and more necessary undertakings. Nevertheless, in such cases one ought seemingly, to seek the superior's dispensation; except perhaps when the above course is recognized by custom, since when superiors are silent they would ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... in living nature variations and modifications. It is useless to ask why. Nature is silent when interrogated in this way. Ask her how, and you get some results. If we ask, for instance, why the sting of the honey bee is barbed, and those of the hornet and wasp and bumble-bee, and of other wild bees, are smooth ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... with them. In one of the Scriptures we read: Under a banyan tree sat a youthful teacher and beside him an aged disciple. The mind of the disciple was full of doubts and questions, but although the teacher continued silent, gradually every doubt vanished from the disciple's mind. This signifies that the conveying of spiritual teaching does not depend upon words only. It is the life, the illumination, which counts. Such God-enlightened men, however, cannot easily ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda
... having delivered himself of the articles of his belief, resumed his role as the silent partner of the house. He was a large, slow man, whose history seemed to be the history of the dinners he had eaten. In his eyes smouldered a dull glow, as of resentment at the limits of the human stomach ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... "Let birds be silent on the naked spray, 330 And shady woods resound with dreadfull yells; Let streaming floods their hastie courses stay, And parching drouth drie up the cristall wells; Let th'earth be barren, and bring foorth no flowres, And th'ayre be fild with noyse of dolefull knells, 335 And wandring ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... remained silent for a time, while all her vague apprehensions returned. Meantime the girl continued to shove the chairs hither and thither, and to arrange and disarrange everything in the room with a fidgety industry, intended to cover her agitation. A few minutes, however, served to weary her of this, for ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... cave forlorn, Which Phoebus never enters eve or morn, The misty clouds inhale the pitchy ground, And twilight lingers all the vale around. No watchful cocks Aurora's beams invite; No dogs nor geese, the guardians of the night: No flocks nor herds disturb the silent plains; Within the sacred walls mute quiet reigns, And murmuring Lethe soothing sleep invites; In dreams again the flying past delights: From milky flowers that near the cavern grow, Night scatters the collected ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... twice, but dozens of times, and circulated it, with Coleridge's name, over the whole length and breadth of the three kingdoms, by tens of thousands of printed papers. Mr. Hill has not had a tithe of the honour he deserves—and never will have—and I cannot remain silent, and see his character questioned, though in matters too trifling, I think, even to have occupied a corner ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... the multitude of women were silent, and the light of the torches flared strangely upon their shifting upturned faces, as fires flare over the white sea-foam. Now the curtains of the Shrine of Osiris were drawn aside slowly, and the light that burned upon the ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... doctor, and he ordered some remedies, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her better. But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on her bed—feverish, restless, and silent. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... away his cigar and followed her. He stood silent by the door of the derelict, while the maid explained that she had found help. The driver had gone off somewhere to telephone for a car. Miss Ayrshire seemed not at all apprehensive; she had not doubted that a rescuer would be forthcoming. She moved deliberately; out of a whirl of skirts she ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... natural to him to be a little languid and done-up by his exertions, and, as a hero, to establish a claim on Raby's admiration. And finally, being quite convinced he was a hero of the first water, he regarded Jeffreys with condescension, and felt a little surprise that he should remain both silent and apparently disdainful. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... not mistaken my man. My discourse both touched and excited him. He seized my hand, pressed it, and replied with strong emotion, "You have guessed the truth; you have judged me rightly." He remained for a moment silent; then with a kind of effort he resumed. "I will tell you some particulars of my life, and you will perceive that it was the oppression of others, rather than my own crimes, that drove me to the mountains. I sought ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... galleries were crowded with students and respectable operatives and bourgeois, with their wives and children. Every face was bathed in the purple light of the departing sun, and many eyes lifted up in silent meditation. ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... holds its head tight and pats its neck. Now, I want him to check and guide me. I have been left a great deal to myself. Papa and mamma are not young, and it appears to me that a single child is not enough to draw out the sympathies of a staid, silent couple. They have been very kind to me all my life, and I ought to be glad that they will not miss me much. But although it was wrong, I have often felt a little forlorn, and been tempted to have bad, discontented ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... earl had done speaking Thorgny sat silent for a while, and then took up the word. "Ye have curious dispositions who are so ambitious of honour and renown, and yet have no prudence or counsel in you when you get into any mischief. Why did ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... when I was a boy, but so far back as when I used to hunt out the deeply fluted cornstalks to turn into fiddles, it was minor notes I played—the notes of the wind coming over the field of corn-butts and stirring the loose blades as it moved among the silent shocks. I have more than a memory of mere corn, of heavy-eared stalks cut and shocked to shed the winter rain: that, and more, as of the sober end of something, the fulfillment of some solemn compact between us—between me and the ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... must have flown in through a broken pane on the ground floor long ago and swooped vainly about the empty house. It lay, pathetically, close against the shut pane. Like a forgotten and un-uttered beauty in the mind of a poet, it lay there, stiffened and silent. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... but looked on in silent amazement while the Funny Man untwisted the figure eight at the point of his nose, and removed a small copper cap which covered the end. He then struck a match and applied it to the bottom of this macaroni-like tube. A light like a large star at once appeared, and ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... divided the remainder of his men into two groups for the homeward drive. One group he himself led. The other owned Weary as temporary commander and galloped off to the left, skirting close to the foothills of the Bear Paws. In that group rode Pink and Happy Jack, Slim, Andy Green and Blink the silent. ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... They sat silent for a few moments, when Huldy, turning her face with that sad look towards him, said, "There is something on my mind, 'Zekiel, that I wish I could take off as easily as ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... meeting. Goujet was expecting her, his arms and chest bare, whilst he hammered harder on the anvil on those days so as to make himself heard at a distance. He divined her presence, and greeted her with a good silent laugh in his yellow beard. But she would not let him leave off his work; she begged him to take up his hammer again, because she loved him the more when he wielded it with his big arms swollen with muscles. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... no pain. That is one thing. And the other thing is this—the child's mother hath come to me when my body hath ached from the father's blows, and the blood hath covered my face; and she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears, and together have we knelt and called upon God to turn his heart from the grog and the foul women, and to take away from her and the child ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... in reality a sentient being of a very high order of intelligence. You may be quite certain that if you abuse your gun, even when you may imagine it to be far out of earshot, comfortably cleaned and put to roost on its rack, your gun will resent it. Why are most sportsmen so silent, so distraits at breakfast? Why do they dally with a scrap of fish, and linger over the consumption of a small kidney, and drink great draughts of tea to restore their equilibrium? If you ask them, they will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... of Montenegrin history. The oft-told tale of Prince Nicolas' father, Mirko, "The Sword of Montenegro," who was besieged in that inaccessible cleft in a precipice with a handful of men, is one of the most famous feats of Montenegrin arms. The charred cliffs still bear silent witness to the efforts which the Turks made to burn out the little garrison by throwing bundles ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... presumably about to be born. Its grandmother is there naturally, but the black baby declines to appear at the request of its grandmother, and, moreover, declines to come if even the voice of its grandmother is heard; so grannie has to be a silent spectator while some other woman tempts the baby into the world by descanting on the glories of it. First, ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... up at her husband. She saw him shrug his broad shoulders as he first caught sight of Chauvelin, and glance down in his usual lazy, good-humoured manner at the shrunken figure of the silent Frenchman. The words she meant to say never crossed her lips; she was waiting to hear what the two men ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... itself, and the very Church-bells are getting melted into small money-coin, it appears probable that the End of the World cannot be far off. Deep-musing atrabiliar old men, especially old women, hint in an obscure way that they know what they know. The Holy Virgin, silent so long, has not gone dumb;—and truly now, if ever more in this world, were the time for her to speak. One Prophetess, though careless Historians have omitted her name, condition, and whereabout, becomes audible to the general ear; credible to not a few: credible to Friar ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... sunk into a kind of corporeal torpor; or, if roused into activity by the spirit of youth, wasted the exertion in splenetic and vexatious tricks, which alienated the few acquaintances compassion had yet left. So I crept on in silent discontent; unfriended and unpitied; indignant at the present, careless of the future, an object at once of apprehension ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... smile to the silent crowd before him the president withdrew. Then as the workmen turned to disperse a few clear words from some one in the throng behind ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... Columbus. The solemn and sublime nature of the event that had followed, together with the fate and fortunes of those concerned in it, filled the mind with vague yet melancholy ideas. It was like viewing the silent and empty stage of some great drama when all the actors had departed. The very aspect of the landscape, so tranquilly beautiful, had an effect upon me, and as I paced the deserted shore by the side of a descendant of one of the discoverers I felt my heart swelling with emotion ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... consisted in the circuitous and clumsy way in which they negotiated with Roumania. The spokesman and guardian of Italy during the decisive conversations with the Entente was the Foreign Minister, Baron Sonnino, the silent member of the Cabinet. Now, this turned out to be a very unfortunate kind of guardianship, which his ward subsequently repudiated with reason. For one effect of his taciturnity—the Roumanians ascribed it to his policy—was ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... running fast, so that the rowers could ply their oars with a minimum of disturbance. From both posts upon the cliff their presence was noticed, and the challenge of a sentry rang out clear upon the silent night. On each occasion a Highland officer, who spoke French perfectly, replied that they were a provision convoy, to the satisfaction of the challengers. But the risk was undeniable, and illustrates the hazardous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... fortifications were destroyed, the temples plundered and burnt, and the images of the gods broken to pieces. Perhaps the rebel city now received for viceroy Regibelus or Mesesimordachus, whom the Canon of Ptolemy, which is silent about Susub, makes contemporary with the middle portion ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Mrs Prosser was silent for a few moments, and then she said: "Are you not a little unreasonable, dear John? What would you have me give up? If all were of your mind, what would ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... a momentary flash of his old spirit and he sent a straight ball over the plate, meaning it to be hit. Salisbury did hit it, and safely, through short. The long silent, long waiting crowd opened up with yells and ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... quite as much as to the man. Very few, even among superior men, admitted the rights of conscience and liberty. Marnix de Ste.-Aldegonde bitterly reproached the hero of the Reformation, William the Silent, with tolerating Catholics in Holland. Melanchthon unreservedly approved of the burning of Servetus. Catholic Europe was covered with stakes for the Protestants, and, if Servetus had had the upper hand, I doubt if Calvin would have received from him any better treatment ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... the thoughtlessness of a beautiful young girl, she had encouraged to get rich as quickly as he could in America and then return to claim her as his bride. Vladimir Crackovitch had taken her at her word. With the silent determination of a great soul, he had amassed about a hundred thousand dollars in America in less than four years, and only two or three minutes before Vera Alexandrina's husband was due to arrive he himself stood at the cottage door with folded arms, asking himself if he should or should ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... John Fiske his story of the war. We sat at table from seven o'clock until midnight, the two illustrious figures with their heads together exchanging a rapid fire of question and answer, but the rest of us were by no means silent. Sherman was full of affability and took good-naturedly the sharp inquiries. "How was it, General, at Shiloh; was not your line quite too unguarded on the Corinth side, and was not the coming on of Sidney Johnston a bad surprise for you?" "Oh, later in the war," said Sherman, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... forgotten. The act of catching the voice has a simplicity which stamps it as original, the only analogy of which I can at present think being the story of later date, of the words which were frozen silent during the extreme cold of an Arctic winter, and became audible again the following summer ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... as he took his seat, did not find it necessary to answer it. But that would not serve her turn. "What made Mrs Marsham go to you at Park Lane after she left Lady Monk's?" she asked again. Mr Palliser sat silent, not having made up his mind what he would say on the subject. "I suppose she went," continued Lady Glencora, "to tell you that I was dancing with Mr Fitzgerald. Was ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... friend meanwhile played ecarte until they had enough. The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nights like these, which occurred many times in the week—his wife having all the talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the mystical language within—must have been ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... twenty hours they were installed in a large loft, all of the machines uncrated and plugged in. Neel took a no-sleep and began tuning checks on all the circuits, glad of something to do. Costa locked the heavy door behind their last silent helper, then dropped gratefully onto one of ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... Richard the Lion-heart; they seem half to belong to the realm of fable. We feel from our very school-days as if we could shake hands with a Themistocles and sit down in the company of a Julius Caesar, but we are awed by the presence of those tall and silent knights, with their hands folded and their legs crossed, as we see them reposing in full armor on the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... for I could not feel that Ching had deceived us, and for a few moments I was silent. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... again, by the way.) And believe me, children, I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am, it is in their favour. I have always had a strong leaning that way; and have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and happily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence; and mourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But the wonder is always to me, not how much, but how little, the monks have, on the whole, done, with all that leisure, and all that goodwill! ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... This simple tablet marks a Father’s bier; And those he loved in life, in death are near. For him, for them, a daughter bade it rise, Memorial of domestic charities. Still would you know why o’er the marble spread, In female grace the willow droops her head; Why on her branches, silent and unstrung, The minstrel harp, is emblematic hung; What Poet’s voice is smother’d here in dust, Till waked to join the chorus of the just; Lo! one brief line an answer sad supplies— Honour’d, belov’d, and mourn’d, here Seward lies: Her worth, her warmth of heart, our sorrows ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... in skilful hands, and against anything less powerful than a lover mounted upon Hippogriff, might have been shielded. What is poison to most girls, Merthyr prescribed for her as medicine. He nourished her fainting spirit upon vanity. In silent astonishment Georgiana heard him address speeches to her such as dowagers who have seen their day can alone of womankind complacently swallow. He encouraged Tracy Runningbrook to praise the face of which she had hitherto thought shyly. Jewels were placed at her disposal, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the river is lovely in the extreme, and at dark we cast anchor in a smooth, silent reach of the river just within the frowning gateway of a rocky canon. Dark masses of rock tower skyward five hundred feet in a perpendicular wall, casting a dark shadow over the twilight shimmer of the water. In the north, the darksome prospect ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... felt pierced by the cry. Her hands gripped his jacket with a shock. Robert Day turning took hold of his aunt's wrist to pinch her silent, but his efforts were too zealous and turned her ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... first is, that my father, convinced by you, shall instantly? resign the legacy into the hands that ought to receive it.—O Clarenbach! here the daughter must remain silent, and your conviction must finish what would rend my heart! (Privy Counsellor claps his hand together.—Sophia continues after a pause.) The second condition is, that, as I feel I demand much, though convinced I could demand no less,—you ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... chosen with the same genius which guided our Benedictines and Carthusians. The site of Ikegami is a long-abrupt hill, half-way between Tokyo and Yokohama. It is clothed with cryptomeria trees. These dark conifers, like immense cypresses, give to the spot that grave, silent, irrevocable atmosphere, with which Boecklin has invested his picture of the Island of the Dead. These majestic trees are essentially a part of the temple. They correspond to the pillars of our Gothic cathedrals. The roof is the blue vault of heaven; ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... silent until, a few moments later, Valentine drew up again at the curb before the Big Show, which had been out long enough to disperse most of its crowd, and was now receiving supper guests for the Garden ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sorrow in it was covered by a thick crape-veil, and the sorrow was suppressed and silent. No one knew how deep it was; for the thought in most of her neighbours' minds was, that Mrs. Dempster could hardly have had better fortune than to lose a bad husband who had left her the compensation of a good income. They found it difficult to conceive that her husband's death ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... flower that sprouts, fades and dies.[49] Death is the end of man and beast and flower and grass alike; and after death comes dismal darkness. There is no difference among them. Man is no more and no less than all the rest. Sheol, or the realm of the dead, is a murky, silent and dreary abode, the shadowy inmates of which are as if they were not, unconscious as infants "which never saw ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... now to save his own life, Alexander for Revenge, whose man he had become. The clash of blade against blade, the shifting of foot upon the rock floor, made the dominant sound upon the mountain-side. The birds stayed silent in the birch-trees. Self-service, pride, anger, jealousy, hatred—the ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Rite included; that is to say, no initiate of even the highest grade had, as such, the right or opportunity of entrance into the occult order, which, at the same time, was chiefly recruited, as already stated, from the higher ordinary grades, but the recipients of the new light became silent from the moment that it was imparted. Now, it was exclusively in the Palladian order that Albert Pike and his confidants propagated transcendental religion, as it is said to have been understood by them. In other words, while the Scotch Rite continued to speculate, the Palladium betook itself ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... making a gesture for her to be silent, Ted piloted her down the main staircase and out of ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... phosphorescence. Every ripple from the oars ran away in many-colored flames—red, green, blue, and orange. Kai Bok-su, sitting amazed at the glory to which the Pe-po-hoan boatmen had become accustomed, was silent with awe. He had seen the phosphorescent lights often before, but never anything like this. He put his hand down into the molten sea and scooped up handfuls of what seemed drops of liquid fire. And as his fingers dipped into the water they shone like rods ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... houses and cabins around it, and the two-hundred-year-old church, were silent and, apparently, lifeless as they set the helicopter down. Once Loudons caught a movement inside the door of a house, and saw a metallic glint. Altamont ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... in Hugh, "you'll meet, not the minister, but Him whom he serves and in His hand are mercies. Be silent, Dick, for this wretch makes confession and his time is short. Spare the tool and save your wrath for him who wielded it. Go now and fetch David Day that he ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... instance, the fat ponies which they were so fond of eating; or that they planted crops. All these things did the neolithic peoples sooner or later; so that it would not be strange if palaeolithic man withdrew in their favour, because he could not compete. Pre-history is at present almost silent concerning the manner of his passing. In a damp and draughty tunnel, however, called Mas d'Azil, in the south of France, where the river Arize still bores its way through a mountain, some palaeolithic folk seem to have lingered on in a sad state of decay. The old sureness of touch ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... silent. In all this genial symposium there had been no word of the spur which was inciting him—and doubtless the others—along the present weary and monotonous path; and on the whole he was glad that it should be so. None of us care to talk, even privately, about the Dream of Honour and the Hope of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... that I did not venture to betray my ignorance of these Bombos; I worked my eyebrows to express a silent and timeworn familiarity. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... disappointed, you know, or could divine if you did not know; for all but me have been trained to bear the burden from their youth up, and accustomed to have the individual will fettered for the advantage of society. For the same reason, you cannot guess the silent fury that filled my mind when I at last found that I had struggled in vain, and that I must remain in the bondage that I had ignorantly ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Marguerite's head again appeared in the opening, and I could see the heads of two waiting-women behind her. But the Queen of Navarre manifestly had no intention of following the three men. These now clambered up the side of the moat, and the one who had been first down turned and waved her a silent adieu, which she returned with a graceful gesture of her partly bare arm. The three men then rapidly plunged into one of the abutting streets and were gone. All this time I ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... generous," she proceeded, "was this sort of persecution of one so unprotected, so dependent, so placed, that she must even be silent, and endure without speech or complaint, in the dread of dangers which, however, would not light upon her head. Oh, brave as generous!" she exclaimed, with a burst of tremendous delirium, terminating in a shriek; "oh, brave as generous!—scarcely lion-like, however, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... long ill at Chitimba's died yesterday, and was buried in the evening. No women were allowed to come near. A long silent prayer was uttered over the corpse when it was laid beside the grave, and then a cloth was held over as men in it deposited the remains beneath sticks placed slanting on the side of the bottom of the grave; this keeps the earth from coming directly ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... equally good. "An Archbishop of London, having asked Parliament to silence a preacher of the Moravian religion who preached in public, the Vice-President answered that could easily be done: only make him a Bishop, and he would keep silent all ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... plea for my sake, and be silent; That other Poets may not fear to write, That I too may hereafter find it meet To play new ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... 'arth-stone, sir: Some idiot must have put a scaffold pole on it and cracked it right down the middle, and it's thick enough you'd think to stand hanythink.' Geoffrey was silent for quite a minute, and then said in a constrained voice and ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... Elizabeth rose too then, and faced about upon her companions, giving them this silent notice, for she deigned no word, that she was willing Rose's pleasure should take its course. Mr. Satterthwaite was quite ready, and they went home; Elizabeth ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... seen the Sultan light at heart till this night; and this gives me hope that the issue may be a happy one for thee with him." Then drowsiness overcame the Sultan; so he slept and Shehrzad, perceiving the approach of day, was silent. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... after a most silent entertainment, the brides retired to change their dresses, and, when they re-appeared, they were handed into the carriages of their respective bridegrooms as soon as they could be torn away from the kisses and tears of Lady ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... called he loudly, As he held his apron white, "You shall have my candy wabbit;" But the door was fastened tight. So he stood, abashed and silent, In the centre of the floor, With defeated look, alternate Bent on ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... the passage, which was silent and padded, as if to deaden the footfall, were narrow little doors, their size and arrangement suggestive of the cells of a Victorian prison. But the upper portion of each door was of the same greenish transparent stuff that had enclosed him at his awakening, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... as so many visitors have done in my hearing, though hardly a fishing-boat puts out from the harbour. The guide-books call it a fishing-town, but the Journalist was not misled, though he had gone to them for a number of facts. I corrected a date and then sat silent. It amazed me that a man who could see so much, should fail to perceive that what he had seen was of no account in comparison with what he had not: or that, if he did indeed perceive this, he could write such stuff with such gusto. "To ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... nothing more to be done, Mr. Ogilvie," said Rycroft, as the two men sat over their supper together. "For six months the alluvial will yield about six ounces to the ton. After that"—he paused and looked full at the grim, silent face of the ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... unsympathetic honoured her by looking as if they would be willing to listen to every note the song contained if it were not quite so much trouble to do so. Some were so interested that, instead of continuing their conversation, they remained in silent consideration of how they would continue it when she had finished; while the particularly civil people arranged their countenances into every attentive form that the mind could devise. One emotional gentleman looked at the corner of a chair as if, till that moment, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... anywhere else short of Le Mans, I decided to put up here for the night. As I rode into the central square of the town, I saw an inn there: it had a prosperous and honest look, so I said, "This is the place for my money," and made for it. The square was empty and silent when I entered it, but just as I reached the archway of the inn, I heard a voice singing, whereupon I looked around and saw a young man riding into the square from another street than that I had come from. He was followed by a servant on horseback, and was bound ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... them with water to wash their feet with, and honey and the other ingredients of the Arghya—with gifts of kine, and with other forms of respect. The great king addressing them said,—'Ye are welcome'! And, O Janamejaya, both Partha and Bhima remained silent at this. And addressing the monarch Krishna said,—'O king of kings these two are now in the observance of a vow. Therefore they will not speak. Silent they will remain till midnight After that hour they will speak with thee!' The king then quartering his guests in the sacrificial apartments ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... though he had been silent: for he exhibited another tragedy the same year, on the story of Humphry, duke of Gloucester. This tragedy is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... stay in that cursed room?" he mutters, striding wildly among the sand-hills. "The very tick of the clock was enough to drive one mad in those long fearful pauses—solemn and silent as death! Can't the fools do anything for her? What is the use of nurses and doctors, and all the humbug of medicine and science? My darling! my darling! It was too cruel to hear you wailing and crying, and to know I could do you no good! What a coward I am to have fled into the wilderness ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... occasions to the little house in Chelsea I dare say it was as much for news of Vereker as for news of Miss Erme's ailing parent. The hours spent there by Corvick were present to my fancy as those of a chessplayer bent with a silent scowl, all the lamplit winter, over his board and his moves. As my imagination filled it out the picture held me fast. On the other side of the table was a ghostlier form, the faint figure of an antagonist good-humouredly but a little wearily secure—an ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... silent, seeking a suitable answer. Before she could find one she heard her father's voice in the adjoining room. The next moment Councillor von Briest, a well preserved man in the fifties, and of pronounced bonhomie, entered the ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... a swift, silent march of his little army of fifteen thousand men, he took Banks completely by surprise, crushed and captured his advance guard at Fort Royal, struck him in the flank and drove him back into Strassburg, through Winchester, and hurled his shattered army in confusion ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... with a hearty "Ay, ay, sir!" but others were silent; among them were the men who had lately come on ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... of Mrs. Henshaw to draw Mr. Bell out on the subject of Ireland. At an early stage of the catechism he lost his voice entirely, and thereafter sat silent while Mrs. Henshaw discussed the most intimate affairs of her husband's family with Mr. Stokes. She was in the middle of an anecdote about her mother-in-law when Mr. Bell rose and, with some difficulty, intimated his desire ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... together, and gazed for a few moments at the ceiling. Hale had lit his black pipe, and my silent servant placed at his elbow the whisky and soda, then tiptoed out of the room. As the door closed my eyes came from the ceiling to the level ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... minutes the entrance to the tunnel was darkened again, and then cleared. The dead wolves had been pulled away. Another quarter of an hour and the animals reappeared. As all was silent they gradually approached. Godfrey could hear their panting, and presently heard a noise against the bars. A moment later there was a rush and an outburst of snarling growls, then he and Luka drove their spears again and again between the bars, yells of pain ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... was silent a long time before replying, and Alessandro watched his face anxiously. He seemed to be hesitating for words to convey his meaning. At last he said: "Got your father any notice, at any time since the Americans took the country,—notice ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... other dishonesty—and if the other boys turn out to be as reticent as you, Orsino, I shall not always know when they want me. You do not realise how much you have been away from me since you were a boy, nor how silent you have grown when you are ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... nocturnes should be heard, that their intimate, night side may be revealed. Many are like the music en sourdine of Paul Verlaine in his "Chanson D'Automne" or "Le Piano que Baise une Main Frele." They are essentially for the twilight, for solitary enclosures, where their still, mysterious tones—"silent thunder in the leaves" as Yeats sings— become eloquent and disclose the poetry ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... tones are so sweet and sorrowful, that many eyes grow moist—like Rubini, he "has tears in his voice." The melting strains ascend and sigh through the old hall. When they die away like a wind in the distance, the company remain silent, plunged ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... beneath. God bless her! she hasn't much to give; but her eye glistens when she gives it, and that is all Heaven asks.—That was the first time I noticed these young people together, and I am sure they behaved with the most charming propriety,—in fact, there was one of our silent lady-boarders with them, whose eyes would have kept Cupid and Psyche to their good behavior. A day or two after this I noticed that the young gentleman had left his seat, which you may remember was at the corner diagonal to that of Iris, so that they have been as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... were then without the protection of our infantry escort. It was our country's necessity and not our own which prompted the service there performed. For this the regiment was formed square across the plain, and there stood motionless as a rock, silent as death, and eager as a greyhound for the approach of the enemy, at least nine times, numerically, their superiors. Some Indiana troops were formed on the brink of the ravine with the right flank of the Mississippi ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... pilgrim, drifting out upon the silent sea from the cold Iss, escapes the plant men and the great white apes that guard the Temple of Issus and falls into the remorseless clutches of the therns; or, as was my misfortune, is coveted by ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of Commons St. John assessed the expenses of Hayti for January 1797 at L700,000; and stated that, for the discharge of judicial duties, a Frenchman was receiving L2,500 a year, which he was now squandering in London. Pitt remained silent. Dundas did not deny these allegations, but begged members to recollect the great difficulties of our officials in Hayti.[395] This was undeniable. It is the curse of a policy of retirement that waverers ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... administration was destroyed; but the plan of concealment was perfected. To that moment the accounts of the revenues were tolerably clear,—or at least means were furnished for inquiries, by which they might be rendered satisfactory. In the obscure and silent gulf of this committee everything is now buried. The thickest shades of night surround all their transactions. No effectual means of detecting fraud, mismanagement, or misrepresentation exist. The Directors, who have dared to talk with such confidence on their revenues, know nothing about them. What ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... you, set this plan before you as one which Socialism depends upon, which must be adopted. I do not say that the Socialist parties of the world are pledged to this method, for they are not. The subject is not mentioned in any of our programmes, so far as I recall them at this moment. We are silent upon the subject, not because we fear to discuss it, but because we realize that the matter will be decided when the question is reached, and that each case will be decided upon its merits. Still, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... Silent and motionless in the other corner of the carriage sat Jack, looking sadly at his mother, unable to comprehend her despair. He vaguely conceived himself to be in fault, the dear little fellow, and yet was secretly glad that he had not been left ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... or unmanly men, its advocates, though in their own persons offering some sort of evidence for it, are of a kind which is highly repugnant to less abnormal individuals of both sexes. Hosts of women of the highest type, who are doing the silent work of the world, which is nothing less than the creation of the life of the world to come, are not merely dissuaded from any support of the women's cause by the spectacle of these palpably aberrant and unfeminine women, but are further dissuaded by the profound conviction arising ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... But when I found that Mr. John Bright was to be one of the recipients of the degree I felt safe, for if he made a speech I should be justified in saying a few words, if I thought it best; and if he, one of the most eloquent men in England, remained silent, I surely need not make myself heard on the occasion. It was a great triumph for him, a liberal leader, to receive the testimonial of a degree from the old conservative university. To myself it was a graceful and pleasing compliment; to him it was a grave ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... get out on the trails once more that wind through shadowy haunts and cool, Away from the presence of wall and door, and see myself in a crystal pool; I must get out with the silent things, where neither laughter nor hate is heard, Where malice never the humblest stings and no one is hurt by a ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... with curiosity, but all the applause he received came from the Camden rooters. At one side of the diamond were gathered twenty small boys. Usually these youngsters were full of taunts and jeers for Camden, but now they were strangely silent. One of them turned to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... sign their names to their pictures, so that the visitors would know who drew them. Huldah Meserve asked permission to cover the largest holes in the plastered walls with boughs and fill the water pail with wild flowers. Rebecca's mood was above and beyond all practical details. She sat silent, her heart so full of grateful joy that she could hardly remember the words of her dialogue. At recess she bore herself modestly, notwithstanding her great triumph, while in the general atmosphere of good will the Smellie-Randall hatchet ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... under God, his success and renown. That his military fame was well founded, that no series of accidents could have produced success, at once so splendid and so uniform, we must have believed, though all professional authorities had been silent; but the special merit of no other commander has been more generally acknowledged by those of his own craft. His most celebrated living rival and the greatest conqueror of modern times have both set their seals to it. Wallenstein on two separate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various |
