"Muffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... back from his rounds upon the upper floors, they proceeded to put out of action the more valuable and more complicated machines in the building. It was necessary, of course, that they should be almost silent; so their mode of procedure was to muffle up in an old blanket the most delicate and fragile parts of the machines before smashing them with a heavy hammer ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... command and to have one of the gates opened by a trusty hand, the Captain foresaw no difficulty. He trotted along in excellent spirits, now stopping to scan with approval the dark line of his troopers, now to bid them muffle the jingle of their swords and corselets that nevertheless rang sweet music in his ears. He looked for an easy victory; but it was not any slight misadventure that would rob him of his prey. If necessary ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... giant cannon were forged into smooth, sleek instruments of death, came noise: unchecked, unmuffled, blasphemous din. But something odd was afoot. There was a sudden hush. It seemed as if a giant hand had covered the metal city to muffle its screams. ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... Hand him the Bible which people have foolishly regarded as a great conservator of the English tongue, and he will give you a new edition "purified from the numerous errors." Knock off the useless appendages to words which serve only to muffle simple sounds. Innocent iconoclast, with ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... made a step forward, and speaking through the folds of the cloak which seemed to muffle a sarcastic intention - ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... concentrated on Roaring Bill as the arch offender of them all. And lest she yield to a savage impulse to scream at him, she got up and ran into the bedroom, slammed the door shut behind her, and threw herself across the bed to muffle the sound of her crying in ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... they're the same thing." He looked around but the exhausted slaves were all asleep and had heard nothing. Wrapping a piece of leather around it to muffle the sound he began to file a link in the chain that secured the shackles on his wrists. "Snarbi," he asked, "are ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... kinds of furnaces required, the "wind" and "muffle" furnaces. These are built of brick, fire-brick, of course, being used for the lining. They are connected with a chimney that will provide a good draught. Figure 6 shows a section of the wind furnace, fig. 7 a section of the muffle furnace, and fig. 8 a general view of a group comprising ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... levity. And with his chief's complete departure a change came into the mien of Mr. Adolph Meyers. He told the stenographer in the outer office to engage two girls to copy a play that afternoon and evening, to keep him from being interrupted until six, and to muffle the telephone unless in cases of emergency. Then he seated himself in Mr. Vandeford's deep chair, put his feet on the desk, lit a fat, black cigar and plunged into "The Purple Slipper," nee "The Renunciation of Rosalind." For two hours he read with the deepest absorption, only pausing to ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Dalgetty, "strip thy upper garment—thy plaid I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M'Callum More, and make of him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;—Nay, I must bring it over your head, my lord, so as to secure us against your mistimed clamour.—So, now he is sufficiently muffled;—hold down your hands, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... back to the edge of the woods: stopped, listened, walked back and forth a few times, then returned towards Evan, but now, like the other man, taking care to muffle his steps in the grass alongside. Evan could only see him at moments now. He was on Evan's side of the road. Evan drew back ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... and Peter asks, "Lord? (Sir?) speakest thou this parable unto us, or also unto all?" Who would not have hoped an ingenuous reply, "To you only," or, "To everybody"? Instead of which, so inveterate is his tendency to muffle up the simplest things in mystery, he replies, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward," &c., &c., and entirely evades reply to the ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... it is usual for them to go together into some quiet inner court or walled garden, and there they wind their handkerchiefs round their right wrists and round the hilt of the knife to get a good hold, and they muffle their left arms in their jackets for a shield, and face each other till one is dead. If it be barbarous, it is at least braver than stabbing ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... marry, we heard: And out of a convent, at the word, Came the lady, in time of spring. —Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling! That day, I know, with a dozen oaths I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes Fit for the chase of urochs or buffle 130 In winter-time when you need to muffle. But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure, And so we saw the lady arrive: My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! She was the smallest lady alive, Made in a piece of nature's madness, Too small, almost, for the life ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... optical purposes. It was somewhere in the year 1822, as well as I can recollect, that I mentioned it to Sir James (then Mr.) South; and, in consequence, the trial was made in his laboratory in Blackman Street, by precipitating and working a large quantity of borate of lead, and fusing it under a muffle in a porcelain evaporating dish. A very limpid (though slightly yellow) glass resulted, the refractive index 1.866! (which you will find set down in my table of refractive indices in my article "Light," Encyclopaedia Metropolitana). It was, however, too soft for optical use as an object- ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... you are an angel!" cried Chesnel, with tears in his eyes. (She was destined always to be an angel, even in man's attire.) "Button up your greatcoat, muffle yourself up to the eyes in your traveling cloak, take my arm, and let us go as quickly as possible to Camusot's house ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... their boots, and to-night they made better headway. Twice they had to flatten and muffle their breathing, for parties of Indians rode almost upon them. The country seemed to be alarmed; Indians were riding back and forth constantly. All the landmarks were shrouded and changed; they headed south and easterly by the stars—and at daybreak were obliged to hide in ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... Boches. But they were not pleasant trenches to occupy. They were very narrow and very muddy, and parts of the bodies of dead men protruded here and there from their walls and parapets. Moreover, in December it is very cold in northern France, and, muffle as they would, even the boys from Canada suffered from the severity of the weather. They asked only to be permitted to keep their blood warm by aggressive action against their enemy. And, just before the Christmas holidays, the aggressive action ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... looking at her with a long, inarticulate murmur. That this superb woman, in whom he had seen all human grace and household force, should turn from him and all the brightness that he offered her—him and his future and his fortune and his fidelity—to muffle herself in ascetic rags and entomb herself in a cell was a confounding combination of the inexorable and the grotesque. As the image deepened before him the grotesque seemed to expand and overspread it; it was a reduction to the absurd of the trial to which he was subjected. ...
— The American • Henry James
... the depths of the closet, muffle a glass in thick cloth, and break it without noise was not difficult, and broken glass will cut, though not as deftly as ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... is hot; that's always been my motto," replied the returned miner, as he reached for his slouch hat; and took up the overcoat he had worn, which had a high collar that could be used to muffle his face if necessary. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... suddenly frozen. There stood the doctor's buggy. She sprang up the steps, and stretched out her hand for the bolt of the door. Long streamers of crape floated through her fingers. She stood still a moment, then threw open the door and rushed in. The hall floor was covered to muffle the tread; not a sound reached her save the stirring of the China trees outside. Her hand was on the balustrade to ascend the steps, but her eyes fell upon a piece of crape fastened to the parlor door, and, pushing ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... knights, I cried, Who all their better feelings hide; Who muffle up their hearts with care, To hide the virtues nestling there, Who neither praise nor ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... was well prepared, having carefully thought out the whole affair, and I had bound several thicknesses of cloth over the head of the hammer like a pad so as to muffle the blows, and thus it was that I was able to drive it ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... shrieks again. ODDNY and ASTRID, who have come behind her, muffle her head in a kirtle ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... him, and the wall couldn't muffle him," Benjamin rejoined. "I heard him—and I thought it ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... haberdasher, mercer. [underpants for babies] diaper, nappy [Brit.]; disposable diaper, cloth diaper; [brand names for diapers], Luvs Huggies. V. invest; cover &c 223; envelope, lap, involve; inwrap^, enwrap; wrap; fold up, wrap up, lap up, muffle up; overlap; sheath, swathe, swaddle, roll up in, circumvest. vest, clothe, array, dress, dight^, drape, robe, enrobe, attire, apparel, accounter^, rig, fit out; deck &c (ornament) 847; perk, equip, harness, caparison. wear; don; put ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... muffle him, and the wall couldn't muffle him," Benjamin rejoined. "I heard him—and I thought it ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... for the first time since quitting the opposite rim of the valley, if we may except when chin-deep in water he was fording the river. Down the glen, with twisted current winding crookedly among the rocks, came bubbling a little brook, thus serving to muffle the sound of the black hunter's footsteps, as now with swift and powerful strides he ascended into the depths of the hills. When he came to where the two ravines united to form the larger glen, he took the more easterly one, which, as before remarked, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... companions' voices, and when he would return, finds that he is hopelessly lost. The last shafts of {35} sunlight disappear. The chill of night settles on the darkening woods. The priest shouts till he is hoarse and fires off his pistol; but the woods muffle all sound but the scream of the wild cat or the uncanny hoot of the screech owl. Aubry wanders desperately on and on in the dark, his cassock torn to tatters by the brushwood, his way blocked by the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... household, steeped in profound lethargy the sentinels (as we are told was done by an angel to the gaolers of Peter's prison), rolled back the triple gates of bronze, strewed the sweet moghra-flowers thickly beneath his horse's feet to muffle every sound, and he was free. Free? Yes—to resign every earthly comfort, every sensuous enjoyment, the sweets of royal power, the homage of a Court, the delights of domestic life: gems, the glitter of gold: rich stuffs, rich food, soft beds: the songs ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... and Polly sung to him, which arrangement he particularly enjoyed, it was so "cosy and homey." At nine o'clock, Polly packed his bag with clean clothes, nicely mended, such remnants of the festive tea as were transportable, and kissed him "good-night," with many injunctions to muffle up his throat going over the bridge, and be sure that his feet were dry and warm when he went to bed. All of which Will laughed at, accepted graciously, and did n't obey; but he liked it, and trudged away for another week's work, rested, cheered, and strengthened ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... existence than the temple. Some of its windows too were aglow; the lower casements opened upon the lawn; curtains concealed the interior, and partly obscured the ray of the candles which lit it, but they did not entirely muffle the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that front door, and to penetrate to ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... spirit was roused, as if I had been hit foul by one of the prizemen. No time to get up, but I let out one foot at his long legs as a' was slipping through the door, and so nearly did I fetch him over that he let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same moment a strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face to me. For a bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by reason of the kick I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... only the two great families of Personate and Ringent flowers, which in some degree resemble the head of an animal: the representative one being what we call 'snapdragon,' but the French, careless of its snapping power, 'calf's muzzle'—"Muflier, muflande, or muffle ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... used to indicate the extreme caution of Cap'n Cod's entrance, and his evident desire to effect it as noiselessly as possible. As he could only tiptoe on one foot, however, and had neglected to muffle the iron-shod peg that served him in place of the other, his progress was attended with more than its usual amount of noise. He appeared relieved to find Winn awake, and advancing with a cordial greeting, he laid the boy's own clothing, now cleaned and dried, within his reach. ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... generally dried in a reverberatory muffle furnace. It is spread out on the bottom to the thickness of 3 or 4 inches, and should every now and then be turned over and raked about with an iron rabble or hoe. The temperature should be sufficiently high to make the guhr red hot, or the organic matter will not be burnt ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... as greedily as the other; and his white face as conspicuous to my guilty mind as though we had rubbed it with phosphorus. Nor was I the only one to lay this last peril to heart. Raffles sat silent for several minutes on his thwart; and when he did dip his sculls it was to muffle his strokes so that even I could scarcely hear them, and to keep peering behind him ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... won't have nothin' to say to 'im, never!' Ad' I'll quarrel 'bout you too; an' when all ov 'em is done fussin' 'bout me comin' back, I'll steal to you in a dark night, an' lay a plan to meet on Lickin' River; an' we'll take a skiff an' muffle oars till we get to the Ohio; an' I knows jus' whar to go in any dark night, an' we 'll be free together. I didn't tell Jim I's gwine to make massa b'leve all my lies to get you; for I tell you, Liz, I ain't got whole freedom ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... when we pulled from the Argos toward the mouth of the Tuyra. The wash of the waves made it unnecessary for us to take any precautions to muffle the sound of our oars and the darkness of the night made ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... place by land or water. If we go by land we have either to shin up on the pier from the shore, which we're not certain we can do, or else risk making a noise climbing over the galvanized iron fence. Besides we might leave footmarks or other traces. But if we go by water we can muffle our oars and drop down absolutely silently to the wharf. There are bound to be steps, and it would be easy to get up without making ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... muffle the oars it was for a good reason. I wanted to slip past a cove where some native craft were moored. That was common prudence in such a small boat, and not armed—as I am. I saw you right enough, but I had no intention to startle anybody. Take ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... imaginations of monks and wayfarers. There are traces of every age in these old basilicas; you see the diverse states of Christianity, at first enshrined in pagan forms, and then traversing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to muffle itself up finally, and bedeck itself with modern finery. The Byzantine epoch has left its imprint in the mosaics of the great nave and the apsis, and in its bloodless and lifeless Christs and Virgins, so many staring specters motionless on their gold backgrounds and red panels, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... kiss at parting? shallow loves, And likings of a ten days' growth, use courtesies, And shew red eyes at parting. Who bids "farewell" In the same tone he cries "God speed you, Sir?" Or tells of joyful victories at sea, Where he hath ventures? does not rather muffle His organs to emit a leaden sound, To suit the melancholy dull "farewell," Which they in Heaven not use?— So peevish, Margaret? But 'tis the common error of your sex, When our idolatry slackens, or grows less, (As who of woman born can keep ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... surface of the plate, excepting that in contact with the palate and alveolar border, is covered with a porcelain paste called the body, which is modelled to the normal contour of the gums, and baked in a muffle furnace until vitrified. It is then enamelled with a vitreous enamel coloured in imitation of the colour of the natural gum, which is applied and fired as before, the result being the most artistic and hygienic denture known. This is commonly known as the continuous gum ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... heavens, and vanish into liquid tears! Fall, stars that govern his nativity, And summon all the shining lamps of heaven To cast their bootless fires to the earth, And shed their feeble influence in the air; Muffle your beauties with eternal clouds; For Hell and Darkness pitch their pitchy tents, And Death, with armies of Cimmerian spirits, Gives battle 'gainst the heart of Tamburlaine! Now, in defiance of that wonted love Your sacred virtues pour'd upon his throne, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe |
