"Stillness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... observation, he reminded himself of the hero of 'Pilgrim's Progress'. On all sides of him lay fearsome beasts, lying in wait to pounce upon him. At any moment Mr Gregory's hoarse roar might shatter the comparative stillness, or the sinister note of Mr Bickersdyke make ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... ordered a trumpet to be sounded, to inform the inhabitants of our arrival. Before the echoes of the blast from the trumpet had subsided, (and they seemed to penetrate farther and reverberate longer than usual from the perfect stillness of this apparently void region,) about thirty musical instruments came hopping towards us. These were bass-viols. On the very long neck of each was placed a little head; the body was also small, and covered ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... teemed with those horrible ideas, our adventurer, concluding, from the general stillness, that the jeweller and his wife were at last happily asleep, ventured to come forth from his hiding-place, and stood before his mistress all begrimed with soot. Wilhelmina, lifting up her eyes, and seeing this sable ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... rose from his seat, and all eyes were instantly turned upon him. He was then in middle life, and his tall and erect form and fine physiognomy were singularly striking. He was full of emotion, and seemed at first to lack the power of utterance, while the stillness of death prevailed in the Convention. He began by saying: "Mr. Chairman, this is the most solemn experience of my life. I feel as if in the immediate presence of the Divine Spirit." He paused here for a few moments, while there did not seem to be a dry eye in ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... a strange picture—the bland, smooth shining-pated doctor facing this wild excited man standing with his back to the door, his hands outspread as if to keep it fast, and his head half-turned as he listened for the sound of steps in the stillness of the ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... preparation, as far as speech was concerned, that the occasional opening and shutting of pans, and ringing of ramrods to ascertain the efficiency of the muskets, might be heard distinctly in the stillness of the night at a distance of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... stretched out her arms and cried, "Take me now," he disappeared, and she found the song stayed upon her lips, the room hushed, and only the glory, which the angel's presence had shed about, still lingered there. The holy stillness came into her heart also, and she sat quietly upon the floor a long time; and when, at last, she rose and went up to her aunt's bedside, she found the brow she kissed was cold, the hand she clasped was chilly; and, in looking ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners, glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters—all these, in their quiet loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... secluded life, and stretched its parental arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed beneath it for the accommodation of the foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain, whose stillness was no longer broken by the tap of the martial drum, nor the discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered among its branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its venerable contemporaries, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... as Betty's, and she usually had to stop at the bottom of every page to explain something. Often he fell asleep in the middle of the most interesting part, and then Betty read on to herself, with nothing to break the stillness around her but the buzzing of the wasps, as they darted angrily in and out of the open window ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... hand held out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his own and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle kiss was heard through the stillness. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upstairs, to find that her mother was still sound asleep. She sent the two tired girls to bed, and, lying down on the sofa in the sitting room, tried to sleep. She had left her mother's door slightly ajar, and knew that she would hear the least movement in the room. All was perfect stillness, however, and presently Effie fell into a ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... clamor of speech; then our steed's bell-collar would jingle, and for the children's cries, a bird-throat, high above, from the heights of a tall pine would pour forth, as if in uncontrollable ecstasy, its rapture into the stillness of this radiant Normandy garden. The song appeared to be heard by other ears than ours. We were certain the dull-brained sheep were greatly affected by the strains of that generous-organed songster—they were so very still under the pink apple boughs. The ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... The stillness of evening was broken by the roar of a locomotive whistle, and an instant later the wheels of the train smoked and screeched against the chattering brake shoes. In the cab ahead the handle of the air valve was slammed into ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... facility of those to whom camp life has become a second nature, were quickly asleep. From this slumber Billy Brackett was startlingly awakened, some time later, by Bim's bark, and a pistol shot that rang out from the profound stillness of the forest like a thunder-clap. He grasped the dog's collar and sat up. Before he could rise any farther there came a roar of guns, a trampling of feet, a confusion of voices, a rush, and a crashing of wood. The next ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... temple stands, Temple never built with hands; There the Lord doth fill the place With the glory of His grace. Cleansed by Christ's atoning blood, Thou art this fair house of God. Thoughts, desires, that enter there, Should they not be pure and fair? Meet for holy courts and blest, Courts of stillness and of rest, Where the soul, a priest in white, Singeth praises day and night; Glory of the love divine, Filling all this heart ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... the little running brook of Kishon for the nation's sake? God touched the sore spot, when, down at Horeb, the mount of thunder and fire, He spoke to this man of fire and thunder in that exquisitely soft sound of gentle stillness. This was a new revelation of God to this ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... beast's howling suddenly diminishes and grows less and dies away to silence, when the hunter's arrow has sped close to the heart with a mortal wound, so in one moment, the incoherent din sank down, and the dead stillness that followed was dreadful by contrast. Darius stood with his hand upon the arm of his chair, not understanding the words of the fearful stranger; still less the mastering power those words had upon the drunken priests. But his ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... profound stillness of the cloister, that the sound of the street could not reach, the "companion" Luna thought he heard far off, very far off, the shrill sound of a trumpet and the muffled roll of drums, then he remembered ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and down; vainly the fresh wind fanned his fevered brow; vainly the sparkling stars glanced down from holy heights upon him; he found no coolness for his fever in the air, no sedative for his anxiety in the stillness, no comfort for his soul in the heavens; he knew not whether he were indoors or out, whether it were night or day, summer or winter, he knew not, wrapped as he was in the mantle of his own sad thoughts, suffering as he was in the purgatory of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Montenero's I saw the window-shutters closed, and there was an ominous stillness in the area—no one answered to my knock. I knocked louder—I rang impatiently; no footsteps were heard in the hall: I pulled the bell incessantly. During the space of three minutes that I was forced to wait on the steps, I formed a variety ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... his ear caught the sound of a deep, rich note—a soft echo of the strain itself, evoked by an irresistible impulse. He looked inquiringly at his companion, but her head was bent and the brim of her hat concealed her face. Her stillness, her reverence appealed to his heart, for it was easy to see that she was enjoying the music not as a mere concert, but, above all things, as an accompaniment to the words themselves. One time, when he glanced at her ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... which filled the dosshouse, a solemn stillness reigned over all. Long and silently they sat at the feet of their dead companion, seldom looking at him, and both plunged in ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... we reached the gates of Paris. Under the heights of St. Cloud and Suresnes the reaches of the Seine trembled with the blue-pink lustre of an early Monet. The Bois lay about us in the stillness of a holiday evening, and the lawns of Bagatelle were as fresh as June. Below the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysees sloped downward in a sun-powdered haze to the mist of fountains and the ethereal obelisk; ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... lay hushed and dim beyond the fringe; whispering leaves and crackling twigs sounded sharp as a shower of stones in the stillness. Great trees reared their majestic heads to mingle their foliage and shut out the light; every creeping, flying, walking creature seemed awed into a vague murmuring that was deeper than silence. The Grove of Mysteries was a semicircular space ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... ration, it enabled both the girl and Lennon to suck at lumps of raw bacon. They lay silently mouthing and chewing the greasy fat, their rifles ready and their ears alert for the slightest thud of approaching hoofs. But no sound broke the deathlike stillness of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... and filmed with delicate tracery every available inch of window pane, it seemed stealthily to invade the house itself, stilling and chilling it as it drew closer around its central heart of warmth and life. Only once the frigid stillness was broken by the opening of a door and steps along the corridor. This was preceded by an acrid ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... deeply the satisfaction of it, an exploding rifle echo shattered the stillness. With excited sputtering came the prompt answer of a fusillade. She was new to the West; but some instinct stronger than reason told the girl that here was no playful puncher shooting up the scenery to ventilate his exuberance. Her imagination ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... had been exchanged, and Lily had turned homeward, she felt the stillness which succeeded their farewells almost oppressive; she started at the dark shadow of a tree which lay across the path, and to shake off a sensation of fear which was coming over her, she put her arm within ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so apt to do when some trouble seems too big for the house to hold. There is a vague counsel-taking with nature, to which one is impelled at such times; or is it sympathy-seeking? The sweet October afternoon had passed into as sweet an evening, the hazy stillness was unchanged, and through the haze the silver rays of a half moon high in the heavens came with the tenderest touch and the most gracious softness upon all earthly things. There was a vapourous glitter on the water of the broad river, a dewy or hazy veil on the land; the scene could not ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... F. The time taken in cooling is from fifteen to twenty hours, but it may be modified by the kind of death, the age of the person, the presence or absence of clothing on the body, the surrounding temperature, and the stillness or otherwise of the air about the body. Still, the body, other things being equal, may be said to be quite cold in about ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... of Springfield I paid a visit to the Wilson Creek battle-ground. It was eleven weeks from the day I had left it. Approaching the field, I was impressed by its stillness, so different from the tumult on the 10th of the previous August. It was difficult to realize that the spot, now so quiet, had been the scene of a sanguinary contest. The rippling of the creek, and the occasional chirp of a bird, were the only noises that came to ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... parted lips and eyes that shone with the indignation of a convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through half-shut eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright in an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that fluid grace of hers which even in stillness suggested ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... kind of deviltry in that four-hundred foot gash in the earth; the sinking moon lightened only a strip along the east wall, near the top; lower down, smoke mingling with the natural gloom cast an impenetrable veil from bank to bank; not a breath of air stirred the tomblike stillness. Directly in front of us a horse coughed. We dropped on all fours, listened a moment, then crept forward. Without warning, we found ourselves foul of a picket-line, and the vague forms of grazing horses loomed close by. Piegan halted us with a touch, and we lay flat; ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... The stillness around Powell was complete. Not even a globular twig stirred in the hot dry air. Powell decided to head for the crest of one of the low dunes some fifty feet away. From its top he might be able to sight something that would give a clue to the location of the "Cave of Blue Flames" of which ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... music from the thrilling chords had perished; The stillness was not moved With memories of cadences long cherished, The closes of the songs that ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... right ran the wide Oliphant, and mirror-like flashed back the moon, whose silver spears were shivered on its breast, and then tossed in twisted lines of light far and wide about the mountains and the plain. Down upon the river-banks grew great timber-trees that through the stillness pointed solemnly to Heaven, and the beauty of the night lay upon them like a cloud. Everywhere was silence—silence in the starred depths, silence on the bosom of the sleeping earth. Now, if ever, great thoughts might rise in a man's mind, and for a space he might ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... those dark and tender eyes; there was rather an anxious and wistful questioning. And her heart seemed to go out from her to implore these gentle winds, and the soft colors of the sea, and the dreamy stillness of the woods, that now they should, if ever that was possible to them, bring all their sweet and curative influences to bear on him who had come among them. Now, if ever! Surely the favorable skies would heed, and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... other, and for some time not a sound had broken the stillness. Naught save the ticking of the clock, and that did not startle them, but, rather, by its monotonous tune, seemed like a friend that sought to ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... sisters of the father, the father and mother, and seven children, with the wife of one of the sons. Not twelve rods from their own door they sleep side by side—that many voiced household, in the silence of death. No voice breaks the stillness; no words of love are interchanged; but their dust shall mingle together till the morning of the resurrection, teaching an impressive lesson to those that stand by their graves and read the inscriptions upon ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... silence," he commands (lest any unlucky word be spoken); and in a stillness broken only by the auspicious twittering of the sparrows amid the Parthenon gables, he takes barley corns from a basket, an sprinkles them on the altar and over the lamb. With his sacred knife he cuts a lock of hair from the victims head and casts it on the fire. Promptly ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... sides of the nation for one summer, and whose pseudonyme was in everybody's mouth. Alas! what he took for perpetual motion was but an eight-day clock, and I need not call your attention to the present dead and leaden stillness of its pendulum. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... I sat in the cabin under this spell, the profound stillness all about was broken by human voices alongside! I sprang instantly to the deck, startled beyond my power to tell. Passing close under lee, like an apparition, was a white bark under full sail. The sailors on board of her were hauling on ropes to brace the yards, which just cleared ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... recovery is certain, and that the doses are therefore to be discontinued, by these signs: the cessation of the trembling in the hands; the appearance of natural perspiration; and the transition from the stillness of apathy to the repose of sleep. For at least a week or ten days afterwards a vegetable diet, with cream, is necessary as a ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... are many such, and new ones are building. I visited for the first time one in Marienstadt. The building lies in a beautiful landscape, close by the town, on a small stream of water, like a great villa, white and smiling, with window upon window. But one soon discovers that the stillness of the grave rests over the place; it seems as if no one dwelt here, or as if it were a dwelling forsaken during the plague. The gates of these walls are locked; but one opened and the jailor received us, with his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... were cured, or half killed; and to-night, in this great room with its double row of beds, the trained silence of the sleepers seemed unnatural, almost terrible, especially after the horror that had broken it. Max had never before felt the oppression of this deathlike stillness. Usually he slept as the rest slept; but now, weary as he was, he resigned himself to lie staring through the slow hours, till the orderly's call, "Au jus!" should rouse the men to ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... passage along the margin of the breakers into the placid waters of the sequestered bay, The passing blasts were still heard rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the hills seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of gloom, in the centre of the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was in vain that the anxious ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the stillness came a Voice to Robert Browning saying, "What hast thou done with the talent ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... graveyard froze round MURRAY as he read carefully prepared statement. When he sat down, faint murmur of applause rose from scanty muster on Liberal side. No sound, whether of approval or disapproval, broke the stillness of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... huge rocks covered with moss and saxifragous plants, between which whole fields of snow and ice were extended. The air was intensely cold. I looked round, and the forest had disappeared behind me; a few steps more, and there was the stillness of death itself. The icy plain on which I stood stretched to an immeasurable distance, and a thick cloud rested upon it; the sun was of a red blood-colour at the verge of the horizon; the cold was insupportable. I could not imagine what ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... Laura had prepared for the boy had been a nursery, and had a frieze, representing in gay colours the old Mother Goose stories. Jim was put on a cot beside the open fire, where he lay very still, but it was not the dull hopeless stillness of the hospital. Now he was resting, and his eyes travelled happily along the wall as he picked out the ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... melancholy resignation. The streets are clean, bright, and airy; but this fact seems only to add to the intense sobriety. It implies that the unobstructed heavens are in the secret of their decline. There is something ghostly in the perpetual stillness. We frequently hear the rattling of the yards and the issuing of orders on the barks and schooners anchored out in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Berlin all put together cannot furnish the noise of New York, while the roar of Chicago is the stillness of a cathedral compared to it. And most of it, I may be allowed to state, is entirely unnecessary. The papers are full of accounts of nervous collapses, the sanatoria are crowded, while I never heard as much about insanity in the whole of my life elsewhere as I have heard in New York ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... her heart would crack with her effort, her muscles tear; she forgot the retreating rumble of the storm, the brooding, dripping forest stillness; she forgot even her certainty that he would die. She entirely forgot herself. She only knew—straining, gasping, sweating—that she must get the body—the dead body perhaps!—into the wagon. And she did it! Just as she did it, she heard a faint groan. Her heart stood still with terror, then ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... splashing otter, as he ventured from the dark angles and intricacies of the upland glen, to seek his prey in the meadow-stream during the favorable dusk of twilight. Many a time have I heard the simple song of Roger M'Cann, coming from the top of brown Dunroe, mellowed, by the stillness of the hour, to something far sweeter to the heart than all that the labored pomp of musical art and science can effect; or the song of Katty Roy, the beauty of the village, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... which the peaks rise, phantom-like and pallid, into the grey air, scarcely distinguishable from their background. The pine-forests on the mountain-sides are of darkest indigo. There is an indescribable stillness and a sense of incubation. The wind has fallen. Later on, the snow-flakes flutter silently and sparely through the lifeless air. The most distant landscape is quite blotted out. After sunset the clouds have settled down upon the hills, and the snow comes ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... will judge you,—in the name of Jesus Christ, who beseeches you to come to him and live,—by all your hopes of happiness and life,—I charge you let not this year die, and leave you impenitent. Do not dare to utter defiance in its decaying hours. But, in the stillness of its awful midnight, prostrate yourselves penitently before your Maker; and let the morning sun rise upon you, thoughtful and serious men." One does not see how the so-called 'Evangelicals' could ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... of the Achaean ships. First he called loudly to Ulysses peer of gods in counsel and woke him, for he was soon roused by the sound of the battle-cry. He came outside his tent and said, "Why do you go thus alone about the host, and along the line of the ships in the stillness of the night? What is it that you find so urgent?" And Nestor knight of Gerene answered, "Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, take it not amiss, for the Achaeans are in great straits. Come with me and let us wake some ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... funeral flames were a dishonor to that temple of God which had been so highly favored of heaven. So the cherished bodies of the dead were brought here out of the sight of man, where no irreverent hand might disturb the solemn stillness of their last repose, to lie until the last trump should give that summons for which the primitive Church waited so eagerly, in daily expectation. In the city above the Christian religion had been increasing for successive generations, and during all this time the dead had ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... three days; but he might have sent a couple of his lazy negroes. Or, if he had only fired a shot or two as a signal. I stopped and listened, in hopes of hearing the crack of a rifle. But the deepest stillness reigned around, scarcely the chirp of a bird was heard—all nature seemed to be taking the siesta. As far as the eye could reach was a waving sea of grass, here and there an island of trees, but not a trace of a human being. At last I thought I had made a discovery. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... the people up into a frenzy of excitement and terror, he exclaimed, "Listen, I reckon I hear Gabriel getting ready to blow now. De last day am on us, de judgment am right here, whar you sinners now? Listen." And with bated breath they listened. Just then there came a fearful blast on the stillness of the midnight air, and the scene that followed can better be imagined than described. Helter-skelter over the benches and over each other, the terrified people scrambled for the mourners' bench. The preacher boastfully told afterward, ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 2, February 1888 • Various
... rusty black, and bearing in his hand a small plain Bible from which he selects some passage for his text, while the hymn is concluding. The congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins his oration in a drawling tone, and his hearers listen with silent attention. ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... place had a sort of brooding quiet, like the ocean just before the arrival of a cyclone. As Lucille had said, Miss Huskisson's voice was loud. It was a powerful organ, and there was no doubt that it would take the cloistered stillness of the Cosmopolis dining-room and stand it on one ear. Almost unconsciously, Archie found himself bracing his muscles and holding his breath as he had done in France at the approach of the zero hour, when awaiting the first roar of a barrage. He listened ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... almost interminable prospect, stretching east, west, north, and south, like a broad ocean, without wave or ripple. The few trees scattered here and there stand alone, casting long shadows over the plain at nightfall, and adding solemnity to the mysterious stillness of that isolated place. It is not a place for human habitation, for the soil is sandy and sterile; neither is it a place for human hearts, so desolate in winter, and so unsheltered and dry during the long warm summer. Yet midway between the village ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... have just as easily have tiptoed downstairs and out the back door, but it would have spoiled the romance of it all. The absolute stillness and the pitch black darkness of the night were awe-inspiring. The roll of a pebble or the crack of a twig under foot would set us all a-tingle as we stole out to our cave house. Sometimes the night was so black that we could hardly find ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... Boston, and he listened for its repetition or an answer from the mate, but the stillness was unbroken. He turned over to see if Doctor Tom had heard or noticed it, and thought the dark bundle by the side of the log seemed rather small for the sleeping Indian. Boston got up and walked over to the log. Doctor Tom's blanket only was there. Boston looked for the musket; ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... fain have lived, and, according to her obedient nature, had submitted to all the silence and stillness enforced on her; but she had told Dr. Hammond that she must see her brother-in-law before she was too far gone. And the doctor, knowing all, took care it should ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opening misfortune of his campaign: has learned by experience much of the new conditions of the war. Strange that the Boers did not advance after their victory; stranger still that they retired from Dordrecht. Never mind whether their stillness be due to national cautiousness or good defensive arrangements. Since they don't want Dordrecht, let us go there; and there we go accordingly. Out of this there arises on New Year's Day a successful skirmish, in the account of which the name of De Montmorency is mentioned. In Egypt the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... burst of warmth and sunshine almost as sudden. It was that brief period of calm repose in which nature indulges in some parts of the world as if to brace herself for the rough work of approaching winter. There was a softness in the air which induced one to court its embrace. Absolute stillness characterised the inanimate world. Clouds floated in the heavenly blue in rotund masses, which seemed, to the careless glance, as unchangeable as the hills, and the glassy water reflected them with perfect fidelity. ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... consolation in this for Annette's foreboding heart; but as she lay down in her blanket, with Julie at her side, there came once more, through the stillness, from the bosom of the lake, the ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... a sound had broken the stillness since the strangers had arrived, except that of their own voices. They began to wonder if there were no people to inhabit this magnificent ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... pistols and something of a heavy heart, and set open the window where I was to watch. It was a small part of the deck that I could overlook, but enough for our purpose. The sea had gone down, and the wind was steady and kept the sails quiet; so that there was a great stillness on the ship, in which I made sure I heard the sound of muttering voices. A little after, and there came a clash of steel upon the deck, by which I knew they were dealing out the cutlasses, and one had been let fall; and after that ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... for the rivers to wash them with sweet waters or the lurid fire to shape them in the bowls of the mountains. The beauties given us to enjoy are those upon which our eyes may light in the woodlands or from the heights—the glory of the sunset, the stillness of the sea, the thousand Hues of a garden of flowers, or the cascade as it falls from the mountain top. These things are common to all, but the precious stone is too often for the neck or the fingers of the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... after crash; and in the rare moments of stillness, in this nerve-shattering prelude to the Great Push, I could hear the sweet warblings of a lark, as it rose higher and higher in the ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... in, at bedtime, to kiss their father and say good-night, there was something portentous in the stillness there; in the look of the sick man, raised high against the pillows, and turning his eyes wistfully toward them, with no slightest movement of the head; in the waiting aspect of all things,—the appearance as of everybody being to sit up all night ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... moment that the sound of the two revolver shots rang out in the silence from the stillness of the cottage. And at that the superintendent dashed forward, with a cry to the others, and began to beat on the front door, and while his men responded with similar knockings at the back he called loudly on Miss Pett ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... the servants were awakened by a commotion at the front door. Their master, returning from the club, had stumbled and fallen down the stoop. Oku picked him up, and Stafford, luckily unhurt, staggered unaided to his room. Half an hour later the stillness of the night was again disturbed—this time by a woman's shrill scream of fright and a man's voice raised in tones of angry command. To the servants it seemed as if the sounds came from ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... his impetuosity, it appeared probable, that nothing less than arms would terminate the contention. Madame Montoni, having exhausted all her expressions of indignation, and Emily, hers of comfort, they remained silent, in that kind of breathless stillness, which, in nature, often succeeds to the uproar of conflicting elements; a stillness, like the morning, that dawns upon ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... with my knife scraped away the rime of frost, an eighth of an inch thick, which obscured it, till I could see out. A whitish-gray light was on the landscape. Every object seemed still, with a quite peculiar stillness that might be called intense. From the chimneys of some of the houses around thick columns of smoke and sparks were pouring, showing that the fires were being crowded below. Other chimneys showed no smoke at all. Here and there a dull light shone from a window. There was ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... She sat down and watched him silently. From the first moment she knew that all, and more than all, Elton had said was true. She saw death unmistakable, inevitable, and close at hand, and reproached herself for not having come sooner. But in that strange calm and stillness, even self-reproach seemed to be curbed and repressed—even a quickened beating of the heart would have been out of place. So they remained until fully half an hour had passed, when the door of the room again opened; this time to ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... the wharf; the steamer was not yet arrived, but I heard its thunder up the river every moment becoming more distinct: there was mist and darkness upon the face of the waters, and I felt awe as I listened to the approach of the invisible monster booming through the stillness of the night. It came at last in sight, plashed its way forward, stopped, and I was soon on board. It was the Peninsula, the best ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... flushing to beauty in its hidden bed, blood-root, hepatica, wind-flowers, violets in a purple glory; finding in the summer wild roses, dewberries, blackberries, bees and butterflies, the cool shade of the little groves, the shine and shimmer of the streams; finding in the fall a golden stillness and the redness of Virginia Creeper. They had ridden on horseback over the clay roads, they had roamed the stubble with a pack of wiry hounds at their heels, they had gathered Christmas greens, they had sung carols, they had watched the Old Year out and the New Year in, and their souls had been ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... shot broke the stillness. A swift zigzagged across the cattle trail he was following. Out of a blue sky the Arizona sun still beat down upon a land parched by aeons of drought, a land still making its brave show of greenness ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... area of timber in the world, and it is one of the grandest parts of the Park. A death-like silence generally pervades this cool, dark region, where few kinds of animal life find a congenial abode. Occasionally the stillness is disturbed by the Douglas squirrel, busily gnawing off the fir cones for his winter's supply, or by the gentle flutter of the coy wren, darting to and fro among the old, fallen logs. The higher forms of vegetable life are also restricted ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... wise enough to say nothing, but quietly made what preparations she could, and waited for tidings. Bab and Betty were away berrying, so no one had alarmed Thorny, and he had his afternoon nap in peace,—an unusually long one, owing to the stillness which prevailed in the absence of the children; and when he awoke he lay reading for a while before he began to wonder where every one was. Lounging out to see, he found Ben and Lita reposing side by side on the fresh straw in the loose ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... with nothing to indicate the reason for these most peculiar actions. Half an hour that was interminable to Mr. Weil, torn with a thousand fears as to what it might all portend. At last, however, a faint sound broke the stillness. Some one was approaching. Roseleaf touched the shoulder of his companion to indicate ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... come into the divine, sad stillness of the woods, where the warm sunlight shone through the gray moss, lighting the curtained solitudes away and away into the depths of the golden afternoon; and somewhere amid the miles of sleeping wilderness sounded the hoarse honk of the ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... then came over my mind, and having thanked the Creator of all for his never-failing mercy, I closed my eyes, and was passing away into the world of dreaming existence, when suddenly there burst on my soul the serenade of the Rosebreasted bird, so rich, so mellow, so loud in the stillness of the night, that sleep fled from my eyelids. Never did I enjoy music more: it thrilled through my heart, and surrounded me with an atmosphere of bliss. One might easily have imagined that even the ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... midst of the lagoon upon their employment; the cook, a boy of ten, was over his pots in the camp. Thus were all souls accounted for except a single native who accompanied Donat into the wood in quest of sea-fowls' eggs. In a moment, out of the stillness, came the sound of the fall of a great tree. Donat would have passed on to find the cause. 'No,' cried his companion, 'that was no tree. It was something NOT RIGHT. Let us go back to camp.' Next Sunday the divers ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reached to the top of the bank had no dust on them; the rocks were parti-coloured with lichens; the river was bright, flowing and rippling past; the "Pipe of Peace" had pushed off and sped on, and in another minute or two was turning the point, and then—out of sight. Stillness seemed to fill the woods and the air as the beat of her paddles was lost. I breathed stillness. New York was fifty miles away, physically and morally ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Houses of red brick, houses of white wood; the long, wide, dusty Duke of Gloucester Street; gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply, passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,—all seemed remote without distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, and yet keen and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of ordinaries and public places; from open door and window all along Duke of Gloucester Street came laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap of drinking song. To Haward, giddy, ill at ease, sickening ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... was silent a moment or two and leaned back in her chair; and the others dared not speak. The strange emotion of her voice and the stillness of that sparkling figure in the porter's chair affected them profoundly. Her face was now completely shaded by ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... a cow in the quiet meadows, the splash of a trout in the fish-pond, the last notes of a tired bird, the creaking of wagon-wheels upon the distant road, every now and then breaking the evening silence, only made the stillness of the place seem more intense. It was almost oppressive, this twilight stillness. The very repose of the place grew painful from its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying somewhere within that gray and ivy-covered pile ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... grand promises, sir. I hae had a glint inside spacious halls o' delightfu' stillness and wonderfu' wisdom. I'll ne'er forget the joy ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... an uncanny stillness was broken by an inferno of noise. With a din and roar that can never be forgotten by those who heard it, one of the greatest concentrations of artillery the World had ever seen came into action. The crash and rattle were appalling. Sandwiched as we were, with machine ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... elegant crocketed pinnacles of All Souls, the delicately taper spire of St. Mary's, and the clustered enrichments and imperial canopies of masonry, and splendid traceries which every where strike the eye: all of which objects were rendered trebly impressive from the stillness of the night, and the flittering light by which they were illumined. I had enough of wine and frolic, and had hoped to have shirked the party and stolen quietly to my lodgings, there to indulge in my lucubrations on the scene I had witnessed, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... were playing ball in the stables, but she did not feel as if she wanted to romp with them. There was a stillness and a sweetness abroad which penetrated and absorbed her. She moved towards the paddock gate; the pony and the donkey came towards her, and she rubbed their muzzles in turn. It was a pleasure to touch anything, especially anything ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... vessels got out of the way to give the 'Vanderbilt' and the 'Minnesota' room to bear down upon the rebel terror as soon as she should clear the coast line. It was a calm Sabbath morning, and the air was still and tranquil. Suddenly the stillness was broken by the cannon from the vessels and the great guns from the Rip Raps, that filled the air with sulphurous smoke and a terrific noise that reverberated from the fortress and the opposite shore like thunder. The firing was maintained for ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... imperfectly as the dusky current which they bestrode, seemed rather caverns which swallowed up the gloomy waters of the river, than apertures contrived for their passage. With the advancing night the stillness of the scene increased. There was yet a twinkling light occasionally seen to glide along by the stream, which conducted home one or two of the small parties, who, after the abstinence and religious duties of the day, had partaken of a social supper—the only meal at which ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... my breath, before I could turn my eyes, gave it her breast. It pressed its wandering, blind hands into that miraculous, ivory globe (that pattern of the living world) and through the dense, warm stillness of that garden spot, where the bees' hum was the very music of silence, there sounded, so gradually that I could not tell when the first notes stirred the soundlessness, a curious cooing and gurgling, a sort of fluty chuckle, a rippling, greedy ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... with a glance at him which took in the dust, and the stains of salt-water on his clothes, the fatigue he sought to conceal by a rigid stillness, and the tension that was left by the dangers he had passed through—daring ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... Mystically writ on cloud? To speak your name aloud Were to unhallow Such a holy thing; Therefore I bring To your white feet And your immortal eyes Silence forever, But in such a wise Am silent as the quiet waters are, Hiding some holy star Amid hushed lilies In a secret lake. Ah, if a ripple break The stillness halcyon— The ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... to move, lives also in continual rhythm and response. The eternal hills are vibrant to the eye of science, and the very stones are pulsing with the joy of life. The countryside sings, and there is the beat of rhythm not merely in our hearts but in every particle of our body. Stillness is a delusion, and immobility a fiction of the senses. Life is movement and activity, and rigidity and stiffness come more near to what we understand as death. Yet even in death there is no stillness, there is but a change in the form of activity. The body is no longer alive as ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... without him. Be his memory dear and honourable to us, as that of one so worthy ought. What in him was true and valiant endures for evermore—beyond all memory or record. His light, airy brilliancy has suddenly become solemn, fixed in the earnest stillness of Eternity. There shall we also, and our ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... thought. His footfall was nothing on the soft mold. Portly trunks of the hemlocks began to bar his way. The thick shade entreated secrecy; he stood still, and saw his dryad, a green apparition, kneeling at the foot of a beech tree, and looking down. In the stillness, which absorbed all but the beating of his heart, he heard the dry tick, tick of a beech leaf falling. Those that still clung to the sleek upper boughs were no more than a delicate yellow cloud or glowing autumnal atmosphere suffusing the black bole of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... proceeded from the whiteness that was Maud. In the stillness it sounded like some loud noise. It jarred on ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... plunged through the twilight without, with a glad cry that pierced like a knife through the stillness which had fallen in the little room. Raoul de Frison faced her, with clenched hands, silent. For that instant she ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... engaged in building my own little room, and making our hovel comfortable. My thoughts had been almost entirely occupied in contriving means to get into prison. But now I looked towards the gate with a kind of melancholy feeling, but no wish to enter. All was the stillness of death; no preparation of your brother's food, no expectation of meeting him at the usual dinner hour, all my employment, all my occupations seemed to have ceased, and I had nothing left but the dreadful recollection ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... that word along the ranks of the Kindred, and men were merry with the restless joy of battle: but scarce had two minutes passed ere suddenly the stillness of the dawn was broken by clamour and uproar; by shouts and shrieks, and the clashing of weapons from the wood on their left hand; and over all arose the roar of the Markmen's horn, for the battle was joined with the second company of the Kindreds. But a rumour and murmur went from ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... came on intensely black, with intervals of perfect stillness, followed by puffs of icy wind, which were charged with tiny sharp spicules of ice, which made the face tingle at the slightest exposure ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... in duration, it would be difficult to imagine, but the love of liberty had been infused in their dreams somewhere, either in their eastern homes from the tragic scenes of the anti-slavery conflict, or on that perilous march amidst those eternal solitudes by day and the solemn stillness of the far-off stars in the gathering darkness. That this long communion with great nature left its impress on their young hearts and sanctified their lives to the best interests of humanity at large, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the English senate for the benefit of whose biographers the adjective amiable seems especially to have been invented. Although the master of a large fortune, while he was still a boy of twenty he was deservedly noted for the gravity and stillness of his youth, and during a political career of one-and-thirty years, if he showed neither commanding eloquence nor commanding statesmanship, he did honor to the Whig party by his sincere patriotism and irreproachable uprightness of character. If heaven had denied Rockingham the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... uncouth words in an unknown language, and bade Satan stand forth.... He expected a thunderclap, the flashing of lightning, sulphurous fumes—but the night remained silent and quiet; not a sound broke the stillness of the monastery; the ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... faculty abides, That with interpositions, which would hide And darken, so can deal that they become Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt Her native brightness. As the ample moon, In the deep stillness of a summer even Rising behind a thick and lofty grove, Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own. The Excursion, Bk. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... at times so boisterous, that frequently we could not, though so near them, distinguish a word the King and Queen said; and yet, whenever the leaders of these organized ruffians spoke or threatened, the most respectful stillness instantly prevailed. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... he set the watch in order right To guard the camp, along the trenches deep, And as he armed was, so every knight He willed on his back his arms to keep. Now had the stillness of the quiet night Drowned all the world in silence and in sleep, When suddenly we heard a dreadful sound, Which deafed the earth, and tremble made ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... of black bread and a long draught from the fountain was Stephan's breakfast, which being speedily finished, he broke the morning stillness with repeated blasts from the horn, which seemed to awake the valley as by magic; for scarcely had the more distant mountains echoed the summons, than from almost every door-way scampered one or more goats. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... which may be read with profit and delight in the history of the prince's adventures, she forbore to tell him as yet, as judging that he would hear them with greater pleasure from the lips of his son, when he should have him in an hour of stillness and safety, when their work should be done, and none of their enemies left alive ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... scrap, and my father, the person in all his family most justly appealed and most anxiously listened to, had been urged to come and support her in a separation that she passionately rejected. Vivid to me still, as floating across verandahs into the hot afternoon stillness, is the wail of her protest and her grief; I remember being scared and hushed by it and stealing away beyond its reach. I remember not less what resources of high control the whole case imputed, for my imagination, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... hope deferred would fall upon her loving heart, crushing it almost to breaking; yet bravely she struggled with her woe. It was when the holy stars shone down, gazing pityingly at her meekly raised eyes, and she was alone in stillness with her great sorrow, that then would she murmur with ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... sleepy village of Tinkletown was in a state of agitation unsurpassed by anything within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.... Along about supper time one could have heard animated arguments rising above the clear stillness of the air, penetrating even to the heaven which was called upon to witness the unswerving fidelity of two opposing sexes. There was a distinct difference, however, in the duration of this professed fidelity. Masculine voices pleaded for the immediate ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... Hupner's voice breaking the stillness now, "if you each want to clear your own individual selves you will step forward and volunteer to have your persons ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... earnestly tried to speak the words which he has never heard—to come out of the prison of silence, where no tone of love, no song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the stillness—can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of discovery which came over him when he uttered his first word. Only such a one can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked to my toys, to stones, trees, birds and dumb ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... speed, the Arabs sweep ahead. Meanwhile the prince springs forward from his seat, And all on tiptoe still and eager stand, So that the rumbling of the chariot-wheels, The tramp of flying feet and drivers' cries, Alone the universal stillness break— As when before the bursting of some fearful storm, Birds, beasts and men stand mute with trembling awe, While heaven's artillery and roaring winds Are in the awful silence only heard. But when the double victory ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... warning eloquence, there is little doubt that his own mind and heart were gainers by a retirement, in which he had leisure to "prune the ruffled wings" of his benevolent spirit,—to exchange the ambition of being great for that of being useful, and to listen, in the stillness of retreat, to the lessons of a mild wisdom, of which, had his life been prolonged, his country would have ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... with satisfaction, "I was about to ask you what you thought the distance was. Two miles is about what I had estimated. We can't say very exactly, for sound is likely to travel far in this still air. But let us make a liberal allowance for the stillness. I think we are safe in saying that the sound comes from a point not more than four miles distant from this island. Now, the next question is, from what direction ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a minute; and then in came Dr. Sandford. In his presence Preston was mute; attending to the doctor's manipulations as gravely as the doctor himself performed them. In the midst of the general stillness, Dr. Sandford asked, "Who was speaking about trilobites ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... run upstairs, on arriving with Mr. Underwood, looking paler, more scared and miserable, than any of them; and he was sobbing so much when he took his place in the procession, that Wilmet had made Felix take Alda, that she might support him. None of his mother's steady reserve and resolute stillness had descended to him, he was all sensibility and nervousness; and Geraldine, though without saying this to herself, felt as if 'poor Edgar' might really have been nearly killed by the last few days ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... silent, but at last raised her eyes again to his, saying in a voice that even in the stillness of the room ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... cross. While they were thus engaged the Magdalen and Mary talked together. "At last," said Mary Magdalene, "the madmen have departed. Be comforted, beloved mother, now we are alone with our friends; the mockery and blasphemy are past and a holy evening stillness surrounds us." ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... table, on the clock-shelf, knocking down a tin dish, that fell with the clatter of a bursting magazine in the dense stillness of the night. Both drew back in shadow, waiting with heart-beats that sounded in their ears like tramping horses on thick sward. The clamor of rushing steeds in the lane suddenly drowned this; a loud, joyous whinny sounded in the very kitchen it ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... cancelling years of wrong! Ah, fair and fatal decoration, serving as a mark for a hidden foe! The sharp crack of a rifle broke the stillness of the night, and with those hopeful words upon his lips, the young man sealed his ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... sound broke the death-like stillness of the room as he sat down, and I noticed that every face within my view was turned away from the prisoner's chair and the old man who sat near it. The tense strain of the moment was broken by the prisoner's counsel, who arose and began a ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness, and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... boys were working, and in the dormitories where the rest were now going to bed. The tall trees round the building stood quite black against the faintly-lighted sky, waving their thinned remnant of yellow leaves in the November air. In the stillness you heard every slight sound; and the murmur of boys' voices came mingled with the plashing of the mountain stream, and the moaning of the low waves as they broke upon the shore. A merry laugh rang from one of the dormitories, jarring painfully on Wilton's feelings, as he stood gazing ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... would have believed any fairy tale by now. And they started for it, Harley leading; but the tide was too high, and at the farther end of the little pebble isthmus the higher breakers actually came across and poured their foam into the clear stillness. Ann and Jane were afraid; even Dolly hesitated; as for Harley, he was stopped by discovering a beautiful new peg-top which had been cast up by the sea and was rolling ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... quiet, till, in the midst of absolute stillness, came the words, 'Are you ready?', then the pistol-shot and the great race had begun. Above the roar of the crowd came the shrill cry of Baptiste, as he struck his broncho with the palm of his hand, and swung himself into the sleigh beside Sandy, as ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... being, though, probably, many a wandering savage had watched them from the covert of the bank, as they floated silently between the forests. It was an unbroken solitude, where the ripple of their paddles sounded loudly on the ear, and their voices, subdued by the stillness, were sent back in lonely echoes ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... dark woods. Myriad fireflies flitted round, insects chirped in every hollow, the whippoorwill called from the distant thicket, the night-hawk circled in the open glade. A cheerful sound of cow-bells broke the noisy stillness, the forest opened upon a row of dark buildings and darker orange trees, and barking of dogs and kindly voices told us that rest was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... they floated swiftly on, over the dusty waste, they watched their own huge shadows sweeping like the forms of clouds across the burning sand, exactly underneath, for it was noon: and the surface of the desert shook and quivered in the stillness, as if the wind, asleep, had, like a tired traveller, sought refuge from the fury of the sun above their heads. And all at once, the Daughter of the Snow exclaimed: See, there is the mirage! Let us descend, and sit for a little while upon ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... without hope—truthfulness without prospect, almost without possibility, of tangible fulfilment—is all that lies before her now. She accepts it in a mournful stillness, not of despair, and not of resignation, but simply as the only true accomplishment of her life that ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... sickened, and for two or three days did not quit her room, still Olive, though grieving for the moment, never dreamed of any serious affliction. She tended her nurse lovingly and cheerfully, made herself quite a little woman for her sake, and really half enjoyed the stillness of the sickroom. It was a gay time—the house was full of visitors—and Elspie and her charge, always much left to one another's society, were now alone in their nursery, night and day. No one thought the ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... In tolerable stillness Rose one little, little star, And it chuckled at my illness, And it mocked me from afar; And its brethren came and eyed me, Called the Universe to aid, Till I lay, with naught to hide me, 'Neath the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... hands across each other on the sheet with a curious sigh of satisfaction, and was quiet for a little, while Dora held her hand. But it was not long before the stillness broke up in sudden agitation. A tremor ran through her, and she caught Dora's fingers. In her weakness she could not control herself, and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... temptation to do so was very strong; but he remembered his mother's injunction, and sat down again on the rug. But it was very hard to wait. It would have been a great deal easier to Arthur to do almost anything else just then. One half hour and then another passed, and no sound came to break the stillness which was in the house, till Arthur's head dropped on his hand for weariness, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. How long he remained so he hardly knew; but he did not wake until a gentle step came on the stairs. The door ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... ourselves about the desecration; and certainly ours was one of the most delightful gardens that ever existed, what with green turf, bright flowers, shapely shrubs, and the grand beech-trees enclosing it with their stately white pillars, green foliage, and the russet arcades beneath them. The stillness was wonderful to ears accustomed to the London roar—almost a new sensation. Emily was found, as she said, 'listening to the silence;' and my father declared that no one could guess at the sense of rest that it ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horsemen. The battle was rolling a step nearer to them, and she began to see, low down under the pall of smoke, flashes of fire like swift strokes of lightning. Then it rolled another step nearer and its tumult beat heavily and cruelly on the drums of her ears. Yet the deathly stillness in the scrub oaks around the house continued. They waved as peacefully as ever in the gentle wind from the west. It was still a battle heard but ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... sweet girl, and I am very partial to her, there's the truth," cried Lady Clonbrony, in an undisguised Irish accent, and with her natural warm manner. But, a moment afterwards, her features and whole form resumed their constrained stillness and stiffness, and in her English accent she continued, "Before you put my idears out of my head, Colambre, I had something to say to you—Oh! I know what it was—we were talking of embarrassments—and I wish to do your father the justice ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... remain till the following spring. This little orchard, without a path through it, without a border, or a parterre, or a terrace, is a place to sit down and dream in, notwithstanding that it touches the road, for thus left to itself it has acquired an atmosphere of peace and stillness such as belongs to and grows up in woods and far-away coombs of the hills. A stray passer-by would go on without even noticing it, it is so commonplace and unpretentious, merely a corner of meadow irregularly dotted ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... not high, and seemed very far below the children, who sat looking at it from their ponies on the bank. As they watched in silence a fish leaped in the middle of the Bend. The sudden movement seemed amazing in the stillness. It flashed for an instant in a patch of sunlight, and then fell back, sending circling ripples spreading ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... telephone bell in the office ripped the stillness with a discordant suddenness which Farquaharson thought must arouse the household, but the snoring beyond the wall went on, unbroken, and there was no sound of a footfall on the creaking stair. At last Stuart, himself, irritated by the strident urgency of its repetitions, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... outlines of wood and meadow, and the sun's beams rested tenderly upon the rapidly stripping branches, where a few rustling leaves still told of their departed glories. The long undefined shadows of the trees stretched far across the wide lawn, scarcely moving in the profound stillness of the air; and a whole assembly of birds kept up a low-toned conversation in the bushes, as if the day were hardly bright enough to warrant a full chorus of concerted song. It was a tender, wistful kind of day, such as comes sometimes in the fall of the year, before the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... heroes. He stared between them at the red facade; if she was a coward she would still be somewhere in there. The thought struck him with terror. If she were not waiting for him the moonlight would shatter and turn to darkness, the violence of his heart-beat turn to stillness. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... its golden light, than King Solomon in all his glory. There was the crimson-leaved maple, and the yellow beach, and the variegated oak, mingled with the fresh green hemlocks and pines. There was something in the quiet, and deep stillness of the woods, which made the boys silent, as they rode through; they felt the influence of its exceeding beauty, though they could not have expressed it in words; for God always speaks to us through his works, and if we ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... Epistemon, that is a pretty jolly vow of thirteen to a dozen. It is a shame to you, and I wonder much at it, that you do not return unto yourself, and recall your senses from this their wild swerving and straying abroad to that rest and stillness which becomes a virtuous man. This whimsical conceit of yours brings me to the remembrance of a solemn promise made by the shag-haired Argives, who, having in their controversy against the Lacedaemonians for the territory of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... there was neither a sail on the sea, nor a human habitation on the land; there was not even a sheep cropping the herbage of the headlands. I think there were birds calling about the pinnacles of the cliffs—yet it seemed to me that the man broke a complete stillness when he spoke, as he quietly wished me a ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... among the pine trees there were now both heat and silence. It seemed as if a dreamy stillness enveloped the whole world. Not a breath of wind stirred; the trees, grain, and grass were motionless. The leaves hung on the trees as if rocked to sleep; the birds had ceased their noises, and the moment of rest had come. But this rest seemed to come from an ineffable ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... on his side; and relapses into sleep. Stillness settles on the Sierra; and the darkness deepens. The fire has again buried itself in white ash and ceased to glow. The peaks show unfathomably dark against the starry firmament; but now the stars dim and vanish; and the sky seems to steal away out of the universe. Instead of the Sierra ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... of a residence is in (the suitability of) the place; that of the mind is in abysmal stillness; that of associations is in their being with the virtuous; that of government is in its securing good order; that of (the conduct of) affairs is in its ability; and that of (the initiation of) any movement is ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... the powdered remains of last year's foliage; the leaves above him were showing the first yellow stains of autumn. A sweet smell of ripening nuts was thick upon the air, and busy rustlings and chirpings through the stillness told how the chipmunks and squirrels were attending ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Breton were compelled to use force to hold the sick man on his mattress. He horrified the nuns at evening prayer by shouting for wine, calling the main at dice, or singing a camp song. At other times his laughter broke the quiet of midnight or the stillness of dawn. But never in all his ravings did he mention the marquis or the tragedy of the last rout. Some secret consciousness locked his lips. Sometimes Brother Jacques entered the berthroom and applied cold cloths, and rarely the young priest failed to quiet the patient. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... The stillness of night and the shimmering moonlight are in the delicate harmonies of (Allegretto) strings. A lusty song of departing revellers breaks upon the scene. The former distant sounds of feast are now near and ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... substance they filled out the rents in the grassy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale luster, streaming through narrow barbican and mildewed arch, touched the decaying ruin of San Felipe with the wand of enchantment, and restored it to pristine freshness and strength. Through the stillness of night the watery vapor streamed upward from garden and patio, and mingled with the scent of flushing roses and tropical buds in a fragrant mist suffused with the moon's ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking |
