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More "Speechless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them!' exclaimed madame, with impatience. Vincent returned no answer; exhausted by the effort of speaking, he had fainted. Madame rung for assistance, and by proper applications, his senses were recalled. He was, however, entirely speechless, and in this state he remained till he expired, which was about an hour after ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... the letter. For a moment the shock of the discovery held her speechless. She recovered herself, and ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... Rodolph fell back in the missionary's arms, saying, "Then I accept with joy the end to which God has called me. Death no longer disturbs me, since it brings victory with it." From this moment he was speechless; and with his gaze earnestly bent upon his shield, that had been raised by a page, and on which was blazoned a crowned lion sleeping upon the knees of the Blessed Virgin, Rodolph of Suabia breathed his last. The calm face of the ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... blow; Regis' forehead had been gashed and dripped blood, and Hjalmar's thigh sliced in a clean cut. My own knuckles were laid bare and the hand was getting numb. It was a little while before anybody noticed Kyla, crouched over speechless with pain. She reeled and turned deathly white when we touched her; we stretched her out where she was, and got her shirt off, and Kendricks crowded up beside us to examine ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... there, it was with me to go to Enfield. Friends were afraid of my removing, but I told them that I might safely go. When I had taken my leave of Gerard and had come to Enfield, I went first to visit Amor Stoddart, who lay very weak and almost speechless. I was moved to tell him "that he had been faithful as a man and faithful to God, and the immortal Seed of Life was his crown." Many more words I was moved to speak to him, though I was then so weak, I could scarcely stand, and within a few days ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... was almost gone. I stood with full eyes and quivering lips, my hand still in Darry's, who on his part was speechless ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... again sunk into his chair, buried his face in his hands, and sat trembling and speechless. Never for an instant had Alida taken her eyes from him; and now, with a long, wailing cry, she exclaimed, "Thank God, thank ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... vivacity, mixed with an extraordinary chearfulness, and then retired to her chamber. About 10 her servant hearing some noise in her mistress's room, ran instantly into it, and found her fallen off the chair on the floor, speechless, and in the agonies of death. She had the immediate assistance of a physician and surgeon, but all the means used were without success, and having given one groan she expired a few minutes before two o'clock, on Sunday ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... train passed through the village he was overwhelmed with emotion at the sight. He fell prostrate on the bank as if struck by a thunder-bolt. When he stood up his brain reeled, he was speechless, and stood aghast, unutterable amazement stamped upon his face. In the tone of a Jeremiah he at length gasped out, "Well, sir, what a sight to have seen: but one I never care to see again! How awful! I tremble to think of it! I don't know what ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... house, ran into the little closet off the kitchen, bolted the door, fell on his knees in the void little sanctuary that had of late been the scene of so many foiled attempts to lift up his heart, and poured out speechless thanksgiving to the God of all grace and consolation, who had given him back his friend, and that in the time of his sore need. So true was his heart in its love, that, giving thanks for his friend, he forgot that friend was the Marquis of Lossie, before whom his enemy ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... in their chivalrous and respectful devotion. The poor mother, pale, trembling, and faint, leaned heavily upon Andre's arm, lest she should fall. On the ship that was to take her for ever from her son, she cast her arms for the last time about his neck, and there hung a long time, speechless, tearless, and motionless; when the signal for departure was given, her women took her in their arms half swooning. Andre stood on the shore with the feeling of death at his heart: his eyes were fixed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not as a jest, not as a wish, but as the commonplace statement of a fact. There was a moment of stupefied silence. Pasquale who had just struck a match to light a cigarette stared at me and let the flame burn his fingers. I stared at Carlotta, speechless. The colossal impudence ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... over, speechless, and beheld standing above him, nineteen feet high as well as he could estimate hastily, a Yankee captain mounted and in full uniform. John leaped up, and remembered ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... police officer's reply left the other speechless for the moment. The tone of it amazed him. He had hastened across from the Agency directly he had received the Corporal's dispatch, not because he had to pay out Treaty Money in the morning, not because the whole matter would not keep even a week ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... swore his wife came hurrying into the room, and, guessing what had happened, stripped the bedclothes from him with lightning rapidity. She stood at first without moving or uttering a syllable, speechless with indignation at sight of the yellow poultice ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Duncan arose, speechless with joy and surprise at the sight of the stalwart figure and handsome face. "Donal'!" ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... made them dizzy. The width, the depth, left an impression of infinite immensity upon the mind, an overwhelming hopelessness. Men used to mountain vastness all the days of their lives were left speechless for moments, while their searching eyes sought to measure the limits of ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the children, weeping faster, "He is speechless as a stone; And they tell us, of his image is the master Who commands us to work on. Go to," say the children, "up in heaven, Dark, wheel-like turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving; We look up for God, but ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... difficulty was to know where to drop Mr. Browne along the route, and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane helped the discussion from the doorstep with cross-directions and contradictions and abundance of laughter. As for Freddy Malins he was speechless with laughter. He popped his head in and out of the window every moment to the great danger of his hat, and told his mother how the discussion was progressing, till at last Mr. Browne shouted to the bewildered cabman above the ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... grown purple at the sight of Bulger, now turned a sickly white. The mate dashed forward, calling to the crew, who, seeing that something was amiss, came along with a rush, arming themselves with belaying pins and any other weapons that came handy. Toley, however, leaving the cowed and speechless captain to Desmond, stepped toward the men. They recognized him at once and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Speechless all, as before, they stand: When a vassal bold, gentle, and gay, Steps out from his comrades' shrinking band, Flinging his girdle and cloak away; And all the women and men that surrounded Gazed on the ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... use. He noticed that the queen stood all the time that he was in the room, and fancied she assumed that attitude out of respect to the mayor. She had never stirred since she had heard of the princess's death, but had stood rooted, as it were, to the ground, stupefied and speechless with horror and anguish. It was long before she could be restored; and all through the night the rest of the princesses, if at least they could have slept, was broken by her sobs, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... at him speechless, with wide-open eyes. The children on the bed began to whisper to one another. Wilhelm took advantage of the pause to say a few words in Father Stubbe's ear, whereupon the old ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... their play. Their wrestling does not seem like ours, but there are blows (given), so severe as to break teeth, and put out eyes, and disfigure faces, so much so that here and there men are carried off speechless by their friends; they give one another fine falls too. They have their captains and judges, who are there to put each one on an equal footing in the field, and also to adjust the honours ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... unwilling to leave him, he succeeded; and Mrs. Macalister, seeing them return alone, took the alarm, and collecting the neighbours, went in search of her husband, led on by the faithful colleys. When they came to the spot, poor Macalister was speechless with crying for assistance. It required five strong men to remove the block ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... there was what most haunted me. Long, speechless streets, whose stepping-stones invite Feet which shall never come; to left and right Gay colonnades and courts,—beyond, the glee, Heartless, of that forgetful Pagan sea. O'er roofless homes and waiting streets, the light Lies with ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... "The prince remained speechless for a few moments, as if with indignation. At last he broke out into expressions the most injurious and insulting against Signor Zanoni and myself. Zanoni replied not; I was more hot and hasty. The guests appeared to delight in our ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... my daughter!' And then, with their hands clasped together, they sat speechless and alone, while the news was spread through the household which the old man did not dare to tell ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... He stared in speechless amazement—amazement that was dangerously near to horror. It was his aunt's face indeed, but it was her face of forty years ago, the vacant innocent face of a girl. He had heard stories of that strange effect of terror which could wipe a human countenance clean of other emotions, ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... speechless, Alf suspended his belligerent preparations, and cocking one eye calculatingly, settled the matter of Miss ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... left and walked into the teacher's dwelling! And Manogi and all the Deasy women saw Miriamu, the teacher's daughter, come to the open window and make a face at them in derision. Peter and Schweicker looked at each other in speechless indignation. ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... never occurred to her that it could be anybody else. Certainly Olga should have put "Spanish Quartet" in the bottom left-hand corner instead of "Music" and then Lucia would have known all about it, and have been speechless with emotion when they had finished the Beethoven, and wiped her eyes, and pulled herself together again. It really looked as if Olga had ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... have more spirit. But they have lost their chance of kingship through worshipping us. The dog's finer qualities can't be praised too warmly; there is a purity about his devotion which makes mere men feel speechless: but with all love for dogs, one must grant they are vassals, not rulers. They are too parasitic—the one willing servant class of the world. And we have betrayed them by making under-simians of them. We have taught them some of our own ways of behaving, and frowned upon ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... appeared, then a rope-ladder. Somehow I was mounting it—a dizzy feat to which only the tumult of my emotions made me indifferent. Bare brawny arms of sailors clutched at me and drew me to the deck. There at once I was the center of a circle of speechless and astonished persons, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... it, and said, "John, I saw a brock gang in there."—"Did ye," said John; "wull ye haud my horse, sir?"—"Certainly," said the laird, and away rushed John for a spade. After digging for half an hour, he came back, nigh speechless, to the laird, who had regarded him musingly. "I canna find him, sir," said John. "Deed," said the laird very coolly, "I wad ha' wondered if ye had, for it's ten years sin' I ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... caused my trouser-leg to flap dismally about my ankles, and sent the streams of loathsome ooze trickling down into my shoes. My hat, of drab felt, had fallen off by the brookside, and been plentifully spattered as I got out. I looked at my youngest nephew with speechless indignation. ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... not unkind. The sight of her white, fixed face touched him. He did not upbraid her, though for the past week he had rehearsed the bitterest of upbraidings. He even spoke soothingly to her when, speechless, she broke into wild sobs. "There, Amabel, there.—Yes, it's a frightful mess you've made of things.—When I think of mother!—Well, I'll say nothing now. You have come back; that is something. ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... could do was to sit speechless. For the fire was gone, and the wall was open, and the room was not a room. The voice of the Singing Mouse, shrill and sweet, droned on a thousand miles away in smallness, but every word a crystal of regret ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... and covered her face with her hands. Terror fell upon them all; Joanna left the viridarium in speechless dismay, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... With flying haste, I might have sent, Among the speechless clouds, a look Of blank astonishment; But 'tis endued with power to stay, And sanctify one closing day, That frail Mortality may see— What is?—ah no, but what can, be! Time was when field and watery cove With modulated echoes rang, While ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... down our meagre fare, as usual, and depart. But to our surprise, instead of doing so, he advanced towards us with a knife in his hand, and, going up to Jack, he cut the thongs that bound his wrists, then he did the same to Peterkin and me! For fully five minutes we stood in speechless amazement, with our freed hands hanging idly by our sides. The first thought that rushed into my mind was that the time had come to put us to death; and although, as I have said before, we actually wished for death in the strength of our despair, now that ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... present ambiguous position, she had Delafield, and through Delafield the English great world, in the hollow of her hand? This nameless woman—no longer in her first youth. And she had refused? He watched her in a speechless wonder and incredulity. ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a minute the pair stared at each other, white and speechless. Then Mrs. Bascom hurried to the door, darted out, and fled along the path around the cove to the bungalow. Atkins did not follow her; he did not even look in the direction she had taken. Instead, he collapsed in the rocking-chair and put both ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... pleasure, in spite of the enemies whom they knew might be lurking near them. Both Wabi and Rod had accepted the place as their night's home, and were stirring up the fire, when their attention was drawn to the singular attitude of Mukoki. The old warrior stood leaning on his rifle, speechless and motionless, his eyes regarding the process of rekindling the fire with mute disapprobation. Wabi, poised on one ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... rely on my discretion, Monsieur," I murmured, without showing, I flatter myself, the slightest trace of that astonishment which, at mention of M. de Marsan's name, had nearly rendered me speechless. ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... sentiment of humanity towards the unhappy man. After once or twice lingering behind in the ostentatious picking of a wayside flower, or "running on ahead" to look at a mountain view, without any apparent effect on the shy and speechless youth, she decoyed him aside while her elder sister rambled indifferently and somewhat scornfully on. The youngest Miss Piper leaped upon the rail of a fence, and with the stalk of a thimbleberry in her mouth swung her small feet to and fro ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Fudo won her: for that night Did fond O-Shichi dare To set aflame her father's house, Hoping again to share The temple with her acolyte, Her lover-priest, who, spent With speechless passion for her face, ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... the fellow with open mouth, so dumbfounded as to be speechless. Of all the idiots I had ever met he was the worst, or else his acting was magnificent. To save me I was not certain which might be the correct guess. He continued ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... through all these unmeaning eulogies, we are always asked last of all to admire his quiet funeral. I do not know what else people think a funeral should be except quiet. Yet again and again, over the grave of every one of those sad rich men, for whom one should surely feel, first and last, a speechless pity—over the grave of Beit, over the grave of Whiteley—this sickening nonsense about modesty and simplicity has been poured out. I well remember that when Beit was buried, the papers said that the mourning-coaches ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... fear be less than delight, and awe Be one with desire and with worship of earth and thee, So mild seems now thy secret and speechless law, So fair and fearless and faithful and godlike she, So soft the spell of thy whisper on stream and sea, Yet man should fear lest he see what of old men saw And withered: yet shall I quail if thy breath ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that's deserved! I say so now. But this is what I say, Rhoda (I see nothing but blackness when I pray), and I say, 'Permit no worse!' I say, 'Permit no worse, or take the consequences.' He calls me his wife. I am his wife. And if—" Dahlia fell to speechless panting; her mouth was open; she made motion with her hands; horror, as of a blasphemy struggling to her lips, kept her dumb, but the prompting passion was indomitable.... "Read it," said her struggling voice; and Rhoda bent over the letter, reading and losing thought ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Filipino, even the most enlightened, who does not tell marvelous things that have happened to him—wondrous visions, mute and speechless; ghosts, goblins, strange figures; dead people; dogs, and fabulous and never imagined animals; castles, and balls of fire, that have appeared to him; frightful noises of all sorts that have scared him; and, finally, the most improbable stories and bits of nonsense that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... already, I believe, planning some little treat to make up to me for the material deprivation. But my answer came, in the high-piping accents of despair: 'The Lord says I may go to the Browns.' My Father gazed at me in speechless horror. He was caught in his own trap, and though he was certain that the Lord had said nothing of the kind, there was no road open for him but just sheer retreat. Yet surely it was an error in tactics ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... was maliciously made as deliberate as possible. At length, wholly let down, and completely out of the sight of the audience, he looked round the obscure regions beneath the stage to discover the base perpetrators of the outrage. He was speechless with rage and burning for revenge. Elliston and his companion had of course vanished. Unfortunately, at that moment, Charles Holland, another member of the company, splendidly dressed, appeared in sight. The enraged Dowton, mistaking his man, and believing that Holland's imperturbability ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... recollection of the Cousin and the Aunt brought him to a full stop there, but everybody looked up, and for a moment the flock was speechless. Not so the Goat, for it was the Goat who stood there, arrayed in the afternoon panoply of advanced civilization, with a cigarette between his fingers and the neatest of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... post-office! Eh, Miss Marjorie, your mother said you weren't to know, and it iss me that will hev been telling you. Och! the disgrace to an honest family!' and the girl threw her apron over her head and moaned and lamented to herself in Gaelic, while they all stood around her, speechless. ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... in an apathy of grief and horror, trembling and speechless doing nothing except move the controls to keep the ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... but some three hours, riding dreary and nigh speechless all of them, ere they began to know the land they were in, and that they were coming to the place where they might look presently to fall in with Sir Aymeris and his company; and even so the meeting betid, that they saw men standing ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... like a storm along the swelling ranks The soul of Saul went drifting through the dark, Like some fair ship with sails and cordage rent, Out from the stormy trials of his life, To tempt the terrors of an unknown sea. And then the cry of lamentation rose In Israel, and the Hebrew maidens hung Their speechless harps upon the willow branch, And mourned the loved ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... of seeing him, all her presence of mind vanished, leaving her speechless and trembling ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... in speechless love—[mt][430] Their full divinity inadequate That feeling to express, or to improve— The Gods become as mortals—and man's fate[mu] Has moments like their brightest; but the weight Of earth recoils upon us;—let it go! We can recall such visions, and create, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... my dear, have shewn more spirit? I expected to feel the weight of her hand. She did come up to me, with it held up: then, speechless with passion, ran half way down the stairs, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... She remained speechless, with arms dangling, in a stupor this counsel brought upon her. She awaited other words, failing, as it were, to understand him. And the Abbe continued putting before her the arguments which ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... pale and almost speechless. Beverley could ill suppress his smothered rage. What could they do? The tables had been turned. If they objected to the amazing proposal Constance had made they might all go to jail. Dodge even might go free, rich. They looked ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... then there is only one way to get it, whether you like justice or not." It is the only conceivable intellectual basis for it, because this is not like the time, years ago, of the Congress of Vienna. Peoples were then not willing, but so speechless and unorganized and without the means of self-expression, that the governments could sit on their necks indefinitely. They didn't know how to prevent it. But they are wide awake now and nobody is going to sit comfortably on the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... free to turn about and become the critic and satirist of his foiled ambitions. He may exhaust scepticism and withdraw into the citadel of immediate feeling, yielding bastion after bastion to the assaults of doubt. When he is at last perfectly safe from error and reduced to speechless sensibility, he will perceive, however, that he is also washed clean of every practical belief: he would declare himself universally ignorant but for a doubt whether there be really anything to know. This metaphysical exercise is simply one ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... to Therese's, and found Greppi there before me. Therese and Don Cesarino, whom I covered with kisses, came in a quarter of an hour afterwards. The banker stared at him in speechless wonder. He could not make out whether he was my son or my brother. Seeing his amazement, Therese told him Cesarino was her brother. This stupefied the worthy man still more. At last he asked me if I had known Therese's mother pretty well, and on my answering in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... fluffy little things, counting them over and over, and speculating what he would do if they were his, Phronsie crouching down by one side, while David was as close on the other, and all three children speechless with delight. ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... fallen. "They would not let you come to me, so I have come to you," she declared with a daring little laugh. "I have run away from my guests. There is a houseful of them and they tire me to death. Everyone tires me to-night except you." The gentleman stood before her speechless with bewilderment. "I believe," she said with a little pout, like a spoiled child, "that you are not glad ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... brought word that the mob were actually pulling down Lady de Brantefield's house—that the furniture had all been dragged out into the street, and that it was now burning. Pride once more gave way to undisguised terror in Lady de Brantefield's countenance, and both ladies stood in speechless consternation. Before we had time to hear or to say more, the orange-woman opened the door, and putting in her head, called out in a voice of authority, "Jantlemen, here's one wants yees, admits of no delay; lave all and come out, whether you ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... paid to revenge, and blood had atoned for the blood of the monarch; but now affection assumes its rights, and tears of grief must flow for the man. The universal sorrow absorbs all individual woes. The generals, still stupefied by the unexpected blow, stood speechless and motionless around his bier, and no one trusted himself enough to contemplate the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... and having none to ask myself I went straight to the lady's chamber. I found her upon a couch in the most agreeable and genteelest deshabille imaginable: she never in her life looked so handsome, nor was so greatly surprised; and, seeing her speechless and confounded: 'What is the matter, my fair one?' said I, 'methinks this is a headache very elegantly set off; but your headache, to all appearance, is now gone?' 'Not in the least,' said she, 'I can scarce support it, and you will oblige me in going away ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... with its glow, or on what accomplished good, of that greatest kind for which men show no gratitude, will your life rest the contentment of its close? Truly, I fear that the ghosts of proportionate lines will be thin phantoms at your bedsides—very speechless to you; and that on all the emanations of your high genius you will look back with less delight than you might have done on a cup of cold water given to him who was thirsty, or to a single moment when you had "prevented with your bread him ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... this one was possessed by a spirit. If not, the people must have heard wrong. And yet it is said that when things are done out of season, and discontents and complaints are stirring among the people, then speechless ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... came when both Mucluc Charley and Leclaire were firmly set upon the sale, and they gleefully obliterated O'Brien's objections as fast as he entered them. O'Brien grew desperate. He exhausted his last argument and sat speechless. He looked pleadingly at the friends who had deserted him. He kicked Mucluc Charley's shins under the table, but that graceless hero immediately unfolded a new and most logical reason for the sale. Curly Jim got pen and ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... his eyebrows at such naivete. "That's what I mean, of course. So it went on all that summer. We used to shake when we met each other, and be speechless. By heavens, what a time that was! Do ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... never yet was look of mortal love So pure, so tender, so serene as this. The softest glance fond woman ever sent To him she loved, would cold and rayless be Compared to this, which she divinely bent Earthward, with angel sympathy, on me, That seem'd with speechless tenderness to say, "Who takes from me my ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... visit the Baroness. I did not tell my wife, at the time, who "the Doctor" was; but as the gentleman slid by us, and passed upstairs, I saw at once that he was a Catholic ecclesiastic. When Theo next saw our poor lady, she was speechless; she never recognised any one about her, and so passed unconsciously out of life. During her illness her relatives had called assiduously enough, though she would see none of them save us. But when she was gone, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... terror. As Haroun's eyes fell upon the shrinking prince sitting on his throne, and on the form of Giafer kneeling with part of the severed cord still about his neck, the veins stood out upon his forehead, and rage rendered him speechless. He beckoned to Mesrur, the ever faithful, who instantly pulled Ibrahim from his seat, and, taking him aside into an antechamber, forthwith struck ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... to Wych Maries to pick St. John's wort for the church. Would you like to walk as far?" Mark suggested, and then stood speechless, horrified at his want of tact. He had the presence of mind not to excuse himself, and he was grateful to Esther when she replied in a calm voice that she should like ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... that could not be undone Throughout eternity. O silent tongue That would blab all with silence! What to do? How hide this speechless witness from men's gaze? Living, that body vexed us; being dead 'T is like to give us trouble and to spare. O for a cavern in deep-bowelled earth! Quick, ere the dusky petals of the night Unclosing bare the fiery heart ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... some more questions when he was brought to a sudden stand, and rendered for the moment speechless by the sight of Moses Pyne—not bearing heavy burdens, or labouring in chains, as might have been expected, but standing in a shallow recess or niche in the wall of a house, busily engaged over a small brazier, cooking beans in oil, and selling ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... I stood speechless and gaping while one with moderate haste might have told fifty. I couldn't have spoken Paley's name even if I had remembered it. I did the only thing that a brave man who believes there are mysterious ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... Ashby felt his way forward, and found a man on the floor. His legs and arms were tied. He was almost speechless, partly from terror and partly from joy. In a few words he told his story, which need not be ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... Napoleon was the same that he retained throughout the whole of this dismal retreat. It was grave, silent, and resigned: suffering much less in body than others, but far more in mind, and brooding with speechless agony over his misfortunes. At that moment General Charpentier sent him from Smolensk a convoy of provisions. Bessieres wished to take possession of them; but the emperor instantly ordered them to be forwarded to the Prince of Moskwa, saying that "those who were ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... you can, the effect this amazing assertion had upon us. We were stupefied—struck speechless; we could only stare breathlessly, with dilated eyes, at Captain Rudstone. Had we heard aright? Was he really the missing Osmund Maiden? Folding his arms on his breast he returned our ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... ("chauffaient") the feet of those they suspected. The fat landlady held a knife in one hand and a half-peeled potato in the other, and gazed at her husband with a stupefied air. Even the scullion puzzled himself to know the reason of their speechless terror. Francine's curiosity was naturally excited by this silent scene, the principal actor of which was visible to all, though departed. The girl was gratified at the evident power of the Chouan, and though ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... agreed, and I drew her to the door and saw her into the corridor, and even followed her to the front door. She was chatting all the time. I did not answer. I was speechless with rage, and could have sworn aloud, when at last I heard the door shut between us, then I strode back into my room, praying that Alathea had been unaware ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... if you're going our way," and in the kindly little man at the handle-bars the boy recognized "Scotty" Allan, the most famous dog driver in Alaska. To the boy "Scotty" represented all that was most admirable in the whole North, and he stood speechless at the invitation to ride with him behind a team that had always seemed as wonderful as Cinderella's Fairy Coach. He hesitated, and then the Woman in the sled beckoned encouragingly. "Get in with me; and your dog may come too," she said as she rearranged the heavy fur robes ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... to be direct, was not long in making discoveries. With a rather blank expression of countenance L'Enfant Terrible, for once almost speechless, beckoned ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... vanished, and for a moment Dorothy stood pale and speechless. Then she knelt down by Caesar, examined his wound—he was shot in the leg—and bound it up with her handkerchief, just as she saw Basha do the night before, and then putting her arms around his neck she kissed him. "Be patient, dear old ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... the head of the table looked on in dumb amazement, and he was still speechless when, after dinner, five children set upon him and dragged him out to see the ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... back with you?" he asked, wondering at his own temerity. They went together some little distance without Paul speaking a word. He felt he had much to say to her, and yet, now that the opportunity had come, he was speechless. He noticed, too, that the people in the street were watching them, and doubtless many were commenting on the fact that he, who had no reason to be friendly with Mr. Bolitho, should be walking with his daughter. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... more amusingly than Molly Dickett. She had always used her material well, when it was limited, and now, when it bumped into the Himalayas at one end (her famous Rajah of Bhutpore interview) and rounded the hitherto speechless promontories of Spud Connors' career, the champion heavyweight of the world (she actually drew vivid metaphors from him and he gave her a tintype of himself at eight years) the entire staff gathered 'round ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... one charming room to another, but she was speechless until she came to the library—a big brown room, filled with books, low comfy chairs and ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... a sarcasm that left the girl speechless. "How in hell would you have me talk standin' around a swell chu'ch like that? I tell you what, Miss Helen, you ain't got this thing right. Within a month this durned city'll all be that mussed up with itself an' religion, the folks'll grow a crop o' wings enough to stock a chicken farm, an' ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... little Italian restaurant where they had often, in the old days, lingered late into the night over a glass of Lacrimae Christi. But no pale ghost of the past rose from the wine. Only a wriggling something, with serpent eyes, that sent cold shivers down her spine and held her speechless and entranced. ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... had heard, and I lay there speechless in the stifling trench, too overcome by my greatness of good fortune to be able to utter ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... and thus, since He is incomprehensible and ineffable, He is above all praise. In this respect we owe Him reverence and the honor of latria; wherefore Ps. 64:2 is rendered by Jerome in his Psalter [*Translated from the Hebrew]: "Praise to Thee is speechless, O God," as regards the first, and as to the second, "A vow shall be paid to Thee." Secondly, we may speak of God as to His effects which are ordained for our good. In this respect we owe Him praise; wherefore it is written (Isa. 63:7): "I will remember the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... now, for latterly the baby had been ailing; she had evidently caught a chill and was feverish and fretful. "How could Dulcie have taken cold?" Mrs Roy wondered many times in the day, while the conscience-stricken Biddy stood speechless, and thought of that conversation at the kitchen door. Mr Roy was made uneasy too by his wife's anxiety, and also felt deeply incapable of making any suggestion about the origin or treatment of Dulcie's illness; everything seemed a little ruffled and disturbed ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... a place for settlement—a journey to the Griqua country, and after a terrible experience, in which he suffered from hunger, thirst, heat, and drinking poisoned water, he reached Griqua Town, and entered the house of Mr. Anderson, the missionary there, speechless, haggard, emaciated, and covered with perspiration, making the inmates understand by signs that he needed water. Here he was most kindly entertained, and after a few days started back again. The return journey was almost as trying as the outward one, but he reached Vreede Berg (Africaner's ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... all my life never to carry a gun—because they go off so easily. But one most essential part of a gentleman's education had been mine, so I applied it instantly on George, with the result that a well-directed blow under the peak of the jaw sent him sprawling, and for awhile speechless, ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... Wilder, the mother of the child, like a bolt out of a clear sky, and she had run screaming and moaning toward the scene of disaster. Mother love had given her almost superhuman strength; but when she saw the pale little face on the ground, with the hue of death upon it, she crouched beside it in speechless agony, and watched the efforts that were made to ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... stood with the palms of his hands extended, speechless like an animal in pain. Then he suddenly burst into tears and wept, and told of the fine plan to diminish the demands upon ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... because you think an impression of sincerity will produce a better effect on Miss Clandon than an impression of disinterestedness. (Valentine, utterly dismantled and destroyed by this just remark, takes refuge in a feeble, speechless smile. Bohun, satisfied at having now effectually crushed all rebellion, throws himself back in his chair, with an air of being prepared to listen tolerantly to their grievances.) Now, Mr. Crampton, go on. It's understood that ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... her face hidden on her lover's shoulder, speechless. After repeated entreaties that she would say one word, Moyse raised her up, and, looking in ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... now stared in speechless amazement. Never before had he seen his father so agitated, nor heard him speak to ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... sixty ladies, gentle and gay, riding on palfreys and bearing hawks on their wrists. Their falcons had good sport, and Orfeo drew nigh to watch; and looking on the face of one of the ladies, he recognised Meroudys. They gazed at each other speechless, and tears ran from her eyes; but the other ladies bore her away. The king followed them to a fair country where there was neither hill nor dale, and into a castle, gaining entrance as a minstrel. Then he saw many men and ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... turned toward Thiodolf with a calm and solemn face, though it was very pale and looked as if she would not smile again. Elfric had risen up and was standing by the board speechless and the passion of sobs still struggling in his bosom. She put him aside gently, and went up to Thiodolf and stood above him, and looked down on his face a while: then she put forth her hand and closed his ...
— 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
... and when, after a lull in the storm, I confessed, shamefacedly, that I had privately suggested to you that we hadn't any frames, and that if you wouldn't mind hinting to Mr. Houghton, etc., etc., etc., the madam was simply speechless for the space of a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the stile near the grave, in order that she might see me as I approached. She was so absorbed over her employment that she did not hear me coming until I had stepped over the stile. Then she looked up, started to her feet with a faint cry, and stood facing me in speechless and motionless terror. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... he at last, vainly promising himself success, commences author, and attempts, though inadequate to the task, to write a play, which is lying on the table, just returned with an answer from the manager of the theatre, to whom he had offered it, that his piece would by no means do. Struck speechless with this disastrous occurrence, all his hopes vanish, and his most sanguine expectations are changed into dejection of spirit. To heighten his distress, he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... expectation among the bystanders followed these words, broken by a groan from the conscience-stricken count, whose imagination was filled with such lively terror of Divine wrath that he fell fainting to the ground. Though raised up by his men, he again fell speechless. Bernard, seizing the opportunity, called to his side one of the deposed bishops, and on the count's recovery ordered that the kiss of reconciliation should be bestowed, and the exile restored. The effect of this scene was not transient, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... could not take in the full extent of the base treachery I had met with, and I sat speechless and stupified. By degrees my faculties became clearer, and with one glance I read the whole business, from my first meeting with them at Kilrush to the present moment. I saw that in their attentions to me, they thought they were ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... assembled remain speechless, and no sounds are heard in the silent evening but the swaying of the rocking-chairs and the creaking of the gentlemen's stiffly-starched trousers. Presently someone produces a neat home-made cigarette ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... was flat and was a green color above and pink under, and to add to its alarming appearance, it looked at us with two black eyes, in a very sinister and uncanny manner. We looked at each other with blanched faces and speechless horror, and then kept a sharp lookout, lest it might take it into its head (we couldn't tell if it had any head, for the place where the eyes were, did not seem different from any other part of its body,) take it into its "internal consciousness," to crawl out on ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... die and are forgotten, Wise men speak; their words of wisdom Perish in the ears that hear them, Do not reach the generations That, as yet unborn, are waiting In the great, mysterious darkness Of the speechless days ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... Stratton, and for a moment he was stricken speechless. Aboard ship! Was it possible that this girl had been part of that uncanny, vanished year, the very thought of which troubled and oppressed him. His glance desperately evaded her charming, questioning eyes and rested suddenly with a curious cool sense of relief on the face of Mary ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... properly impressed. Eight little figures sat up as straight as they could; eight pairs of eager eyes followed Bridget's pointing finger and gazed in speechless wonder at the ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... walking along the market-place in front of the closely shuttered houses. One was Potcheshihin, the local treasury clerk, and the other was Optimov, the agent, for many years a correspondent of the Son of the Fatherland newspaper. They walked in silence, speechless from the heat. Optimov felt tempted to find fault with the local authorities for the dust and disorder of the market-place, but, aware of the peace-loving disposition and moderate views of his companion, ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Janet was speechless. But instinctively she laid a hand on Rachel's shoulder. And at the touch, in a moment, the ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... few moments dead silence reigned in the cabin, the fact being that the Dons were literally smitten speechless by the paralysing enormity of the proposed insult and injury to the dignity of that Government which, in their eyes, was only a shade less sacred than the Church, and their first emotion was one of overwhelming indignation against ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... his heel, he drew himself up to his full height, and stood speechless with indignation. Never, not even on the most important Board meetings, did his friends wait to hear him speak with more anxiety; but at that moment a crash of flower pots was heard, and Sally and a young man were discovered hiding in the potting shed; and ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... girl ended there was a speechless horror in our hero's face; and two or three times tears glistened in the eyes of Nancy as she hurried through with the ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... unheeded things, Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire; The pealing organ, and the pausing choir; The duties by the lawn-rob'd prelate paid; And the last words, that dust to dust convey'd! While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend, Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. Oh gone for ever! take this long adieu; And sleep in peace, next thy lov'd Montague. To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine, A frequent ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... repaired." But while he talked he was running wildly to the boathouse followed by all the others. As they reached the little wharf they were just in time to see the combers strike the canoe, to see Freddy start, then to see it capsize. For a moment they were horror-stricken, speechless, then Cop yelled, "He's got Freddy! See, he's got him!" It seemed an eternity before they saw Hal grasp the child, then with more horror they saw the upturned ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... in his favor, for he seemed fifty at the least. All this had passed in an instant of time; and now, as he recovered himself from his momentary shock at so hateful an expression of evil passions, great was Maximilian's astonishment to perceive his antagonist apparently speechless, and struggling with some over-mastering sense of horror, that convulsed his features, and for a moment glazed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... children will be spared!" he said briskly. "All crying babies will be immediately drowned and all males put in double irons!" Digging her hands excitedly down into the pockets of her dress Ardita stared at him, speechless with astonishment. He was a young man with a scornful mouth and the bright blue eyes of a healthy baby set in a dark sensitive face. His hair was pitch black, damp and curly—the hair of a Grecian statue gone brunette. He was trimly built, trimly ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... man; "been out all night?" and he hurried them into a warm and cheerful room, bright with a blazing fire, where was a comely, busy matron, who turned to them in speechless surprise. ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... abashed at first and stood speechless as if in doubt what to say, or as if they were ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... this gentleman went out as Sir Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had just hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We got the key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release her ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till she saw the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue. There ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the elephants were so very near, that I really expected to feel one of their trunks lay hold of me. I rode up to Kleinboy for my double-barrelled two-grooved rifle; he and Isaac were pale and almost speechless with fright. Returning to the charge, I was soon once more alongside, and, firing from the saddle, I sent another brace of bullets into the wounded elephant. Colesberg was extremely unsteady, and destroyed the correctness of my aim. The 'friend' now seemed resolved to do some ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... eyes, looked upon Brandon first with astonishment, then with speechless gratitude, and clasping his hand moaned faintly, in ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... those poems which have crowned her as "the world's greatest poetess"; and on that couch, where she lay almost speechless at times, and seeing none but those friends dearest and nearest, the soul-woman struck deep into the roots of Latin and Greek, and drank of their vital juices. We hold in kindly affection her learned and blind teacher, Hugh Stuart Boyd, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Cousin." Then our Lord Laid the swan's neck beside his own smooth cheek And gravely spake, "Say no! the bird is mine, The first of myriad things which shall be mine By right of mercy and love's lordliness. For now I know, by what within me stirs, That I shall teach compassion unto men And be a speechless world's interpreter, Abating this accursed flood of woe, Not man's alone; but, if the Prince disputes, Let him submit this matter to the wise And we will wait their word." So was it done; In full divan the business had debate, And many thought ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... choice collection of such cudgels, and scarcely one who had not, before his fifteenth year, a just claim to be called the hero of a hundred fights, and the heritor of as many bumps on the cranium as would strike both Gall and Spurzheim speechless. ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... here given of the American aborigines, who are discussed in more detail under INDIANS, NORTH AMBRICAN. Whether with Payne it is assumed that in some remote time a speechless anthropoid passed over a land bridge, now the Bering Sea, which then sank behind him; or with W. Boyd Dawkins and Brinton, that the French cave man came hither by way of Iceland; or with Keane, that two subvarieties, the long-headed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... word, the fat guardsman knelt down on one knee and kissed Madame Hulot's hand, seeing that his speech had filled her with speechless horror, which ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... barrier between man and the lower animals, Professor Max Muller calls it the Rubicon which no brute dare cross, and deduces hence the conclusion that man cannot have descended from an unknown but certainly speechless ape. ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... utterly amazed at the loss of his palace, was speechless. At last recovering himself, he said, "It is true, I do not see the palace. It is vanished; but I had no concern in its removal. I beg you to give me forty days, and if in that time I cannot restore it, I will offer my head to be disposed of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... this. So, except for those occasional cooling and divine moments of blaming herself, she scorched and shriveled in the flames of self-love. And as usual, she was speechless. There were many of these silent hours (which were such a matter of course to Maurice that he never noticed them!) before she gathered herself together, and decided that she would not leave him. She would fight! How? "Oh, I can't ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... opened the door the next morning, she gave a loud cry, clapped her hands, and then stood still, quite speechless with wonder and delight. There, before the door, lay a great pile of wood, all ready to burn, a big bundle and a basket, with a lovely nosegay of winter roses, holly, and ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Mr. Grew sat speechless a moment, staring blankly at his son; then he emitted a puzzled laugh. "My money? What are you talking about? What's this about my money? Why, it ain't mine, Ronny; it's all yours—every cent of it!" ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... but speechless, and going fast," said the father, in a broken voice, as I entered ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... means this speechless sorrow, downcast eyes, And lifted hands? If there be one among you, Whom grief has left a tongue, speak for ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... they went out of the cave, and came to the northern border of the garden, and they looked for something to cover their bodies with*. But they found nothing, and knew not how to do the work. Yet their bodies were stained, and they were speechless from cold ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... of truth in what you say," said the director of the Institution, for the sub-matronship of which Jane Melville had applied in vain. The other four were speechless with astonishment at the extraordinary proposition which Francis made to them. "Litigation is long and expensive. I may say, for my body of directors, that we would be very happy to give some consideration for the very handsome, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... what—what—what—what had become of her teeth? I dashed the spectacles violently to the ground, and, leaping to my feet, stood erect in the middle of the floor, confronting Mrs. Simpson, with my arms set a-kimbo, and grinning and foaming, but, at the same time, utterly speechless ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the Railway in the Air. Let me see but two thousand pounds, Mr. Richard Yorke, and then—and not before—may you open your lips to me again respecting my daughter Harry." He turned upon his heel with a bitter laugh; while Richard, as white as the sketch-book he still held in his hand, remained speechless. A perilous thought had taken possession of his mind—a thought that it would have been better for him to have dropped down there dead than to have entertained, but it grew and grew apace within him like a foul weed. Had his life of selfish pleasure angered the long-suffering ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Ida stood in anguish, speechless and motionless. All at once her mother seemed to forget what she was saying, and sat still, staring into the fire. Several times she shivered. Her hands lay listlessly on her lap; ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... came to see the flowers, whereupon Fleur, who heard the voice and knew his love was near, sprang from among the blossoms, all clad like the roses in rosy red, and Blanchefleur knew him, and he knew her, and they gazed speechless with love and joy face to face upon each other, and silently they fell on each other's neck with kisses and fond embraces, until at length Blanchefleur found words to say, 'Clarissa! behold my love! my heart's delight, my comfort, ...
— Fleur and Blanchefleur • Mrs. Leighton
... screw of a winepress, Monsieur de la Baudraye gazed at his wife with fixed eyes, like those of a cat which, in the midst of domestic broils, waits till a blow is threatened before stirring from its place. The strange, speechless uneasiness that was perceptible under his mute indifference almost terrified the young wife of twenty; she could not at first understand the selfish quiescence of this man, who might be compared to a cracked pot, and who, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... comfortable Irish farmer's. On this occasion the silent, watchful, anxious grace of our young hostess, in her attentions, enhanced the flavour of the repast. It is only by those who have partaken of such hospitality that the speechless tenderness of the females among that class of farmers can be appreciated. But on the occasion to which I refer, there was added to the customary delicacy a deep anxiety for our fate. Save hushed ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... I've come; An' all the way I've heard A Shrawn[1] that's kep' me silent, speechless, dumb, Not sayin' any word. An' was it then the Shrawn of Eire,[2] you'll say, For him that died the death on Carrisbool? It was not that; nor was it, by the way, The Sons of Garnim[3] blitherin' their drool; Nor was it any Crowdie of the Shee,[4] ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... martyrs smiling to a sword, Have missed Jehovah at the judgment call. And Peter from the height of blasphemy— 'I never knew this man'—did quail and fall, As knowing straight THAT GOD; and turned free, And went out speechless from the face of all, And ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... almost speechless with indignation. Poor Lizzie saw that she was angry, yet she had not the heart to put away the child clinging to her so affectionately, and David's words "perhaps her nurse is cross to her at home," came back to her mind. Things might really have ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... The professor was speechless. He watched the procession with interest. Fat squaws rode huddled over their nags, each carrying a baby strapped to her back. Small boys ran beside the horses or clung on behind the mother. The men usually rode free and on one ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... stanzas of Dzyan above quoted, the men of that epoch, even though they had become completely physical, still remained speechless. Naturally the astral and etherial ancestors of this Third Root Race had no need to produce a series of sounds in order to convey their thoughts, living as they did in astral and etherial conditions, but when man became physical he could not for long ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... major hanging on tooth and nail to his small job, because he needed most desperately the twelve dollars a week it brought him; the city editor regarding him and all his manifold reportorial sins of omission, commission and remission with a corrosive, speechless venom; and the rest of us in the city room divided in our sympathies as between those two. We sympathized with Devore for having to carry so woful an incompetent upon his small and overworked crew; we sympathized with the kindly, gentle, tiresome old major for his bungling, vain ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... service: This day my sister should the cloister enter 170 And there receive her approbation: Acquaint her with the danger of my state; Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him: I have great hope in that; for in her youth 175 There is a prone and speechless dialect, Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... hope you will remain with me here till I am quite dead—it is a comfort to know that some one is by; but when I am dying, it is my wish that you should place the pistol in my right hand, and that you leave me unburied as I lie." That night he spoke very little, and the following morning I found him speechless, or nearly so; and about eight o'clock he expired. I remained a few hours there, but as I saw there was no use in remaining longer, I went up the creek in search of the natives. I felt very lonely, and at night usually slept in deserted wurleys, belonging to the natives. Two days after leaving ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... in combat, words of woe she uttered none, Speechless wept, for none must fathom Karna was ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... wonderful night—a night of enormous silence, of great steady stars, of gold-dusted air, of a sky like a purple dome encrusted with jewelled lights. The two boys sat together, blinking at so much speechless glory. Castracane's arm was round his fellow's shoulder; that fellow's lips parted, and his breath came soft and eager—yet too quickly for ease. It was certainly a night ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the case—a small flat case of worn green leather some six inches long; and looked at its contents in a speechless amazement. The ring was a Greek gem of the best period—an Artemis with the towered crown, cut in amethyst. The case contained six pieces,—two cameos, and four engraved gems—amethyst, cornelian, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Renouard, speechless, produced a faint smile. The professor confessed in a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit of the globe and be done with it. It was impossible to remain quartered on the dear excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time. And then there were the lectures he had arranged to deliver ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... afternoon of the following day Belanger arrived with a note from Mr. Back, stating that he had seen no trace of the Indians, and desiring further instructions as to the course he should pursue. Belanger's situation, however, required our first care, as he came in almost speechless, and covered with ice, having fallen into a rapid, and, for the third time since we left the coast, narrowly escaped drowning. He did not recover sufficiently to answer our questions, until we had rubbed him for some time, changed his dress, and given him some warm soup. My companions nursed him ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... deathly silence for a few moments. We were all absolutely thunderstruck, and sat gaping at Thorndyke in speechless-astonishment. Then—Mr. Winwood fairly bounced ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... walked out, leaving the discomfited storekeeper speechless with rage, his narrow ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... where to place him; Those spots bar him out of each class; We think him a treasure to study at leisure And analyze under a glass.' I seemed to grow cold as I listened To the words that these butterflies spoke; With fear overcome, I was speechless and dumb, And then with a ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... Grimaldi, and with the same happy results. But Sigismund motioned all away from himself, knowing that their cares were needed elsewhere. He staggered forward a few paces, and then, yielding to a complete exhaustion of his power, he fell at full length on the wet planks. He long lay panting, speechless, and unable to move, with a sense of ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the big man in the audience. But the members of the committee, from some strange cause, seemed to be struck speechless. Their jaws fell, but the faces of them all were as red as fire. Sylvia leaned forward ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... ante-room, whither she had been half carried, half dragged by Hitt when Ames fell, sat Carmen, clasped in the Beaubien's arms, stunned, bewildered, and speechless. Hitt stood guard at the door; and Miss Wall and Jude tiptoed about with bated breath, unable to take ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... for the blood of the monarch; but now affection assumes its rights, and tears of grief must flow for the man. The universal sorrow absorbs all individual woes. The generals, still stupefied by the unexpected blow, stood speechless and motionless around his bier, and no one trusted himself enough to contemplate the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... her cheeks; she could feel the tension of his body. Lost in his strength, Meg was speechless. The greatness of her love seemed a part of the wide Sahara. The stillness and his arms were lovelier than all the dreams she had ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... penetrated (was invited rather, with parted lips and sparkling eyes) to mine,—into whose sympathetic ear are poured, in all the dream-borne melody of the first songs of the heart, in all "the tender thought, the speechless pain" of its first violets, his earliest confessions, aspirations, loves, wrongs, troubles, triumphs. Well do I remember that day when, trembling, ghastly, faint, I fell in tears upon her neck, and poured into her bosom and basin the spasmodic story of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... floor of the Shelter. Exclamations of amazement fell from the lips of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Instead of the supplies that had originally been stowed in the pack, a choice assortment of stones, chunks of granite, small hardheads and pebbles rolled out on the floor. They were speechless for the moment. Janus tugged nervously at his beard, too thoroughly ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... had happened, nor did he pause to think: he was fleeing from horror—nameless horror; whilst the child at his feet, with her head resting against the gunwale, stared up open-eyed and speechless at the great blue sky, as if at some terror visible there. The boat grounded on the white sand, and the wash of the incoming ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes: Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... and then, as I look out to sea, there is the same beast again, or a dozen of them maybe, leaving a trail of black in the air and of white in the water, and swimming in the face of the wind as easily as a salmon up the Tweed. Such a sight as that would have struck my good old father speechless with wrath as well as surprise; for he was so stricken with the fear of offending the Creator that he was chary of contradicting Nature, and always held the new thing to be nearly akin to the blasphemous. As long as God made the horse, and a man down Birmingham way ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... door. Lavinia was speechless. As for her brother, but one remark of his reached Grace, who was watching from ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a little breathless by her own door when Number 8 opened and Louis Farne looked out. His hair was rumpled, his expression one of speechless annoyance. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... half of the country-side we confided so much of our private history; to the second we contented ourselves in saying, with elaborate courtesy, "The same as six years ago," an answer which sounded polite, and rendered the surprised questioner speechless for the time we took ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... was not very noticeable. As I went out to tell the man in charge what the matter was, George Laws, the inventor of the system, appeared on the scene, the most excited person I had seen. He demanded of the man the cause of the trouble, but the man was speechless. I ventured to say that I knew what the trouble was, and he said, 'Fix it! Fix it! Be quick!' I removed the spring and set the contact wheels at zero; and the line, battery, and inspecting men scattered through the ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... who were speechless from surprise, looked aside, out of the corners of their eyes, and they looked so exactly like fowls that the man with the light whiskers, when he sat up, said co—co—ri—co, under their very noses, and that gave rise ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... had intended to get out of it). I was wondering if you ever meant to come for it. (To Mr. B., as they rise.) Now I shan't feel I am depriving the other people! (Perceives the speechless agony in his expression, and relents.) Well, you can have the next after this if you care about it—only do try to think of something in the meantime! (As she goes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... Gobbo Bassanio, and Jessica the Prince of Morocco. Next Alice called for the Gobbos and Portia and the Prince of Morocco "stood forth" and went through a solemn travesty of the scene between the father and son that left the class faint and speechless with laughter. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... had risen at her appearance, he was all himself but rather more the priest, his face of greeting had exactly its usual asking intelligence but to her the fact that he was normal was lost in the fact that he was near. He held out his hand but she only sought his face, speechless, hugging her knees. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... in all haste to the pass by which they had entered, they found this also shut by a fence of the like sort, kept by armed men. Thereupon they halted, though no man had given the word, for they were utterly confounded, neither was there any strength left in their limbs; and they stood speechless, looking upon each other as men that sought for help. Nevertheless, the tents of the Consuls were set up, and the tools for fortifying the camp got ready, though it seemed an idle thing for men that were in such ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... officers on short leave, or temporarily invalided, or boys of eighteen just starting their cadet training—she had spent a month full of emotions, not often expressed. For generally she was shy and rather speechless, though none the less liked by her companions for that. But many things sank deep with her; the beauty of mountain and stream; the character of some of the boys she walked and fished with—unnoticed sub-lieutenants, who had ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... morning, a Gipsy called at the house of this lady, and offered to tell the fortunes of the servants. She was asked if she knew the woman who was enquired for the preceding day? She replied, that she was the very person. On hearing by whose servant she was addressed, she became almost speechless with shame, and said, I would rather have met the king. On recovering, she expressed great delight and gratitude that she was not forgotten by the lady, and declared she had been very unhappy since she had left Southampton, ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... of impertinence, and then, without the slightest further warning, she felt her body blaze from head to foot. She was speechless with indignation. ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... fact that they were grey, and not brown—wonderful clear grey eyes, which gave the beholder a thrill of mingled surprise and admiration every time she lifted her curled black lashes and turned them upon him. Mademoiselle stared in speechless admiration, and Esmeralda's brothers and sisters stared at her in their turn, well pleased at the effect produced; for what was the use of groaning beneath the whims and tyrannies of "the beautiful Miss O'Shaughnessy," ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... long time they stood looking at each other with unchanging faces, and neither spoke. Some people know that dead silence which descends while fate's great hand is working in the dark, and men hold their breath and shut their eyes, listening speechless for the ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... did not hear the marquis compared to Spring. He was saying: 'I wonder what those two elderly gentlemen are talking about'; and Nevil confused his senses by trying to realize that one of them was destined to be the husband of his now speechless Renee. The marquis was clad in a white silken suit, and a dash of red round the neck set off his black beard; but when he lifted his broad straw hat, a baldness of sconce shone. There was elegance in his gestures; he looked a gentleman, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... time the sailor, Tom, who was a man of great personal strength, seemed to have conceived some suspicion of these two speechless figures; and, being soberer than his captain, stepped suddenly before him, took Lawless roughly by the shoulder, and asked him, with an oath, what ailed him that he held his tongue. To this the outlaw, thinking all was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flesh shone from afar; the long yellow hair descended waving over her shoulders, and the great house was filled as with the brightness of lightning. She passed out through the halls; and Metaneira fell to the earth, and was speechless for a long time, and remembered not to lift the child from the ground. But the sisters, hearing its piteous cries, leapt from their beds and ran to it. Then one of them lifted the child from the earth, and wrapped it in her bosom, and another hastened to her mother's chamber to awake ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... figure ran back to the sledge. MacVeigh drew his revolver. Half a dozen long strides and he had reached the sledge. From the opposite side a white face stared at him, and with one hand resting on the heavily laden sledge, and his revolver at level with his waist, MacVeigh stared back in speechless astonishment. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... more than two and a half centuries is a remarkable illustration of the fact that as in China so in Japan the theocratic conception was unworkable save in primitive times—civilization demanding organization rather than precepts and refusing to bow its head to speechless kings. Although the Restoration of 1868 nominally gave back to the Throne all it had been forced to leave in other hands since 1603, that transfer of power was imaginary rather than real, the new military organization which succeeded the Shogun's government being the vital portion of the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... attributing to the unfortunate child the suicide of her father, made affecting allusions in Sunday school to the beneficial effects of the "silent tomb," and in this cheerful contemplation drove most of the children into speechless horror, and caused the pink-and-white scions of the first families to howl dismally and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... cautiously through their closed curtains,—for at first on coming in after dinner to go to bed the cabin seemed empty, except for inanimate things, like clothes hanging up and an immense smell,—its human freight. They were awed by this discovery, for the human freight was motionless and speechless, and yet made none of the ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... We were speechless, too, holding on fast to the backstays or gunwale to keep our places in the desperate leaps and lurches the gallant little craft was making. Ugly was soon thrown from his station, and, finding he could not keep legs or position anywhere ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... rested a hand upon Celeste's shoulder. And presently her voice took up the melody. Mrs. Harrigan dropped her needle. It was not that she was particularly fond of music, but there was something in Nora's singing that cast a temporary spell of enchantment over her, rendering her speechless and motionless. She was not of an analytical turn of mind; thus, the truth escaped her. She was really lost in admiration of herself: she had produced this ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... had fallen, leaned weakly against the tree, the tears coursing down his cheeks. The rest of the populace lifted up their voices and howled. Even Uncle Jim, who rarely laughed aloud, although his eyes always smiled, emitted great Ho! ho!'s. Only Mrs. Kitty, dumb with indignation, stared speechless after ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... dead silence of some moments. Fenton was literally speechless with rage, yet, too, his quick wit was busy devising some way of escape from the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself. He did not speak, nor did Mr. Irons turn until Ninitta had completed ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... stared at him, speechless. Fun! In the name of all that is most modern in civilization, what manner of men were these who did such things in fun! If this was their recreation, what ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... subsided; and a short interval of reason ensuing, in which he knew his physician and his family, gave hopes of his recovery; but in a few days he sunk into a lethargick stupidity, motionless, heedless, and speechless. But it is said, that, after a year of total silence, when his house-keeper, on the 30th of November, told him that the usual bonfires and illuminations were preparing to celebrate his birthday, he answered, "It is all folly; they had better let ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... swiftness a portion of the rubbish heap, with dock leaves, nettles, old cans, and bricks adhering to it, detached itself from the main pile and hurled itself into the trench. With a peculiar sliding movement it advanced along the bottom, and then it stopped and stood upright. Speechless with amazement, Reginald found himself gazing into the eyes of a man which were glaring at him out of a small slit in the sacking which completely covered him. A pair of dirty earth-stained hands gently laid down a rifle on the fire-step—a rifle with a ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... after renewing my studies in private, my exercises of expression and manner, and going through a harder course of drilling, I repeated the attempt to suffer a repetition of the failure. I did not again faint, but I was speechless. I not only lost the power of utterance, but I lost the corresponding faculty of sight. My eyes were completely dazed and confounded. The objects of sight around me were as crowded and confused as the far, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... looked, with her delicate cheeks so rosy after her bathe, her lovely lashes resting on them, her cloud of golden hair spread all about her! and so thought Tavy and Tawridge when they came along and found her! At the sight of her they stood speechless with admiration, but the great stupid fellows were as quiet and careful not to waken her as fairies would have been. They just sat down near her and gazed and gazed at her with ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Fairy was speechless, but the Ladies, including the president, were impatiently waiting. So Miss Carr began reading in a sentimental, dreamy voice that must have been very fetching fifty years before. At the first suggestion of poetry, Prudence sat up with conscious ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... found Greppi there before me. Therese and Don Cesarino, whom I covered with kisses, came in a quarter of an hour afterwards. The banker stared at him in speechless wonder. He could not make out whether he was my son or my brother. Seeing his amazement, Therese told him Cesarino was her brother. This stupefied the worthy man still more. At last he asked me if I had known Therese's mother pretty well, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the mourners. At these words, Rodolph fell back in the missionary's arms, saying, "Then I accept with joy the end to which God has called me. Death no longer disturbs me, since it brings victory with it." From this moment he was speechless; and with his gaze earnestly bent upon his shield, that had been raised by a page, and on which was blazoned a crowned lion sleeping upon the knees of the Blessed Virgin, Rodolph of Suabia breathed his last. The calm face of the dead was not paler than Gilbert, who, unmoved by the shout ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... two ways. First, with regard to His essence; and thus, since He is incomprehensible and ineffable, He is above all praise. In this respect we owe Him reverence and the honor of latria; wherefore Ps. 64:2 is rendered by Jerome in his Psalter [*Translated from the Hebrew]: "Praise to Thee is speechless, O God," as regards the first, and as to the second, "A vow shall be paid to Thee." Secondly, we may speak of God as to His effects which are ordained for our good. In this respect we owe Him praise; wherefore it is written (Isa. 63:7): "I will remember the tender mercies of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... at the two in speechless indignation for a moment, left the room. When she reached ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... is a face we know. It is that of Dobbs, a sometime shipmate of ours. He is a farm labourer from Sussex, and he and his wife have come out among our ship-load of emigrants. There is a chronic look of wonder on their broad English faces. They are in speechless surprise at everything they see, but chiefly, apparently, at finding themselves actually in a new country ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... fortunately, very much out of date, except it is for partners in dancing, or unless there should be so many strangers present as to threaten overwhelming the entire party in speechless gloom. Occasionally in the country some old-fashioned hosts persist in handing each newcomer around the room like refreshments for an introduction to each one present. This custom puts the later arrivals ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Roland, for Heaven's sake!" said Edith, whom the surprise and terror of the spectacle at first rendered speechless: "you surely,—no, Roland, you surely can't mean ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the "astral bells" was a mystery no longer. Bound to the little creature's tail, close to the root, with fine soft wire such as is used for making up bouquets, were three tiny silver bells. I looked across at my companion in speechless surprise. ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... threw himself at her feet, and even thought that posture not humble enough to testify, as it deserved, his gratitude and joy. But she not suffering him to continue in it, he took the hand that raised him, kissed off the tears which had fallen from her eyes upon it, with speechless extacies, and seemed almost beside himself at the concern she could not yet overcome, on the bare imagination of losing him in the way he mentioned. If you love me, said she tenderly, you will endeavour to preserve yourself:—I have now put myself under your protection, by consenting to do ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... there we sat birling till I had a fair tappit hen [Footnote: See Note 2.] under my belt, and then they persuaded me to draw the paper. Then we had to seek Driver, and it was all that two men could do to bear him in, for, when found, he was, as it happened, both motionless and speechless. But no sooner was his pen put between his fingers, his paper stretched before him, and he heard my voice, than he began to write like a scrivener; and, excepting that we were obliged to have somebody to dip his pen in the ink, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... raged within my soul had no outlet in the immovable apparatus that held me. I was let down among the crowd, and exhibited to them every secret movement of my being, by some awful process which I have never fathomed. A burning fire was in my brain; flame seemed to run along all my nerves; speechless, horrible, incommunicable fury raged in my soul. But I was like a child—nay, like an image of wood or wax—in the pitiless hands that held me. What was the cut of a surgeon's knife to this? And I had thought ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... Nor having time his falsehood to excuse, And knowing well how true the phantom's lore, Stood speechless; such remorse the words infuse. Then by Lanfusa's life the warrior swore, Never in fight, or foray would he use Helmet but that which good Orlando bore From Aspramont, where bold Almontes paid His life a forfeit to the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... stood still for a minute, speechless with surprise and delight. Then Dodo made a rush for the Doctor's chair, and hugging him round the neck, cried, "Dear Uncle Roy, will you please let us stay in here a little while, so that we can learn ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... MacLure came out from Annie's room and laid hold of Tammas, a heap of speechless misery by the kitchen fire, and carried him off to the barn, and spread some corn on the threshing floor and thrust a flail ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... back the colors quivering, burnished, opalescent, like the bowl of an abalone shell. They, on the Lookout, felt themselves alone inside the tinted bubble of the world. Ellen's day was waning in an enthralling splendor that rendered the watchers speechless; it numbed them by its exquisite beauty so incongruous with their own growing sense of hopelessness. Ellen's day was waning, and yet there was ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... the hall, Dr. Smelfungus, with an admiring glance at the speechless Mumbudget, exclaimed, "After all, gentlemen, there must be a science far higher than ours, since we, with all our knowledge, find practical life a matter of such difficulty. Only one man, it appears, is master of it, and there he stands!" and he made a low bow to ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... ceased speaking the nobles by whom he was accompanied laid their hands upon their swords, and the petrified Cardinal stood speechless and motionless before them, unable to articulate ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... ultimate fate, no previous pen has written. Out from the darkness of the unknown, scarcely more than spectral figures, they came, wrote their single line upon the earth's surface, and vanished, kings and people alike sinking into speechless oblivion. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... waited, speechless, the Grand Duke gravely asked: "You, too, have heard of this sad affair, Victoria? Ah, I perceive you have, and that you come in haste to prevent it,—even to pursue these misguided beings, if necessary, as the fact that ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... station was considerable; the messenger had been "keeping Christmas" in more than one beer-shop on his way to the house; and the delivery of the telegram had been delayed for some hours. It was addressed to Natalie. She opened it—looked at it—dropped it—and stood speechless; her lips parted in horror, her eyes ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... all as many as they found, both bad and good; and the wedding was filled with guests. But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment: and he saith unto him, 'Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding-garment?' And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, 'Bind him hand and foot and cast him out into the outer darkness'; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. For many ...
— His Last Week - The Story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus • William E. Barton
... Madame?"—"De Bunny. I am the daughter of Monsieur de Marbeuf, former governor of Corsica."—"I am charmed, Madame," replied Napoleon, "to find an opportunity of serving you. I am the Emperor." Madame de Bunny remained speechless with astonishment; but Napoleon reassured her, and continuing his route, requested her to go on and await him at his headquarters. On his return he received her, and treated her with remarkable kindness, gave her an escort of the chasseurs of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... seemed to be so little ruffled by what had happened, that we complied with their invitation. The 'squire had been brought home over night in his post-chaise, so terribly belaboured about the pate, that he seemed to be in a state of stupefaction, and had ever since remained speechless. A country apothecary, called Grieve, who lived in a neighbouring village, having been called to his assistance, had let him blood, and applied a poultice to his head, declaring, that he had no fever, nor any other ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... might be her visit to the Grange, she never went without a careful examination of her appearance. A shop window answered the purpose of a mirror, if nothing better could be found, and one morning, as Agatha and Christabel walked along the village street, they had been reduced to a state of speechless amazement by discovering Nan twisting and turning before the wired windows of the Bank, with as much concern for her appearance as though she ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... gazed down, startled. "Who is it? Oh, whom have you brought me, Eleanor?" She bent to look more closely at Aunt Basha, kneeling, speechless, tears streaming from the brave old eyes, holding up clasped hand imploring. "It isn't—Oh, my dear, I believe it is our own old nurse, Basha, who took ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Don was speechless. Jane had gone white. The fellow moved to the other window, and Jane had a swift look at him. We all recognized him, or thought we did. What necromancy was this? Had one of the apparitions materialized? Was that ghost ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... fantastic creation of his disordered mind would be gone. Again he glanced up in the direction of the kopjie. The apparition was still there, a horrible, monstrous, distortion of himself, standing still, speechless, staring at him. That it was only a mirage there could be no doubt. He had heard of such mirages at sea and also in the Sahara where wandering Arabs have beheld long caravans journeying in the skies. But he had never heard of a mirage lasting as long as this one. Would it never disappear? ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... the wasted moments of speechless admiration that followed, before he tried to restore consciousness to the inanimate girl, for her beauty had struck him into silent wonder, and being a man, what could he do but stare and admire. There is no appeal so eloquent to the heart of a man as that of a female face of perfect beauty, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... pall of voiceless horror spread its shadows over the land. Nothing short of an earthquake or the sound of the archangel's trumpet could have produced the sense of helpless consternation, the black and speechless despair. The people read their papers in tears. The morning meal was untouched. By no other single feat could death have carried such peculiar horror to every home. Around this giant figure the heartstrings of ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... strike you to earth like lightning, and it may leave you powerless to move for weeks and sometimes even years. You may know all that's going on around you but not be able to speak or make a sign. Mr. Potter isn't as bad as that, but he's speechless. With him the end may come any time, yet he may linger on for nobody knows ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... can't take your own time to die in, Brother," began Mrs. Waule, with her usual woolly tone. "And when you lie speechless you may be tired of having strangers about you, and you may think of me and my children"—but here her voice broke under the touching thought which she was attributing to her speechless brother; the mention ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... his free arm for a moment speechless. Then she lifted her face, her voice shaking, ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... insolence. His eyes, his voice, his color, his gestures, expressed the violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his whole frame was agitated with convulsive passion, a large blood vessel suddenly burst in his body; and Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few minutes, the emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the last; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... what effect such prose as this must have produced upon that most orthodox and most pagan- hating personage. He sat for some minutes aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, "Bigoted conquerors!—sympathy with Fire-worshippers!"[191]— while FERAMORZ happy to take advantage of this almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain proceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story connected with the events of one of those struggles of the brave Fire-worshippers against their Arab masters, which if the evening ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... know that you are suffering, and moreover, am uncertain in what degree? With us two it is a question, not of amusing and entertaining, but only of loving and being together, spiritually, and, if possible, corporeally; and if you should lie speechless for four weeks—sleep, or something else—I would be nowhere else, provided nothing but my wish were to decide. If I could only "come to your door," I would still rather be there than with my dear sister; and the sadder and sicker you are, so much the more. But the door will not separate ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Kate felt her situation alarming in the truest sense of the term, and sat looking at her companion in speechless horror and amazement. Mystery upon mystery it was; but as the dangers that appeared to surround her, though gloomy, were indistinct, she once more had recourse to her panacea of the token, and seeking her couch with a fervent prayer on her lip, was soon, like her young friend on ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
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