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Hushed   Listen
adjective
hushed  adj.  
1.
Having the sound level reduced; especially used of the noise of conversation; as, speaking in hushed tones.
Synonyms: muted.
2.
Having relatively little noise; as, a hushed church.
Synonyms: quiet.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hushed" Quotes from Famous Books



... campion, so that it was always the red campion she remembered. They must have known all the time about Black's Lane; Annie, the housemaid, used to say it was a bad place; something had happened to a little girl there. Annie hushed and reddened and wouldn't tell you what it was. Then one day, when she was thirteen, standing by the apple tree, Connie Hancock told her. A secret... Behind the dirty blue palings... She shut her eyes, squeezing the lids down, frightened. But when she thought of the lane she could ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair

... room, the clicking keys were hushed. Hiram heard the squeak of a swivel chair. He heard the swish and caught the gleam of a white skirt. The next moment she was standing ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... looking out to windward as he spoke. He took the rudder out of Mr. Carter's hands presently, and that gentleman rolled himself in his new railway rug, and lay down in the bottom of the boat, with one of the men's overcoats for a blanket and the other for a pillow, and, hushed by the monotonous plashing of the water against the keel of the boat, fell into a pleasant slumber, whose blissfulness was only marred by the gridiron-like sensation of the hard boards ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... the heavy masses of oak and hickory trees that hung on the farther hill-side,—over the silent village and its gathering people. The engine-shriek was borne on the coming wind from far down the valley. There was an air of hushed expectation and regret in Nature itself that seemed to fit the hour ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... did so, a single gasping cry went up from the hushed throng. He knew the voice. His rescue had relieved one heart. His own beat tumultuously and the blood throbbed in his veins as ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... They hushed her cries. Too well they remembered those terrible days of the Chmielnicki massacres, when all the highways of Europe were thronged with haggard Polish Jews, flying from the vengeance of the Cossack chieftain with his troops of Haidamaks, and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... pointing across the valleys would show her what seemed to be a handful of small stones whizzing down the rocks and ice-gullies of the Aiguille Verte. But on the whole this new world was silent, communing with the heavens. She was in the hushed company of the mountains. Days there would be when these sunlit ridges would be mere blurs of driving storm, when the wind would shriek about the gullies, and dark mists swirl around the peaks. But on this morning there was no ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... wind had she encountered—that weary voyager on life's troubled sea; but Christ had long been her pilot, and now he was about to moor her frail bark into the haven of peace, and the tumultuous waves were hushed, while the loving Saviour whispered, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... a rising among the people, and the German reprisals would have been terrible. As it was a German soldier who was swaggering alone down the Rue Basse was torn in pieces by the angry crowd, but for some reason this outbreak was hushed ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan

... drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase, and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy work of his hand and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... they, who had thought the earth quiet before, found it still now indeed. Even the voice of the prairie-chicken was hushed; only the sharp knife-like cutting of spread wings told of a flock's passage at night. The level country, mottled white with occasional drifts, and brown from spots blown bare by the wind, stretched out seemingly interminable, until the line ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... whipping up the brasses with his cigar. "This begins to sound like cause and effect." He hushed the whole orchestra to a whisper. "I thought Fred was your fair-haired boy, Gyp. You ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker

... the bed, not to be disdained by the victim of shipwreck. The earthy smell of the dried leaves was balm to my sense after the hateful odour of sea-weed. I forgot my state of loneliness. I neither looked backward nor forward; my senses were hushed to repose; I fell asleep and dreamed of all dear inland scenes, of hay-makers, of the shepherd's whistle to his dog, when he demanded his help to drive the flock to fold; of sights and sounds peculiar to my boyhood's mountain life, which I had ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... first natural and kindly form; just so doth man; for, at his reception of the art of divination and faculty of prognosticating future things, that part in him which is the most divine, to wit, the Nous, or Mens, must be calm, peaceable, untroubled, quiet, still, hushed, and not embusied or distracted with foreign, soul-disturbing perturbations. I am content, quoth Panurge. But, I pray you, sir, must I this evening, ere I go to bed, eat much or little? I do not ask this without cause. For if I sup not well, large, round, and amply, my sleeping is not ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... came a moment when everything was hushed. "This would be the right time to lower my boat," thought Miss Hoggs. She was not at all afraid, but sat back with perfect composure until the steamer began to settle. Then, for the first time, it dawned on Miss Hoggs that L'Univers ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... light," and coming down "with the twilight's last gleaming" for some weeks when the regiment marched past the gate again. I must tell you the truth,—the first man who attempted to cry "Vivent les Etats-Unis" was hushed by a cry of "Attendez-patience— pas encore," and the line swung by. That was all right. I could afford to smile,—and, at this stage of the game, to wait. You are always telling me what a "patient man" Wilson is. I don't deny it. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... discharge of Joe's gun, after the tremendous report died away, in successive reverberations up and down the river, and over the low wood land opposite. The owls and wolves were hushed; and as the watchful sentinels cast their eyes over the snow, on which the calm rays of the moon rested in repose, there was not the least indication of the presence of a ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... progressive euchre games many miles in length, and smoked no more together in the ecstasy of unrestraint; but watched and waited in vain—for those who were with us were no longer of us for some weeks to come, and the mouths of the singers were hushed. The next thing we knew a city seemed to spring suddenly out of the plains—a mirage of brick and mortar—an oasis in the wilderness,—and we realized, with a gasp, that we had struck the bull's-eye of the Far ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... I thought angrily. This is the rankest instance of a pre-judged case I've ever seen. I started to say as much to Gail, but she hushed me. ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... Chaddites tried to keep their shame hushed up, the news leaked out somehow, and very soon spread through the entire College, where it instantly became the one absorbing topic of conversation. Owing to her prowess at cricket, and her friendly, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... was hushed, gross darkness had gathered over the face of nature, and the eyes of the beloved on board were closed in sleep. At about midnight Margaret was slightly startled at hearing a footstep on deck. "Paul," she whispered, "is that you." "Me," he answered in a low, soft tone. ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... power will cheat them of insight and poise; for minds that are wandering and active, not receptive and still, can seldom or never be hushed to a warm ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... Christmas; but either it had intensified during the last ten days, or else he had suddenly got more sensitive to it. The latter, most likely. And yet Violet Williamson's manner the last Sunday evening he had spent at her house, had stopped just short of a hushed voice and tiptoes. He'd been momentarily expecting her to offer ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... be born of the murky, stagnant air. It was such a strange, sickly, wavering gleam as she had seen above decaying wood, fish, and other substances. All around was absolute stillness. Not a swallow waved his wing nor an insect hummed in that barren immensity. Nature was hushed ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... her talk. It was hiding in her paleness, and cloistered in her reserve, but visible in prison. It leapt and looked, at a word. It was conscious in the fingers that reached out flowers. It ran with her. It was silenced when she hushed her answers to the king. Everywhere it was close behind the doors—everywhere but in ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell

... shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that on the whole a man might rather have done than to have left undone... then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... sprung up in my heart, and I hushed Winnie's and Bobsey's crying by saying, "Listen, and you'll soon hear ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... barrier of pride or self-consideration is broken down or passed over. So keen the touch was to Eleanor, that weeping could not quiet it. After all it was only a heavy summer shower—not a winter storm. Eleanor hushed her sobs at last to begin her prayers; and there the rest of the night left her. The morning was dawning grey in the east, when she threw herself upon her bed for an hour's sleep. Sleep ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... do know. First of all, then, we know vaguely that he was a bad lot—the sort of brother who is hushed up in ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne

... door, accompanied by, "May I come in?" hushed the song on Grace's lips. "I should say so," she called, recognizing Patience Eliot's voice. "Enter and give an account of yourself. I've hardly seen ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... work on his knees tearing away with his hands and nails at the ruins of the shaft. Apparently fury supplied the place of strength, for he had raised quite a large heap behind him, and he had laid bare the feet up to the knees of a dead miner. Hope reported this in a hushed voice to Grace, and said, solemnly, "Poor wretch, he's ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... the challenge of the sentry at the gate; then the nearer tread of approaching stops, and many voices speaking together, would seem to indicate that some messenger had arrived with despatches. At length all these sounds became hushed and still. No longer were the voices heard; and except the measured tread of the heavy cuirassier, as he paced on the flags beneath, nothing was to be heard. My state of suspense, doubly greater now than when the noise and tumult suggested food for ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... high Mosque receives the air And light of heaven; I climbed the dizzy steep; I reached a narrow opening; entered there, And stole the Saint whilst all were hushed in sleep: Mine was the crime, and shall another reap The pain and glory? Grant not her desire! The chains are mine; for me the guards may heap Around the ready stake the penal fire; For me the flames ascend; 't ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... they were all down, except one or two long-winded story tellers, who went on muttering to their pipes after their comrades were asleep. Even these became tired at last of the sound of their own voices, and gradually every noise in the camp was hushed, except the crackling of the fires as they sank by degrees and went out, leaving the place in dead silence ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne

... steel on steel did loudly ring, Yet Pertinax was one and they were three, And once was, swearing, smitten to his knee, Whereat the maid hid face in sudden fear, And, kneeling so, fierce cries and shouts did hear, The sounds of combat dire, and deadly riot Lost all at once and hushed to sudden quiet, And glancing up she saw to her amaze Three rogues who fleetly ran three several ways, Three beaten rogues who fled with one accord, While Pertinax, despondent, sheathed his sword. "Par Dex!" he growled, "'Tis ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... seemed hushed-not a voice, even in a whisper, startling his ear-he ventured forth with a stealing step toward the slumbering group. Like his brave ancestor, Gaul, the son of Morni, "he disdained to stab a sleeping foe!" He must pass them to reach the private stairs. He paused ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... which they afforded. Kippletringan was distant at first 'a gey bit'; then the 'gey bit' was more accurately described as 'ablins three mile'; then the 'three mile' diminished into 'like a mile and a bittock'; then extended themselves into 'four mile or thereawa'; and, lastly, a female voice, having hushed a wailing infant which the spokeswoman carried in her arms, assured Guy Mannering, 'It was a weary lang gate yet to Kippletringan, and unco heavy road for foot passengers.' The poor hack upon which Mannering was mounted was probably of opinion that it suited him as ill as ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... pinafore without its showing one trace of stain was simply wonderful! Maudie had two dolls which she never played with. They were propped up against the legs of the parlour table. Maudie could play the "Java March" and "Mary's Pet Waltz" on the piano. She always spoke in a hushed vox tremulo, and never played any rough games. She could not bear to touch a baby, because it might put a sticky little finger on her pinafore. All of which goes to show what a perfect ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... the movies having nothing on us, and was angrily hushed. There was something quite outside of Miss Jeremy's words that had impressed itself on all of us with a sense of unexpected but very real tragedy. As I look back I believe it was a sort of desperation in ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Mariolatrists, and an anarchy of countless disputants, there sounded through the world, not the miserable voice of the intriguing majority of a council, but the dread battle-cry, "There is but one God," enforced by the tempest of Saracen armies, is it surprising that the hubbub was hushed? Is it surprising that all Asia and Africa fell away? In better times patriotism is too often made subordinate to religion; in those times it was ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... seemed to have suddenly penetrated the peaceful calm of the night. The restless irritation of the afternoon trade winds had subsided; the tender moonlight had hushed and tranquilly possessed the worried plain; the unending files of wild oats, far spaced and distinct, stood erect and motionless as trees; something of the sedate solemnity of a great forest seemed to have fallen upon their giant stalks. There was no dew. In that light, dry air, the heavier ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... keep the folks in that ere ell part, with the row o' leetle winders," said Mrs. Poor. She spoke in a hushed voice, as one speaks near a tomb. The girl was quite pale, and she stared with a scared fascination at the wall behind which her father was shut up. Timidly the women entered the open door. Both Bement and his wife ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... the citizens were strolling to their homes. On street, and plain, and hill stirred the shadows of the departing people. They passed quietly. Every voice was hushed. All the world was as still as ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... a vague, floating rumour of some old, more than half-forgotten scandal about him: an accident, giving the wrong drug when he was studying medicine as a very young man; a death; a sad story hushed up; a prudent disappearance from Europe, urged by annoyed aristocratic relatives who had little money to speed his departure, but gave what they could; professional failure in South Africa; some gambling-trouble in Johannesburg, and a vanishing again ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... on the porch, having with her usual delicacy of feeling left the lovers alone inside. When she saw the Ambulance, however, she fell to sneezing violently, crying out between paroxysms that if Tish was going to the war, she was also. But Tish hushed her sternly. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... among the tamarisk's hair; The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun; The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings; The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge, And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest; And Mother Earth watched by him as he slept, And hushed her myriad children for a while. She lay among the myrtles on the cliff; And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear, But left her tossing still; for night and day A mighty hunger yearned within her heart, Till all her veins ran fever; and ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley

... glimmering beneath the bank, or the yelp of a dog from some low-lying plantation. On such occasions, every nerve is strained to its utmost tension; all dreams of romance appear to promise immediate fulfilment; all lights on board the vessel are obscured, loud voices are hushed; you fancy a thousand men on shore, and yet see nothing; the lonely river, unaccustomed to furrowing keels, lapses by the vessel with a treacherous sound; and all the senses are merged in a sort of anxious trance. Three times I have had in full perfection this fascinating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... northern Pacific. It generated thunder without lightning and without rain. When it had moved eastward and the hot sun reappeared, wind followed, a moderate gale. The coast was battered by sudden high waves, then hushed in a bewilderment ...
— The Good Neighbors • Edgar Pangborn

... tree and enjoyed the shade of its foliage, and listened to the music of the wind as it swept through the rustling leaves. Many times He slept there, and the tree watched over Him, and the forest was still, and all its voices were hushed. And the angel hovered near like a ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... whether against an external or domestic foe. Martial law was proclaimed; and for a moment, although Piedmont gave signs of throwing itself into the Italian movement, the awe of Austria's military power hushed the rising tempest. A few weeks more revealed to an astonished world the secret that the Austrian State, so great and so formidable in the eyes of friend and foe, was itself on ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... was throbbing at my temples and my breath coming fast as I watched its curving flight. And now all voices were hushed so that the ring of the iron could be plainly heard as it struck the hard road, and all eyes watched Job, as he began pacing towards us. As he drew nearer I could hear him counting ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... with black shadows beneath the yew-trees, the white flowers alone seemed to be awake, and to look at her wistfully. The trees stood dark and still. Not even the night birds stirred. Alone, the little stream down in the bottom raised its voice, privileged when day voices were hushed. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... completely undermined, his superb intellectual powers gave way. Before the expiration of the month which witnessed his crushing defeat he had gone to his rest. The controversies which had so recently divided the country were hushed in the presence of death; and all the people, remembering only his noble impulses, his great work for humanity, his broad impress upon the age, united in honoring and mourning one of the most remarkable men in ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... comfortable. At noon, Dr. van der Helde joined her there, and they had luncheon together out of the ample stores under the seat of the ambulance. Up to this day, Doctor van der Helde had always been reserved. But the brisk affair had unlocked something in his hushed preserves. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... prince in my country, and have as much right to be free as you!" The Carolinians were so awe-struck by his defiance that they transported him. Another, at the execution, turned indignantly to a comrade about to speak, and said, "Die silent, as I do!" and the man hushed. The early newspapers of Georgia recount the disturbances on the plantations occasioned by these native Africans, and even by their children, being not until the third generation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... me the height of enjoyment to the truly redeemed. Oh, a little foretaste of this sabbath has been granted, when I have seemed to behold with my own eye, and to feel for myself in moments too precious to be forgotten, the waves of tumult hushed into a, more than earthly calm by Him who alone can say, "Peace, be still." My tossing spirit has never found such a calm in any thing this world ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... stairs, held by the memory of days when he had taken his lady by her tiny waist and felt the whiff of her muslin skirts against him as they whirled. The children on the landing were wide-eyed and hushed in their quiet play. The sounds grew fainter; they faded away as though the ballroom had grown dark and empty, and for a little space all the listeners seemed to be easing themselves of sighs. Then Miriam's whistle, like ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... knows of what feeling sprang the tears that fell on its face and baptized it. But he hushed his voice, and, lifting the child again, coaxed it to look—coaxed it with tears streaming now, and with a thrill that would not ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... doped it out that we'd find the girls sittin' around awed and hushed; while Stanley indulged in his usual silent struggle with some great business problem; or maybe they'd be over in a far corner yawnin' through a game of Lotto. But you never can tell. From two blocks away we could see that the house was all lit up, ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford

... from the bed, beckoned to her, and met her in the other half of the room so that the leather screen stood between them and the dead man. They spoke in hushed voices. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... later on his own yard gate, with the hushed, dark mill before him, exclaimed: "This won't do. There's weakness—there's downright ruin ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... are gone the blow no longer sleeps In your forgiveness hushed through all the years; But like a phantom haunts me through the dark, To cry "You gave your ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson

... of the weather, still mild and genial although at the end of September, had induced the occupants of the room to leave open. The sound of laughter and merriment issued from it; but this was presently hushed, and two voices, accompanied by guitars, began to sing a lively seguidilla, of which, at the end of each piquant couplet, the listeners testified their approbation by a hum of mirthful applause. Before ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... sleep! O comfortable bird That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hushed ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... sure that Blanche is couched at his feet, waiting the moment when, with some heavy sigh, the muscles relax, and she is sure of the smile if she climbs to his knee. It is pretty to chance on her gliding up broken turret-stairs, or standing hushed in the recess of shattered casements; and you wonder what thoughts of vague awe and solemn pleasure can be at work under ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... shut him up in a madhouse. The Regent was deaf to their solicitations. He replied, coldly, that if the Count was a madman, one could not get rid too quickly of madmen who were furious in their insanity. The crime was too public and atrocious to be hushed up or slurred over; justice must ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... when a rough, common-looking woman opened the door and shutter. As soon as she saw the man, she let loose her tongue upon him for all the villainy in the world, but something which passed from his hand to hers hushed her in an instant; and observing the merchant, she courtesied ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... in itself, or sublimer in the circumstances surrounding it, than that which was now offered up? Here was no artificial pomp, no gaudy profusion of ornament, no attendant grandeur of man's creation. All around this church spread the hushed and awful majesty of the tranquil sea. The roof of this cathedral was the immeasurable heaven, the pure moon its one great light, the countless glories of the stars its only adornment. Here were no hired singers ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... Wailing arose at the fall of their princes; their hall-joys were hushed and their treasure was scattered. Fiercely at midnight He smote the oppressors, slaying their firstborn, laying their watchmen low. Wide the destroyer's path, and the way of the fell folk-slayer! The whole land mourned the dead. The host departed. Loud was the voice of their wailing, ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown

... well dressed and well cared for, and Evelyn studied it with tender interest as it lay contentedly in her arms. As she hushed and soothed it into sleep, she talked with her brothers. Professor Morris had gone to the other end of the long room, and they could hear him groan ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... any reason to complain of me. I have always been generous; try to obtain some delay from this miserable Petit Jean. You know I always can find means to recompense those who serve me; this last affair once hushed, I will take a new flight—you shall be content ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... man of forbidding aspect, clad in rusty black, and bearing in his hand a small plain Bible from which he selects some passage for his text, while the hymn is concluding. The congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins his oration in a drawling ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... the sickly taper shed Its light through vapors, damp, confined, Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread, A new Electra by the bed Of suffering human-kind! Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay, To that pure ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... detected, he had deserted. The end was that he did justice on himself by drowning himself in the Seine, after he had implored his brother's forgiveness in terms which proved that some sense of moral decency still lingered in him. The stolen money was made good by my stepfather; the scandal was hushed up, thanks to the scoundrel's disappearance. I had reconstructed the whole story in my mind from the gossip of my good old nurse, and also from certain traces of it which I had found in some passages of my father's correspondence. Thus, when my mother put her question to me in ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... billow rears All its sea-length in green, hushed wall; But totters as the shore it nears, Foams to its fall; Where was its mark? on what vain quest Rose that great ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... hair, and olive tints in her cheeks, and there she is, the same old beautiful heroine. Even in the "Duchess" books one finds the simple Irish girl, on donning a green corduroy gown cut square at the neck, transformed into a wild-rose beauty, at sight of whom a ball-room is hushed into admiring awe. There's the case of jane Eyre, too. She is constantly described as plain and mouse-like, but there are covert hints as to her gray eyes and slender figure and clear skin, and we have a sneaking notion that she wasn't such ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... changed for me," says Manuel, presently, in a hushed voice, "and for the rest of time I live in a world wherein Niafer differs ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... see! you wear for once The bridal veil, forsworn for years!" She saw my face,—her laugh was hushed, Her happy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... quarrel took place in his office, lasting the best part of an hour. At first the ranch owner would not believe his son was guilty, but when he saw Link break down he had to give in. He said he would pay for the horses that had been stolen, and also pay to have the whole matter hushed up. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer

... hushed her sobs, with a stern grip of her will upon her quivering nerves, and raised herself up and away from him. "That has nothing to do with this," she said, coldly. "Let me go ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell, To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... feet below, the Z-3 manoeuvred, killing time. The phonograph had been hushed, and every man was ready at his post. The prospect of a go with the enemy had brought with it a keen thrill of anticipation. Now, a submarine crew is a well-trained machine. There are no shouted orders. If a submarine ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... launching!"—Ib., p. 135. "Webster has been followed in preference to others, where it differs from them."—Frazee's Gram., p. 8. "Exclamation and Interrogation are often mistaken for one another."—Buchanan's E. Syntax, p. 160. "When all nature is hushed in sleep, and neither love nor guilt keep their vigils."—Felton's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... in a bottle!" she exclaimed at last, in a hushed voice, drawing back and regarding the coachman with such a white and horrified countenance that it frightened the clouds from his brain. "Is that terrible claim in a bottle, and do people drink it out?" she asked slowly, and ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... four of them cried in chorus, so loudly that the hum of voices in the tavern became hushed, and all eyes were turned in ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... Our gallant little boat with all the might Of the wild-hissing surges holds debate, Plunging and struggling, till at last we see A spacious haven, sudden and serene And, high aloft, the twinkle of Portree. At once the winds are hushed, the moon is seen To free her face from cloudy drift, and fill With silver light ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... reptile slumbers in the stone, Nor dream we of his pent abode; The heart conceals the anguished groan, With all the poignant griefs that goad The brain to madness; Within the hushed volcano's breast, The molten fires of ruin lie;— Thus human passions seem at rest, And on the brow serene and high, Appears no sadness. But still the fires are raging there, Of vengeance, hatred, and despair; And when they burst, they wildly pour Their lava ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... air; every breath of air was hushed; it seemed as if the sea were a part of the sky that stretched above the deep valley. A carriage rolled by. Six people were sitting in it. Four of them were asleep; the fifth was thinking of his new summer coat, which would ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... record and his character; it pledged the preservation of his fame. Then a master-mahout from High Himalaya went alone to the centre of the disk and in incomparable tones—such as master-mahouts use—having no accompaniment at all, told the story of Neela Deo's birthright. The people were utterly hushed; but the elephants kept their even pace—as if listening. Then the great chorus came back, rendering the acknowledgment ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... assaults of thousands of daring foes. The night was dark and cloudy, and a drizzling rain was falling. Not an enemy was to be seen, and as they made their way with as little noise as possible along the great street of Tlacopan, all was hushed in silence, Hope rose in their hearts. The tramp of the horses and the rumble of the guns and baggage-wagons passed unheard, and they reached the head of the causeway without waking a ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... 5; gas infection, 5. Deaths, 19— septicemia, 7; pneumonia, tetanus, typhoid, 1. It was dark when I started down-stairs, through that warm, brooding stillness of a hospital at night. The ward at the head of the stairs was hushed now, and the hall lamp, shining across the white trousers of an orderly dozing in his chair within the shadow of the door and past the screen drawn in front of it, dimly lit the foot of the line of beds where the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... in the opposite direction, Leonard glanced at the ancient and picturesque houses on either side of the way,—now bathed in the moonlight, and apparently hushed in repose and security,—and he could not repress a shudder as he reflected that an evil angel was, indeed, abroad, who might suddenly arouse their slumbering inmates to despair and death. His thoughts took ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... blest souls are blent,' my guide discoursed, 'far higher thoughts, and sweeter plaints than thine. Rude joy were discord here. And as a sudden shout in thy hushed mountain-passes brings down the awful avalanche; so one note of laughter here, might start some white and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... life, and denied the privilege of entering the commercial world, emigrated to the South Seas. It was reported at home that he had married a native Samoan woman and was living the simple life of the Islanders. English society, when his name was mentioned at all, spoke of him with hushed voices and with a "what a pity y' know" manner as of one who had sunk below the depths of ordinary failure. Subsequently a friend visited Samoa and found the young man enjoying life and evidently supremely content. In the course of conversation ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... to her. Full of all wisdom, Fain help to deal To her dreadful heart: Hushed was Gudrun Of wail, or greeting, But with a heavy woe Was her ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... set it down again on the table, the room seemed to grow musical. Softest, most liquid sweet notes came pouring forth one after the other, binding my ears as if I had been in a state of enchantment; binding feet and hands and almost my breath, as I stood hushed and listening to the liquid warbling of delicious things, until the melody had run itself out. It was a melody unknown to me; wild and dainty; it came out of a famous opera, I was told afterward. When the fairy notes sunk into silence, I turned ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... sounds of horses' hoofs, stumbling on the rough bridle-track through the "saddle", the clatter of hoof-clipped stones and scrape of gravel down the hidden "siding", and the low sound of men's voices, blurred and speaking in monosyllables and at intervals it seemed, and in hushed, awed tones, as though they carried a corpse. To practical eyes, grown used to such a darkness, and at the nearest point, the passing blurrs would have suggested two riders on bush hacks leading a third ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... persecution slowly waxed hotter and hotter. Men began to thank God when any "heretics" among their friends were permitted to die in their beds, and to whisper in hushed accents that when the Prince of Wales should be King, whose nature was more merciful than his father's, matters might perchance mend. They little knew what the future was to bring. The worst was not yet over,—was not even to come during the reign ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... is stealing, Mass and requiem breathing near; Hushed the blast, as if revealing Sounds to earth that Heaven ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... not only in setting before us worship as the glad work of all who are there, but in teaching the connection between the praises of men, and the answering hymns of angels. The harps of heaven are hushed to hear their praise who can sing, 'Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood,' and, in answer to that hymn of thanksgiving for unexampled deliverance and resorting grace, the angels around the throne break forth into new songs to the Lamb that was slain—while still wider ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... road noise was hushed, and the cries of the street. The retinue moved on before houses newly reared, before white columns of temples, over whose summits hung the deep sky, calm and blue. They went in quiet; only at times the weapons of the soldiers clattered, or the murmur of prayer rose. Peter heard the last, and ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... but an occasional juniper scrub. It was covered with mossy hillocks, and with a short grass, meagre but sweet. There in the chilly gloom, straining her ears to catch the lightest footfall of approaching peril, but hearing only the hushed thunder of the surf, stood a lonely ewe over the lamb to which she had given birth ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... kitchen door. "How is she?" she said in a hushed voice to Harry Edgham, frantically stirring the burned eggs, which sent up a monstrous smoke and smell. As she spoke, she went over to him, took the frying-pan out of his hands, and carried ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... which Voltaire has twisted into "MonSIR," "PoesHies" and so forth), to the effect, "That whenever the OEUVRE comes, Voltaire shall actually have leave to go." And so, after eight hours, labor (nine A.M. to five P.M.), everything is hushed again. Voltaire, much shocked and astonished, poor soul, "sits quietly down to his ANNALES" (says Collini),—to working, more or less; a resource he often flies to, in such cases. Madame Denis, on receiving his bad news at Strasburg, sets off towards him: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... them he was a fine little chap, healthy and manly and brave, and devoted to his priest, and all that rot, and they began to listen. At first they wanted his Majesty to abdicate, and give the boy a clear road to the crown, but of course I hushed that up. I told them we were acting advisedly, that we had reason to know that the common people of Messina were sick of the Republic, and wanted their King; that Louis loved the common people like a father; ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis

... close behind Lady Arabella, and in a hushed voice, suitable to the importance of his task, and in deference to the respect he had for her and the place, began to unfold the story of his love. Lady Arabella was not usually a humorous person, but no man or woman of the white race ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... and so petted, I thought a good lesson would do her no hurt." Just then came the sound of a love-song sung sweetly, I saw my proud Rose lifting up her bowed head; And the talk of the gossips was hushed in a moment, And the flowers all listened to hear what ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... of the midnight moon had put out every straggling light in the great house; when the long veranda slept in massive bars of shadow, and even the tradewinds were hushed to repose, Pereo silently issued from the stable-yard in vaquero's dress, mounted and caparisoned. Picking his way cautiously along the turf-bordered edge of the gravel path, he noiselessly reached a gate that led to the lane. Walking his spirited mustang with ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... to the fire, and spread her hands out to the blaze. There was no other light in the room by this time. The wind without howled dismally still, but at intervals, as if with an effort. During one of its noisiest bursts the cathedral clock began to strike, and hushed it, as it were, suddenly. It seemed to be listening, to be waiting, and Evadne waited and listened too, raising her head. There was a perceptible, momentary pause, then came the chime, full, round, mournful, melodious, yet glad too, in the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... flee! Let me flee and hide myself, that they may not look upon me!" she cried. But, with returning recollection, she hushed herself and was still as death, for it seemed as if other voices, familiar in infancy and unforgotten through many wanderings and in all the vicissitudes of her heart and fortune, were mingling with the accents of the prayer. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... he was conducted to the frontier of Savoy and there set at liberty. After having spent two or three years abroad, so that the terrible catastrophe in which he had been concerned should have time to be hushed up, he came back to France, and as nobody—Madame de Rossan being now dead—was interested in prosecuting him, he returned to his castle at Ganges, and remained there, pretty well hidden. M. de Baville, indeed, the Lieutenant ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the town, mingled with cries and screams, told the work of pillage was begun; while still a dropping musketry could be heard on the distant rampart, where even yet the French made resistance. At last even this was hushed, but to it succeeded the far more horrifying sounds of rapine and of murder; the forked flames of burning houses rose here and there amidst the black darkness of the night; and through the crackling of the timbers, and the falling crash of roofs, the heart-rending shriek of women rent the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... grand Scotch firs, at which she is looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of uneasiness in looking at her,—a sense of opposing elements, of which a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression, such as one often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of keeping with the resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a sudden, passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like a damp ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... in the small, hushed world of his own thoughts. He neither loved nor hated the people around him. He simply did not see them. His mother—it was from her that he inherited the softer qualities of his mind and his face—had left him a little stock of books. And though Andy was by no means a reader, he had at least ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... but warm, for the shade of cedars somehow seems to hold heat. A carpet of needles hushed Siner's footfalls and spread a Sabbatical silence through the grove. The upward path was not smooth, but was broken with outcrops of the same reddish limestone that marks the whole stretch of the Tennessee River. Here ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... poor Sidney, his fair cheek pillowed on his arm; the soft, silky ringlets thrown from the delicate and unclouded brow; the natural bloom increased by warmth and travel; the lovely face so innocent and hushed; the breathing so gentle and regular, as if ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... have to go to the poorhouse after all," she began in a hushed voice, as if fearful of ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... that the cause of the moral superiority of the American miners over those of Mexico was visible. Then the noise and bustle about my residence was hushed. The most immoral seemed to be overawed by a sense of respect for the religious opinions of others; and when the sound of a ship-bell, hung on the limb of a tree, was heard, all except the baser sort repaired ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... announced. The buzz was hushed and the titter suppressed; affected gravity appeared in every countenance, and all eyes turned with malicious curiosity upon the bride as she entered.—The timidity of Emma's first appearance was so free both from awkwardness and affectation, that ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... to perceive, as by the ray of some dreadful dawn, that lights in the Major's room and sounds of elfin laughter were not completely trustworthy as proofs that the Contessa was there. It was possible, awfully possible, that the two might be sitting in the firelight, that voices might be hushed to amorous whisperings, that pregnant smiles might be taking the place of laughter. On one such afternoon, as she came back from the letter-box with patient Mr. Hopkins's overdue bill in her pocket, a wild certainty seized her, when ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... of Yah-chi-la-ne and his party to the pleasant village beside the great spring, in the land of the Alachuas. The sight of the rescued captive was indeed greeted with joyous shouts of welcome; but they were hushed, almost ere they were uttered, as those assembled on the river bank noted the black paint with which, in token of mourning, the returning ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... to draw her silver feather down the cascade, and immediately the same effect was produced which I had observed upon the water. The noise of the waterfall was immediately hushed. Beautiful stalactites and icicles were formed in the place of the pouring and foaming water. I should have thought that the cascade had been wholly congealed were it not that I could see in some places by the moonlight that the water was still gurgling ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... circle of opposition that salaries were too high, and the incomes of office enormous. Every tavern resounded with this grievance. At length the principal authors of this clamor got into place, and the clamor was hushed. Yes, men who urged the people of Connecticut almost to rebellion on this account, stept into the places and, without a blush, took more from the people than their predecessors. Look at Mr. Babcock's paper in 1799 and 1800, and see its columns filled with railing against high ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast

... same as that which he remembered, all gold and red damask, lighted from the roof, with the great brass-inlaid writing table at the farther end, and the broad settee against the right-hand wall, but it seemed to him in his apprehensiveness that the solemnity was greater and the hushed silence even deeper. Two figures sat side by side on the settee, each in the scarlet ferraiuola of ceremony. One, Cardinal Bellairs, looked up at him and nodded, even smiling a little; the other stood up and bowed slightly, before extending his hand to be kissed. This second ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... that perhaps the frank, true eyes of these loyal friends might never again look into her own. With a chill of unspeakable dread she asked herself what her life would be without these friends. Who could ever take their place or fill the silence made by their hushed voices? ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... himself beside the piano and was gazing at her; the girl sat still for a moment more, gazing ahead of her and waiting for everything to be hushed. Then she began, so low as scarcely to be audible, the first movement of ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... toward the arbor door Isabel warily hushed, but her mother said: "There's no one to overhear, honey-blossom; Minnie's ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable

... the top." At this moment, a little drop of surprise in his voice made me look around. He was walking backwards, one arm extended toward the hill in a descriptive gesture. "Why, it is the dream!" he murmured in hushed excitement. "Ah, of course! I might have known it. Now, I'll turn to ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... other prisoners had pleaded, Campion delivered a final defence to the jury, with a solemnity that seemed to belong to a judge rather than a criminal. The babble of tongues that had continued most of the day was hushed to a profound silence in court as he stood and spoke, for the sincerity and simplicity of the priest were evident to all, and combined with his eloquence and his strange attractive personality, dominated all but those whose ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson



Words linked to "Hushed" :   quiet, muted, hushed-up, soft



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