"Inaudible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prophetic quality in the books of power which silently moves them forward with the inaudible advance of the successive files in the ranks of the generations, and which makes them contemporary with each generation. For while the mediaeval frame-work upon which Dante constructed the "Divine Comedy" ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... vanished as soon as he had stepped through it; Costigan kicked a valve open; and from various innocent tubes there belched forth into the water of the central lagoon and into the air over it a flood of deadly vapor. As the Nevian turned toward the prisoner there was an almost inaudible hiss and a tiny jet of the frightful, outlawed stuff struck his open gills, just below his huge, conical head. He tensed momentarily, twitched convulsively just once, and fell motionless to the floor. And outside, the streams of avidly soluble liquefied gas ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... to maintain a short interval between his horse and the mules of Rita and her attendant, kept shifting his restless glances from one side of the road to the other, as though he would fain have penetrated the surrounding gloom. He was passing a thicket that skirted the road, when a cautious "Hist!" inaudible to his companions, arrested his attention. He immediately pulled up his horse, and, dismounting, unstrapped the surcingle of his saddle. On perceiving this, Rita stopped to enquire the cause of the delay, but the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... of the air, once set in motion by the human voice, cease not to exist with the sounds to which they gave rise. Their quickly-attenuated force soon becomes inaudible to human ears. But the waves of air thus raised perambulate the surface of earth and ocean, and in less than twenty hours, every atom of the atmosphere takes up the altered movement due to that infinitesimal portion ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... ensued. Just as the modern "talkies" become inaudible motion pictures when the sound apparatus goes out of order, so the Divine Hand, by some strange miracle, stifled the earthly bustle. The pedestrians as well as the passing trolley cars, automobiles, bullock carts, and iron-wheeled hackney carriages were ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... something inaudible and withdrew his hand. The man with the gun signaled to his companion. This man came up and felt ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... words, though vehement, were inaudible; being formed in the mind of Mr. Bullitt, but, for diplomatic reasons, not projected upon the air ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... stood against the summer sky; if there should be anybody in the creek-bed, lurking among the rushes and scrub round the waterhole, they would be plainly visible to him. Their attitudes were significant, and their speech was inaudible. If Jim should be there, thought Nellie, and then dismissed the thought. Rash as he was, he would never be so foolhardy as that. And yet she might have noticed a slight movement among the reeds—might have remembered that Gentleman Jim found no companionship in her brothers, ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... pulled up, and another man on the platform at the rear attempted to address the crowd, but his voice was inaudible in the din of howls, catcalls, hooting and obscene curses. After about an hour of this, as the crowd began pushing against the van and trying to overturn it, the terrified horses commenced to get restive and uncontrollable, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Augustine Birrell said of Professor Freeman and the Bishop of Chester, that they are horny-handed sons of toil and worthy of their wage. But one would like to say a little more. Granting that this is praise, it is so faint as to be almost inaudible. If Hardy only wrote good stories he would be merely doing his duty, and therefore accounted an unprofitable servant. But ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... but he was visibly sinking. His noble features, paled by the approach of death, were perfectly calm. Inaudible words escaped at intervals from his lips, bearing upon various incidents of his chequered career. Life was evidently ebbing slowly, and ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... of inaudible talk, dissension seemed again to rise between the couple underneath the chestnut, and again the General raised his voice angrily so as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... permit Croisenois to descend the stairs first, when he felt his coat gently pulled, and, turning round, saw that the Duchess, too weak to rise to her feet, had crawled to him on her knees. The unhappy woman had heard everything, and in an almost inaudible voice she uttered an ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... wild and sudden manner in which their conversation had been broken off, and strongly urged her to send for instant medical advice. She did so; and after taking leave of him, and murmuring in an almost inaudible voice the words, "Pray for us!" she returned to her post with that sinking of heart, and strength of spirit, which those only know who feel acutely, and never give way. She did not inform Mrs. Middleton of the alarming symptoms which indicated the return ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... ground, then flapping back to the branches, and anon darting to the ground again—as though they were under some spell from those fiery eyes, and were unable to take themselves away. Their motions appeared to grow less energetic, their chirping became almost inaudible, and their wings seemed hardly to expand as they flew, or rather fluttered, around the head of the serpent. One of them at length dropped down upon the ground within reach of the snake, and stood with open bill, as if exhausted, and unable to move farther. We were expecting ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... by and the bells were still pealing, when he heard a sound which would have been inaudible in the midst of the metallic clamor to ears less accustomed than his own. He had lived there all his life, and scarcely noticed the noise which would almost have deafened a stranger. The sound he had heard was the clicking of the gate, and after a pause it was followed by the appearance of his ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... and like an echo, all but inaudible, Nose Star sighed behind her. "Of what avail is your beauty?" cried Don Isaac. "Oh, Dona Schnapper-Elle, do not sin against the goodness of creative Nature! Do not scorn her most charming gifts, or she will reap most terrible revenge. Those blessed, blessing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... most pitiable abortion of a voice I had ever heard. While having all the defects in articulation of a child's who is just beginning to talk, it was not even a child's in strength of tone, being in fact a mere alternation of squeaks and whispers inaudible a rod away. With some difficulty I was, however, able to follow him ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... light, without complaint, without sound. Her eyes were closed, she leaned her head against the sharp edge of the aperture and her arms hung down lifelessly. Soelver bent over her; her breath was almost inaudible, but irregular and did not suggest sleep. Like a thirsty plant she stretched herself out of the single airhole of the dungeon that she might seize the last drop of light before the darkness extinguished everything. Soelver divined that ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... ancestor to me,—never put any forefather in comparison with the dubious and mythical Sir William. I now remembered once that, in going over the pedigree, I had been struck by the name of Herbert,—the only Herbert in the scroll,—and had asked, "What of him, uncle?" and Roland had muttered something inaudible, and turned away. And I remembered also that in Roland's room there was the mark on the wall where a picture of that size had once hung. The picture had been removed thence before we first came, but must have hung there for years to have left ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal night when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bedroom candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... When he comes to a declivity, he will put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so softly that you would hardly hear it from any nearness, and yet with such expression that it would not be quite inaudible at any distance. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... window, and her answer was inaudible. Ladywell and Neigh looked up, and their eyes met. Both had been reluctant to remain where they stood, but they were too fascinated to instantly retire. Neigh moved now, and Ladywell did the same. Each saw that the face of his companion ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... their guard by his costume, and the severity of his countenance, those of the lower rank were silent as he moved along, or lowered their voices into whispers and inaudible murmurs. Amongst the students, however, whenever they happened to muster strongly, were many fiery young men, who disdained to temper the expression of their feelings, or to moderate their tone. A large group of these at one corner of the square drew attention upon themselves, as well ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... grinding and squealing under their windows. The manager (if that was the quality of the patient and amiable old official who received us) seemed surprised to see the cars there, perhaps because they were so inaudible; but he said we could have rooms in the annex, fronting on the adjoining plaza and siding on an inoffensive avenue where there were absolutely no cars. The interior, climbing to a lofty roof by a succession of galleries, was hushed by four silent senoras, all in black, and seated in mute ceremony ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... are old, and on our quick'st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time Steals ere we can effect them. All's Well that Ends Well, Act v. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... resounding on the waxed floor of the next room, traversing the anteroom lined with bookshelves, where he paused to put his chibouk in the pipe-stand before passing into the drawing-room (these were all en suite), where he became inaudible on the thick carpet. But I heard the door of his study-bedroom close. He was then sixty-two years old and had been for a quarter of a century the wisest, the firmest, the most indulgent of guardians, extending over me a paternal care and affection, a moral support which I seemed to feel ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... sweet Mother. My fingers thou hast taught to con Thy flame-chorded psalterion, Till I can translate into mortal wire— Till I can translate passing well— The heavenly harping harmony, Melodious, sealed, inaudible, Which makes the dulcet psalter of the world's desire. Thou whisperest in the Moon's white ear, And she does whisper into mine,— By night together, I and she— With her virgin voice divine, The things I cannot half so sweetly tell As she can ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... know that by exercising a certain organ we are building up a certain part of the brain. For example, the man who has cultivated his hearing until he can hear sounds inaudible to ordinary men, has made for himself more brain-cells in the hearing area. If he has cultivated his sight assiduously, he has created more visual cells. If his touch has been cultivated, his brain has received new touch sensation-cells. And Professor ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... struck a truer and deeper note; while both together did not hinder me from hearing the faint songs of grasshopper sparrows rising from the ground on either side of the lane. It was a fine contrast: the mocker flooding the air from the topmost bough, and the sparrows whispering their few almost inaudible notes out of the grass. Yes, and at the self-same moment the eye also had its contrast; for a marsh hawk was skimming over the field, while up in the sky ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... of them brass twelve-pounder "Napoleons," and the other rifled Parrotts. To the rear of the infantry were the recumbent troopers and picketed horses of a regiment of cavalry. All around, in the far, black distance, invisible and inaudible, paced or watched stealthily the sentinels of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... him. He always did this. It was a relic of his pulpit habits. He glanced briefly from one to the other of us, his face grave and earnest, his hands lifted to the stars and his eyes all closed and puckered up beneath a momentary frown. Then he offered up a short, almost inaudible prayer, thanking Heaven for our safe arrival, begging for good weather, no illness or accidents, plenty of fish, ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... audience, should happen much on one side or very far back; to this may be added the suggestion, hardly novel, that the first few minutes of each act should be confined to immaterial affairs; blame the unpunctual—even if you blame unfairly, since, as a rule, the entr'acte warning bell is inaudible in most parts of the theatre—but do not make the guiltless suffer by presenting important matters during the time when the stage is half hidden by the people struggling (through a passage as a rule shamefully narrow) to get to their seats. Sardou's precepts may ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... was perfectly still, the sea seemed to slumber, and, if a wave lapped the shore, it was with a low, almost inaudible murmur. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... situated, when she was startled by a low, half-suppressed cry of "Murd—," which was quickly stopped, and immediately followed by a muffled fall and a low scuffling, and the voice of Lord Vincent muttering vehemently: "Faustina!" and other words inaudible ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... voice had become almost inaudible. She pulled at Rhoda Gray's wrist again, urging ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... have been written amid the vexatious interruptions incidental to one mingling much in the scenes of busy life; for the voices of the sages of old with whom, beneath his own vines, Landor loves to commune, would have been inaudible in the turmoil of a populous town, and their secrets would not have been revealed to him. The friction of society may animate the man of talent into its exercise, but I am persuaded that solitude is essential to the perfect ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... perhaps you can cure my folly if I tell it, and yet I am ashamed," murmured the girl. Then yielding to an irresistible impulse to ask help and sympathy, she added, in an almost inaudible tone, "I came away to escape ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... struggling young actress who would some day be famous—and then he might see her on a night of triumph and recognize her as the girl he had passed on the street, that day, so long ago! But by this time, the episode was concluded; the footsteps of him for whom she was performing had become inaudible behind her, and she began to forget him; which was as well, since he went out of her life then, and the two never met again. The struggling young actress disappeared, and the previous superiority was resumed. It became elaborately emphasized as a boy of her own age emerged from the "side yard" ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... has rioted unceasingly above unceasing decay. It was dry with the fine dust of waste places, and wet with the warm mists of slumbering swamps; it seemed to Gideon to tremble with the songs of birds, the dry murmur of palm leaves, and the almost inaudible whisper of the gray moss that ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... turns and waits; his glance again resting upon her whose side he has so suddenly quitted. She has followed him with her eyes until he stops; then with heightened color resumes a low-toned chat with her father. Uncle Jack is a keen observer, and his next words are inaudible except ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... continued the Ober-Amtmann, in a tone that rendered their conversation inaudible beyond their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... pinching her glasses into place with one hand and pulling her skirt modestly close with the other, activities leaving her very little to grasp the ladder with. The firemen seemed quite accustomed to this sort of irrationality, and paying no heed to the rush of words—inaudible to us on the street—bursting from her, they coaxed her expertly up onto the roof. Here she stood, statuesquely outlined against the bright sky, berating her succorers, until Mr Dinkman, rounded, bald, and calm, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... voice, and suddenly I was being forced towards the grave. I struggled, shouted, appealed to the mourners, but they continued stonily following the service; the old clergyman, too, never faltered droning and sniffing through the ritual. I realised I was invisible and inaudible, that overwhelming forces had their grip on me. I struggled in vain, I was forced over the brink, the coffin rang hollow as I fell upon it, and the gravel came flying after me in spadefuls. Nobody heeded me, nobody was aware of me. I made ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... shack to find her vanished to the inner room. He divided up the food in two equal portions, placed half his small financial funds inside a flour-sack, where he knew she would find it, and piled the things onto the sled. Then he called her in a low, almost inaudible, voice. She came from the inner room, closely swathed in furs and with her ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... adj.; silence, still, hush; stifle, muffle, stop; muzzle, put to silence &c. (render mute) 581. Adj. silent; still, stilly; noiseless, soundless; hushed &c. v.; mute &c. 581. soft, solemn, awful, deathlike, silent as the grave; inaudible &c. (faint) 405. Adv. silently &c. adj.; sub silentio[Lat]. Int. hush! silence! soft! whist! tush! chut[obs3]! tut! pax[Lat]! be quiet! be silent! be still! shut up![rude]; chup[obs3]! chup rao[obs3]! tace[It]! Phr. one might hear a feather drop, one might hear a pin drop, so quiet you could ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... as his fine gifts warranted. Not, indeed, that he monopolised the talk. He seemed to regard me as a source of information about all the latest 'movements,' and I had to shout banalities while he munched his mutton—banalities whose one saving grace for me was that they were inaudible to Swinburne. Had I met Swinburne's gaze, I should have faltered. Now and again his shining light-grey eyes roved from the table, darting this way and that—across the room, up at the ceiling, out of the window; only never at us. Somehow this aloofness gave no hint of indifference. ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... the deck planking. Mr. Timmins looked round towards the captain, who was clinging to the wheel. The latter waved his hand, and the mate again began to make his way forward. He passed the boys without a word, for the loudest shout would have been inaudible in the howling of the wind. He stopped at the main-shrouds again, the axe descended and the mainmast went over the side. The relief from the weight of the mast and the pressure of the wind upon it was immediate; the Wild ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... preferably elderly, and "steeped in respectability" up to his port-wine nose; one who would hover around the table, adjusting this dish affectionately and straightening that, and who, whenever he left the room, left it with a velvet step and an almost inaudible sigh of satisfaction... ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... University. The ceremony itself was almost identical with that at one of our Universities, and it was similarly interrupted by noisy Undergraduates, whose humour consisted in rendering the proceedings inaudible without contributing anything amusing of their own. One lady who took a degree was much cheered. The Bishop of Melbourne (Dr. Moorhouse) is the Chancellor, and delivered an address to the "fractious children," and he then called on the Governor of the colony, who with Lady Loch was present, for ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... The man muttered something inaudible, and gathered up the reins. His horse, which had apparently gone to sleep, preferred to remain where he was. After a certain amount of manoeuvring, however, he was induced to crawl around, and in a few minutes came to stop again before a tall brightly-painted house, which seemed like an oasis ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... appalling but at least he thanked God he was not mad. He yet had two good hands and legs. He could see, hear, smell, taste and feel, and he had a soul with five more senses still turned upward toward the infinite and eternal by which he could see the invisible and hear the inaudible. He felt almost happy by contrast with the fools he had left shuffling over the floor of ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... she murmured softly to herself, "it will be by—" She did not finish. Something—she could not call it sound—set her heart beating tumultuously, and listening—listening—watching—watching—she followed in her imagination the approach down the balcony of an almost inaudible step, not daring to move herself, it seemed so near, but waiting with eyes fixed, for the shadow which must fall across the shade she had failed to raise over that half of the swinging window she had so carefully ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... that his companion seemed annoyed by the presence of the other party already referred to. He scowled and shrugged his shoulders when he looked at them, and in a low voice, inaudible to those of whom he spoke, he said to Herbert: "Are they going ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... occasion. If he had said all that he was fully resolved to say, it is hardly credible that any woman, however well disposed towards him, would have accepted so tedious a suitor. But what he really said, in a hoarse, inaudible voice, was, "Rachel, will you marry me?" He was looking so intently into a little grove of Roman hyacinths, that perhaps the hyacinths heard what he said; at any rate, she did not. But she supposed, from long experience, that he was proposing, and ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... pinholes in the face masks. They lay in wait for days in the trenches for the soldiers' return as a cat watches at the hole of a mouse. The cannon ball could be seen and heard. The poison gas was invisible and inaudible, and sometimes even the chemical sense which nature has given man for his protection, the sense of smell, failed to give warning of the approach of ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... along precipitous paths he led the way buoyantly and now and then he broke into low almost inaudible crooning of an ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... gnats, and mosquitoes as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is "scarcely louder," which is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible. But in addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird has a rather feeble but exquisitely finished song, so faint it seems almost as it the bird were singing ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... irresolute across the flat, now ankle deep in water. The electric light had been extinguished, and in the greenish gloom between decks he looked a small and very forlorn figure. He pointed towards the wreckage of the after-cabin, called something inaudible, and, turning, was ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... was only a dream," said he to himself; "yet how distinct the voice was! O, if we had spiritual organs, to see and hear things now invisible and inaudible to us, we should behold the whole air filled with the departing souls of that vast multitude which every moment dies,—should behold them streaming up like thin vapors heaven-ward, and hear the startling blast of the archangel's trump sounding incessant through the universe and proclaiming the ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... plays a game well, he does not like to find that he has any equal. Heaven forbid that I should say that there is rivalry here. You, sir, are so pre-eminently the first that no one can touch you." Then he laughed long,—a low, bitter, inaudible laugh,—during ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... visitors there in the cool of the afternoon. He listened half-sleepily, and heard the horse depart, led away by a servant. There followed the murmur of a conversation, between two persons only, below his window. So far as he could gather from the tones, for the words were inaudible, they were spoken in English. And thus ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... in the gusts of the gale. In the throat of a feculent pit is the beard of a bloody-red sedge; And a foam like the foam of a fit sweats out of the lips of the ledge. But down in the water of death, in the livid, dead pool at the base— Bow low, with inaudible breath, beseech with ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... suddenly jerked up to the high tone. This was called breaking the tone; it was very much used, and gave fine effects when it was well done. I use it to-day, especially in Italian music, where it belongs. It is an exception to the rule for imperceptible or inaudible change of position of the organs,—that it should not ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... to a contest of more vital principles, which may better embalm the men. Of all gifts, eloquence is the most short-lived. The most accomplished orator fades forgotten, and his laurels pass to some hoarse, inaudible Burke, accounted rather a bore during his lifetime, and possessed of a faculty of scattering, not convincing, the members of the House. "After all," said the brilliant Choate, with melancholy foreboding, "a book is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... The first words she spoke were inaudible, but, gathering courage, she trailed her white satin, with its large brocaded pattern, in true queenly fashion, and questioned the Minister as to his opinion of the looks of the new Princess. But she gave no point to ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... altogether allusive and mysterious to the Frenchman's hoof-shaped shoes—delicate flattery of royal superfluity in toes; and there was no care that certain snarlings at "Mediceans" should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Tornabuoni possessed that power of dissembling annoyance which is demanded in a man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural disposition to overcome ill-will by good-humour, had the unimpassioned feeling of the alien towards ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... hand in his, and now, as then, the touch sent the warm blood bounding through her veins. She had passed through much since that wintry morning, had grown partially indifferent to coldness and neglect, but the extreme kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Hastings touched her heart; and stammering out an almost inaudible reply, she turned away to hide her tears, while Mr. Hastings, advancing towards the fire, exclaimed, "My double gown! And it's so long since I saw it! To whose thoughtfulness am ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... performing the same manoeuvres, always to the tune of 'Kendall's March.' After a time, the recess closed, and order was again restored. In about half an hour, I approached a class, which was reciting behind the railing. 'Miss A.,' said a teacher, 'how many kinds of magnitude are there?' Miss A. ('Answer inaudible.') Several voices. 'We can't hear.' Teacher. 'Will you try to speak a ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... know what to say,' said she, in a low, almost inaudible tone. Then hardening herself, and resolving to speak as if she did not understand his only half-expressed meaning, she lifted up her head, and all but looking at him—while she wrenched her hand out of his—she said: 'Mother's gone to Middleham for a visit, and feyther's out i' t' plough-field ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... what he says to shreds. They show or say that he is wrong about his facts. Then he rises in a fuss and must explain: but in his hurry he mistakes, and cannot find the right paper, and becomes first hot, then confused, next inaudible, and so sits down. Probably he leaves the House with the notion that the defence of the department has broken down, and so the Times announces to all the world as ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... mighty stream of Tendency Uttering, for elevation of our thought, A clear sonorous voice, inaudible To the vast multitude whose doom it is To run the giddy ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... of Skarbolov's little store. She felt out with her hands and found the padlock, and her fingers pressed on the link in the chain that Gypsy Nan had described. It gave readily. She slipped it free, and opened the door. There was faint, almost inaudible, protesting creak from the hinges. She caught her breath quickly. Had anybody heard it? It—it had seemed like a cannon shot. And then her lips curled in sudden self-contempt. Who was ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... with a thrill, striking the innermost depths of her heart, she threw herself back and imprinted her burning lips upon the cold paper. With one letter pressed to her heart, and another pressed to her lips, she gave herself up completely, exclaiming in an inaudible voice: "I love thee! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his ghastly face—he knew his face was ghastly—or his shaking hands. There was an intuition in his mind so strong ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... Lord GLADSTONE members of the Labour Unions surrounded the hotel and booed loudly with a view to making the speeches inaudible. As the first serious attempt to protect diners from an orgy of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... yet we know Sound as we know most other things, merely on the dense physical plane. The next great discoveries in higher phenomena will be made in the realm of Sound. The most marvellous powers are to be disenchanted from vibrations as yet inaudible. The present enthusiasm over telepathy is merely the start of far greater phenomena ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... hiss and throb of the devices were audible. I stared, trying to understand. Images, and sounds, invisible and inaudible were being received from across the millions of miles of space, and they were being transmuted within the brains themselves. I saw that discs were fastened upon the bulging foreheads of the brains, upon which the tiny ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... that," chimed in the fellow ex-minister, a worthy man, perfect red-tapist, but inaudible in the reporters' gallery. "And your election is quite safe, eh? All depends on that. You must not be thrown out at such a time, even for a month or two. I hear that you will have a contest—some townsmen of the borough, I think. But the Lansmere interest must ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... chattering mulatto seems as if suddenly struck dumb; the smart repartee of the lively Tapada is cut short in its delivery; the shopkeeper lays down his measure; the artizan drops his tool; and the monk suspends his move on the draught-board: all, with one accord, join in the inaudible prayer. Here and there the sight of a foreigner walking along indifferently, and without raising his hat, makes a painful impression on the minds of ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... inspiration, not unlike the kink in hooping-cough—a crowing noise, not so shrill, but similar to the sound emitted by a chicken in the pip (which in some parts of Scotland is called the roup, hence probably the word croup); the breathing, hitherto inaudible and natural, now becomes audible, and a little slower than common, as if the breath were forced through a narrow tube; and this is more remarkable as the ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... upward in their sockets, and for a space met the archduke's kindly gaze. Then the steady repellant hate in them seemed disconcerted, and the withered form cowered under the touch of the pale white hand. Inaudible words rattled in the old man's throat, and he trembled, as though to turn and run. Maximilian regarded him benevolently, thinking it a crisis ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... inaudible as the door closed behind her. He was a short, thickset man, not in the least like Lawrence, who was ten years his junior. Two years previously he had made a furtive attempt to pay court to Bessy Houghton for the sake of her wealth, and her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... from the chin to the brow. It was so difficult for her to keep from speaking her mind with her lips that she felt as if her whole face must be telling the truth to him. But he continued to shake his plump sides as if he were uttering inaudible, 'Ho—ho—ho's.' ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... clenched his teeth and forced back the deadly faintness, then turned to the woman who stood beside him, her hands clasped before her, her eyes following the declining sun, her lips sometimes set in mournful curves, sometimes murmuring broken and inaudible words of prayer. He called her twice before she answered, turning to him with eyes of feverish splendor which saw and yet saw not. "What is it?" ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... will say it," said Brooke, "for I cannot keep it. Oh, Talbot! it is this—it is part of my Puritan education, perhaps. Oh, Talbot"—and his eyes rested on hers with a devouring gaze, and his voice trembled and died out into almost inaudible tones—"oh, Talbot, my younger brother Talbot! Very pleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy love to me is wonderful—passing the ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... into an awkward and seemingly impossible shape, while metal surfaces sliding on each other produced screams that cut through the din of the motor and dynamo. The writhing tube strained and wriggled. Then there was a queer, inaudible snap and something gave. A part of the tube quivered into nothingness. Another part hurt the eyes ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a certain peculiarity of constitution, which I have some reason to believe I inherit. It seems to have its root in an unusual delicacy of hearing, which often conveys to me sounds inaudible to those about me. This I have had many opportunities of proving. It has likewise, however, brought me sounds which I could never trace back to their origin; though they may have arisen from some natural operation which I had not perseverance or mental acuteness ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... evident that his dying hour was near at hand. There are many indications that the haughty cardinal was tortured by the pangs of remorse. He was generally silent, though extremely dejected. His body was subjected to the most extraordinary convulsions, while inaudible ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... no response, when the Medium made an observation which was partly inaudible at the Reporter's seat, the purport of which was that the Spirit communications are sometimes retarded or facilitated by a compliance by the listeners with certain conditions. Another interval of probably two minutes elapsed, when the Medium suggested to Dr. Leidy to place his hands upon the ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... features, that he was pale and ghastly, while his eyes were riveted upon the fire; his lips moved rapidly, as if in prayer, and his locked hands were pressed firmly upon his bosom; his voice, at first inaudible, I could gradually distinguish, and at length heard ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... He was tall and robust in stature, but all his life suffered from "scald-head"; for a definition of which ailment we may refer the curious to the dictionary. He possessed, for a chieftain and a fighting man, the disadvantage of a voice so hoarse as to be inaudible at a few paces distant. In default of offspring he maintained at his charges five hundred corsairs, whom he called his children. He died in the year 1580, and with him what has been called the "Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs" ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... best, had become inaudible before she found courage to approach the platform. With infinite pains to avoid a sound, she peered over the edge of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... narrow, human lane to the little square and mounted the scaffold with a firm tread. A great hush fell, broken only by the sounds of sobbing. This man a coward! Every look, every action, gave the lie to such an accusation. Two Bishops stood by him and spoke to him, but their words were inaudible to the greater part of the crowd; and Ketch, the headsman, stood silently by the block, a man hated and execrated from the corridors of Whitehall to the filthiest purlieus ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... a rough, swashing, popular air; and long after the words became inaudible the swing of the music, rising and falling, echoed insult in the Prince's brain. He fled the sounds. Hard by him on his right a road struck towards the palace, and he followed it through the thick shadows and branching alleys of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tremor of uncertainty. Was it Cardo? Yes, she could not be mistaken in the voice; but how would he take her sudden appearance? Would he be glad? Would he be sorry? And the result of her mental conflict was a very meek, almost inaudible knock. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... of her stride soon began to tell; Punch, too, showed signs of having nearly had enough of it. I therefore shouted to Coleman as we were leaving them: "Keep his head up hill, and you'll be able to pull him in directly". His answer was inaudible, but when 1 turned my head two or three minutes afterwards I was glad to see that he had followed my advice with complete success—Punch was standing still, about half a mile off, while his rider was apparently watching my course with looks of horror. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... of it, but she insisted and we followed the music, inaudible to me, up the slopes of the garden that is the foot-hill of the mighty mountain of Mahadeo, and still I could hear nothing. And Vanna told me strange stories of the Apollo of India whom all hearts must adore, even as the herd-girls adored him ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... valuable to the city. "Yes, Mr. Burgess," Sir Peter said to old Barty of the bank, "our friend will get over it this time, and without any serious damage to her constitution, if she will only take care of herself." Barty made some inaudible grunt, intended to indicate his own indifference on the subject, and expressed his opinion to the chief clerk that old Jemima Wideawake,—as he was pleased to call her,—was one of those tough customers who would never die. "It would be nothing to us, Mr. Barty, one way or the other," said the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... telltale pallor, was leaning forward with an elbow on the table and shielding her face with widespread fingers propped against cheek and forehead. In the noise and flurry of the train it was easy to tune the voice to such a note that it must be inaudible to those at the adjacent tables; but Poluski seemed to be careless whether or not he was overheard, and the girl fancied that Princess Delgrado had caught the words "Alexis," "Michael," "Delgratz." Certainly the Princess turned again and looked at her, while she ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... very white, and what he said to his father's question was so inaudible that Paul could ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... which no mind should diverge.[1262] Especially as no two minds could think of diverging at the same time, and on the same side, their concurrence, even when passive, their common understanding, even if kept to themselves, their whispers, almost inaudible, constitute a league, a faction, and, if they are functionaries, "a conspiracy." On his return from Spain he declares, with a terrible explosion of wrath and threats,[1263] "that the ministers and high dignitaries whom he has created must stop expressing their opinions and thoughts freely, that ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Green saw her, he crossed over, and said in a low but not inaudible voice, "Not a word, till all this business is over! They will ruin the cause and themselves, and all that are engaged with them, by committing all sorts of crimes. It will plunge him into the greatest dangers, if ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... matter-of-fact Nature as in Turner's "Swiss Valley." The eye untrained by study of Turner's works finds nothing but a blaze of color with no intelligible object, just as we have, in opera, music of which the words are inaudible;—both are there for practised ear and eye, but in neither case as of primary importance. Turner has even gone farther, and given us pictures of pure color, as in the illustration of Goethe's theory of colors,—a fantasie of the palette. And why shall Turner not orchestrate color ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... in the same language, and resumed his seat as the car glided smoothly away from the kerb into the traffic of the busy square. Robin settled himself back in the seat with an inaudible sigh of satisfaction. He did not like the look of Jeekes's companion, he told himself, and Mr. Victor, whoever he was, had certainly manifested no great desire for Robin's company. But he was going to see Mary. That was all that counted ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... was the one redeeming thing of her appearance. Half way down the stairs she stopped involuntarily and looked with an expression of wondering inquiry into the many staring eyes focused upon herself. Then a titter, nearly inaudible at first, grew into a ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... says she, in a voice so low as to be almost inaudible. For a short, short minute the plan held out to her had tempted her, but something stronger than her love prevailed. She could wait—she would; and she is so sure of him. He is her own, her special property. Yes! she can afford to wait. Something ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... almost inaudible accents. "It is impossible!" he exclaimed, after a pause, during which the physician waited quietly until his patient should have in some manner recovered his calmness of mind. "It is quite impossible. I have every confidence in your skill, your science; but in this instance, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... pearls, against his own rude and sordid surroundings; always silent with parted lips, until the night wind smote some chord of recollection, and then mingled a remembered voice with his own. For at those times he seemed to speak also, albeit with closed lips, and an utterance inaudible to all ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... the Gray Man of the inn, who now, with bent head and most deferential manner, addressed a few whispered words to the elderly noble. After a brief, inaudible conference the two descended from the step to advance through the menacing throng toward ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... to and fro in her aimless fashion, as she would do for hours at a time, Rachel accompanied by Noie passed and repassed her, till at length the old woman lifted her head and listened to something which was quite inaudible to their ears. Then she beckoned to Noie, who led Rachel ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... showed me an almost microscopic wire, which was visible to his, and invisible to my own eye: even in the beautiful experiments he made relative to sounds inaudible to certain ears, he never produced a tone which was unheard by mine, although sensible to his ear; and I believe this will be found to have been the case by most of those whose minds had been much accustomed to experimental inquiries, and who possessed their faculties unimpaired ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... well-appointed opium resort. Here the roar of the bazaar and pulsing of tom-toms were blurred and almost inaudible. A reek of bhang and betel hung in the air; there were rows of neat bunks, lacquered pillows, and small trays containing the opium pipe, lamp and other necessaries. Everything was apparently carried out decently and in order; the clients were of a respectable, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... began to sob aloud. She sunk on her knees before Timea, and covered her hands, her dress, even her feet with unceasing kisses, while she murmured broken and inaudible words. ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... emerged from a wave, glistened and seemed to frown; but the wind howled through her rigging, whistling the thousand notes of a ship; and the hails and cries that escape a Frenchman with so much readiness were inaudible. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... moment, as the ringing of the Angelus bell in a Catholic country-side. For one moment everybody stood motionless and mute, the women with arms akimbo on aching hips, the black washers with drooping, relaxed shoulders. Each tortured frame seemed to heave with an inaudible "Thank God!" and then we slowly scattered in all directions—some to the cloak-room, where the lunches were stored along with the wraps, some down the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... took her hands in his; his face was pale and drawn, as the face of a man who has passed through the white heat of suffering. His hands were cold, and trembled a little as they closed on hers; he tried to speak, but his lips were dry and his voice inaudible. ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... wafts waves of music to each listening ear. The guitar is in all South America what the bag-pipes are to Scotland-the national musical instrument of the people. The Criollo plays mostly plaintive, broken airs—now so low as to be almost inaudible, then high and shrill. Here and there he accompanies the music with snatches of song, telling of an exploit or describing the dark eyes of some lovely maiden. The airs strike one as being very strange, and decidedly unlike the rolling songs ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... never be fully given—the search of the living and uninjured for those dead, dying or imprisoned ones who lay beneath the great masses of stone and mortar. Sometimes, in answer to the desperate cries of those outside or already rescued, smothered, almost inaudible cries for help might be heard, so faint as to seem scarcely human, and yet growing fainter and fainter still, until those who were working for the release of the captive became aware that their labor was in vain, and that only a corpse lay beneath their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... have grown deaf to any save the most commonplace oracles. But there is ever a warning voice for who will listen. One may object that its language is unknown, or its whisper inaudible; but to the question, "Whence your ignorance and deafness?" ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... with the evidences of his guilt, back to the scuttle, and descended on tiptoe to the floor beneath. Providence favored us: I met no one on the stairs; and his own cushioned tread was inaudible. I think he was conscious of the dangers of detection; for he even forebore to breathe, or much less chew the last mouthful he had taken; and he skulked at my side with the sirup dropping from his motionless jaws. I think he would have silently choked to death just then, for my sake; and it was ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... drew farther away from them, until with a final twinkle they disappeared into the darkness behind. The churning of the tug's propeller dinned continually in Flea's ears; but was not loud enough to make inaudible the sound of a footstep. Lon came to the top of the stairs; but did not speak. He shuffled to the boat's bow, and with a mighty voice bawled ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... the fiercest conflicts of the Civil War, with a hundred guns in play, spectators a mile and a half away on the opposite side of the Chickahominy valley heard nothing of what they clearly saw. The bombardment of Port Royal, heard and felt at St. Augustine, a hundred and fifty miles to the south, was inaudible two miles to the north in a still atmosphere. A few days before the surrender at Appomattox a thunderous engagement between the commands of Sheridan and Pickett was unknown to the latter commander, a mile in the ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... without a sound Or [inaudible again] horse's tread, My lady's breath is foul as death, Her driver has ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them like the brassy and lacquered life in hotels. The common school was well enough, but to the common nursery they had grave objections. Eggs might be hatched in ovens, but the hen on her own account much preferred the old way. A hen without her chickens was but half a hen." Is not the inaudible, inward laughter of Emerson more refreshing than the explosions of our ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... pocket.—"O dust, learn of Me to obey! Learn of Me, O earth and clay, to humble thyself, and to cast thyself under the feet of all men for the love of Me."—As he murmured the words, which soon became inaudible, his aspect cleared, his eyes raised themselves again to the landscape, and became once more conscious ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'When we are paying a dollar a look at eggs, what do you mean by sending me two cracked ones out of twelve? To be sure somebody has been sitting on these eggs, but I'll swear it wasn't a hen.' His reply was inaudible, but he was just going out to his wagon, and he was opening up his heart to the butcher boy as I passed. 'I'd give five dollars, poor as I am,' he said, 'for one look at that old woman's face, for she talks for all the world just like my own mother.' And with that he exchanged the two cracked ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent it tends to escape observation; thus, continuous motion can only be appreciated with reference to a stationary body, and a noise, continually repeated, becomes at last inaudible. The tendency of often-repeated actions to become habitual, and at last automatic, that is to say, carried out without consciousness, is a closely related phenomenon. We can understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the existence of the atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... the stove, trying to figure up some accounts. Rivers sat beside Blanche. With watchful care he kept her shawl upon her shoulders and her feet wrapped in a blanket. He spoke to her now and then in a voice inaudible to Bailey, who studied them ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... murmuring moan that one moment swelled to a pitch almost softly shrill and the next lulled to a low, almost inaudible sigh. ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... finally became inaudible as Hiram rose and walked up and down the room, stopping occasionally, and then starting ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... men and women been so uneasy as they were in the opening days of 1914. The woman's movement battered and banged through all our minds. It broke out into that tumult in Great Britain perhaps ten years ago. When Queen Victoria died it was inaudible; search Punch, search the newspapers of that tranquil age. In 1914 it kicked up so great a dust that the Germans counted on the Suffragettes as one of the great forces that were to paralyse ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... the boy, "or butter and honey?" He, too, waited for the inaudible reply, then asked his Uncle to pass the pot of honey and the butter-dish. The Stranger, apparently, liked sweet things best—at ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... mother!"—exclaimed he, drawing them hastily on one side and whispering something in a low, and almost inaudible voice. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... pleading eyes to hers, and as they met, her beautiful head drooped lower and lower, until it almost touched his own. He felt the soft touch of her hands upon his shoulders, and heard the thrilling accents of her trembling voice, as, in tones so inaudible that none but a lover's ear could have guessed their sweet import, she ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... teamster raised it; slowly drained it to the bottom; dropped a coin into the landlord's hand; cracked his whip in a lively manner and moved on. The steam from his horses mingled with the mist and he was soon swallowed up, although the cheerful snap of his whip could yet be heard. Then that became inaudible and the boniface who had stood for a brief space in the doorway, empty tankard in hand, re-entered the house satisfied that no more transient patronage would be ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham |
