"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw their general, they prepared to salute him with their usual greeting. But as they began to cheer he raised his hand to stop them, and the word passed down the column, "Don't shout, boys, the Yankees will hear us;" and the soldiers contented themselves with swinging their caps in mute acclamation. When the next division passed a deeper flush spread over Jackson's face. Here were the men he had so often led to triumph, the men he had trained himself, the men of the Valley, of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... simply, as he accepted this mute token of our belief in his word. "I am gratified at your kindly attitude, but I realize, none the less, what this will all mean for me. Not only myself but my innocent family must share my disgrace. However, that is part of the wrongdoer's ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... the courtyard, but made no motion to dismount. The lady came slowly down the broad stone steps, followed by her feminine train, and, approaching the Elector, placed her white hand upon his stirrup, in mute acknowledgment of her vassalage. ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... so low that its rays fell in a silvery stream on her white figure; only a waving bough of the tree overhead still brushed with shadow her neck and face. As the evening waned, she had less to say to him, growing always more silent in new dignity, more mute ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... with which I bear apart in the ceremony of this day are such as I find it difficult to utter in words. I do not think it strange that, when that great master of eloquence, Edmund Burke, stood where I now stand, he faltered and remained mute. Doubtless the multitude of thoughts which rushed into his mind was such as even he could not easily arrange or express. In truth there are few spectacles more striking or affecting than that which a great historical place of education ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his visitor in mute astonishment, was much disconcerted to receive a confiding gesture of raised shoulders and eyebrows, which, combined with a little smile, plainly signified that they had been caught. He took up his ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... Calabria. As they reached the bare white platform at the entry to the upper town, where Pope Paul's grim fortress once frowned to overawe the audacious souls of the liberty-loving Umbrians, she turned mute eyes to Alan for sympathy. And then for the first time the terrible truth broke over her that Alan wasn't in the least disappointed or disgusted; he knew it all before; he was accustomed to it and ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... window. Mr. Kendal, who was holding the little inanimate form in his arms for the doctor to examine, looking up as she entered, cast on her a look of mute, pleading, despairing agony, that was as the bitterness of death. She sprang forward herself to clasp her child, and her husband yielded him in broken-hearted pity, but at that moment the little limbs moved, the features worked, the eyes unclosed, and clinging ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... about an hour before dinner, announced to us that all the squibs and crackers, with which our pockets were crammed, were to be given up immediately; and that, as we had not said our lessons well, there would be no half-holiday, the whole school were in mute despair. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... other. "At this moment his toilet is being made." He sank his voice so that the mute, abstracted girl should not overhear. "The hair above the neck, you know—they always shave that off. It might be better ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... at her husband when his back was turned; but if his voice was heard, or his footsteps sounded in the distance, she was mute, and hurried her children into the attitude or action most pleasing to their father. Jemima, it is true, rebelled against this manner of proceeding, which savoured to her a little of deceit; but even she had not, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Democracy exalts the individual. It realizes that of all the treasures of the nation, the talent of its individual men is the most important. It realizes that its first duty is to waste none of this. It cannot afford to leave its Miltons mute and inglorious nor to let its village Hampdens waste their strength on petty obstacles while it has great tasks for them to accomplish. In a democracy, when work is to be done men rise to do it. No matter what the origin of our Washingtons and Lincolns, our Grants and our ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... not speak by words alone. A mute glance of reproach has ere now pierced the heart a tirade would have left untouched; and even an inarticulate cry ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... truck was off the metals, two unarmoured trucks were also overturned, one containing the platelayers' tools standing on its head, wheels uppermost, in a state of melancholy abandonment. All the trucks were mute witnesses to the fierce fire to which the train and men had been subjected. Shell-holes were here, there, and everywhere, and the iron was ripped up and rent as though it had been matchwood. The spring of one of the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... consecration of the Host was now at hand, the ten thousand pilgrims filled the church, four o'clock was about to strike. And thereupon an irresistible impulse forced the old lady to her feet; she drew herself up, quivering, her hands clasped, her eyes ever turned yonder, waiting in mute dread. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... village Hampden, that with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... paints Nature, not as she is, but as she seems. He adorns her with beauty not her own, and presents her thus adorned to men, to admire and to love. It is by interweaving human sympathies and feelings with the objects of the material world, that they lose their character of 'mute insensate things,' and acquire the power to charm and to soothe us, amidst all the cares and anxieties of our life. The intellectual process which here takes place is so interesting and important ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... politician who owned the place were commencing to assemble. Billy knew them all, and nodded to them as they passed him. He noted surprise in the faces of several as they saw him standing there. He wondered what it was all about, and determined to ask the next man who evinced even mute wonderment at his presence what was ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of colour swept over her neck and brow, as though she were setting under wind-tossed blossoming peach boughs. Her lustrous, excited eyes seemed never able to withdraw themselves from his whitened solemn face. Its mute repressed suffering touched her; its calmness filled her with vague pain that at such a time he could be so calm. And the current of her words ran swift, as a stream loosened at last from some steep height."Sometime you ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... she stood mute till the figure was very near. She was in the shadow of an angle, and the man paused, as if looking for the person who called ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see him by the open grave, mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom. I see him, when the mould is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... you may understand, such as the lightning and thunder begets in our hearts: for though man is as mute as a fish to Godward, before this thunder and lightning comes to him, yet after that he is full of voices (2 Cor 4:13, 7:14). And how much more numerous are the voices that in the whole church on earth are begot by these lightnings and thunders that proceed from the throne of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to impose upon others his own tastes and opinions. He must at the outset remember and never afterward forget that so far as possible his work must be free from the personal equation. He must recognize that some authors who may be mute or dull to him have a place in literature, past or present, sufficiently assured to entitle them to a place among selections which are intended above all things ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... the ship was sugared like a vast Christmas cake. It made the home which we had built at St. Anthony appear perfectly delightful. My wife had had her furniture sent North during the summer, so that now the "Lares and Penates" with which she had been familiar from childhood seemed to extend a mute but hearty welcome to ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... you happy?" said he, archly reading her face to draw out the avowal, but he only made her hide it, with a mute caress of the hand that held hers. She was glad enough to rest in the present, now that everything concurred to satisfy her conscience in so doing, and come what might, the days now spent together would be a possession of joy ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... finish it and make it famous, the ground on each side as far back as the daisied slopes that bounded the interior valley being a mere layer of blown sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile inland had, in the course of ten centuries, responded many times to that mute appeal, with the result that the tides had invariably choked up their works with sand and shingle as soon as completed. There were but few houses here: a rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a residence or two, a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the chief features ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... silence. Then a voice, which might be uttering some mortal alarm, broke repeatedly across the stillness from one of the balconies, and a thousand glasses were leveled in that direction, while everywhere else the mass hushed itself with a mute sense of peril. The capacity of such an assemblage for self-destruction was, in fact, but too evident. From fire, in an edifice of which the sides could be knocked out in a moment, there could have been ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... hideously as he was dragged by the hook. The people ran to the doors holding up their hands in astonishment. The Doctor soon shook off the dog and he trotted home little the worse. Next day when he saw the fisherman's caleche coming he limped into the house "as mute as a fish" with his ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... people.] At the length two of them leauing their weapons, came downe to our Generall and Master, who did the like to them, commanding the company to stay, and went vnto them: who after certaine dumbe signes, and mute congratulations, began to lay handes vpon them, but they deliuerly escaped, and ranne to their bowes and arrowes, and came fiercely vpon them, (not respecting the rest of our companie which were readie for their defence,) but with their arrowes hurt ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... a divine and plenipotentiary. He knew how to rouse the people to war, or negotiate a peace. Whenever he preached, it was to a crowded audience, and when he pleaded or argued, he was regarded with mute attention."(45) Mr. William Guthrie, minister of Fenwick in the county of Ayr, was another of Binning's contemporaries. His memory, like that of other Scottish ministers of that century, has suffered from his name having been attached ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... heart Of Rustum; and his tears broke forth: he cast His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, And kiss'd him; and awe fell on both the hosts When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, With his head bowing to the ground and mane Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe First to the one, then to the other mov'd His head, as if enquiring what their grief Might mean; and from his dark compassionate eyes The big warm tears roll'd down and ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... which had often repressed the gay spirits of her young pupil; and as she now motioned the great lady to a seat, and placed herself beside, an awed recollection of the schoolroom bowed Caroline's lovely head in mute respect. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you see she is getting worse and worse. How can you have the heart to stand there and not go for a physician?" said Mrs. Waugh, while Mary L'Oiseau looked on, mute with terror, and the commodore stood with his fat eyes protruding nearly ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... brought a captive maid. Her eyes were deep as the—(I can't remember what, Stephen) But she was not afraid. I go to her tent in the evening And woo her with my flute, But she dreams of the Sky Blue Water, And the captive maid is mute. ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... on Jet's leg as a signal for him to come back; but the boy paid no attention to the mute command. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... ended. Mariette rose, and, holding in one hand her rustling silk skirt, walked to the rear of the box and introduced Nekhludoff to her husband. The general incessantly smiled with his eyes, said he was glad, and remained calm and mute. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... I passed through that ordeal, standing mute in the solemn silence, what of the moment when the Church bade me take your right hand in my right ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... poor monster was actually buried in this cask; [Died 11th April, 1731, age 58: description of the Burial "at Bornstadt near Potsdam," in Forster, i. 276.] Fassmann pronouncing some funeral oration,—and the orthodox clergy uttering, from the distance, only a mute groan. "The Herr Baron von Gundling was a man of many dignities, of much Book-learning; a man of great memory," admits Fassmann, "but of no judgment," insinuates he,—"LOOKING FOR the Judgment (EXPECTANS JUDICIUM)," says ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... another condition of what we may call "mute births," where the child only makes short ineffectual gasps, and those at intervals of a minute or two apart, when the lips, eyelids, and fingers become of a deep purple or slate colour, sometimes half ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... if Christian nations might, with some reason, interfere in this horrible traffic, by the side of which ordinary slavery seems but a trifle. When we further consider that, in some instances, the child is also made mute by the excision of part of the tongue,—as mute or dumb eunuchs are less apt to enter into intrigues, and are therefore higher prized,—the barbarity, cruelty, and extremes of inhumanity that these ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... bathed itself in rose-tints; the river ran red, and the snow crimsoned on the distant New Hampshire hills; Pemberton, mute and cold, frowned across the disk of the climbing sun, and dripped, as she had seen it drip ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... (Asagena, Sund.) serratipes, 4- punctatum et guttatum; see Westring, in Kroyer, 'Naturhist. Tidskrift,' vol. iv. 1842-1843, p. 349; and vol. ii. 1846-1849, p. 342. See, also, for other species, 'Araneae Suecicae,' p. 184.) have the power of making a stridulating sound, whilst the females are mute. The apparatus consists of a serrated ridge at the base of the abdomen, against which the hard hinder part of the thorax is rubbed; and of this structure not a trace can be detected in the females. It deserves notice that several writers, including the well-known arachnologist Walckenaer, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... hoots upon the hill. And now there stands Within bowshot of the isle—a house of God That calls to prayer—a parish church—the fruit Of kindly thoughts that stirr'd the watcher's heart, And clomb to Heaven in mute appeal, that night When vengeance smote and light and life went ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... of repining over his loss, gratefully remembered and recorded the goodness of God in taking such a wife, releasing her saintly spirit from the bondage of weakness, sickness, and pain, rather than leaving her to a protracted suffering and the mute agony of helplessness; and, above all, introducing her to her heart's desire, the immediate presence of the Lord Jesus, and the higher service of a celestial sphere. Is not that grief akin to selfishness which dwells so much on our own deprivations as to be oblivious ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Mute as Neddy's inquiry was, Mike seemed somehow aware of it. He raised his hand, as though to enjoin silence, and then pointed it in front of him, raised to the level of his head. Neddy turned round to look in the direction indicated. He saw the throne and its silent occupant—the ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... I forget the darling theme, Be my tongue mute! my fancy paint no more! And, dead to joy, forget, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... once admitted, he succeeded, after numerous experiments, in enjoying silent melodies on his tongue, mute funeral marches, in hearing, in his mouth, solos of mint, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... absolutely necessary for the performance of various functions in the living state: but this is altogether different from the energy or cause that excites the action. A violin and its bow are prepared to "discourse most excellent music," yet they are mute until guided by the skilful hands of the performer. When death ensues from many diseases, the organization remains, for without this concession our anatomical knowledge must be very imperfect. Thus ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... him one glance of mute reproach, and, placing her foot on the boat's gunwale, sprang like an antelope upon the ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... on a sign, but she began to despair of lighting on a fitting one. Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the window, and turned to where Mrs. Ray sat in her chair close by. How vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the lips that were wont to say, "God bless you!" how motionless lay the fingers that once spun with the ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... of human life, from the haunts where he had been so happy. He wished to have his tomb on the public thoroughfare, that he might "feel, as it were, the tide of life as it flowed past his monument, and that his mute existence might be prolonged in the remembrance of his friends." I may observe that the Roman custom of bordering the public roads with tombs gives a significance to the inscriptions which some of them bore,—such as, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... on a former visit, was merely soaked with the sprays; but the joisting-beams which supported it had, in the course of the winter, been covered with a fine downy conferva produced by the range of the sea. They were also a good deal whitened with the mute of the cormorant and other sea-fowls, which had roosted upon the beacon in winter. Upon ascending to the apartments, it was found that the motion of the sea had thrown open the door of the cook-house: this was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... offering was delivered by George Sea Otter to Colonel Pennington's Swedish maid, who promptly brought it in to the Colonel and Shirley Sumner, who were even then at dinner in the Colonel's fine burl-redwood-panelled dining room. Miss Sumner's amazement was so profound that for fully a minute she was mute, contenting herself with scrutinizing alternately the pie and the card that accompanied it. Presently she handed the card to her uncle, who affixed his pince-nez and read the epistle ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... room with her head high and chin level; her eyes shone and her coloring was superb. She had never been more beautiful, and never so dignified. Her admirer felt both of these facts, and was moved to mute inquiry into the cause of the singular mood. His glowing eyes questioned hers while she shook hands with him and then sat down, and held out her hand silently to me, without a smile. I went as straight to her as a wounded bird to ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... the lintel, motionless and rigid to the point of his sword, his eyes fixed on the white face of a girl who was cowered back against the further wall. For a fraction of time he hesitated, but the awful anguish of the face and the mute, desperate appeal of the whole pose settled him. With a rough clatter he sprang into the dim passage, rattling his sword and stamping his feet, at the same time giving vent with his lips to the yelp of a hound ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... his vision vast The early gods have passed, They waned and perished with the faith that made them; The long phantasmal line Of Pharaohs crowned divine Are dust among the dust that once obeyed them. Their land is one mute burial mound, Save when across the drifted years Some chant of hollow sound, Some triumph blent with tears, From Memnon's lips at dawn wakens ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... Topeka tells you, and remember what I said about your papa," Alida said to the younger children. Jim and Judy clasped each other's hands in mute compact at the edict. Their sister Topeka had a real genius for authority; they were minded all too well when she swayed ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... lights were extinguished, and of the priestly train who had recently thronged the fane, all were gone, like a troop of ghosts evoked at midnight by necromantic skill, and then suddenly dismissed. Deep silence again brooded in the aisles; hushed was the organ; mute the melodious choir. The only light penetrating the convent church proceeded from the moon, whose rays, shining through the painted windows, fell upon the graves of the old abbots in the presbytery, and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of scapegoat and fire-alarm duty for the rest of the body. Just as the brain is the servant of the body, rather than its master, so the devoted head meekly offers itself as a sort of vicarious atonement for the sins of the entire body. It is the eloquent spokesman of such "mute, inglorious Miltons" as the stomach, the liver, the muscles, and the heart. The humblest and least distinguished of all the organs of the body can order the lordly head to ache for it, and the head has no ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... dexterous writer of letters,— Did not [v]embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases, But came straight to the point and blurted it out like a schoolboy; Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly. Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with wonder, Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned and rendered her speechless; Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence: "If the great Captain ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... that he was not dead, but without noticing Bessie's distress or Mary's look of mute agony, she rose from her seat, and walking round to the side of Master Drury, she said, "You will tell me where ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... far from it! My friend and I had been undergraduates, and very proud of ourselves into the bargain, long ago in England. But we had travelled since then, in more senses than one. We had known comfort and we had known the mute impressive numbness of despair. We had made "scoops" at times and celebrated them with joyous junketings. Once we had dined at Delmonico's, a meal of which the memory is still an absurd chaos. We had, moreover, ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... at any moment to engulf it. The religious man knows that he is infinitely greater than the beasts of the field or the clods of the highway. Yet Vesuvius belches forth its liquid fire and in one day of stark terror the great city which was full of men is become mute and desolate. The proud liner scrapes along the surface of the frozen berg and crumples like a ship of cards. There is a splash, a cry, a white face, a lifted arm, and then all the pride and splendor, all the hopes and fears, ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... lean'd out, and drank in the fragrance of the blossoms below, and almost for the first time in his life felt how beautifully indeed God had made the earth, and that there was wonderful sweetness in mere existence. And amidst the thousand mute mouths and eloquent eyes, which appear'd as it were to look up and speak in every direction, he fancied so many ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... hair in disorder, her eyes shining, her cheeks white, her bruised lips a vivid red; she was tired, indifferent, mute, happy and lovely, seeming to guard beneath her cloak, which she held wrapped about her with both hands, some remnant of warmth ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... her, she drew closer to the Jew, and bent her head. The Jew having taken in the whole of Eugene at one sharp glance, cast his eyes upon the ground, and stood mute. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... abased, reviled, Lift thou not less from no funereal bed Thine undishonoured head; Love thou not less, by lips of thine once prest, This my now barren breast; Seek thou not less, being well assured thereof, O child, my latest love. For now the barren bosom shall bear fruit, Songs leap from lips long mute, And with my milk the mouths of nations fed Again be glad and red That were worn white with hunger and sorrow and thirst; And thou, most fair and first, Thou whose warm hands and sweet live lips I ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... again, with the feet That were light on the green as a thistledown ball, And those mute ministrations to one and to all Beyond a man's ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... tracks was properly done, and hoped that Mr. Krech and his detective would appreciate his thoughtfulness. Then he left the tannery, climbed into his car and drove home. The strain of the night before had told on even his iron physique—and there was the mute appeal of a decanter of Bourbon that he knew would freshen ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... thou lovest, and regard not The words detractors utter, envious churls Can never favour love. Oh! sure the Merciful Ne'er made a thing more fair to look upon, Than two fond lovers in each others' arms, Speaking their passion in a mute embrace. When heart has turned to heart, the fools would part them Strike idly on cold steel. So when thou'st found One purely, wholly shine, accept her true heart, And live for her alone. Oh! thou that blamest The love-struck for their love, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... fisherman had taken refuge in the harbors. When we saw the harbor of E——— before us and the little city veiled in gray mist, the waves were dashing over the rear of the boat and the little yacht was sinking her nose deep into the billows. We had to keep up bailing her busily, and with mute suspense we gazed toward the pier for which we were directly heading, expecting every minute to see the boat fill with water or the rigging break. We could distinguish the people on the stone pier which ran out into the sea. A crowd had gathered and stood watching us with ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... half-open mouth still fluttered around it, and her curved fingers still ran up and down the rails of the chair-back as if they were the cords of some mute instrument, to which she was trying to give voice. Her rings once or twice grated upon them as if she had at times gripped them closely. But she rose quickly when he paused, said "Yes," sharply, and put the ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... grasp and gazed at me with such mute and earnest pleading, with such fear and distress in her lovely eyes, that I must have been more than human to resist taking her part. I was in a hot rage, as it was, and I did not hesitate an instant. I shot out with my right arm—a straight, hard blow from the shoulder that took the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... The tall forest trees shut out every breath of air so completely that the little valley across which the sportsman was making his way was as hot as a furnace; the silent forest seemed parched with the fiery heat. Birds and insects were mute; the topmost twigs of the trees swayed with scarcely perceptible motion. Any one who retains some recollection of the summer of 1819 must surely compassionate the plight of the hapless supporter of the ministry who ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... passed slowly away. April came in with long bright days and abundant sunshine, but still the frost-king held sway, and all the earth was snowbound, the rivers were mute, and the waterfalls existed only in name. The men in the store were saying one night that some Indians had got through from Thunder Bay by way of the Albany River with mails; but as this meant about four hundred miles on snowshoes, Katherine regarded it only as a piece of winter ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... of water thrown on a group of fighting mastiffs, yet did they but pause for a moment, to return with tenfold fury to the charge. Just at this juncture a vast and dense column of smoke was seen slowly rolling toward the scene of battle. The combatants paused for a moment, gazing in mute astonishment, until the wind, dispelling the murky cloud, revealed the flaunting banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon of Communipaw. That valiant chieftain came fearlessly on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed Pavonians and a corps de reserve of the Van Arsdales and Van ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... grown—on the green grass, below the blue sky, by the side of the quiet lake. Cannot you fancy how some of them seated themselves with a scoff, and some with a quiet smile of incredulity; and some half sheepishly and reluctantly; and some in mute expectancy; and some in foolish wonder; and yet all of them with a partial obedience? And says John in the true translation: 'So the men sat down, therefore Jesus took the loaves.' Sit you down where He bids you, and your mouths will not be long empty. Do the things He tells you, and you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... with the deadly fruit of their doing. In the very presence of the president's chair of state, here a Boer, there a Briton, it may be of New Zealand birth or Canadian born, moaned out his life, and so made his last mute protest against the outrage which rallied a whole empire in ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... repute. Those who administer their power in any other way are not only not magnified by sites and edifices of worship, though these be the choicest in all the cities, but erect for themselves therein mute detractors which become trophies of their baseness, memorials of their injustice. And the longer these last, the more steadfastly does the ill-repute of such sovereigns abide. [-36-] Therefore if you desire ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... most extraordinary shapes; at one moment it was so low and narrow that they had to crawl on hands and knees, the next it was as wide and lofty as if they were in the open air. It looked like a chapel of the dead, with mute organ pipes and ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... governor silently continued his way till he came to a door by which stood two men, masked, who saluted him with a mute inclination of the head. The door opened and again closed, as the governor entered. Meanwhile, the confessor had gained the palace of the Duke d' Uzeda. Uzeda was not alone: with him was a man whose ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... took two or three turns up and down the apartment, silent, and with a contracted brow, passing each time before Porthos and Aramis, who remained mute and immoveable as if upon the parade ground. Suddenly he stopped, and measured them from head to foot with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... were shortening imperceptibly and the sunsets had gained an almost articulate splendor: cloud calling unto cloud, the west horizon signaling to the east, and answering again, while the mute dark circle of hills sat like a council of chiefs with their blankets drawn over their heads. Soon those blankets would be ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... that milky light is new universes are forming themselves. The book of their genesis yet remains to be written. Think of the worlds forming themselves. Think of the worlds shining, and the darkened suns and systems mute in the night of time. To us—to us—what does it all say more than the sea says to the rainbow in one tossed bubble of foam? And yet to us it must say something, seeing that we are born of it, and how can we be out of tune with ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... women, of beggars and slaves, the last of whom might sometimes introduce the missionaries into the rich and noble families to which they belonged. These obscure teachers (such was the charge of malice and infidelity) are as mute in public as they are loquacious and dogmatical in private. Whilst they cautiously avoid the dangerous encounter of philosophers, they mingle with the rude and illiterate crowd, and insinuate themselves into those minds, whom their age, their sex, or their education, has the best disposed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... child sat mute and wondering before the repast, with a beautiful look of joy and prayer in his blue eyes, Ursula thought he was saying his grace, and respected his devotion. But as the moments passed on, and still he did not attempt ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... deaf mute newsman on the Long Island Railroad. Lately he had suffered much in mind and body from an aching tooth. He did not like dentists, but he resolved that the tooth must go. He procured a piece of twine, and tied ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... had another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads: that these things bore a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems of its thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute commentary on human life. Shakespeare employed them as colours to compose his picture. He rested in their beauty; and never took the step which seemed inevitable to such genius, namely, to explore the virtue which resides in these symbols, and imparts this power,—What is that which they themselves ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... be mute, when deeds are wrought Which well might shame extremest Hell? Shall freemen lock th' indignant thought? Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell? Shall Honor bleed?—Shall Truth succumb? Shall pen, and press, ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... man glanced casually about the place, as if observing a passer-by. Ned and his companions exchanged quick looks of inquiry. Using the mute language in which the boys were adept, Ned flashed a question ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of Mabel did not recover all its bloom until the canoe was again in the current, down which it floated swiftly, occasionally impelled by the paddle of Jasper. She witnessed the descent of the falls with a degree of terror which had rendered her mute; but her fright had not been so great as to prevent admiration of the steadiness of the youth who directed the movement from blending with the passing terror. In truth, one much less sensitive might have had her feelings awakened by the cool ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... down the line like a shiver, and the men stood mute, eying each other doubtfully. And now, if I could, I would get at your hearts, you who read this, and you should not read mistily, and hold the story at loose ends as it were, but feel by the answering throb within yourselves what thoughts gnawed at the hearts of these men under their brave show ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... intended to drown herself in the Thames. Her family and friends were distracted. The river was dragged, but no trace of the missing girl was found. On the river bank, however, were discovered her bonnet and shawl, mute witnesses to the fate that seemed to have overtaken her. Her father alone refused to believe that his daughter had ended her life tragically. He persisted in his search for her, and was soon rewarded by a clue ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... brute. Upon grounds of physiology there is no greater evidence for man's Spiritual survival through that overshadowed crisis than there is for the brute's. And on grounds of sentiment man ought not to shrink from sharing his open future with these mute comrades. Des Cartes and Malebranche taught that animals are mere machines, without souls, worked by God's arbitrary power. Swedenborg held that "the souls of brutes are ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I bowed a mute acceptance of it; and mademoiselle, conscious from our manner we were not particularly amiable toward each other, hastened to avert any ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Tuileries, also, gloom and dejection ruled the hour for the first time; and while, when the army had heretofore gone forth, the question had been, "When shall we receive the first intelligence of victory?" there were now only mute, inquiring glances bent ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... with chains on their feet, were now rowing on the same bench with the worst criminals; and the old artist's two remaining children stood gazing after the ship that carried away their father and brother into the distance. Melissa stood mute, with tearful eyes, while Alexander, quite beside himself, tried to relieve his rage and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mrs. Lumbe?" he asked, in response to her mute glance of inquiry. He spoke condescendingly, like a man who recognized the social gulf between them, but believed in being ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... in '48, and in that upper suite of rooms to which her grandfather had retired in wrath on his son's marriage, she remembered her sense of awe as a child on seeing on the wall the sword he had worn in the Civil War. He was a small man, and the scabbard was badly worn at the end, mute testimony to the long forced marches of his youth. Her father had gone to Cuba in '98, and had almost died of typhoid fever there, contracted in the marshes ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... The twain who first were sent in this pursuit Of their wise friend well knew the aged face: But when the wizard sage their first salute Received and quitted had with kind embrace, To the young prince, that silent stood and mute, He turned his speech, "In this unused place For you alone I wait, my lord," quoth he, "My chiefest care ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... aspect was so solemn, and earnest, and imposing that Alwyn, awed and startled, remained for a moment mute—then, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... direction of the house. Her husband looked after her with mute sorrow at his own incapacity to melt from vision in that intangible manner—from ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... the mute turf we tread, The solemn hills about us spread, The stream that falls incessantly, The strange-scrawled rocks, the lonely sky, If I might lend their life a voice, Seem ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... before him as the gloomy sequel to his father's. But why should she gaze at him with those anxious, troubled eyes, at the very moment when he had resolved to cut himself adrift from all the temptations of ambition? The mute appeal awoke no answering softness in his breast, and he met it with a look ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... who hung between them to shame into silence their just punishment and flagrant guilt? And so, turning his head to Jesus, he uttered the intense appeal, "O Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom." Then he, who had been mute amid invectives, spake at once in surpassing answer to that humble prayer, "Verily, I say to thee, to-day shalt thou ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the "gay, fresh sentiment of the road." He is not isolated, but is at one with things, with the farms and the industries on either hand. The vital, universal currents play through him. He knows the ground is alive; he feels the pulses of the wind, and reads the mute language of things. His sympathies are all aroused; his senses are continually reporting messages to his mind. Wind, frost, rain, heat, cold, are something to him. He is not merely a spectator of the panorama of nature, but a participator in it. He experiences the country he passes through,—tastes ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... derived, to God by nature join'd. We act the dictates of His mighty mind: And though the priests are mute and temples still, God never wants a voice to speak ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... what nothing can ever convey. Her eyes were turned full on him with the same eager curiosity, the same certainty, that he could not do other than the best. He did not speak; but the half smile on his lip was a full though mute reply to her confidence, that she had only to hear, in order to rejoice with all her heart; and he held out a note directed to ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... really beyond the resources of his art, and attaining a result which, though clearly imperfect, is strangely moving. He gets great effects from the use of children in several tragedies, though he seldom lets them speak. They speak in the Medea, the Andromache, and Suppliants, and are mute figures in the Trojan Women, Hecuba, Heracles, and Iphigenia in Aulis. We may notice that where his children do speak, they speak only in lyrics, never in ordinary dialogue. This is very ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... in the front room with the negress whom Madame had brought with her. They were not talking. I supposed then this was because Lindy did not speak French. I did not know that Madame de Montmery's maid was a mute. Both of them went into the bedroom, and I was left alone. The door and windows were closed, and a green myrtle-berry candle was burning on the table. I looked about me with astonishment. But for the low ceiling and the wide ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... thee ever fondly, Watched thee, dearest! from afar, With the mute and humble homage Of the Indian ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... had dropped down upon a bench at the kitchen door. Her right arm hung useless at her side; with the left she held the bloody corpse of a puny infant to her breast, and the eyes she lifted to the face of her mistress were full of a mute, tearless agony. ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... and get them ready for fight and fray, whilst the sword blades glittered bright and the javelins glanced like levee light on mail shirt white; and all joined fight and the grind mill of Death whirled round and ground those who fought from horse and aground: heads from bodies flew end tongues mute grew and eyes no vision knew. Scymitars strave with utmost strain and heads flew over the battle plain; gall bladders crave and wrists were shorn in twain; steeds plashed in pools of gore and beards were gripped ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... while I am keeping him here. He sleeps in a cot beside me, and in the day, when not at school or crouching in sphinxlike silence on the curbstone, he sits in a great chair by the window. Often when I look up from my book his eyes are fixed on me with a kind of mute appealing wonder. Somehow I could not let him go. He seems a link between us in our separation; and while my thoughts are set upon rebuking the errors of humanitarianism it will be well to have this object of ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... come a faint little rustling, a curled and shrunken leaf rolling and rustling down over the frozen branches. It was like the sound of a little spring. Then the soughing of earth and sky again. A gentleness came over me; a mute was set ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... my hair, while the fingers of the other still lingered among my curls, she pointed to the plant, and looked wistfully at Johnny. The good German was not usually quick of comprehension; but he understood the mute appeal now, and he asked in a voice even more husky than ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... eds." See p. 9. This mostly accords with the names given in the preceding paragraph; and so far as it does not, I judge the author to be wrong. The reader will observe that the Doctor's explanation is neither very exact nor quite complete: K is a mute which is not enumerated, and the rule would make the name of it Ke, and not Ka;—H is not one of his eight semivowels, nor does the name Ach accord with his rule or seem like a Latin word;—the name of Z, according ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and from the mute and moveless frame A radiant spirit arose, All beautiful in naked purity. 110 Robed in its human hues it did ascend, Disparting as it went the silver clouds, It moved towards the car, and took its seat ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... instantly released him from his unnatural rotundity. In 1243 a Ferrara writer was at Padua, and while attending vespers at the tomb where the sainted body of the Minorite Anthony reposed, he affirms that he saw a person who had been mute from his birth recover his voice ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... cannot longer justify myself, To be a mute spectator of such ruin, As hourly threatens this respected family. [Aside.] To flatter, or conceal would ill become That friendship you have said you so esteem. My heart is open then, and can't acquit you. You've lost that fortitude ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... much for the simple comprehension of the unlettered negro boy, and he only rolled the whites of his eyes in mute astonishment. ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... emotion before Maria, he then, with a movement quick as thought, plunged a poniard in his bosom, and fell to the ground. "Go, tell the queen," he said to the officer of justice, who had stood a mute spectator of this scene—"tell her what you have witnessed; and add, that my promise has been fulfilled. And you, Augustus Glinski—will not this suffice? The assassin of the duke lies here before you. Oh, take her by the hand!" Then, looking his last ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... penguins which had gone down on all fours, and were crawling among the bushes on their feet and wings, just like quadrupeds. Suddenly one big old bird, that had been sitting on a point very near to us, gazing in mute astonishment, became alarmed, and, scuttling down the rocks, plumped or fell, rather than ran, into the sea. It dived in a moment, and, a few seconds afterwards, came out of the water far ahead, with such a spring, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... has been said, whether she attended or not, in the keenness of her youthful faculties. When the Contessa rose to sing, she was at the piano without a word; and when anything was wanted she gave an alert mute obedience to the lady who was her relation or her patroness, nobody knew which, almost without being told what was wanted. Except in this way, however, they seldom approached or said a word to each other that any one saw. During the long morning, which the Contessa ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... it prates itself into destruction. Religion, like every absolutism, must not seek to justify itself. Prometheus is bound to the rock by a silent force. Yea, Aeschylus permits not personified power to utter a single word. It must remain mute. The moment that a religion ventures to print a catechism supported by arguments, the moment that a political absolutism publishes an official newspaper, both are near their end. But therein consists our triumph: we have brought our adversaries to speech, and they must reckon with ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... occasions as this seems to purify itself to the transcendent and perfect idea alone—idea of beauty, of dignity, of comprehensive grace, with all accidents merged, all defects disowned, all experience outlived, and to gather itself up into the mere mute eloquence of what has just incalculably been, remains for ever the secret and the lesson of the subtlest daughter of History. All one could do, at the heart of the overarching crystal, and in presence of the relegated City, the far-trailing Mount, the grand Sorrentine headland, the islands ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn; earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with its deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence, all fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... understand just where he was or how he came in such unfamiliar surroundings; but seeing the kindly face of Abner Peake bending over, he asked a mute question that the other answered with ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... aggrandizement of the State without regard to factious rancors. Thus the tyrant marked the first emergence of personality supreme within the State, resuming its old forces in an autocratic will, superseding and at the same time consciously controlling the mute, collective, blindly working impulses of previous revolutions. His advent was welcomed as a blessing by the recently developed people of the cities he reduced to peace. But the great families and leaders of the parties regarded him with loathing, as a reptile spawned by the corruption and disease ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... breath failed her, and she had to stand still and press her hands against her heart. Then the weight on her breast lifted, and she went on again, upward and upward, the great dark building dropping away from her, in tier after tier of mute doors and mysterious corridors. At last she reached Dick's floor, and saw the light shining down the passage from his door. She leaned against the wall, her breath coming short, the silence throbbing in her ears. Even now it was not too late to turn back. She bent over the stairs, letting her ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... have laughed had you seen the varying expressions on Tom's face as he read Aunt Hepsy's epistle;—concern at first to hear Lucy was ill; relief to find her recovering; and, last of all, mute, dumfoundered ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... applause. The great poet, the respected Athenian citizen, the man who had already perhaps been a General, appeared publicly in woman's clothes, and as, on account of the feebleness of his voice, he could not play the leading part of Nausicaa, took perhaps the mute under part of a maid, for the sake of giving to the representation of his piece the slight ornament of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... another way," he continued, spurred on by her mute protest. "It's all right for me to give the strength of my arm when you're falling over a cliff. But if I take that same strength of arm and use it at pick-and-shovel work for a day and earn two dollars, you won't have anything to do with the two dollars. Yet it's the same ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... ignorantly. The girl died in fearful pain. Hindu women are inured to sickening sights, but this girl's death was so terrible that the elder sister has never recovered from the shock of seeing it. There she sits, they tell me, all day long, crouching on the floor, mute. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... theatricals, and could remember and find parallel passages; but alongside of these surviving powers, were lapses as remarkable, she misbehaved like a child, and a servant had to sit with her at table. To see her so sitting, speaking with the tones of a deaf-mute not always to the purpose, and to remember what she had been, was a moving appeal to all who knew her. Such was the pathos of these two old people in their affliction, that even the reserve of cities was melted and the neighbours vied in sympathy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... good result for a layman to try to classify the insane. The matter of classification will be for several years in a condition of developmental change. It is enough to speak of the patient as depressed or excited, agitated or stupid, talkative or mute, homicidal, suicidal, neglectful, uncleanly in personal ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... The unavailing tear for thee shall flow, And love and friendship faithful record keep Of all thy varied worth, thy anxious strife For fame and years, now gone for ever! Yet o'er thy tomb science and learning Bend in mute regret, and truth proclaims Thy ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... heaving bellows learn'd to blow, While organs yet were mute, Timotheus to his breathing flute And sounding lyre, Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame; The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Enlarged the former narrow bounds, And added length to solemn sounds, ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... thank God! Look again: there are the mountains, and above them the mournful glories of the anti-sunset; the mute and golden trumpetings of the dawn; —there is the sea, and over it the wistfulness and pomp and pageantry of the setting sun, and the gentleness of heaven at evening;—there is the whole drama of Day with its tremendous glories; and the huge mystery of Night-time: ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... where nothing else was, a line of motley humanity—Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian, Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and ecclesiastical, and no hats at all—half circled us with mute and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.' This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... was a mute witness to as keen and high-handed a performance as I ever witnessed. One by one every item of the Constant-Scrappe's silver service, valued at ninety thousand dollars, was removed from the sideboard and taken along the hall and placed in the ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... calling out, no appeal. Though this was unexpected by him, he spoke not a word. The same silence reigned in the vessel. No cry from the child to the men—no farewell from the men to the child. There was on both sides a mute acceptance of the widening distance between them. It was like a separation of ghosts on the banks of the Styx. The child, as if nailed to the rock, which the high tide was beginning to bathe, watched ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... for his office, to which he had gone with such high hopes and enthusiasm of late. There was no work for him to do there any longer, and the sight of his drawing-table and materials would, he knew, be intolerable in their mute mockery. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... penetrating; it ceases, and still vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener's ears, and Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy, to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre's accompaniment. Let swans and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers; Philomela's self, 'full-throated songstress' though she be, is all unskilled beside her. Methinks Orpheus and Amphion, whose spell drew even lifeless things to hear them, would have dropped their lyres and stood listening ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... moment's silence, during which the children even became mute, the Sachem arose with dignity and commenced his brief story in a solemn, serious manner, ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... 'tis a pleasant thing To watch it falling, falling Down upon earth with noiseless wing, As at some spirit's calling: Each flake seems a fairy parachute, From mystic cloudland blown, And earth is still, and air is mute, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... emanations. Lilith, disdaining the shelter of her nymphs and their clowneries, stood forth in all the hideous majesty of AEnothea, the undulating priestess of the Abominable Shape. His nerves macerated by this sinful apparition, Baldur struggled to resist her mute command. What was it? He saw her wish streaming from her eyes. Despair! Despair! Despair! There is no hope for thee, wretched earthworm! No abode but the abysmal House of Satan! Despair, and you will be welcomed! By a violent act of volition, set ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... against all their arguments, he was unmoved by all their pleading. It was only when his anxious kindred had given up the battle for lost that Gustave wavered. Their mute despair moved him more than the most persuasive eloquence; and the end was submission. He left Beaubocage the plighted lover of that woman who, of all others, he would have been the last to choose for ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the cheerful blaze, invite Calm meditation, while the flickering light Casts strange, fantastic shadows on the wall, Where goodly tomes, with ample lading fraught Of gold of wit and gems of fancy rare, Poet and sage, mute witnesses of all, Smile gently on me, as, with sober care, I reach the pipe and thoughtfully prepare ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of the tower, there was light enough to see a huge chain dangling half way from the parapet. The deaf mute took from his saddle-wallet a sort of ladder, arranged in pieces like a puzzle, fitted it together, and lifted it up to meet the chain. Then he mounted to the top of the tower, and slung from it a chair, in which the woman and child placed ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... mute companions of my toils, that bear In all my griefs a more than equal share! Here, where no springs in murmurs break away, Or moss-crown'd fountains mitigate the day, In vain ye hope the green delights to know, 25 Which plains more blest, or verdant vales bestow: Here rocks alone, and tasteless ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... lifted to Heaven by the ethereal melody of Mendelssohn, is a musician, though he never composed a bar. The man who recognises and feels the grandeur of the organ music of 'Paradise Lost' has some fibre of a poet in him, though he be but 'a mute, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the tips of my fingers. Her eyes turned toward me, and again I was sure that no madness was in them. You, too, would have said that, awakened from the intermittent coma, the little thing, though mute and helpless, was none the less still the mistress ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... carried to excess, this effect is a potent expression of sentimental feeling. But it is much abused by solo players. Another modification of tone is caused by placing a tiny instrument called a sordino, or mute, upon the bridge. This clamps the bridge, makes it heavier, and checks the vibrations, so that the tone is muted or muffled, and at times ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel |
