"Numb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... We again entered the snowy woods, which were dimly lighted up by an aurora behind us—a strange, mysterious, ghastly illumination, like the phosphorescent glow of a putrefying world. We were desperately cold, our very blood freezing in our veins, and our limbs numb and torpid. To keep entirely awake was impossible. We talked incessantly, making random answers, as continual fleeting dreams crossed the current of our consciousness. A heavy thump on the back was pardoned by him who received it, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point. . . The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place; to let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unused part of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the old nature is becoming numb from want of use. ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... and he had recovered from his hunger, and only felt a sick tired ache at his heart. His feet were heavy and numb, and he was very sleepy. People passed him continually, and doors opened into churches and into noisy glaring saloons and crowded shops, but it did not seem possible to him that there could be any relief from any source for the ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... part down the flat along the Chilcoot River. In fact, we crossed this stream again and again. In places there were bridges, but most of the crossings were fords where it was necessary to wade through the icy water above our shoe tops. Our legs, numb and weary, threw off this chill with greater pain each time. As the night fell we could only see the footpath by the dim shine of its surface patted smooth by the moccasined feet of the Indian packers. At last I walked with a sort of mechanical action which was dependent on my subconscious ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the meadows are green with grass, the grass is bright with its fresh shoots. Little by little, like stars, the bright flowers spring up, and the sward is joyous and gay with flecks of colour, and the birds that through the winter cold have been numb and silent, with imprisoned song, are now ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... of Churchill. They never paused for rest. It was go, go, and keep on going. A crisp wind blew down the river, freezing their hands and making it imperative, from time to time, to beat the blood back into the numb fingers. As night came on, they were compelled to trust to luck. They fell repeatedly on the untraveled banks and tore their clothing to shreds in the underbrush they could not see. Both men were badly ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... succeeded in pushing the drawer back into its cavity, and was on his knees, groping, with numb ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... floor of the landing. "My feet are cold and numb from waiting for life to come out of life," he said heavily. "The woman struggled ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... room to the hot-water jets. The cruelest thing of all was that nearly all of them—all of those who used knives—were unable to wear gloves, and their arms would be white with frost and their hands would grow numb, and then of course there would be accidents. Also the air would be full of steam, from the hot water and the hot blood, so that you could not see five feet before you; and then, with men rushing about at the speed they kept up on the killing beds, and all with butcher knives, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... felt as if his windpipe had been crushed, and he seemed numb and helpless in every limb. He realized immediately that he was being roughly handled, and he heard a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... the screen—an immense, oval-shaped thing of dull metal, with great curving cuts of glass-like substance in its blunt bow, like staring eyes; a lifeless, staring thing, stretching far into the curtain of gloom behind. How long it was, Keith could not tell; at first his numb brain refused to grasp it and reduce it to definite, sane standards of size and length. The cold weeds of the sea-floor kelp beds swayed eerily over and around it. From its bow, he saw, peculiar knobs jutted, the function of which he guessed ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... mind finite, Puzzled and fagg'd by stress and strain To comprehend the whole delight, Made bliss more hard to bear than pain. All good, save heart to hold, so summ'd And grasp'd, the thought smote, like a knife, How laps'd mortality had numb'd The feelings to the feast of life; How passing good breathes sweetest breath; And love itself at highest reveals More black than bright, commending death By teaching how ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... were passing slowly through Juve's mind, he felt an intense desire to sleep come over him, his limbs suddenly became numb and heavy; and then ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... "Numb-head!" muttered the sheriff, pounding on the side of the cabin with his whip-stock. "Come out and show yourself! We know you're in there, and it's no ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... now, and no sound on the prairie but the triumphant howl of the wind and the dry crunch of our overshoes on the snow, slipping, stumbling. We were pushing ourselves on, but our feet were so numb it was almost impossible to walk. We had been doing it for hours, it seemed; we had always been fighting our way through the deep snow. The store we had left seemed as unreal as though we had never ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... his confident air failed him, his face flushed, his hands felt numb. She shone now like a far-off violet star. She had recovered her aloofness, her allurement in his mind, and it was difficult for him to realize that he had once known her intimately and that he had treated her inconsiderately. "I must have been mad," he exclaimed. It seemed months since ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... could see the white linen, the white muslin, surrounding the pale, wan wistful face, with the large, longing eyes, yearning for one more touch of the little soft warm child, whom she was too feeble to clasp in her arms, already growing numb in death. Many a time when Molly had been in this room since that sad day, had she seen in vivid fancy that same wan wistful face lying on the pillow, the outline of the form beneath the clothes; and the girl had not shrunk from such visions, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... no less surely to grapple with lurking death than the men who faced Mauser bullets, but with none of the incidents of glorious war, the flag, the hurrah, and all the things that fire a soldier's heart, to urge them on,—clinging, half naked, with numb fingers to the ladders as best they can while trying to put on their stiff and frozen garments,—is one of the sights that make one proud of being a man. To see them in action, dripping icicles from ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... I silent from the stirring hum, And shut away the music and the mirth, And reckon up what may be left of worth When hearts are cold and love's own body numb. ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... before echoed on the hard-beaten track, splashed now in the soft mud and threw the turbid drops over her dripping habit and into her storm-washed face. A quarter of a mile more, and the cold streams poured down her back and chilled her slight frame to the marrow. Her hands were numb and could scarce cling to the dripping reins. Tears came into her eyes despite herself. Still the wild cloud-burst hurled its swift torrents of icy rain upon them. She could scarcely see her horse's head, through the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... woman, came in with chicken broth. Vesta made a light for him to sup by, protesting when he would sit up to help himself, the spoon impalpable in his numb fingers, still swollen and purple from the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... it was the eve of execution. The soul feels that there is much to decide at such a time, but under the nettling merciless load the soul will either flounder pitifully and decide nothing, else lie numb and in a half death vaingloriously believe that it has decided everything. So may the condemned be open-eyed or blind. Or, according to the police reporter, be either coward or stoic. But it really depends in large measure on whether realization be ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... were working, and the idea that if he did that he could prove nothing and that the story he had to tell was completely incredible, restrained him. The captain came forward slowly. With his eyes now close to his, Powell, spell-bound, numb all over, managed to lift one finger to the deck above mumbling the explanatory ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... that he was not a sneak-thief in disguise? She had accepted the cynical conclusion that she might never be sure of any man's love and the tenderer little heart-nerves which govern impulse were growing numb. Under a naive freshness and girlish fragrance of personality, lay masked batteries of distrust and hardness. The Duke de Metuan fancied himself genuinely in love with her. Of that she was sure, but should the Duke de Metuan learn tomorrow morning ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... of the month was kept with burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. Vide Numb. x. 10. and xxviii. 11. In imitation of the Jews, the calends, or first days of the month, and the fourth and seventh of the week, were ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... near the spring. He struggled back to consciousness, to find his left leg numb and useless. When the ball struck him he felt only a sharp pinch. His fainting was caused by a shock to his weakened body, but not from fear or pain. With the return to his senses came a horrible, burning ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... down by this unforeseen obstacle the Marshal took the bold decision to force a passage, and ordered the 48th of line, commanded by Colonel Pelet, to attack with the bayonet. At Ney's command, the French soldiers, although tired, hungry and numb with cold, rushed the Russian batteries and captured them. They were regained by the enemy and captured once more by our men but in the end they had to yield to the superiority in numbers. The 48th, shattered by grape-shot, was largely destroyed. Of the six hundred and fifty men ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... hung it on the fender to dry, and stretched herself on tiptoe in front of the round eagle-crowned mirror, above the mantel vases of dyed immortelles, while she ran her fingers comb-wise through her hair. The gesture had acted on Darrow's numb feelings as the glow of the fire acted on his circulation; and when he had asked: "Aren't your feet wet, too?" and, after frank inspection of a stout-shod sole, she had answered cheerfully: "No—luckily I had on my new ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... rapidly becoming numb with approaching sleep, but he roused himself to face certain details of the country life which till now had escaped him. His earnest concentration on the main plank of his platform, the spiriting away of William Bannister, had caused him to overlook ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... all the infinitesimal differences there had been between them, from the beginning, the fine points in which he had failed—things of which he had no knowledge—all these were raked up and cast at him till, numb with pain, he lost even the wish to comfort her. Sitting down at the table, he laid his head on ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of imagination to picture such a plight. Each girl hugged to herself the conviction that with her at least would remain immortal youth; that happen what might to the rest of mankind, no length of years could numb her own splendid vitality ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was fighting an impulse to faint. She remembered, with terror, previous sensations, and fought off the vertigo, biting down into her lips. She wanted to smile, but her mouth felt numb, as if it dragged ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... days' interval; thirdly, on the seventh day, in memory of the mourning of the Israelites seven days for Joseph (Gen. i. 10); fourthly, on the thirtieth day, in memory of Moses and Aaron, whom the Israelites lamented this length of time (Numb. xx.; Deut. xxxiv.); and, finally, at the end of the year, or on the anniversary day itself (Gavant., Thesaur. Rit. 62). This custom also prevails with ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... Khilok station, where we stopped for a few minutes, I got out and ran up and down for exercise, but found the cold so great that I was glad to get on board again for fear of having my ears frost bitten, they having become perfectly numb. ...
— Through Siberia and Manchuria By Rail • Oliver George Ready
... wait. Either it's all nonsense ... or she is here. She is not going to play cat and mouse with me like this!' He waited, waited long ... so long that the hand on which he was resting his head went numb ... but not one of his previous sensations was repeated. Twice his eyes closed.... He opened them promptly ... at least he believed that he opened them. Gradually they turned towards the door and rested on it. The candle burned dim, and it was once more dark in the room ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... article of property, and the fact of your paying for it proves that it is property. The children of Israel were required to purchase their first-born out from under the obligations of the priesthood, Numb. xviii. 15, 16; Exod. xxxiv. 20. This custom is kept up to this day among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born were, or are, held as property? ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... an hour he lay there, gradually straightening out the tangle in his intellect, and presently he was aware that the back of his head was very sore and ached, so he put up his hand to rub it and found a lump as large as a walnut. His right shoulder was numb and he was unable to move it, although this would not have surprised him had he been aware that a hundred and eighty pounds of Teutonic masculinity had landed on that shoulder with both feet and dislocated it. As it was, the skipper wondered vaguely if the ship's ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... as he could, Carline had not engaged his thoughts with the subject of his runaway wife. Now, his mind clearing and his body numb, his soul took up the burden again, and he felt his helplessness thrice confounded. He did not mind anything now compared to the one fact that he had lost and deserved to lose the respect of the pretty girl who had become his wife. He took out the ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... gentleman, the noblest friend she had ever known. For she accounted him dead, and she thought with horror of his body lying in the slime under the cold waters of the moat beneath the window of her antechamber. A change seemed to have come upon her. Her soul was numb, her courage seemed dead, and little care had she in that hour of what ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... and such long vigils, her head reeled, and she staggered to her couch. A cold shudder crept over her limbs; all was dark as night about her; she tried to clasp her hands in prayer and could not, for they were numb and powerless. "This is welcome death!" thought she, and her lips parted with a happy smile. Her head fell backward on the pillow, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... fellow-craftsmen. His description of Charles Lamb as "a pitiful rickety, gasping, staggering, stammering tom-fool" is not an amiable one! Or take his account of Wordsworth- -how instead of a hand-shake, the poet intrusted him with "a handful of numb unresponsive fingers," and how his speech "for prolixity, thinness, endless dilution" excelled all the other speech that Carlyle had ever heard from mortals. He admitted that Wordsworth was "a genuine man, but intrinsically and extrinsically ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Rosemary calmly. "I am all right—just numb, that's all! Don't get into a fight. ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... and bayonets were propped against the wall. The gate itself had three means of egress; each of these was guarded by two men with fixed bayonets at their shoulders, but otherwise dressed like the others, in rags—with bare legs that looked blue and numb in the cold—the sans-culottes ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... "Numb my hands with palsy, Rack my feet with gout, Hunch my back and shoulder, Let my teeth fall out; Still, if Life be granted, I prefer the loss; Save my life, and give ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... may believe me if you like, but when a fellow's almost starving it isn't disagreeable to keep quiet. Yes, one gets numb amidst silence; it's like an inside coating that stills the gnawing of the stomach a bit. Ah, that Chaine! You haven't a notion of his peasant nature. When he had spent his last copper without earning the fortune he expected by painting, he went into trade, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... of Egypt. My lord, he laughed in my face, saying I should find that he was one ill to mock, as others had found before me. Then he pointed at me with his wand and muttered some spell over me, which seemed to numb my limbs and voice, holding me helpless till he had been gone a long while, and could not be found by your servants, whom I commanded in your name to seize, and keep him till ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... to mix the unpleasant dose, which Lorraine swallowed and straightway forgot, in the muddle of thoughts that whirled confusingly in her brain. Little things distressed her oddly, while her father's desperate state left her numb. She lay down on the cot in the farther corner of the kitchen where her father had slept just last night—it seemed so long ago!—and almost immediately, as her senses recorded it, bright sunlight was ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... father to feed, some of them go to work in the mine or factory or store or mill near by. In doing this, they not only injure their tender growing bodies, but indirectly, they drag down the father's wage ... The home becomes a mere rendezvous for the nightly gathering of bodies numb with weariness and minds drunk with sleep." And if they survive the factory, they marry to perpetuate and multiply their ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... happen to us and to our love; or, if the thought comes to us, it is an event too far in the future to ruffle the calm surface of our heart. And yet, it must come; from it none can escape. Most can remember a night of waiting, too stricken for prayer, too numb of heart even for feeling, vaguely expecting the blow to strike us out of the dark. A strange sense of the unreality of things came over us, when the black wave submerged us and passed on. We went out into the sunshine, and it seemed to mock us. We entered again among ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... and time. A faint rustle under the dead leaves caught her quick ear and, stooping down, she uncovered a little snake, languid from the cold. Perhaps he had been on his way to winter quarters and the frost had caught him unaware. Anyway, he was numb and Sarah, murmuring affectionate nothings to him, slipped him into her pocket and then spent a valuable ten minutes poking about among the leaves in the hopes of discovering another, believing implicitly that snakes "always go in pairs." However, if the snake ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... us. It was a fine apartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty, and heavily raftered with huge balks of age-blackened oak. In the great old-fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs a log-fire crackled and snapped. Sir Henry and I held out our hands to it, for we were numb from our long drive. Then we gazed round us at the high, thin window of old stained glass, the oak panelling, the stags' heads, the coats-of-arms upon the walls, all dim and sombre in the subdued light ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... couldn't even think—and my body was numb as a dead man's all below the hips. There I stood like I was chained to the floor—you know how it is in a nightmare when something chases you and you can't run? That was ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... perhaps, is dark, the tattered canvas is thrashing with a noise like thunder, the ship burying her decks under angry black seas every few minutes. The men's hands are numb with the cold and the wet, and the hard, dangerous work aloft. There is no chance of going below when their job is done, to "turn in" between warm, dry blankets in a snug berth. Possibly even those who belong to the "watch ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... for his mother, once for his father, a big long one for Thursa," holding her head so long below the water that it felt numb, when she took it out. "I can't do one for each of the boys," she shivered, "I'll lump the boys, here's a ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... gives me proof and precedent Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, Stick in their numb'd and mortify'd bare arms Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... and a sharp pain shot through me. I looked into the sweet face of Jeanne d'Ys and kissed her, and with all my strength lifted her in my arms and flung her from me. Then bending, I tore the viper from my ankle and set my heel upon its head. I remember feeling weak and numb,—I remember falling to the ground. Through my slowly glazing eyes I saw Jeanne's white face bending close to mine, and when the light in my eyes went out I still felt her arms about my neck, and her soft ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... a long time, and there was no sign of the wolves coming near us. It was very cold, but our furs kept in our warmth. By and by I fell asleep—which was not dangerous so long as I kept warm, and I thought the cold must wake me before it began to numb me. And as 'I slept I dreamed; but my dream did not change the place; the forest, the tree I was in, all my surroundings were the same. I even dreamed that I came awake, and saw everything about me just as it was. I seemed ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... gorge Phoebe had wandered after reading her sweetheart's letter. There, to the secret ear of the great Mother, instinct had drawn her and her grief; and now the earliest shock was over; a dull, numb pain of mind followed the first sorrow; unwonted exercise had made her weary; and physical hunger, not to be stayed by mental suffering, forced her to turn homewards. Red-eyed and unhappy she passed beside the river, a very picture of a ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... and hugged our arms about each other's bodies for the whole time. We suffered from thirst. I had a craving for canned peaches. Twice a drizzle came on, wetting the pontoon. We turned on our stomachs and lapped up the moisture, but the paint came off, with salt, and nauseated us. Our limbs grew numb. From time to time the wreckage from torpedoed ships would pass. Two full biscuit-tins came close enough to swim for, but by then in our weakened state we knew that we would drown if we tried ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... as soon as it was dark, I crawled out, and worked my way to the foot of the ravine. At first I was so stiff and numb I could hardly move hand or foot, but as I crawled along, the blood began to warm up, and soon I was able to walk. I crept cautiously along the bluffs until I had cleared the ravine, and then, striking out on the open prairie, steered to the northward. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... to stop to think Gladys tossed her bundle of clothes out of the window and, closing her eyes, dropped from the sill. There was a wild moment of suspense as she sank downward through the gloom, and then she struck the water and it rolled over her head. It was icy cold and for a minute she felt numb. Then the waves parted over her head and she felt the wind blowing against her face. A great splash beside her terrified her for an instant, and then she remembered that it was Nyoda jumping in after her. In a moment a head came up nearby and Nyoda inquired ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... and lots of landmarks. And then suddenly they drive past some lodge gates, and there—in the middle of the road—stands a dreadful man smoking a cigar with a band round it. All the glory has gone from the drive, and the girl feels numb and sick and mad with fury. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... (I.), that the writer of the books in question not only speaks of Moses in the third person, but also bears witness to many details concerning him; for instance, "Moses talked with God;" "The Lord spoke with Moses face to face; " "Moses was the meekest of men" (Numb. xii:3); "Moses was wrath with the captains of the host; "Moses, the man of God, "Moses, the servant of the Lord, died;" "There was never a prophet in Israel like unto Moses," &c. (34) On the other hand, in Deuteronomy, where the law which Moses had expounded to the people ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal-peor." (Numb., xxv., 4, 5.) ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... and he was thrust inside, the guards holding themselves in readiness to frustrate any attempt at escape. But the prisoner was by this time far too stiff and numb after the constriction of the ropes to make any such attempt; it was as much as he could achieve to stagger to the apology for a bed, upon which he flung himself at full length. He was utterly exhausted, and his body had scarcely touched the straw before he was fast ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... him securely with a sennit cord about the neck and untied the cords that bit into his legs. So numb was Jerry from lack of circulation, and so weak from lack of water through part of a tropic day and all of a tropic night, that he stood up, tottered and fell, and, time and again, essaying to stand, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... pink-eyed, imperturbable. Inside I could hear the slow ticking of an eight-day clock. The woman was humming to herself as she worked. All these things, which my senses took quick note of and retained, seemed to me to belong to another world. I myself was under some sort of spell. My brain was numb with terror, the fire of life had left my veins, so that I sat there in the warm sunshine and shivered until my teeth chattered. Inside, the woman ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... She did not hear their preparations for departure, but saw the boat swinging out into the current, with the sunset making golden glory of the river and of Edith's hair. When the sound of the oars ceased, she rose, numb and cold, and came out into the open space. She steadied herself for a moment upon the rock ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... waiting in the living-room when he, still numb from the shock, went back downstairs. She came up to him and stood a moment, twisting the fingers of one hand within those of ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... if Don Jose's dagger plunged into my heart, not Carmen's. That sounds high-flown, but I mean it—a sudden, sick, cold sensation, as if everything was numb. Lady Ver turned round pettishly to Christopher. "What on earth is the ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... of old Time roll along as we climb, And our youth speeds away on the years; And with hearts that are numb with life's sorrows we come To ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... times no! Surely Fate could not deal a blow like that: Nature itself would rise in revolt: her hand, when it held that tiny scrap of paper last night, would have surely have been struck numb ere it committed a deed so appalling and ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... indices of the change that had taken place within her. From sheer numb incredulity, which was all she had felt as she'd walked away from Rodney's office door, and from the pain of an intolerable hurt, she had reacted to a fine glow of indignation. She had found herself suddenly feeling lighter, older, indescribably more confident. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... nerves. Strike the elbow end of the ulna against anything hard (commonly called "hitting the crazy bone") where the ulna nerve is exposed, and the little finger and the ring finger will tingle and become numb. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... her funeral was the fact that you were there—and you told me you intended to stay. Her sister—the same story. I soon shook that off, however—for I saw the way he turned to his work as a refuge from his grief for her. I had my chance and I took it. When his mind was dull and numb I began to slip in changes. And each change meant better work and less easy money. And soon I was making headway fast; for Joe had never cared for money for himself, but only for her—and she was dead. So he let our profits go down ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... once reappeared, but Eliphas experienced such a sudden exhaustion in all his limbs that he was obliged to sit down. He fell into a deep coma, and dreamed strange dreams. But of these, when he recovered, only a vague memory remained to him. His arm continued for several days to be numb and painful. The figure had not spoken, but it seemed to Eliphas Levi that the questions were answered in his own mind. For to each an inner voice replied with one ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... must be there, of course; why, of course it must! He had certainly not gone more than fifty or sixty feet, and they had said something about three hundred feet? Where could the rope be? It must have got caught somehow on his coat! Or perhaps his right leg was getting numb and he could not feel anything with it. But no! His leg was all right. He felt out with his left leg. It did not even touch the wall of the shaft. There seemed to be nothing there, nothing at all! Nothing there? Nothing in all the universe, but this bit of rope he was clutching, and himself, ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... the delicious weight of her limp body as she leaned against him. He had sat so still, in his fear of waking her, that his arm had been numb for an hour. Then, later on, when she did wake up, he had got her some cold water to bathe her face, and persuaded her to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of milk. After that she had felt much better, and even cheered up enough to laugh at the way he looked in the queer cap the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw, A holy calm descends like dew upon me, I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise, I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses; Thy song expands my numb'd imbonded spirit, thou freest, launchest me, Floating and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... stacks had been used up, and we had to haul from Kennedy's bottom, eight miles away. When we started, the air was still and frozen, with a deep, biting cold unusual to Dakota; the sort that searches you and steals all the heat you own. We were numb by the time we reached the stack, and glad enough to have warm work to do. We fell to it with a rush for that reason, and because a dull grey blink upon the western skyline seemed to promise a blizzard. We were tying down the last load, when I heard ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... not finish what he intended to say. Once free from the powerful current, the giant looked at his numb hands, and then, seeming to think that Eradicate was the cause of it all, he sprang at the colored man with a yell. But Eradicate did not stay to see what would happen. With a howl of terror, he raced out of the door, and, old and rheumatic as he ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... with us, upon the extreme leeward side, this feat was out of the question; it was, literary, like climbing a precipice to get to wind-ward in order to reach the shrouds: besides, the entire yard was now encased in ice, and our hands and feet were so numb that we dared not trust our lives to them. Nevertheless, by assisting each other, we contrived to throw ourselves prostrate along the yard, and embrace it with our arms and legs. In this position, the stun'-sail-booms greatly assisted in securing our ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... snow would entice the dwellers therein out of their hiding- places; it made the air milder, and made it possible, too, to earn a few kroner for sweeping away the snow. Then they disappeared again, falling into a kind of numb trance and supporting their life on incredibly little—on nothing at all. Only in the mornings were the streets peopled—when the men went out to seek work. But everywhere where there was work for one man hundreds applied and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... impertinent speeches," replied the numb- skull, putting on an air of severe dignity; nevertheless it was plain ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... out of the door, and back along the lane to the river where he had left Jimmy. "'A lump of flesh with na vital spark in it,'" he kept repeating. "I dinna but that is the secret. She is almost numb with misery. All these days when she's been without hope, and these awful nichts, when she's watched and feared alone, she has no wished to perpetuate him in children who might be like him, and so at their coming the 'vital spark' is na in them. ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to say whether it is really harmless to bodies or not, as far as its own nature is concerned. Rain-water, too, is useful to the eyes, but it makes the trachea and the lungs rough, just as oil does, although it soothes the skin; and the sea-torpedo placed on the extremities makes them numb, but is harmless when placed on the rest of the body. Wherefore we cannot say what each of these things is by nature. It is possible only to say how it appears each time. We 94 could cite more examples than these, but in order not to spend too long in laying out the plan of this book ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... continued on his way without noticing that his dog had taken charge of the sack. All through the afternoon of that day and through the long, cold night that followed, the faithful animal remained at his post. When the owner of the sack came next morning to get it, the dog, although numb with cold and famished with hunger, would not permit him to take the flour. Nor could the stout-hearted creature be persuaded either by threats or by coaxing, until his master was brought, when, at his first word of command, the dog ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... eliminate them, to do which would militate against the Creator's scheme of things. Civilisation on its evil side has frequently perverted woman's natural instinct, so that in numbers of cases the wonderful devotion of the animal to her young has become numb in her, or dead. If only all women would bravely face these facts of nature instincts in themselves and in men, they would approach marriage with much broader-minded views, and would have a much greater chance of happiness, because they would realise that ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... station. Harold got down on the farther side, which was free of snow, and looked into all the carriages. No one was there, till, in a first-class one, he beheld an old gentleman, well wrapped up indeed, but numb, stiff, and dazed with the sleep out of which ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'less it's something creepy more'n common, but after dark it scares me to pieces. I do' know but I shall be afeared to go home," and she laughed uneasily. "There! when I get through with this needle I believe I won't knit no more. The back o' my neck is all numb." ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... it into shape, for everything was so dull and dreamy and confused. All I can tell you more is, that I woke up once, feeling a little more sensible, and began to feel about me. Then I knew that my sword was by my side and my hand numb and throbbing, for the sword-knot was tight about my wrist. I managed to get that loosened, and after a good deal of difficulty sheathed my sword, after which I began to feel for my revolver, and got hold of the cord, which passed through my hand till I felt that it was broken—snapped off or cut. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... loved so well that we cannot bring ourselves to submit to part with them. They were both truly sorry for their aunt, in the common parlance of the world; but their sorrow was of that modified sort which does not numb the heart and make the surviving sufferer feel that there never can be a remedy. Nevertheless, it demanded sad countenances, few words, and those spoken hardly above a whisper; an absence of all amusement and almost ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... a man the greatest pain, and a severe injury produce no greater, so will the apprehensions of a trivial ordeal equal in effect those of a matter of life and death; there being a limit to possible sensation, beyond which nature leaves us happily numb. Sometimes, upon occasion, Tom smiled, but with a stiffness of countenance; when he laughed, it was in a short, jerky, mechanical manner. As for me, I was in different mood from that preceding my own first trial of arms: I was now overcast ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... you are in my power and you have no hope of escape. I am unexpectedly provided with more subjects for my experiments. You will...." His words became hazy and unintelligible, for the hapless reporter was drifting off into a numb oblivion. He had long since lost the power to move a muscle. Out of the corner of an eye, just before he lost consciousness altogether, he perceived Handlon lying upon the floor still puffing at the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... as fast as they could work the ejection levers and triggers of their guns. At first they did not notice the cold, but after a few shots the piercing frost began to numb their fingers, for they had taken off their big, heavy mittens, which made it impossible to work their guns, and had on only ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... felt for her dress, and deliberately put it on again, in the dark, though her hands were so numb with cold that she could scarcely hook the fastenings. Her teeth chattered as she threw her old ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... swimming the horses a few yards from shore. Immediately the foremost white man threw up his rifle and shot the paddler dead; and a second later one of his companions coming up, killed in like fashion the Indian in the bow of the canoe. The third Indian, stunned by the sudden onslaught, sat as if numb, never so much as lifting one of the rifles that lay at his feet, and in a minute he too was shot and fell over the side of the canoe, but grasped the gunwale with one hand, keeping himself afloat. Young Wetzel, in the bottom of the canoe, would have ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... time when, in default of being conventionally cold, every one becomes intensely cool. A general chill pervades the domestic virtues: hospitality is aguish, and charity becomes more than proverbially numb. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... am wounded, mortally I think. The fight rages round me. I have done my duty. This is my consolation. I hope to meet you all again. I left not the line until all had fallen and colors gone. I am getting weak. My arms are free but below my chest all is numb. The enemy trotting over me. The numbness up to my heart. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... comforter in ordinary, began to assuage the violence of my suffering, and to-numb my feeling of them. My health returned to me, though I still retained an air of grief, dejection, and languor, which taking off from the ruddiness of my country complexion, rendered it ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... was similar to the other games parlor where Alan had had the set-to with the robohuckster; it was dark-windowed and a shining blue robot stood outside, urging passersby to step inside and try their luck. Alan moistened his dry lips; he felt cold and numb inside. He won't be there, he thought; ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... were so cold they felt fairly numb as she unfastened her dress; she staggered when she slipped it over her head. She went to the closet to hang it up and recoiled. A strong smell of lovage came in her nostrils; a purple gown near the door swung ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... night! Numb, cold, and exhausted, Tara of Helium clung to the tree in growing desperation, for once she had dozed and almost fallen. Hope was low in her brave little heart. How much more could she endure? She asked herself the question and then, with ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... elasticity, and if this occurs in parts which are soft and flexible, the arteries become more or less tortuous by the force of the blood current twisting and bending them, owing to the irregularity of their hardening. The extremities readily become numb, or the part "goes to sleep," as it is termed. This occurs frequently at night. Sooner or later some edema of the feet and legs occurs in the latter part of the day. Sometimes abdominal colic attacks occur, caused by ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... Dick all but exhausted. He still held to the stick of lumber, but his hands were numb and without feeling, and his lower limbs were in ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... the next moment he was drawn back upon the stone, with no worse suffering than a fit of faintness, for his leg was numb with the cold. ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... her head. "My dear! My dear!" Then she looked up irresolutely with tears in her eyes. "I cannot see my duty as I thought. The convention is that my son should come first, but you are nearer to me than Gerald has been for long. I feel numb and dull; I cannot think. Perhaps to-morrow I ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... and she paused to pass a tender hand over the gaping wound. Then she went on to the gate, and there waited—waited first in calm belief, then in expectancy, and at last in a numb agony. ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... threatening command was fairly out of his mouth, the man called Dave made a kick at the detective's uplifted arm, so swift and accurate and forceful that Nick felt the bones of his wrist fairly crack under the blow, and the fingers of his hand gripping the weapon turned numb and tingling as if from ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... walked back and forth on the sanded floor. Some chickens were clucking outside the windows, scratching for bits of gravel in the grass. Later she half heard the voices of Robert and Tonie talking under the shed. She did not stir. Even her eyelids rested numb and heavily over her sleepy eyes. The voices went on—Tonie's slow, Acadian drawl, Robert's quick, soft, smooth French. She understood French imperfectly unless directly addressed, and the voices were only part of the other drowsy, muffled sounds ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... meadows and wide cornfields, with embattled lines rising thick and green; August, with reddened orchards and heavy-headed harvests of grain, October, with yellow leaves and swart shadows; December, palaced in snow, and idly whistling through his numb fingers;-all have their various charm; and in the rose-bowers of summer, and as we spread our hands before the torches of winter, we say joyfully, "Thou hast made all things beautiful in their time." We sit around the fireside, and the angel feared and dreaded ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... observance. The long-lipped, witch-burner would draw blood with his knuckles; but he drew the line at the sword. The state of public feeling upon duelling Roland very well knew; and as he thought of Aster, with her sunny hair and glorious, yearning eyes, and the exile that lay before him, a numb feeling of despair began to gather about his heart. He was able to persuade himself that she would look upon the unfortunate affair as necessary for the assertion of his honour; but how could he hope for any further happiness, a criminal in the law's eye, and an exile from ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... meant by the Book of Yashar? Rabbi Khyiah bar Abba on the authority of Rabbi Jokhanan says "It is the book of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they being called righteous (yesharim), and concerning whom it is written, Numb, xxiii, 10, 'Let me die the death ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... was securely locked and the boy turned disconsolate to his companions. It was the hour when, at home, their fathers would send them lovingly to bed, when their mothers would tuck them comfortably under the covers and kiss them good-night; and here they lay, clad in tatters, numb with cold, pinched with hunger; pictures of misery and woe. Heart-rending were the sighs, bitter the complaints, in which the poor lads ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... heard them. My mind, at first numb, was now going at lightning speed. Brought face to face for the first time with one of the greatest facts of a woman's life I was asking myself why I had not reckoned ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... his disposal for this purpose, but notwithstanding his skilled and careful treatment, one of my men died the following day, while the number of those who were seriously ill rose to fifteen. The symptoms of this fatal illness are: headache and a numb feeling in all the limbs, accompanied by an unusually high temperature very often rising to 104 and 106 degrees during the first 24 hours, with the blood running from the patient's nose and ears, which ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... the third stage of a $5,000,000 rocket to junk was evident to him only as a brilliant blue-white flash, a hammer-like shock through the antennae support that left his wrist and forearm numb. Then a violent wrench as a long cylinder, expelled from the split hull, caught the loop of his life line and dragged him in till he clashed hard against it, the suddenly increased tension or a sharp edge parting the line close to the anchored end. He clawed blindly for a hold, found ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... distribution to the poor. Yes, that is without doubt what has happened! I can see adoring yokels pulling their forelocks to him! He'll fit beautifully into that background!" Thus her tongue, running ripplingly on, while her heart, suddenly released from its numb depression, wired her blithe reassurance. "He's coming back,—coming back to me—coming ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... probably she grew calm, in spite of his attentions, for he was too upset himself to exercise much soothing sway over anybody else. At last, though, she fell into a fitful sleep, and he sat beside her, holding rigid the left hand that she clutched, letting it stiffen and grow cold and numb ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... special route leading towards it, and that it is sufficiently free and disengaged to turn with eager interest to any problem, however novel, with which it may be suddenly confronted. Use and want are not its masters, sluggish contentment cannot numb its activity. The customers' requirements, nay, their whims and fancies, are ever sure to receive close attention and prompt satisfaction. The contrast between this unflagging alertness and the drowsy apathy of the British manufacturer and tradesman is ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that had gone high went numb. She made a gesture, as to the same reason and with the same words she'd made before, of weariness with this thing, "Ah, my God, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... ever more moan and ever it giveth this answer: "My heart it is numb with the cold of the love that was born of the Summer— I come from the garden all white with the wrath and the sorrow of Winter; I have kissed the low, desolate tomb where my bride in her loveliness lieth And the voice of the ghost in my heart is ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... seemed to Adam, whose faculties were at their utmost intensity, like a terrible dream. As for poor Mimi, she was so overwrought both with present and future fear, and with horror at the danger she had escaped, that her faculties were numb. However, she was braced up for a trial, and she felt assured that whatever might come she would be able to go through with it. Sir Nathaniel seemed just as usual—suave, dignified, and ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... the festival days and to comply with the formularies of the Dutch church. He appears to have been a very conscientious and pious man. Among the Wodrow MSS in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates Edinburgh (Vol. ix., Numb. 28) there is a copy of "A Resolution of the States of Zeeland anent the suspension of Thomas Pots and Bernardus Van Deinse, ministers of Vlissing, because of their suffering or causing Jacobus Coelman to preach, together with ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of the Bible (Numb. xxii. 5), is situated near the confluence of the Sajur and the Euphrates, somewhere near the encampment called Osheriyeh by Sachau. Mutkinu was on the other bank, perhaps at Kharbet-Beddai, nearly ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... suffered terribly. And I gave him morphia under the doctor's directions. And then, when he was gone—not at first, but after a little bit—I took morphia myself, to numb my own anguish and to get a little sleep. I thought I should go mad if I could not get any sleep. I had better have gone mad. But I took morphia instead, and sealed my own doom. But how can you tell whether I am speaking the truth? Well, it doesn't matter if you don't believe me. I am accustomed ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... economic theology by shallow but earnest manuals of popular radicalism. She got books from a branch public library, or picked them up at second-hand stalls. At first she was determined to be "serious" in her reading, but more and more she took light fiction as a drug to numb her nerves—and forgot the tales as soon as she had ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... and Miss Anne, who knelt by him, was silent, except that one sob burst from her lips. The master stirred no more, but lay still, with his numb and paralyzed hand in Stephen's clasp; but in a few minutes he uttered these words, in a tone of mingled entreaty and assertion, 'God be merciful to ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... longer!" suddenly said George, in a faint voice. His hands were numb; he felt as if he had not one particle of strength left in his emaciated body. His mind began to wander. He forgot that he was in the Gulf of Mexico; he thought he was holding on to a horse. By and by the horse began to move. Could he keep his ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... she lay staring at the dark—Martha's prediction, based on Stephen's, belief, that Felix would kill Dalton at sight, rose up in her mind, and with it came another great fear—one that, for a moment, stopped her heart from beating and left her numb. In the quick succession of blows that Martha had dealt, she had not fully grasped this part of the story. Now she did. That her husband was capable of it she fully believed. Quiet, reticent men like Felix—men who had served their country both in India and Egypt—men who never ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of my heart o' hearts, Thou art my soul's repose, But my heart grows numb And my soul is dumb Where art thou, love, who ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... nightfall, when the shadows begin to grow long. Where these fall across the grasses there grow triangles of silence which travel fast. Oftentimes as the point of one of these progresses you may locate a chirper by the sudden ceasing of his chirp and find him in the tip of shadow, already numb. The black crickets keep up their tune longest, singing from beneath sheltering stones and bark or fallen leaves. With the direct sun vanish also other summer pasture people who have made the warmth of the day ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... "My God, are they nothing? Do you think that they are given to us for nothing but a trap? You cannot teach such a doctrine with your library there. And how about all the cultivated men and women away from whose quickening society the brightest of us grow numb? You have held out. But will it be for long? Are you never to save any souls of your own kind? Are not twenty years of mesclados enough? No, no!" finished young Gaston, hot with his unforeseen eloquence; "I should ride down some ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... are mentioned in the law of Moses, Numb. xxxv. 19. In the Roman law also, under the head of "those who on account of unworthiness are deprived of their inheritance," it is pronounced, that "such heirs as are proved to have neglected revenging the testator's death, shall ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... great clumping noise, surmounting one step at a time in the manner of a child. It was Mr. Marple, the cab-driver, and his way of going up to bed was very simply explained by the fact that a daily sixteen hours of sitting on the box left his legs in a numb and ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... not adventure upon the thing thee speaks of; for, first, I saw by the stick on thee breast, thee was tied so tight and fast, it would be an hour's work to cut thee loose—thee captivators lying by all the while; and, secondly, I knew, by the same reason, thee limbs would be so numb thee could neither stand upon thee legs, nor hold a weapon in thee hand, for just as long a time; and, besides, I feared, in case thee should discover there was help nigh at hand, thee might cry out in thee ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the imagination to conceive, is of no use to himself. His life is but a succession of pangs. He is of no use to his wife, his children, his friends or society. Day after day he is rendered unconscious by drugs that numb the nerves and put the brain to sleep. Has he the right to render himself unconscious? Is it proper for him ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... events, the chill of the bitter dawn awoke me there; and with a yawn I stretched out both arms. My right hand encountered—what?— the body of a man stretched beside me! Still dazed and numb, I rolled over to my elbow, raised myself a little ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had their rustic on dit capped with the tale of how the hemlock was used in Athens 2,400 years ago. Did the "woman" of Somersetshire stave off the effects of the poison by walking about? Did her limbs grow cold and numb and dead while the brain still worked? But such questions are destined to remain for ever unanswered. Country people do not like to be cross-questioned upon stray remarks of this character, and if you attempt to fathom mysteries will ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... to sit down knowing so well what I had to say; now I strive to invent, and never come at anything. Suppose you pick up a needle with warm, supple fingers; try to do it when your hand is stiff and numb with cold; there's the difference between my manner of work in those days and what it ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... in a tent in Otago (New Zealand) during a severe winter, we were perfectly numb with cold at nights, until we adopted the Maori plan, which is to dig a hole about a foot square in the clear, to cover the bottom with a stone or stones, and to fill it at night with red-hot cinders from the camp fire, and lastly, to close the tent excepting a small ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... nose! No weather can reach such cattle: it may be a storm of snow twenty feet deep, or an even-down pour of rain, washing the very cats off the house tops; when a weaver is shivering at his loom, with not a drop of blood at his finger nails, and a tailor like myself, so numb with cauld, that instead of driving the needle through the claith, he brogs it through his ain thumb—then, fient a hair care they; but, standing beside a ranting, roaring, parrot-coal fire, in a white ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... while Thorstan and his host were making the coffin. She put candles at her head and feet in the Christian fashion, with a cross of wood between her hands. Then she knelt by the bed to watch the corpse. It was piercingly cold, and she grew numb with it, and then drowsy. It is likely that she dropped off to sleep as she lay, for she came to herself with a start and saw the corpse sitting up, staring with open and glassy eyes. Her heart stood still, she neither felt nor thought. ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... hardly slept, and now, though her body was numb with weariness, her mind kept up a feverish activity. She was bent on excusing Godwin, and the only way in which she could do so was by arraigning the world for its huge dishonesty. In a condition between slumber and waking, she seemed to plead for him before a circle of Pharisaic ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... numb with cold and weak from an illness of some duration, did not raise an arm to ward off the blow, nor was he even prepared to dodge. The iron rod crashed down upon his head. His legs crumpled up; he dropped in a heap at the top of the steps and rolled heavily to the bottom, ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... of half-frozen rain into our faces with blinding, stinging force. Drenched to the skin by eight or nine hours' exposure to the storm, tired and weak from long climbing, with boots full of icy water, and hands numb and stiff from cold, we stopped for a moment to rest our horses and decide upon our course. Brandy was dealt out freely to all our men in the cover of a tin pail, but its stimulating influence was so counteracted by cold that it was ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... "The night is cold and drear, And I'm freezing!—Oh, I'm freezing! In the storm and darkness here;— My naked feet are stiff'ning, And my little hands are numb,— Papa, can I not come to thee, And warm myself ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... IMPORTANT.—Peculiar, numb, dead, aching, or tingling sensations in the hands, arms, legs or feet, and headache and specks before the eyes on stooping or reading; also sleeplessness, too sound sleep, and apprehensive dreams should be watched for, and the moment they appear danger from Paralysis ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... of hardwood, and my feet were soon numb with cold. Then, too, bravery is a relative term when all is said and done. A coward may be always a coward, but it is not an inevitable corollary that a brave man is always brave. To know a possible antagonist, to walk boldly up to him in the broad light of day, is one thing; to stand in a ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... the mediocre performance. When the curtain went down he felt that he now had a subject to inspire his Muse forever. He quitted the theatre in a state of intense excitement, and rode homeward in a state of numb ecstasy. Notwithstanding his sentimental mood, Pen was so normal in mind and body that he slept as soundly as ever, but when he awoke he felt himself to be many years older than yesterday. He dressed himself in some of his finest clothes, and came down to breakfast, ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... touched by the new treatment? I seem alternately to be numb and perfectly indifferent to how the war is going, and then madly interested. But I am too sensitive to leave my flat for any meals—I drive whenever one of the "fluffies" (this is what Maurice calls the widow, the divorcee and other rejoicers of men's war hearts) can take me in ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... alone with her dying husband. She tenderly supported his head on her bosom, leaned her face against his and kissed the cold, numb lips. She murmured into his already deaf ear the old tender names. He knew her, for he made a feeble effort to pass his arm round her neck. A smile illumined his face. Then death claimed him. With wild, distended eyes and with hands pressed ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... they rested comfortably in the fulfillment of their bargain, Hinaikamalama grew numb with cold, for Poliahu had spread her cold ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous |
