"Senseless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dervishes at Firket watched in senseless apathy the deliberate, machine-like preparations for their destruction. They should have had good information, for although the Egyptian cavalry patrolled ceaselessly, and the outpost line was impassable to scouts, their spies, as camel-drivers, water-carriers, and the like, were in the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... appear'd, and all the gossip rout. O senseless Lycius! Madman! wherefore flout The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister'd hours, And show to common eyes these secret bowers? The herd approach'd; each guest, with busy brain, Arriving at the portal, gaz'd amain, And enter'd marveling: ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... when they had been wedded twelve years. Long ago had Griselda won the hearts of the people by her gentle manners, her sweet, sad face, her patient ways. If Walter's heart had not been made of senseless stone, he would now have been content. But in his scheming brain he had conceived one final test, one trial more, from which, if Griselda's patience came out unmoved, it would place her as the pearl ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... Nightgall suddenly approached, and snatched it from him, and, without taking any notice of the little man's threats, made his way to Cicely. When he displayed the ring as the token that her lover had been set free, Cicely, shrieking "Lost! Lost!" fell senseless ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... remarked on the subject of repetition of images or ideas, that a vast proportion of senseless superstitions, traditions or customs, which no one can explain, originate in this way, and that in fact what we call habit (which ranks as second nature) is only another form or result of involuntary attention and the unconsciously ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... good sense and judgment, or perhaps it may have been that some incompetent officers gave senseless orders,—for instance, the people occupying the stores on Polk Street, between Clay and Pacific, and the apartments above, were driven out at 8 A. M. of Thursday, and not permitted to re-enter. As the fire did not reach this locality until about 4 ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson
... "Ay, ay, and senseless it was not to attend. Then it seems that something might have been done, at any rate he would not have gone on injuring them with his work at Eton, but now it is as good as a lost ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... my mule by the bridle, and in a moment I was completely surrounded. Before I could do anything at all, they had seized my revolvers from the holsters, and I received a blow on the head from a tomahawk which nearly rendered me senseless. My gun, which was lying across the saddle, was snatched from its place, and finally the Indian who had hold of the bridle started off toward the Arkansas River, leading the mule, which was being lashed by the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... many a foolish outbreak of unsatisfied desire. The less they came together, the more deeply they longed to do so. A disordered fancy sought to attain that end by means grotesque, unnatural, utterly senseless. So by way of establishing a means of secret correspondence between the two, the Witch had the letters of the alphabet pricked on both their arms. If one of them wanted to send a thought to the other, he brightened and brought out by sucking the blood-red letters ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... (hypocritically) Mummy dear, I was wounded at the first, while attacking that horrid Pig, who wanted to eat you.... And then the Oak gave me a great blow which struck me senseless.... ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... foolish vanity I ought to punish you severely, so that you would stop forever your senseless writings, saving me the trouble of coming to reprimand you at ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... thou, cruel Bishop Bonner, A savage wit, or senseless noddy, When to extinguish Ridley's faith, Thou mad'st a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... that all the true things had been said, and one could do no better than hunt them up again for new uses. Our business was, like Old Mortality, to clear out and cut afresh inscriptions that had been made illegible by time and storm. At least this delivered him from the senseless vanity of originality and personal appropriation. We feel sure that if he found that a thought which he had believed to be new had been expressed in literature before, he would have been pleased and not mortified. No reflection of his own could give him half ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... for conviction and two against, in the case of Wilde; the statement was widely accepted because it added that the voting was more favourable to Taylor than to Wilde, which was so unexpected and so senseless that it carried with it a ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... had doubtless had their attention too much taken up by the blacks, to give heed to him. The whiffs of air had slowly swept the schooner out of sight and he had lain senseless ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... a tone of remonstrance, "don't persist in this wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you benumbing and cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life when you were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,—all wit and bright imagination. And it flashes out ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... easily, but instead of doing so, he suddenly shortened his grasp of his own club, rushed in under the blow, struck his adversary right between the eyes with all his force, and fell to the earth, crushed beneath the senseless body of the chief. A dozen clubs flew high in air, ready to descend on the head of Jack; but they hesitated a moment, for the massive body of the chief completely covered him. That moment saved his life. Ere the savages could tear the chief's body away, seven of their number fell prostrate ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... my money chest, some thousands of pesos. I sought the priest. He laughed at me, and—Caramba! I struck him such a blow between his pig eyes that he lay senseless ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... nightmare like this? I felt myself reeling to and fro. Then a pleasant thrill, like that, perhaps, which drowning men feel, ran through my frame. All became dark,—and the strong man dropped, like a felled ox, senseless on the stage. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... who would buy those tawdry oil-paintings, those Flemish boors, those crimson and azure landscapes, which, whilst pretending to a higher grade of art, served but to prove its deep degradation? Not one redeeming touch could be traced in the senseless caricatures, to whose authors' clumsy hands the mason's trowel would assuredly have been better adapted than the painter's pencil. It was the very dotage of incapacity. The colouring, the treatment, the coarse obtrusive mechanical touch, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... emotion and keep down reality, so long schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the bridges. Hastening her steps, but not watching them, she tripped over the straggling root of a yew, and fell, her temple striking a sharp boulder, one of many cropping up in the forest. Poor girl! in one moment passion and pride had flown; she lay senseless, ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... knowing that the universal competition in the armaments of States must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a general bankruptcy, or to both the one and the other. They cannot but know that besides the senseless, purposeless expenditure of milliards of roubles, i.e. of human labor, on the preparations for war, during the wars themselves millions of the most energetic and vigorous men perish in that period of their life which is best for productive labor (during the ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... the work was bloody and dangerous; and in the midst of the excitement, one of the fishermen struck his killing-spike into the head of a boy. Everybody knew that it was a pure accident; but accidents involving danger to life are rudely dealt with, and this blunderer was instantly knocked senseless by the men nearest him,—then dragged out of the surf and flung down on the sand to recover himself as best he might. No word was said about the matter; and the killing went on as before. Young fishermen, I am told, are roughly handled by their fellows on board a ship, in the case of any ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... moral nature of the Warrior, whether his warfare be on land or on sea or in the air, is as true to-day as when Wordsworth paid it. The brutal and senseless cry for "reprisals" which of late has risen from some tainted spots of the Body Politic will wake no response unless it be an exclamation of disgust from soldiers and sailors and airmen. Of course, everyone ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... in her face as she turned away, and she was conscious that he had seen and misconstrued the senseless blush. It was her misfortune to go red or pale without cause and to show an ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the falling away of youth, nor greatly mind to note what shriveled hands now moved before us, performing common tasks; and we were content enough. But of the high passion that had wedded us there was no trace, and of little senseless human bickerings there were a great many. For one thing"—and the old lady's voice was changed—"for one thing, he was foolishly particular about what he would eat and what he would not eat, and that upset my ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... turned again to fly, but in his attempt he had delayed one instant too long. Myles reached him with a long-arm stroke of his cudgel just as he entered the passage-way, knocking him over like a bottle, stunned and senseless. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... either went downstairs after you had retired, and opened the window in the reception room to admit the person who afterwards attacked you in the library, or"—Ferguson paused significantly, "some member of this household knocked you senseless in ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... nor senseless, but it was wrong. To some minds it may not seem to follow that it was well to resist it by war, and indeed at the time, as often happens, people took up arms with greater searchings of heart upon the right side ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... great fever." She was tossing from side to side in vain attempts to ease a nameless misery. Her head ached, and forms dreary, even in their terror, kept rising before her in miserable and aimless dreams; senseless words went on repeating themselves ill her very brain was sick of them; she was destitute, afflicted, tormented; now the centre for the convergence of innumerable atoms, now driven along in an uproar of hideous globes; faces grinned and mocked at ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... added, stooping over the senseless Hunchie. "What a deal of trouble some folks seem bound to have. And not ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... so violent as to give me the utmost alarm. I screamed with terror, called for help, and naming our inn, entreated some one to bear him to it, then (while the people were assembled, and busy round a man that had fallen senseless in the street) he was abandoned by the only friend on whom he could have any reasonable dependence; I seized the instant when no one heeded me, turned the corner of the street and disappeared. Thanks to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... nature to hate. "Robespierre of the party!" muttered Saint Just. "Barere is the only man whom Robespierre has forgiven." We have an account of this singular repast from one of the guests. Robespierre condemned the senseless brutality with which Hebert had conducted the proceedings against the Austrian woman, and, in talking on that subject, became so much excited that he broke his plate in the violence of his gesticulation. Barere exclaimed that the guillotine ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... battle, and not infrequently a man's leg is broken or he is knocked senseless by a rock, whereupon he loses his head to the enemy, unless ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... of days of ennui and an equal number of sleepless nights, his brain foggy with innumerable drinks, his eyes dizzy with the pips of playing cards, and his ears still echoing with senseless hilarity, the guest rises while it is not yet dawn, and, fortified by a lukewarm cup of faint coffee boiled by the kitchen maid and a slice of leatherlike toast left over from Sunday's breakfast, presses ten dollars on the butler and five on the ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... my lord is not my son. It was he who cast me away from him. It was he who broke our happiness down, and he bids me to repair it. It was he who showed himself to me at last, as he was, not as I had thought him. It is he who comes before my children stupid and senseless with wine—who leaves our company for that of frequenters of taverns and bagnios—who goes from his home to the city yonder and his friends there, and when he is tired of them returns hither, and expects that I shall kneel ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... manoeuvre both had certainly been spitted. As it was, he did no more than strike my shoulder, while my scissor plunged below the girdle into a mortal part; and that great bulk of a man, falling from his whole height, knocked me immediately senseless. ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and breaking heart, With sable garb and silent tread, We bear their senseless dust to rest, And say that they ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... counter to the customs and prejudices of the Egyptians. They consequently regarded his memory with a vindictive hatred. The people related that the gods had struck him with madness to avenge the murder of the Apis, and they attributed to him numberless traits of senseless cruelty, in which we can scarcely distinguish truth from fiction. It was said that, having entered the temple of Phtah, he had ridiculed the grotesque figure under which the god was represented, and had commanded the statues to be burnt. On another occasion he had ordered the ancient ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... isolated facts into that noble science which displays to our admiration the system of the universe. And shall this high power of the mind, which has effected such wonders when directed to the laws which control the material world, be forever prohibited, under a senseless cry of metaphysics, from being applied to the high purposes of political science and legislation? I hold them to be subject to laws as fixed as matter itself, and to be as fit a subject for the application of the highest ...
— Remarks of Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina on the bill to prevent the interference of certain federal officers in elections: delivered in the Senate of the United States February 22, 1839 • John C. Calhoun
... few yards, while the men scrambled to their feet, and whistled sharply for the one he had left in charge of the post-boy. Then he lighted a lantern, and they pushed at various points into the wood. The first discovery was that of Alexandre, lying senseless; they dragged him into the road and left him there to come to himself. Then they unearthed a wild boar, which rushed out furiously from the depths of the bracken and charged at the light, then bolted off across the moor. Smaller animals fled ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... spared the cathedral in their senseless bombardment of Rheims! From that first day, when their own wounded lay within its walls and were carried out of the burning building by the French, until the morning I was there, when a shell tore at the ground beneath the buttresses hitherto untouched, the Germans seem to have taken a special ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... to a debased style of architecture, overlaid with a tasteless, senseless profusion of fantastic ornamentation, without unity of design or purpose, which prevailed in France and elsewhere in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... is no good jest either," said his uncle, "for what, in the devil's name, could lead the senseless boy to meddle with the body of a cursed misbelieving Jewish ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... style is shown in what he says of Dr. Hallaran, his excellent predecessor in office at the Cork Asylum for more than thirty years, when he informs his reader that the "infuriated maniac and the almost senseless idiot expressed sorrow for his decease and deplored him as ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... single ship of modern construction or armament; and when the unfortunate marines and their heroic commanders had been immolated by the overwhelming superiority in numbers and efficiency of the Americans, the noisy injustice and anger of a senseless crowd at home were allowed to compass the lasting disgrace of casting the blame for the foreseen disasters on Admiral Montojo, who was thrown as a victim ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... awakened every where among the Danes, which nerved them with so much vigor and strength that they finally expelled him from the island; so that, when he arrived in Normandy, a fugitive and an exile, he came in the character of a dethroned tyrant, execrated for his senseless and atrocious cruelties, and not in that of an unhappy prince driven from his home by the pressure of unavoidable calamity. Nevertheless, Richard, the Duke of Normandy, received him, as we have already said, with kindness. He felt the obligation ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... were working towards this end, Sophy was helpless and senseless in the Glasgow hospital. Archie's anger was grounded on the fact that she must know of his return, and yet she had neither come back to her home nor sent him a line of communication. He told himself that if she had written him one line, he would have gone to the end of the earth after ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... the present position we find that during the past year there has been some subsidence of the acute stage of the malady, or rather it has taken a different turn. The bulk of the reasonable inhabitants have become wearied of the senseless agitation which brings annoyance and suffering without doing them good. There is less active boycott and the ordinary citizen has become less amenable to the leaders of the agitation. But in spite of this, two circumstances stand out—first, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... and do not care to know, who was responsible for this military movement, which seems to us now as senseless as it was cruel and disastrous. But it is thus that poor humanity has ever gone blundering on, displaying but little wisdom in its affairs. Here Crockett had permission to visit his home, though he still owed the country a month of service. In ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... Sakuntala falls senseless on the ground. After a while, she revives, the priest then comes forward and asks the king to allow her to stay in his palace till her delivery. The king consents, and when Sakuntala is following the priest, Menaka with ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... they had by the old constitution, were treated, or were exposed to be treated, as criminals. They have been treated so: several have been butchered; and the National Assembly dare not avenge them, as they should lose the favour of the intoxicated populace. That conduct was senseless, or worse. With no less folly did they seek to expect that a vast body of men, more enlightened, at least, than the gross multitude, would sit down in patience under persecution and deprivation of all they valued; I mean the nobility and clergy, who might be stunned, but Were sure of reviving ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... to the conclusion that they had climbed up some high trees, which surrounded the place where they fell, in order to shoot the game as they came out, and that before they had time to make their escape, a breeze came, which brought the smoke, and which most likely stifled, or at least rendered them senseless. Let us hope that this was the case, as I should think that so their death would not have been very painful: the position in which their bodies were lying when found seems to warrant this supposition. ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... he could think of reasons in plenty, turned just then to balance on the corner and swing, and to do many other senseless things at the behest of the man on the platform, so that when they stood together again for a brief space, both were breathless and she was anxiously feeling her hair and taking out side combs and putting them back again, and Billy ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... like heroes, and even in her pain and peril, Helen admired the skill, energy, and courage of the young men, who, an hour ago, had seemed to have no ideas above pipes and beer. Soon Hoffman was free, the poor senseless youth lifted out, and then, as tenderly as if she were a child, they raised and set her down, faint but unhurt, in a wide meadow, already strewn with sad tokens ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... moments, as they supposed, to relieve their consciences in any way from the burdens of guilt which oppressed them. The queen herself did not participate in these fears. She ridiculed the absurd confessions, and rebuked the senseless panic to which the terrified penitents were yielding; and whenever any mitigation of the violence of the gale made it possible to do any thing to divert the minds of her company, she tried to make amusement out of the odd ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... laid the senseless burden down in safety, and turned toward the stallion. One haunting fear was in his mind. Had Diablo been sufficiently blinded in the excitement of the battle to fail to recognize him, or had the great ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... so. Hardly, though—a mirror hung directly before the piano, and I now saw that while he continued to play, he was quietly looking at me, and that his keen eyes—that hawk's glance which I knew so well—must have recognized me. That decided me. I would not turn back. It would be a silly, senseless proceeding, and would look much more invidious than my remaining. I walked up to the piano, and he ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... filial attentions to him, that I can never cease to thank him for; but this illness made my situation more and more critical, and it accelerated the fulfillment of the contract. I was to renew my promise to him by the death-bed of my father. Alas, alas! I fell senseless to the ground when this announcement was made to me. Jules began to suspect. Already my cold, embarrassed manner toward him since his return had struck him as strange. He began to suspect, I repeat, and the effect that this ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... looking at me with irresolution, I stretched my hands towards her, absolutely senseless, and not knowing what I did. And she hesitated for yet a little while; and then, with a sigh, she put her two hands into my own. And with a shudder of joy, I pulled her to me, and caught her once more in my arms, and began to kiss her, with hot tears that ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... that you are so blinded by this senseless prejudice against the King. But leave him for the moment out of the question. You love your country. For centuries the name of your family has been a great one in the history of Theos. Yet to-day both you and your brother are making a terrible ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller go by, followed by Captain Cuttle with his hook, the finest gentleman of them all; by the Major and Mrs. Bagnet, by whom discipline is maintained in the group; by Micawber, with his large outlines and flowing periods; and by Mrs. Micawber and her relations, senseless imbeciles or unmitigated scoundrels all, as her husband testifies; by Mrs. Gamp, by Barkis, and even the young man by the name of Guppy. A smile spreads over the face of the whole reading world at the bare mention of their names. How the smiles deepen into tears as we think over the other friends ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... sexton. Halbert stood aghast. The idea rushed on his mind irresistibly, that the earth-heap before him enclosed what had lately been a living, moving, and sentient fellow-creature, whom, on little provocation, his fell act had reduced to a clod of the valley, as senseless and as cold as the turf under which he rested. The hand that scooped the grave had completed its word; and whose hand could it be save that of the mysterious being of doubtful quality, whom his rashness had invoked, and whom he had suffered to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... fields. Ah! I had a future," he said, suddenly interrupting himself; "and now, twelve men, a sub-lieutenant shouting 'Carry-arms, aim, fire!' a roll of drums, and infamy! that's my future now. Oh! there must be a God, or it would all be too senseless." ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... This phrase, in its senseless arrogance, quite cured me of the temporary weakness which had made me relax my tone and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... boiled over the ledge the chair and its senseless burden jerked away. Percy grasped the lashings and was towed along behind his father. Dread overcame him as he felt the limpness of ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... scientific knowledge, we should have been able to produce it very easily and quickly, and have had abundant leisure and sound nerves and bodies wherewith to enjoy nature, art, and the domestic affections. The tragedy of man, sir, is his senseless and insatiate curiosity and greed, together with his incurable habit of neglecting the present for the sake of a future which will ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... you do here—a stupid, senseless existence. The only difference is in the language they speak. But that makes it still worse. The justification for cattle is that, they are without speech. But when the cattle become articulate, begin ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... and steady to his trust, Inflexible to ill, and obstinately just, May the rude rabble's insolence despise, Their senseless clamours, and tumultuous cries; The tyrant's fierceness he beguiles, And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies, And with superior ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Neale O'Neil and Joe. Wilbur ran away in terror and did much to spread the senseless alarm throughout the neighborhood that half the school children in town were buried beneath the ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must be carried to bed; Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 A.M., and (as Archie stood with the lamp on the upper doorstep) lurched, uttered a senseless view- holloa, and vanished out of the small circle of illumination like a wraith. Yet a minute or two longer the clatter of his break-neck flight was audible, then it was cut off by the intervening steepness of the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... All I mean by this senseless interrupted tale, is, that by my central situation I am a little over-companied. Not that I have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious to drive away the harpy solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a cheerful glass; but I mean ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... the matter rests now between two groups of Allies and one neutral power. So that while on the one hand the development of modern warfare of which the Tank is the present symbol opens a prospect of limitless senseless destruction, it opens on the other hand a prospect of organised world control. This Tank development must ultimately bring the need of a real permanent settlement within the compass of the meanest of diplomatic intelligences. A peace that will restore competitive armaments has now become ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... disease was completely developed, the attack commenced with epileptic convulsions. Those affected fell to the ground senseless, panting and laboring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and suddenly springing up began their dance amid strange contortions. Yet the malady doubtless made its appearance very variously, and was modified ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... been of late Either our blindness or our fate, To lose the providence of thy cares Pity a miserable church's tears, That begs the powerful blessing of thy prayers. Some angel, say, what were the nation's crimes, That sent these wild reformers to our times: Say what their senseless malice meant, To tear religion's lovely face: Strip her of every ornament and grace; In striving to wash off th'imaginary paint? Religion now does on her death-bed lie, Heart-sick of a high fever and consuming atrophy; How the physicians swarm to show their mortal skill, And by their college ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... about to push off from the shore, Pikker darted a bolt from the clouds. His chariot thundered over the iron bridges of the sky, scattering flames around it, and the sorcerer was struck down senseless. Linda fled; but the gods spared her further sorrow and outrage by transforming her into a ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... enviable feelings putting the question to him, who, with his imagination rapt on the thoughts of other days, hastens to the classic shore:—"What is the use of running out in the sun; cannot you see those piles of stones from the deck?"—Senseless, unfeeling, sordid, and degraded! what can have induced you to approach this ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... cage there was none; no one oppressed her, no one restrained her, while she was torn, and fretted within. Sometimes she did not understand herself, was even frightened of herself. Everything that surrounded her seemed to her half-senseless, half-incomprehensible. 'How live without love? and there's no one to love!' she thought; and she felt terror again at these thoughts, these sensations. At eighteen, she nearly died of malignant fever; her whole constitution—naturally healthy and vigorous—was seriously ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... After all the others were done she picked up again the communication she had shown to Mrs. McVeigh—the report from the yacht master, and from the same envelope extracted a soft silken slip of paper with marks peculiar—apparently mere senseless scratches of a thoughtless pen, but it was over that paper and the reply most of the evening was spent. It was the most ancient method of secret writing known to history, yet, apparently, so meaningless that it might pass unnoticed even by the alert, or be turned aside as the ambitious ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... head of him who did this deed My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed: Without one spark of intellectual fire, Be all the sons as senseless as the sire: If one with wit the parent brood disgrace, Believe him bastard of a brighter race: Still with his hireling artists let him prate, And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate; 170 Long of their Patron's gusto let them tell, Whose noblest, native gusto is—to ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... itself through the air. The body belonged to Tucker. Teddy landed with great force on the head and shoulders of the enraged clown, flattening the latter down upon Phil with crushing weight, and nearly knocking Forrest senseless. ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... all success, according to his views. It seemed to me that he was confounding cause with effect; but I did not argue the point. I laughed until my sides ached over the grotesque suggestions which poured from him. I was to lie senseless in the roadway, and to be carried into him by a sympathising crowd, while the footman ran with a paragraph to the newspapers. But there was the likelihood that the crowd might carry me in to the rival practitioner opposite. In various disguises ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... himself Indian fashion along the back of his pony, and had all but got away when a bullet caught the horse and, without even faltering in its stride, it crashed to the ground dead, crushing Burnham beneath it and knocking him senseless. He continued unconscious for twenty-four hours, and when he came to, both friends and foes had departed. Bent upon carrying out his orders, although suffering the most acute agony, he crept back to the railroad and destroyed it. Knowing the explosion would soon bring the Boers, ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... ground by a stone. Managing to raise himself from the ground where he lay, he staggered in an opposite direction from the station. In front of the house of Senor Mazzini he was again wounded, falling then senseless and breathless. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... Mortimer, if you have no respect for your sister's feelings, it is time that I interposed. Here you allow this herd of I don't know what to call them, to incommode her with their senseless clamor. I protest, she is nearly fainting; she has been gasping for breath the last five minutes. Be off, ye fussy, curious, prying, peeping, pressing-round fellows; or, I promise you, you shall be visited with his ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... repetition, and thus he fell into bad grammar. 'Mr. Speaker, I do not feel so well satisfied as I should have done if the Right Honorable Gentleman had explained the matter more fully.' To feel satisfied is—when the satisfaction is to arise from conviction produced by fact or reasoning—a senseless expression; and to supply its place, when it is, as in this case, a neuter verb, by to do, is as senseless. Done what? Done the act of feeling! 'I do not feel so well satisfied as I should ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... where belong the legends illustrated by rite and picture, the sense of all the rich tapestry, where it has a united and poetic meaning, where it is broken by some accident of history. For all these things—a senseless mass of juggleries to the uninformed eye—are really growths of the human spirit struggling to develop its life, and full of instruction for those who learn to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... which had gathered in the hands of certain people, either through inheritance or swindling, enabled them to keep up a senseless expenditure. Like the American millionaires of to-day, who have their houses and properties in both hemispheres, these great Roman lords possessed them in every country in the Empire. Symmachus, who was Prefect of the City when Augustin ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... quiet, peaceable fellow, just stepped out of the crowd, and, running straight at the groom, as he stood there, sparring away, struck him with the sole of his foot, a straight blow, as if it had been with his fist, and knocked him heels over head and senseless, so that he had to be carried off from the field. This ugly way of hitting is the great trick of the French gavate, which is not commonly thought able to stand its ground against English pugilistic science. These are old recollections, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... Militarism itself is revealing a mission. Based as it is on the spirit of aggrandizement, it is teaching to youth the economic value of a human life. It is uncovering its own selfish motives and betraying its own senseless ends. It is impressing the world with the truth that battles are fought for purse string and not for principle. It is teaching to youth a new ideal; it is itself the answer to complaints of friends and calumnies of foes. ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... him against full meals, on Monday I pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, and Tuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again unsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless in strong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs. Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I felt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on thee. I had constantly ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... feeble reason, with fresh and vigorous emotions, but without elaborate language for these emotions. Swaying and shouting in rhythmic consent, they came slowly to the use of ordered words and, even then, could but have repeated the same phrases over and over. The burden—sometimes senseless to our modern understanding—to be found in the present form of many of our ballads may be the survival of a survival from those primitive iterations. The "Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw" of The ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... Brucheion, with its palaces and museum, the residence of the kings and philosophers of Egypt, had been destroyed is the days of Claudius and Valerian, during the senseless civil wars which devastated Alexandria for twelve years; and monks had probably taken up their abode in the ruins. It was in this quarter, at the beginning of the next century, that Hypatia was ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... will answer questions quickly asked, but will cry continually: "Hasten, hasten! for this my coming back is painful, and I have but a little time to stay!" And having answered, the ghost passes; and the priest falls senseless upon his face. ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... to my own satisfaction And that of all 'Squires I've the honor of meeting That 'tis the most senseless and foul-mouthed detraction To say that poor people are fond of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and disappear into Roth's house. A fearful presentiment seized her—she rushed toward the spot—she saw the two standing in the little garden, wringing their hands and weeping—she knew all—and she lay senseless at their feet. Her little boy Max had followed her in childish alarm. Nigh forty years have gone by since then; but he has never forgotten the sound of that terrible cry, when his mother, slowly recovering from her swoon, clasped him convulsively in her arms, and wetted his ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... his arms, carried him swiftly downward. He reached the place where Uncle Moses was standing, gasping for breath; and the other boys who had seen him hurried towards him, and tried to help him carry his senseless burden. Uncle Moses also tried to take Bob in his own arms, and prayed Frank, with tears in his eyes, to let him carry him; but Frank refused them all, and insisted on doing it himself. A few paces ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... sort, evidently studied from the same Bohemian models. In one, the mother looks down at her babe; in the other, directly at the spectator, with a singularly visionary expression. When weary with the senseless repetition of the set compositions of past ages, we turn with relief to a simple portrait mother like this, at once the most primitive and the most advanced form of Madonna art. It is only another case where the ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... mean to act the fool," answered the old man. "It's the senseless orgy of every year! And all for no end but to squander money, when there is so much misery and want. Yes, I understand it all, it's the same orgy, the revel to drown the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... and Kit were momentarily stunned by his strange action. It seemed like a senseless and futile effort to get away. There was no way Miles could get out of the control ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... dead: their rage was hushed into curiosity and wonder: the last feelings of reverence and compassion yet struggled in his favor; and they might have prevailed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a dagger in his breast. He fell senseless with the first stroke: the impotent revenge of his enemies inflicted a thousand wounds: and the senator's body was abandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to the flames. Posterity will compare the virtues and failings of this extraordinary man; but ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon |
