"Blankly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bonnair stood staring blankly after him, rubbing her cheek which burned hot where he had kissed her. She would always remember that kiss too, and all too late she remembered to become indignant. But, no one being about, she laughed low to ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... obliquely into Billy's room and making, with the aid of his shaving-glass, all sorts of fantastic colors on the wall, when a slight tug at the blankets which covered him moved him to start, turn over, open his eyes, stare blankly before him, shut them, open them again, rub them desperately, and finally gaze with awakened consciousness up at the object which had disturbed his slumbers. She was leaning half over the bed, her little fat arms, shoulders, and throat all bare, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... out of the courtyard, leaving Jean looking blankly at the mud that had been holly lately. Not his act of sacrilege was distressing her, but his news. Were these berries a love token? Had God let Rob Dow say they were a gypsy's love token, and ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... at Mr. Blithers and Mr. Blithers gazed blankly at the Prince of Graustark. Then the great financier bowed ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... followed by Gerald, and seated himself on the turf dyke with his chin resting on his hands. For a long time he gazed blankly in front of him, ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... understood necessity of the case that I must passively accept my brother's statements so far as regarded their verbal expression; and, if I would extricate my poor islanders from their troubles, it must be by some distinction or evasion lying within this expression, or not blankly contradicting it. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... said Kitty blankly. "The water's rushing round on both sides of us! If we don't get across that piece of sand in front directly, we shall ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... speak or move, and she stood staring at him blankly. Slowly her mouth opened as though to utter a cry that, however, could not rise above her fluttering throat. Her face had taken on the pallor of death, her great eyes showed the ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... massive and clean-cut in the moon-beams. And a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note, that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid, undisturbed floor of the room—smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall to wall; and there was ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... once contained type-writer paper. Going through its contents, he drew forth eleven poems which his friend had written. These he tore lengthwise and crosswise and dropped into the waste basket. He did it languidly, and, when he had finished, sat on the edge of the bed staring blankly before him. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... eyes, terrible with their command that the weakling should break and confess, were upon Dexter Sprague. But Sprague did not break. He stared back blankly.... ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... man here?" demanded Chuka blankly. "In his way he's all right. The refrigeration proves that! But he can't walk ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... blind bat," Gordon informed his victim in a rapid undertone; "my eyes are sharper than usual to-day." Above the stained bandage Simmons' gaze was blankly enraged. "That won't danger you none," Gordon continued, in louder, apparently unstudied tones; "but you can't kiss the girls for ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some new fantasy to be written upon it, as groundless as the rest; our solid land dissolves in cloud, and cloud assumes the stability of land. For, after all, the only really tangible thing we possess is man's Will; and let the presence and action ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... looking as if he had thrown down his pen in disgust, and pushed it away from him in the middle of a sentence—was on the table, and an open book in his other hand; but neither the book nor the manuscript occupied him; he was sitting leaning his head in his hands, gazing blankly out through the window, as it appeared, at the cedar, which flung its serene shadow over the lawn outside. He jumped up at the sound of his brother's voice, but seemed to recall himself with a little difficulty even for that, and ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... each other blankly. Then the wily Jones came forward with a shrewd suggestion. "Wool can't refuse you the regular quota of arms for annual replenishment," he said. "Get those by requisition. Ship them down to San Francisco. Reub Maloney is here. He'll carry them down ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... who, thinking that it was all over at last, and that he was witnessing a preliminary celestial phenomenon, gave a terrific yell and was with difficulty reassured with the paddle. As for the other three, Good was lying on the flat of his back, his eyeglass still fixed in his eye, and gazing blankly into the upper darkness. Sir Henry had his head resting on the thwarts of the canoe, and with his hand was trying to test the speed of the water. But when the beam of light fell upon old Umslopogaas I could really have laughed. I think I have said that we had put ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... cheeks as a swallow flies down from a roof; he started back against the opposite wall with a stifled groan, while she stared at him blankly, and grew as deathly ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... however, she had to wipe her eyes, and to raise them to the level of the factory chimneys on the other bank. She saw also the arches of Waterloo Bridge and the carts moving across them, like the line of animals in a shooting gallery. They were seen blankly, but to see anything was of course to end her weeping and ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... Damocles de Warrenne sat on the verandah of the Grand Imperial Hotel Royal of Kot Ghazi, which has five rooms and five million cockroaches, and stared blankly into the moonlit compound, beyond which stretched the bare rocky plain that was bounded on the north and west by mighty mountains, on the east by a mighty river, and on the south by the more mighty ocean, many hundreds ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... seemed to die away, unuttered, upon his lips. He suddenly thought that he was choking. He stared at her blankly. It was impossible! She came a step further into the room. Her hand ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at one another a little blankly. Peter Dale grunted with expressionless face and relit his pipe, which had gone out during these few moments of intense listening. Graveling reached out his hand and took a cigar from a box which had been placed upon the table. Henneford and his neighbour exchanged glances, which ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dazed at the unexpected turn of affairs, had risen to his feet, and stood blankly gazing at the open door, not comprehending what had occurred. A movement made by the pseudo tramp, caused him to turn around, and he was gazing straight into the open barrel of a dangerous-looking revolver, held by a steady hand, ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... said blankly. That he was beginning to chafe, to fret, and shuffle his feet only added to my dismay. He might begin at any moment to swear in Spanish, and that was sure to bring a shower of lead, blind, fired blindly. "We have nothing to expect from the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... were too amazed to speak. They stared blankly at the spot where the car had been concealed. It now ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... stood trembling with the vague fear that always accompanies a suspected but unknown danger, and staring blankly into the darkness, there came to his ears from the forest depths a sound that was almost as terrifying as the recent presence of the unknown animal. It seemed a mingling of howls, cries, and groanings. It rose and fell, now loud, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... with you!" Evadne exclaimed; then stopped, colouring crimson. She had forgotten in her interest that she was a stranger to these people; and only remembered it when they all looked at her—rather blankly, as she imagined. "I beg your pardon," she said, addressing Mrs. Malcomson. "I could not help overhearing the discussion, and I am deeply interested. I am—Mrs. Colquhoun," she ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... still. So still, it got on Henfrey's nerves. He felt alone in the room and looked up, and there, grey and dim, was the bandaged head and huge blue lenses staring fixedly, with a mist of green spots drifting in front of them. It was so uncanny to Henfrey that for a minute they remained staring blankly at one another. Then Henfrey looked down again. Very uncomfortable position! One would like to say something. Should he remark that the weather was very cold for the ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... Still Lena stared blankly at him, but as he did not return her gaze, her eyes followed his to the other side of the room where Miss Elton bent over a table, with Mr. Early on one side of her and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... man of the working class, whose dress betokened holiday. A glance told me that he felt anything but at ease; his mind misgave him as he looked about the long room and at the table before him; and when a waiter came to offer him the card, he stared blankly in sheepish confusion. Some strange windfall, no doubt, had emboldened him to enter for the first time such a place as this, and now that he was here, he heartily wished himself out in the street again. However, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Harvey, blankly. Then he understood. He swallowed hard, straightened Phoebe's hat with infinite care and gentleness, and looking over Butler's head, managed to say, quite calmly:—"It used to be blue. We've had it painted. Come along, Phoebe, ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... said the judge;—"here are the truants." Mr. George Keane and Miss Goldthwaite appeared now, apparently very much astonished to find themselves behind time. The judge made room for Carrie beside himself, and after looking blankly at her for a few minutes, said solemnly, "I thought I heard you say you wanted ferns; but I must have been mistaken, or possibly they haven't come up in the glen this year.—Some tea here, Alice.—Miss Goldthwaite, may I help ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... Blankly Peter Kenny looked at his cousin; with eyes in which deepening understanding mingled with anger as deep, and with profound misgivings as well, ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... almost like sailing over a mill-pond, after the past roughness, for it lay still beneath the vertical sun, and was thronged with shipping of every description and nationality. Presently there came a reverberation that seemed to ricochet from rock and wave, and a little girl cried blankly, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... smile. The professor cast. upon his wife a glance expressing weariness. It was as if he said " There you go again. You can't keep your foot out of it." She understood the glance, and so she asked blankly: "Why, What's the matter? Oh." Her belated mind grasped that it waw an aftermath of the quarrel of Coleman and Coke. Marjory looked as if she was distressed in the belief that her mother had been stupid. Coleman was outwardly serene. It was Peter Tounley ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... on Saturdays, had just put Tim's shirt through the wringer. Holding it at arm's length with one hand and steadying herself on the side of the tub with the other, she stared blankly at Eloise for a moment, and then said, "Your mother's cloak! Child alive, that's Mrs. Amy's. I've seen her wear it a hundred times when she was a little girl. She has got on a spell of givin' this mornin', and sent it to you by Sarah. She's kep' it well all these years. What ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... blankly, and Pederson gave a snort and a gesture. "All right! I guess I'm wrong. For a while there I actually thought you had it." Pederson surveyed him shrewdly. "Just the same, that bit you exploded—about the person who killed Carmack didn't hate him ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... Mr. Schofield looked up blankly; however, he felt that there was enough live, legitimate news in his other items to redeem the somewhat tame quality of the first, and so, after having crossed out several of the extra words which had met so poor ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... added. He flashed us a queer look and we stared at him blankly. "It means nothing, of course," he added. "She's been gone only ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... gray dawn, the driver shaking him savagely and howling into his ear that the Athenian was gone. Churchill looked blankly at the deserted harbor. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... away chuckling to herself, and Esther stood a moment staring blankly. It had actually happened, the incredible of which she had dreamed. Madame Beattie was going, and now she herself was following too soon to get ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... answer, even to kind Miss Hilary. They had not imagined she felt the leaving her native place so much. She had watched intently the last glimpse of Stowbury church tower, and now sat with reddened eyes, staring blankly out ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... very grateful for something to eat, but oh, so funny in his attempts at social grace! At first he would hold a cup of tea in one hand, a plate of muffins in the other, and then search blankly for a third hand to eat them with. Now he has solved the problem. He turns in his toes and brings his knees together; then he folds his napkin into a long, narrow wedge that fills the crack between them, thus forming a very workable pseudo lap; after that he sits ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... She stared blankly at him, and it was clear that it was all as if it had not been with her. He insisted, and then she said: "Perhaps I thought I knew him, and was afraid I should hurt his feelings if I didn't recognize him. But I don't remember it at all." The curves of her mouth drooped, and ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... a little with an unusual effort of thought, with the endeavour to penetrate a momentary mystery, which she instinctively felt lay somewhere, and which she looked to him to explain; and he could not give her a careless, mocking answer; he sat staring blankly at her for a few seconds, and then ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... manner the others were treated, and, despite the struggles of Mr. Damon, the two government men and Ned, they were soon put in a position where they could do nothing—helplessly bound, and laid on a bench in the main cabin, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Each one was gagged so effectively that he could not utter ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... invariably bad; we had the same fiery discussions every evening, but the same meagre receipts, and in every market town of northwestern Lancashire we buried a portion of our little capital, till once, after talking myself hoarse to a respectable audience of empty benches, Hipp and I looked blankly into each other's faces and silently put our last gold pieces upon the table. We were three thousand miles from home, and the possessors of ten sovereigns apiece. I reached out my hand ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Mr Villiers, looking at this keenly. Pierre stared at him blankly; his comprehension of English was none of the best, so he did not know what auctioneer meant. However, he saw that Villiers did not understand, so he rapidly sketched an altar with a priest standing before it blessing ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... himself, a faint rumbling sound, like the rhythmic throb of machinery. Mystified, he gazed blankly at Manuel. Of course it was impossible. What could functioning machinery be doing at the bottom of an abandoned hole in the ground? And where there were no signs of human activity to account for the phenomenon? A more forsaken looking place it would be hard to imagine. Not that the ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... instantly disappeared, and we were left staring blankly at a dark opening into the heart of the woody maze. Then we heard the small, well-known voice ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... blankly, with never a word to say, and turned our horses' heads. Our attention was attracted by a small group of men standing round the storm-signal post. As we rode up, they hastily scattered, and we saw pinned to ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... experienced almost perpetual darkness; here we had eternal daylight, which, with absolutely nothing to do or even to think about, was even more trying. Almost our sole occupation was to sit on the beach and gaze blankly at the frozen ocean, which seemed at times as though it would never break up and admit of our release from this natural prison. Every day, however, fresh patches of brown earth appeared through their white and wintry covering, and wild flowers even began to bloom ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... stared blankly at the Oriental luxury which met his eye. 'But, I say,' he said, 'are you sure? This ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Eugene, shaking his head blankly, after pausing again to reconsider. 'At times I have thought yes; at other times I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to pursue such a subject; now I have felt that it was absurd, and that it tired and embarrassed me. Absolutely, I can't ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Livers," addressing the ship's painter, "take a lantern and your paint-pot and come aft with me. All the rest stay on deck and keep a double lookout, alow an' aloft!" The forage party slipped quietly off toward the beach in one of the boats. The remainder of the crew looked blankly ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... her a little blankly, for after having armoured himself to meet an expected blow, he was almost surprised to find that he was not insensible to the shock. "Married! and ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... Felicity and Cecily stared blankly at the Story Girl. We boys began to laugh, but were checked midway by Uncle Roger. He was rocking himself back and forth, with his hand pressed against ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... coldly, blankly, without a hint of recognition. The next instant the young gentleman beside him sprang up-and struck me a blow that hurled me off the step. I fell where the ponderous wheels would have ended me had not a guardsman, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the street, staring blankly at the missive, when I was startled beyond measure by feeling a hand on my shoulder, and a voice pronouncing ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... "I suppose I must." He swung off the couch and stood half-crouched for a second. Forrester looked at him blankly. "Well," Vulcan said, "come on." He jerked his head toward Forrester. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... bugling the most horrible wails, the boldest spectator must have felt frightened. But hark! what is that silver shimmer of the fiddles! Is it—can it be—the gray dawn peeping in the stormy east? The ghost's eyes look blankly towards it, and roll a ghastly agony. Quicker, quicker ply the violins of Phoebus Apollo. Redder, redder grow the orient clouds. Cockadoodledoo! crows that great cock which has just come out on the roof of the palace. And now the round sun himself pops up from behind the waves of night. Where ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... think of that, I don't know," replied Slone, blankly. "I started back to fetch my things out of my room. That's as far as ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... shook her head and looked sadly toward her husband, who sat staring blankly at the floor. Gretel ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... took the manuscript from his fingers and gazed blankly at it whilst his indignant flow of speech passed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... at full speed. A spray of passageways met him. He did not hesitate. He chose the one farthest to the left and dashed along its winding length until he came to a dead end. The vita-crystal gleamed blankly back ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... led by his Highness. She bowed gravely to right and left. The guests were astounded, struck dumb by the huge presumption of the woman; some few returned her salute, others, bewildered and indignant, stared her blankly in the face. Serenissimus led her to the dais, and as she took her seat bowed profoundly over her hand. The pages gathered round the steps of the dais. Madame de Ruth took up her position beside this pseudo-Duchess's chair. Oberhofmarshall Graevenitz ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... confiding, none other of the many interested observers were deceived. No man merely indolent sleeps neither by night nor by day; and it seemed the little man never slept. No man merely indolent sits wide-eyed hour after hour, gazing blankly at the earth beneath his feet—and uttering never a word. Brooding, not dreaming, was Asa Arnold; brooding over the eternal problem of right and wrong. And, as passed the slow weeks, he moved back—back on the trail of civilization, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... sob checked her words. He stared at her blankly. He tried to formulate some helpful response, but failed. It was growing dark outside. The porter was lighting the overhead lamps, using a step- ladder to reach them and moving it from spot to spot between ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... It was not their fault. They tried to see it. They bought the special editions of the evening papers; they read the military dispatches and the stories of the war correspondents from beginning to end; they stared blankly at the printed columns that recorded the disasters of Nicholson's Nek, and Colenso and Spion Kop. But the forms were grey and insubstantial; it was all fiat and grey like the pictures in the illustrated papers; the very blood of it ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... and left Kurrell gazing blankly after him. Kurrell did not ride on either to see Mrs. Boulte or Mrs. Vansuythen. He sat in his saddle and thought, while his pony grazed by ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Whatever charm of form it may have possessed in the past had been ruthlessly extirpated by the modernisation of the windows, which were now all of one size and form—a long gaunt range of unsheltered casements staring blankly out upon the spectator. There were no flower-beds, no terraced walks, or graceful flights of steps before the house; only a bare grassplot, with a stiff line of tall elms on each side, and a wide dry moat dividing ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... in New York?" Jake Armstrong said blankly, trying to assimilate the curves that were ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... began by informing him that he was a witness not on oath, that he might answer or refuse to answer, but that, of course, he must bear witness according to his conscience, and so on, and so on. Ivan listened and looked at him blankly, but his face gradually relaxed into a smile, and as soon as the President, looking at him in astonishment, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in the back parlour, gazing blankly at the table, when there came the sound of the house-door opening, followed by a ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... communication blankly. Was Harry, who had always jumped at the chance of a tete-a-tete, dodging her? In her astonishment she let the other envelope fall. She stooped, and then for a moment remained thus, bent above it. The superscription was not hers. The note was not addressed to Harry, but to her, and in a handwriting ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... too amazed to stir. All his Irish wit had left him, and he did not feel certain his fare were not softies. He stood with his hat in one hand and, scratching his head with the other, gazed blankly at his horse being led away ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... rather blankly at each other, and then the spokesman smiled. "Oh, well," he said, "if you have prohibited both of them, I don't see that we ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... his hand upon the sash—simultaneously there was a rush of cold air into the room, a half-angry, half-frightened exclamation from Adolphus in the passage, a scream from Miss Maud—and no Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald! No one had time to be more than blankly astonished. The door was opened, and a police inspector, in very nice dark braided uniform and a peaked cap, stood in ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... external suggestion, of nature's compulsions; it doubts its own sensations and trusts only in instruments and averages. After sixty years or so of growing astonishment the mind wakes to find itself looking blankly into the void of death. And, as Adams says, that it should profess itself pleased by this performance is all that the highest rules of good breeding can ask. That the mind should actually be satisfied would prove that it ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... blankly staring and wondering, that blessed woman came to me with such a light on her face—it fairly shone with ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Edwards heard the ominous words, and looked blankly in each other's faces. They heard no more. The baronet caught his wife's wrist in a grasp of iron, drew her into the dressing-room, and closed the door. He stood with his back to it, gazing at her, his blue eyes ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... into view, tousled and disordered: and, as she saw it, Sally uttered an involuntary gasp of astonishment which caused many eyes to turn towards her. And the red-headed young man, who had been stooping to pick up his gloves, straightened himself with a jerk and stood staring at her blankly and incredulously, ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... the note that the Emperor had given me, and began to memorize its contents. Amazement must have shown on my face. A blow with a feather would have knocked me down. So wonder Wilhelm II was staring blankly, no wonder this message had to be delivered verbally. Hurriedly I began to memorize it. Presently, I saw Count Wedel come in and he and the Kaiser began to talk in whispers. Then Wilhelm ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... Coburn, watching blankly, found himself astonished at the number of people the village contained. He hadn't dreamed it was so populous. All were in instant frenzied flight toward the mountains. An old woman he'd seen barely hobbling, now ran like a deer. Children toddled desperately. ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... blankly, being unable to find appropriate Asiki words in which to reply to this threat. But the Asika only leaned back in her chair and laughed at his evident confusion and dismay, till ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... I do; but no baily—I deserved that place," wailed Henery, signifying wasted genius by gazing blankly at visions of a high destiny apparently visible to him on Billy Smallbury's smock-frock. "There, 'twas to be, I suppose. Your lot is your lot, and Scripture is nothing; for if you do good you don't get rewarded according to ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... dirty paper, to all appearance torn out of a cheap exercise book, and in the middle were a few lines written in a queer cramped hand. Salisbury bent his head and stared eagerly at it for a moment, drawing a long breath, and then fell back in his chair gazing blankly before him, till at last with a sudden revulsion he burst into a peal of laughter, so long and loud and uproarious that the landlady's baby in the floor below awoke from sleep and echoed his mirth ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... mind is an impression of posies, and garlands, and village greens, and youths and maidens much be-ribboned, and lambs, and general friskiness. I was in England once on a May Day, and we sat over the fire shivering and listening blankly to the north- east wind tearing down the street and the rattling of the hail against the windows, and the friends with whom I was staying said it was very often so, and that they had never seen any ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... wonderful and very heroic, and which proved in him the most extraordinary presence of mind, he could not honestly glorify himself in his own heart, because it appeared to him that he had acted exactly like an automaton. He blankly marvelled, and thought the situation agreeably thrilling, if somewhat awkward. His father let him go. Then all Edwin's feelings gave place to an immense stupefaction at his father's truly remarkable behaviour. What! His father emotional! ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... much all the knowledge of mankind, represents this stage of faith. He stands on the religious side of the movement of Science, believing in immortality without defining it. Comte stands on the positivist side, blankly denying all objective immortality. These two represent the results in which, advancing from its opposite sides, the logical development of the doctrine of a future life ends. With Comte, atheistic ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Presently she commenced to make a strange noise, and I saw her eyes were closed and her hands clenched. "Ah," said the landlady, who came in to help me; "she has epileptic fits." When her convulsions were over she looked blankly at us, knitting her brows and evidently puzzling her poor brain to remember who we were. For many years it was my fate to see her looking at me thus, at first stony and estranged, like a dweller in another star, then half-recalling with extended hand, then forgetting again with ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... purely Latin and, as such, incomprehensible and even naughty to the Saxon mind. To the average bookish Englishman Poe means "The Pit and the Pendulum," and his finest poetry means nothing at all. Tell that Englishman that Poe wrote more beautiful lyrics than Tennyson, and he will blankly put you down ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... the door of the room upstairs opened of its own accord, and as they looked up in amazement, they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger staring more blackly and blankly than ever with those unreasonably large blue glass eyes of his. He came down stiffly and slowly, staring all the time; he walked across the passage staring, ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... have a look at the gentleman and see if I can make anything of his little game. What qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services so valuable? or is it possible that——" he began biting his nails and staring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word from him until we were ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Abbott looked blankly at Fran, who was singing with all her might. She caught his look, and closed her eyes. Abbott asked weakly, "What ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... very lap, and clutched about securely by that unpleasant lady's cold and skinny arms. She looked up at Fritzing with a shiver to remark wonderingly that the room, in spite of its big fire and its smallness, was like ice, but her lips fell apart in a frozen stare and she gazed blankly past him at the wall behind his head. "Look," she whispered, pointing with a horrified forefinger. And Fritzing, turning quickly, was just in time to snatch a row of cheap coloured portraits from the wall and fling them face downwards ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the bleak wind, holding a hand of each of her children, to watch his cab down the street. After it had disappeared she still stood there, gazing blankly at the place of its vanishing, till at last the younger child, shuddering, complained: "Mummy, ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... that he sat staring blankly at the log of his room. Then he leaned over again and held the photograph a second time in the lampglow. The first strange spell of the picture was broken, and he looked at it more coolly, more critically, a little disgusted ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the dead man's throat and face. While breast and hands were white, those were purple—almost black. The shoulders lay upon a low mound, and the head was turned back at an angle otherwise impossible, the expanded eyes staring blankly backward in a direction opposite to that of the feet. From the froth filling the open mouth the tongue protruded, black and swollen. The throat showed horrible contusions; not mere finger-marks, but bruises and lacerations wrought by two strong hands that must have buried themselves in the ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... white beads with the filigree cross hanging from it, peeped uncertainly into the room. Behind her broad, heavy face were three others, equally homely and stolid; for a while all four stood there, looking blankly into the room and around it. Nothing was there but the peddler's knapsack lying in the middle of the floor-the man was gone. The light of expectancy slowly faded Out of the girl's face, and in its place succeeded first bewilderment and then dull alarm. "But, dear heaven," ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... of the room with a flounce of red draperies, and left James. He sat down beside a window and stared out blankly. The thought came to him, how many avowals of love and deathless devotion such a woman must have listened to. Her manner of receiving his made him think that there had been many. "It is quite proper," ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... this was only the light of his fire thrown through his open door, and that the figure was probably that of a servant before it, who had been arranging his room. He started forward again, but at the sound of his advancing footsteps the figure and the luminous glow vanished, and he arrived blankly face to face with his own closed door. He looked around the dim bay; it was absolutely vacant. It was equally impossible for any one to have escaped without passing him. There was only his room left. A half-nervous, half-superstitious thrill crept over him as he ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... favourite book of many who would sooner pick oakum than read 'Frederick the Great' all through; whilst the mere student of belles lettres may attach importance to the essays on Johnson, Burns, and Scott, on Voltaire and Diderot, on Goethe and Novalis, and yet remain blankly indifferent to 'Sartor Resartus' and ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... would have found to say—she had certainly no generalisation to offer about Duff Lindsay—had not a servant brought her a card at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. The card saved her the necessity. She looked at it blankly for an instant, and then exclaimed, "My cousin, Stephen Arnold! He's a reverend—a Clarke Mission priest, and he will come straight in here. What shall ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... face watched her blankly for a few moments, then a strange sound took place in his throat. She started, came to herself, and, horrified, saw him. His head made a queer motion, the chin jerked back against the throat, the curious, crowing, hiccupping sound came again, his face twisted like insanity, and he was ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... room—and how empty it was!—stared him blankly in the face. Miss Gordon's manner angered him beyond expression. Almost he felt he must tell her of his own low part in the tragedy in order to place her beside the girl he had insulted, instead of beside him, ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... almost unearthly to him, and confused his senses for the moment as some potent drug might have done. He took her outstretched hand in awkward silence, and for an instant so far forgot himself as to gaze blankly at her in ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... affably at the rather blond girl who crumbled her bread and looked occasionally and blankly at him, occasionally and affectionately at the French count, her escort, who was consuming lobster with ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... with a brain reeling in agony, did I turn and stare blankly at those walls, and, in a sort of dumb stupor, search them over in hope to find some word, some message impressed there, some scratch of pen or finger nail. It might be a message of misery, some outcry from a wounded spirit, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... the building were rushing and clanging, and the hall filled with a white-faced mob, desperately anxious to find out what had happened and why. The people poured out of the door and stared about blankly. There was a peculiar expression of doubt on every one of their faces. Each one was asking himself if he were awake, and having proved that by pinches, openly administered, the next query was whether ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... Was this some kind of spiritism? Had Kennedy turned medium and sought a message from the other world to solve the inexplicable problems of this? It was weird, uncanny, unthinkable. We turned to him blankly for an ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... caring for appearances, nor for any other person in those rooms. She was like one in a dream. Vladimir de Windt, marvelling at the recklessness of the affair, came once to the twain, thinking to expostulate with Ivan. But what he saw in the two faces turned blankly upon him, filled him with such sudden perception that he stumbled through an excuse, and went off to seek some spot where he could think; saying ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... of all traces of the recent tragedy, the silence, the hour, his striped pyjamas and bare feet—everything together combined to deprive him momentarily of speech. He stared at her blankly without a word. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... man's head, and Dinah poured a few drops of the whiskey between his teeth. He swallowed it readily enough. In a few minutes he opened his eyes and stared blankly at the two women. Cicely saw that his eyes were large and ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out—five one-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones that brought the total to six hundred ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... know," blankly. Instantly she recovered herself. "But I do trust you." She walked on, and perforce he fell ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... gazed blankly at each other, but Thomas Douglas rose and walked up the aisle with a set face. HIS duty was clear; the collection must be taken if the skies fell. Taken it was; the choir sang the anthem, with a dismal conviction that it fell terribly flat, and Dr. Cooper gave out the concluding hymn ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of murder," echoed Manners blankly, "a charge of murder, and against me! This is past endurance, 'tis monstrous! Whom have I slain, I pray thee ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... after more searching and shouting, and with the man's superstitious notions beginning to affect him, Joe stopped and gazed blankly in his face. ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... go! eh, Bullen?" remarked Ensign Christie, as the two men stared blankly at the door just ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... killing myself, but I've been sitting up all night," answered the girl. Then, seeing that her mother remained blankly silent again, she demanded, "Why don't you blame me, mother?" Why don't you say that I led him on, and tried to get him away from her? Don't you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... new friend, who's come into money lately, after knocking about all over America the greater part of his life. I tried him with the Chicago Exposition, and ranching as a business for younger sons; did it delicately, of course, and with any amount of deference, but he only looked at me blankly, and began talking about the Bank-rate. After that, I settled with myself I wouldn't talk to any more of them about things that they might be expected to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various
... the door seemed not to have seen her. "Ovide! Ovide!" she called brokenly, staring blankly around ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... perfectly still for some seconds, staring blankly at the very simple, direct advertisement under my eyes. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that it had a direct reference to my pretty patient in Sark. I had a reason for recollecting the date of Tardif's return from London, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... with mocking laughter, and we, who could see no reason for such a change of front, stared blankly at each other and then at the women. (Then Quartilla spoke up, finally,) "I gave orders that no mortal man should be admitted into this inn, this day, so that I could receive the treatment for my ague without ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... sabre among the crowd. The cry that broke from Mme. de Vandieres made the blood run cold in the veins of all who heard it. She stood face to face with the colonel, who watched her with a beating heart. At first she stared blankly at the strange scene about her, then she reflected. For an instant, brief as a lightning flash, there was the same quick gaze and total lack of comprehension that we see in the bright eyes of a bird; then she passed her hand across her forehead with ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... blankly. "I only said what I thought to be the truth. The truth is better than what you call ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... into a pew near the rear of the chapel. During the reading of Scripture, Lila sat gazing blankly straight before her over the rows of heads, dark and fair. As if in a dream she rose with the others for the singing of the hymn. Still as though moving in a mist, she sank again into her seat and bowed her forehead upon the pew in front. While the rustling murmur was subsiding into ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... Weary stared blankly. Happy Jack came up, looked and doubled convulsively. Can-openers! Three dozen of them. Old Dock was explaining in his best English, and he was courteously refraining from ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... with his elbows on his knees, idly twisting a seal ring on his little finger. The searching eyes of the ambassador found his face blankly inscrutable. ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... blankly and stupidly at my own hand. And not only was my hand arrested, but my brain also had completely ceased to work. For the life of me I could not recall the conclusion of the sentence I had planned ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... of our confinement on the bed, for the room was very small and the one window stared blankly at the window of an unused room in the Peggs' house, which ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... house turned round again to the room. Before Rosier had time to reply he perceived that a gentleman—a stranger—had just come in, unannounced, according to the Roman custom, and was about to present himself to his host. The latter smiled blandly, but somewhat blankly; the visitor had a handsome face and a large, fair beard, and was evidently ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... had left it, the fire being still burning. She did not stay downstairs for more than a minute, but proceeded to her chamber, whither the luggage had been taken. Here she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking blankly around, and presently began to undress. In removing the light towards the bedstead its rays fell upon the tester of white dimity; something was hanging beneath it, and she lifted the candle to see what it was. A bough of mistletoe. Angel had put it there; she knew that in an instant. This ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... the town people toward these girls very stupid. If I told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard's grandfather was a clergyman, and much respected in Norway, they looked at me blankly. What did it matter? All foreigners were ignorant people who could n't speak English. There was not a man in Black Hawk who had the intelligence or cultivation, much less the personal distinction, of Antonia's father. Yet people saw no difference between her and the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... I am a widow. I don't know whether you've ever heard my name—Ebbsmith. [GERTRUDE stares at her blankly.] I beg your pardon sincerely. I never meant to conceal my true position; such a course is opposed to every true principle of mind. But I grew so attached to you in Florence and—well, it was contemptibly weak; I'll never do such a thing again. [She goes back to ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... latter having also turned out—look blankly at the bunk and then at each other, the same dreadful suspicion dawning upon them both at the ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... dinner Leslie might have acted more discreetly. As it was, he looked at the speaker somewhat blankly. "Why? Because I want you to. Now don't ask troublesome questions or put on your tragedy air, Millicent, but just promise to keep him here until after the east-bound train starts, anyway. I'm not asking for caprice—I—I particularly ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... did not waver, but calmly puffing sway at his long, black cigar he looked blankly into space. Presently a voice outside calling, "Boys!" sounded throughout the room and brought him back to actuality. He sat straight up in his chair while Nick, shifting uneasily about ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... Mr. Thornton when he comes to-night, for I have a splitting headache and I'm going to bed." Her mother stared at her blankly. Was this the end of all her hopes? "To-day is Tuesday—tell him that I will give him my answer Friday night. And, mother"—her voice dropped in a half-ashamed way—"the answer will ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... besides the food before us, when a shrill "coo-ey" burst through the air; "coo-ey"—"coo-ey" again and again, till the very trees seemed to echo back the sound. We started to our feet, and, as if wondering what would come next, looked blankly at each other, and again the "coo-ey," more energetic still, rang in our ears. This is the call of the bush, it requires some little skill and practice, and when given well can be heard a great way off. In such a place as the Black Forest it could only proceed from some one ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... raged she had been standing by, unmoved, blankly glaring at the audience; and yet she must have known as well as we did that it was all about her. The probability is that her operator had temporarily moored her to a convenient peg in the back of the clouds while he worked the giant, and that at the conclusion of the duel he was free to return ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... stared blankly at the dark wall opposite. What it revealed did not come to her with shock, because she had always felt sure that it had been so. What startled her was the realization for the first time how much the experience had meant to both,—the examination ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... some way humanized the scene. The ward tenders and the interne stared at her blankly; the nurses looked down in unconscious comment on the twisted figure by their side. The surgeon drew his hands from his pockets and stepped toward the woman, questioning her meanwhile with his nervous, piercing glance. For ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... when one of the figures raised its head slowly and painfully, as though just returning to consciousness, and revealed the blood-stained, haggard features of the first lieutenant. At the same time Drake turned his eyes in Frobisher's direction, stared blankly at him for a second, and then smiled a glad but painful smile—painful because of the slash which he had received across the face; but he refrained from calling a greeting, and Frobisher instantly recognised that the other must have some ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... no terror-stricken girl, no pallid runaway of the harems, but a still, dark-shrouded form, swathed in the tight bandages of the ancient embalmer, a dry, dusty little mummy creature blankly and inscrutably confronting ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... or two John and Bob stared at Paul blankly, unable to comprehend the import of his announcement. Tom was at the throttle, and while he had heard the startling words, he was too occupied in guiding the Sky-Bird to do anything except ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... dead, with the air of one who has suddenly been brought to a realisation of his whereabouts. For a moment he stared blankly, then apparently ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... a contingency we had not provided for: we looked at each other blankly, and, though loath to do so, we both came to the conclusion that they were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... looked the trust officer fully in the eye. On this point she seemed really interested this time. So Mr. Crane proceeded more easily to question her about the plan of joining Miss Stevens's "Travel Class." Adelle listened blankly while Mr. Crane wandered off into generalities about the advantages of travel and the study of "art" under the guidance of a mature woman. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... The man stared blankly at Dick, and then at Torpenhow, who was leaning against the wall. He was not used to ex-employees who ordered him to be good enough ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling |
