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Deaf   /dɛf/   Listen
Deaf

noun
1.
People who have severe hearing impairments.



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"Deaf" Quotes from Famous Books



... being quite six feet or more, cannot be described as Small and Earl-y) is to lay the foundation-stone of "The Cross Deaf and Dumb School for N. and E. Lancashire." Now the Deaf and Dumb are, as a rule, exceptionally cheerful and good-tempered. It is quite right, therefore, that exceptions to this rule should be treated in a separate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various

... saw a principal hurl a book at a sleepy teacher, who was nodding in his lecture at the Institute. Poor woman! she is so nearly deaf that she can hear nothing, and they say she can never remember where the lessons are: the pupils conduct the recitations. But she has taught in that school for twenty-three years, and she is a political influence in ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... will have taken just the sort of house that I am inquiring for, and in the course of my questions I may hear of someone living in just that sort of way—a retired life, not making many friends, going up to London sometimes, and keeping, perhaps, a deaf old woman as a servant, or perhaps a deaf old man—someone, you see, who would not be likely to hear him if he came home in the middle of the night, or in the early morning. Once I hear of such a man, I should ascertain his age, and whether ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... impatient, and incautious, he Now frights his horses on with threatening cries, Now whirls his blood-stained whip, and lashes them, Till past the goal the ill-tamed coursers fly Faster and faster. Reckless of the rein, Deaf to the voice that fain would soothe them now, Their nostrils breathing fire, their loose manes tossed Upon the wind, and in thick clouds involved Of choking dust, round the vast circle's bound, As lightning swift they whirl and whirl again. Fright, horror, mad confusion, death, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... morning Polly sat holding the limp brown head while whispering words of affection in the long ears, and who will say that Noddy's instinct did not respond to love, even though the physical sense of hearing was deaf to earthly sounds? She slowly revived and was resting comfortably when ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Pagan classics, and he showed his approbation of the Christian Humanists. But he was unable to undertake the work of reform. In view of the danger that still threatened Europe he convoked an assembly of the princes at Mantua to organise a crusade against the Turks, but they turned a deaf ear to his appeals, and, at last weary of their refusals and indifference, he determined to place himself at the head of the Christian forces for the defence of Europe and Christianity. He reached Ancona broken down in spirits and bodily health, and died before anything effective ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... the mother; but the promise was given in that tone which seemed to imply that nothing should be expected from its performance. Sam had long been deaf to the voices of the women of his family, and, when his father's anger would be hot against him, he would simply go, and live where and how none of them knew. Among such men and women as the Brattles, parental authority ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... exercise, and eat the most generous food they can get, taking up and reading occasionally, not the lives of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Spira, but something more agreeable; for example, the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, the deaf and dumb gentleman; the travels of Captain Falconer in America, and the Journal of John Randall, who went to Virginia and married an Indian wife; not forgetting, amidst their eating and drinking, their walks over heaths, and by the sea-side, and their agreeable ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... limitations in the development of concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom I have known for these many years. I am filled with the wonder of her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction. If I could have been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the duke of Norfolk had not acquired, even from the severe admonition of a long imprisonment, resolution sufficient to turn a deaf ear to the enchantments of this syren. His situation was indeed perplexing: He had entered into the most serious engagements with his sovereign to abstain from all further intercourse with the queen of Scots: at the same time the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... swept over him! What right had he to make her stay on and on in Cemetery Street when he knew how she hated it? Why had he forced her to go back to the factory? She had tried to make him understand, but he had been deaf to her need. He had expected her to buckle down to work just as he did. He had forgotten that she was young and pretty and wanted a good time like other girls. Of course it was wrong for her to go with Mac, but she was good, he knew ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... fortified; then, that the French were to be withdrawn; and later came the intelligence that the Empress Carlotta had gone home to beg assistance from Napoleon, the author of all of her husband's troubles. But the situation forced Napoleon to turn a deaf ear to Carlotta's prayers. The brokenhearted woman besought him on her knees, but his fear of losing an army made all pleadings vain. In fact, as I ascertained by the following cablegram which came into my hands, Napoleon's ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... qualities of the race are depreciated by the intermarrying of relatives. The disastrous influence of such unions is exerted on the nervous system more than any other, and is a prolific source of deaf-mutism, blindness, idiocy, and insanity. Not, certainly, in all cases do we see these results, for the legitimate consequences of this violation of an organic law are often avoided by the help of more controlling influences, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... her voice was when she began the first hymn. All were singing, and they could hear the organ and the choir, but through, over, and above them all sounded the clear, ringing notes of Mary Ogden's soprano. Elder Holloway, sitting in the pulpit, put up a hand to one ear, as half-deaf men do, and sat up straight, looking as if he was hearing some good news. He said afterward that it helped him preach; but then Mary did not know it. When all the services were over, she slipped out into the vestibule to wait for the rest. She stood there when Miss ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard

... Mother was sure you'd let her, an' we were goin' to send Carruthers to a deaf 'n' dumb school after you'd wore white clo'es enough. He isn't dumb, but he's deaf. He can't hear Elly Precious laugh—only yell. Mother heard that you always wore white dresses an' she most hugged herself—she hugged us. She said you'd prob'ly find out ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... spend at her feet, vowing never to arise till she spoke to me,—all, all, in vain! she seemed deaf, mute, insensible; her face unmoved, a settled despair fixed in her eyes,—those eyes that had never looked at me but with dove-like softness and compliance!—She sat constantly in one chair, she never changed her dress, no persuasions could prevail ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... hinted With a motion full of grace To where the words were printed On a card above his "case,"— "I am deaf and dumb!" I left him With a smile ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... I see that I have hurt The souls I might hare helped to save, That I have slothful been, inert, Deaf to ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... we should fall at once into a panic of anxiety and grief, since none would then look at us save with the eye of contempt and ridicule, to say nothing of the vain attempts at producing artificial beauty which certain foolish women make, as if they were deaf to the insults and abuse heaped upon them? Shall we settle down in indolence, and never once think of what is our highest advantage and our chiefest good? Shall we forever run after gay attire and ornament? Let us arise and run the race of mental culture and literary adornment, and not listen ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... often enough so that he never got hungry, but not often enough to keep him from being bored between meals, or from brooding. Two enormous Lhari came in to look at him every hour or so, but either they were deaf and dumb, did not understand his dialect of Lhari, or were under orders not to speak to him. It was the most frustrating time ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... has proved powerless to shake France or impose on the German people. Commandeered enthusiasm is giving place to grave discontent. The awakening of Germany has begun, and the promise of a speedy peace falls on deaf ears. In the process of enlightenment the Americans have played a conspicuous part, in spite of the persistent belittlement of the military experts in the official German Press. The stars in their courses have sometimes seemed ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... old bones. They always remind me if I try to play any youthful tricks on them. Pardon! I did not see that you were here. I," he said, in the monotonous voice of the deaf, which, however, had a certain attractive wistfulness—"I—" and from the same throat as he saw the object of her gaze came a vibration of passionate interest. "Yes, neck and neck! Coming right for the baron's tower, neck and neck!" he cried, in the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... face, with large, smooth cheeks and prominent eyes; the edges of her decorous brown wig were combed rather near their corners, and a fitting cap palliated but did not deny the wig. She had the quiet but rather dull look of people slightly deaf, and she had perhaps been stupefied by a life of unalloyed prosperity and propriety. She had grown an old maid naturally, but not involuntarily, and she was without the sadness or the harshness of disappointment. She ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... have been sure that Wildred and Karine were not in the house, but, on the contrary, I was by no means certain of that fact. Mentally I argued that, if the master was absent, a caretaker or servant would certainly have been left, and unless a stone-deaf person had been selected for the post my violent alarms would have ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... An' where was ye goin' t' drive th' other carriage at that thunderin' rate? It won't wash. His honor'll be stone-deaf when ye tell him that. You're drunk, or ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... are not innate, such as those used by the deaf and dumb and by savages, the principle of opposition or antithesis has been partially brought into play. The Cistercian monks thought it sinful to speak, and as they could not avoid holding some communication, they invented a gesture language, in which the principle of opposition seems ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... of Louis and Charles, Count of Charolois, the heir of Burgundy, were cool and unsympathetic. The king occupied Dauphiny, and in 1457 it was fully incorporated in France. The rulers of France and Burgundy, taken up with their own schemes of territorial gain, turned a deaf ear to the calls of Pope Pius II. for a crusade against the Turks. It has been said that most of the kings of the house of Valois were either bad or mad. The indolent and heartless Charles VII. would seem ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... weight: but when Mrs Harrel was again able to go on with her account, she heard, to her infinite surprise, that all application to her brother had proved fruitless. "He will not hear me," continued Mrs Harrel, "and he never was deaf to me before! so now I have lost my only and last resource, my brother himself gives me up, and there is no one else upon earth ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... appearances, a singularly repulsive and hard-fisted old miser. In early youth, an unfortunate accident had caused the loss of one eye, and his other gradually failed him until he was quite blind; he was also partially deaf, and was sour, crabbed and unapproachable. In small matters he was a miser, ready to avoid paying a just claim if he could in any way do so, living in a miserable fashion and refusing charity to every one, no matter how deserving. He was forbidding in appearance, and drove daily to and ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... ever read the moral, concluding sentence of a story? I never do, but I once (in the year 1811, I think) heard of a deaf old lady, living by herself, who did; and as she may have left some descendants with the same amiable peculiarity, I will put in, for their benefit, what I believe to be the secret of Libbie's peace of mind, the real reason ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... returned not my salam and I saluted him a second and a third time; but he made me no reply. Then I laid my hand on his shoulder and said to him, 'Ho thou, why dost thou not return my salam? Art thou asleep or deaf or other than a Moslem, that thou refrainest from exchanging the salutation?' But he answered me not neither stirred; so I considered him and saw that he was stone. Quoth I, 'Verily an admirable matter! This is a stone wroughten ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... soon after came to Paris. He addressed the king in a very firm and reproachful letter, and for three months made earnest applications to the pope for a divorce. But the pope, afraid of offending Louis XIV., turned a deaf ear to his supplications. It was in vain for a noble, however exalted his rank, to ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... so far with their jealousy as to usurp the function of sensation. This is seen in the singular fact that with a monkey or man the removal of the cortical centres makes the animal permanently blind or deaf, as the case may be, while in the lower animals such removal does not have this result, so long as the "second-level" organs are unimpaired. The brain paths of the functions of the second and first levels taken together constitute the so-called "voluntary ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... Adulterers God will judge? Then you will wish (but wishing then, my Dear, will be in vain) that you had never given ear to that Enchanting Syren, that for a few false Joys and momentary Pleasures, betray'd your Soul to Everlasting Misery. But if you will be Deaf to my complaints, and not regard the Ruine of your Children, nor pity your own Soul: Tho I am sure my Grief will bring me to my Grave. I shall be Satisfied in this, that I have done what ever lay within my Power to save you from ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous

... and credulous, especially when under the influence of liquor. All this class hated the temperance movement, because they knew right well that sobriety in the people was there greatest enemy; the lame, the blind, the maimed, the deaf, and the dumb, were there in strong muster, and with their characteristic ingenuity did everything in their power, under the pretence of zeal and religious enthusiasm, to throw discredit upon the whole proceedings. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... Mr. Winston, "for he covers his prejudices with such a pretended regard for the coloured people, that a person would be the more readily led to believe his statements respecting them to be correct; and he is really so positive about it, and apparently go deaf to all argument that I did not discuss the subject with him to any extent; he was so very kind to me that I did not want to run a tilt ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... the other, will assume a fearful responsibility. A war upon a political issue, waged by the people of eighteen States against the people and domestic institutions of fifteen sister-States, is a fearful and revolting thought."[916] But Republican senators were deaf to all warnings from so recent a convert to ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... Malherbe, M. de Grasse, and yourself must be very little poets, if Ronsard be a great one." Time has brought in his revenges, and Messieurs Chapelain and De Grasse are as well forgotten as thou art well remembered. Men could not always be deaf to thy sweet old songs, nor blind to the beauty of thy roses and thy loves. When they took the wax out of their ears that M. Boileau had given them lest they should hear the singing of thy Sirens, then they were deaf no longer, then they heard the old deaf poet singing and made answer to his ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... thou sittest pale, motionless, which only curses environ, has to stop—a people drunk with vengeance will drink it again in full draught, looking at thee there. Far as the eye reaches, a multitudinous sea of maniac heads, the air deaf ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... must be deaf, that they did not hear the noise. To the woman every step sounded like a clap of thunder that continues to roll and roll through the wide space and resounds in the furthermost corner. Paul must be deaf as well. They passed his door. The intoxicated lad remained ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... blind men and deaf men in your audience whom you must move, interest and persuade! Your inflection must become pantomime to the blind, and your pantomime, inflection to ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... ascend from phenomena to the principles which preside over them; from facts to the law; and it has substituted for arbitrary assumptions and purely ideal systems, the slow but progressive work of the genius of nations. Not that it turns a deaf ear to the exalted lessons of philosophy, nor that it denies the eternal relations resulting from the nature of things. Far from it. On the contrary, it supplies a solid basis to intellectual investigations, and, so to speak, an ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... degradation of the inhabitants. By the roadside, basking in the sun, he beholds beings whose appearance seems such a caricature upon humanity, that he is at a loss to know whether to assign them a place among the human or the brute creation. Unable to walk,—usually deaf and dumb,—with bleared eyes, and head of disproportionate size,—brown, flabby, and leprous skin,—a huge goitre descending from the throat and resting upon the breast,—an abdomen enormously distended,—the lower limbs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... the aid of France. He allows narrow prejudice to blind him to any part of the great issue, save the military pageantry of his unequalled Virginian army. It is the flower of the South, and moves only on the sacred soil of Virginia. Davis, restrained by antipathies, haughty, and distant, is deaf to the thrilling calls of the West for that dashing column. It would have gained him California. Weakness of mind kept him from hurling his victorious troops on Washington, or crossing the Ohio to divide the North while yet unprepared. Active help could then be looked for from Northern ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... of Beethoven, which I have just cited, leads me at once to say that if the direction of an orchestra appears to be very difficult for a blind man, it is indisputably impossible for a deaf one, whatever may have been his technical talent before losing his ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz

... deaf to, there are strange sights invisible to us. There are whole realms of splendor, it may be, of which we are heedless; and which we are as blind to as ants to the ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day

... rudely demolished and reconstituted; a Church and a Nobility swept away in a night. Against the enthusiasm of what he rightly saw to be a new political religion he resolved to rouse the enthusiasm of the old. He was at once a great orator and a great writer; and now that the House was deaf to his voice, he appealed to the country by his pen. The "Reflections on the French Revolution" which he published in October 1790 not only denounced the acts of rashness and violence which sullied the great change ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... midwives in the town are his intelligencers; but nurses and young merchants' wives that would fain conceive with child, these are his idolaters. He is a more unjust bone-setter than a dice-maker. He hath put out more eyes than the small-pox; more deaf than the cataracts of Nilus; lamed more than the gout; shrunk more sinews than one that makes bowstrings, and killed more idly than tobacco. A magistrate that had any-way so noble a spirit as but to love a good horse well, would not suffer him to be a farrier. His discourse is vomit, and his ignorance ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... went about doing good, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, healing all kinds of diseases, raising the dead to life, and preaching throughout Judea the new Gospel ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... exclaims the professedly patriotic spokesman of the ill-conditioned proletariat in Coriolanus; "it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible.... Ay, and it makes men hate one another." For this distressing result of peace, the reason is given that in times of peace men have less need of one another than in seasons of war, and the crude argument closes with the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... represented a sunlight effect on a Roman landscape. The boy held his head stretched out. Amid the immobility of the indifferent attendants, and in the dampness and drabness of a London day, this Italian boy radiated light. He was deaf to everything around him, full of secret sunlight, and his hands were almost clasped. He was praying to ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse

... a fierce goad, a consuming, irresistible passion, corroding wisdom and deaf to all prudent counsels. Vasquez could not abstain. Ridden by his devil of spite and jealousy, he would not pause until he had destroyed ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... Browning's, but with some differences. His work at once arrested attention, but it did not at once in all, or in many, cases fix it, even with critical readers: and for a long time the general public turned an obstinately deaf ear. He followed The Ordeal itself—a study of very freely and deeply drawn character; of incident sometimes unusual and always unusually told; of elaborate and disconcerting epigram or rather of style saturated with epigrammatic ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... awful Shapes—her Spirit, hurrying from the flesh, mayhap could hear words to which my ears were deaf. Then her face sank in with terror, her great eyes grew pale, and, shrieking, Cleopatra fell and died: passing, with that dread company, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... of a young man, the son of a Methodist preacher, both deaf and dumb, who gave reasonable evidence of conversion as the love of God filled his heart, and another was a young man who had been a wild young fellow, who had at the time of his conversion a five barrel loaded ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various

... gladly, but the great city was deaf to his pleadings. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," he cried, "thou that killest the prophets, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall

... he must be stupidly indifferent to the Redeemer's cause and interest in the world, and criminally deaf and blind to the intimations of the favor and displeasure of God in the dispensations of His Providence, who could not perceive plain intimations of God's displeasure against us for this neglect, inscribed in capitals, on the very front of divine dispensations, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... an accomplished mathematician, was in a bookseller's shop, he saw a poor lad of mean appearance enter and write something on a slip of paper and give it to the proprietor. On inquiry he found this was a poor deaf boy, Kitto, who afterward became one of the most noted Biblical scholars in the world, and who wrote his first book in the poor-house. He had come to borrow a book. When a lad he had fallen backward from a ladder thirty-five feet upon ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... of young fellows there on the Saturday night, and that was a bar to civil conversation. Other "gudemen and gudewives," as the farmers and their dames are termed in Scotland, successively presented themselves to his imagination. But one was deaf, and could not hear him; another toothless, and could not make him hear; a third had a cross temper; and a fourth an ill-natured house-dog. At Monkbarns or Knockwinnock he was sure of a favourable and hospitable reception; ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... same that could be no excuse for their turning a deaf ear to the wild appeal for help which the wretched Shack was now sending forth. He was human like themselves, though built on different lines; and they could never hold their own respect if they refused to hold out a helping hand to an enemy ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie

... settle in the hall, And then departed, hot in haste to join Their luckier mates, but growling as before, And cursing their lost time, and the dead man, And their own Earl, and their own souls, and her. They might as well have blest her: she was deaf To blessing or ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... like most arts and sciences, to a point of mechanical perfection which, I should suppose, like much of the artificial accuracy and ease which civilisation has introduced, mars rather than enhances the natural gratification enjoyed by simpler ages and races. Almost deaf to music as distinguished from noise, I did not attempt to comprehend the construction of Martial instruments or the nature of the concords they emitted. One only struck me with especial surprise by a peculiarity which, if I could not understand, I could ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... along from Brighton, and I saw those poor creatures in their pitiable position. To hop out of the motor, have an explanation with the old gentleman (who was stone deaf, by the way), to persuade him to come with me, to drive him to his intensely comfortable and charming country house in the heart of Hastings, and to send for a surgeon to attend to the internal injuries of the car, was, for me, the work of a moment! I made up quite a romance about ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... wrestled with G. G.'s mother's conscience; but, when at last the struggling creature was thrown, the two women literally took it by the hair and dragged it around the room and beat it until it was deaf, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... had learned to read and write by this time), she made his bargains, and she directed the operations of the poor-spirited little capitalist. When bills became due, and debtors pressed for time, then she brought Hayes's own professional merits into play. The man was as deaf and cold as a rock; never did poor tradesmen gain a penny from him; never were the bailiffs delayed one single minute from their prey. The Beinkleider business, for instance, showed pretty well the genius of the two. Hayes was for closing with him at once; but his wife saw ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... All he knew was that he lived a prisoner in a sumptuous palace, or as he suspected, for of this he could not be sure, since the arched windows of one side of the building were walled up, in the wing of a palace. Nobody came near to him except the fair Inez, and a Moor who either was deaf or could understand nothing that he said to him in Spanish. There were other women about, it is true, very pretty women all of them, who acted as servants, but none of these were allowed to approach him; he only saw them at ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... peers; Jews, who regard not Moses nor his laws, All ranks of Christians eager in the cause. What eager bets—what oaths at every breath, Who first shall shrink, or first be beat to death. Thick fall the blows, and oft the boxers fall, While deaf'ning shouts for fresh exertions call; Till, bruised and blinded, batter'd sore and maim'd, One gives up vanquish'd, and the other lam'd. Say, men of wealth! say what applause is due For scenes like these, when patronised by you? These are your scholars, who in humbler way, But with less malice, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... he was unfortunately seated between one of the giggling girls and a very deaf old lady who was the great-aunt of Nina and Vera. This old lady trembled like an aspen leaf, and was continually dropping beneath the table a little black bag that she carried. She could make nothing of Bohun's Russian, even if she heard it, and was ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... matter, Miller?" asked the detective. "We've punched your announcer button half a dozen times. You deaf? You better come along to Headquarters to answer some questions ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland

... him go. Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you. That sort of man talks straight on all his life From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf To anything anyone else may say. I should have thought, though, you ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost

... ardent, longin' to carry the religion of Christ into a new land that he knew wuz a-waitin' him, but everybody else deaf and ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... that he knows we are in New South Wales," said Nealie, speaking very slowly and distinctly, under the impression that Mr. Wallis must be either deaf or stupid, or perhaps a little of both. "Our guardian, Mr. Runciman, wrote to tell Father that we were being sent out here to him, and he gave us the letter to post; but by an accident it got no farther than my second brother's pocket. He is very poetical, and that ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... and deaf the sullen creature lies Over her knees, and with concealing clay, Like hoarding Avarice, locks up his eyes, And leaves her world impoverish'd of day; Then at his cruel lips she bends to plead, But there the door ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition! Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl who comes to see friends off and doesn't sail herself. And what memory of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... thanks chiefly to Belle's tender nursing, had almost recovered, with one exception—he was, and would be for life, stone deaf in the right ear. The paralysis which the doctors feared had not shown itself. One of his first questions when he became convalescent was addressed to ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... have their place, and an important place; but in spiritual things they will be no avail unless prosecuted by spiritual men. As well might men blind from birth attempt to study the starry heavens, and men born deaf undertake to expound and criticise the harmonies of Bach and Beethoven. Men must see and hear to speak and write intelligently on such subjects. And so men must be spiritually enlightened to ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... Deaf to the remonstrances of this aged and faithful minister, his former brethren pursued their perverse and downward course, until their new position became apparent by the adoption of a Testimony and Terms of Communion adapted to their ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... path did not seem to trouble the easy smoothness of Lucrece's way. She prepared her trousseau with her customary placidity; debated measures and trimmings with her aunt as if entirely deaf to that lady's frequent interpolations of wrath; consulted Blanche on the style of her jewellery, and Clare on the embroidery of her ruffs, as calmly as if there were not a shadow on her conscience nor her heart. Perhaps ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... must be a mind-reader, Mr. Speranza," she declared. "I am dying for a sundae and I have just discovered that I haven't my purse or a penny with me. I should have been reduced to the humiliation of borrowing from Madeline here, or asking that deaf old Burgess man to trust me until to-morrow. And he is so frightfully deaf," she added in explanation, "that when I asked him the last time he made me repeat it until I thought I should die of shame, or exhaustion, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... that barking craves, and becomes quiet when he bites his food, and is intent and fights only to devour it, such became those filthy faces of the demon Cerberus, who so thunders at the souls that they would fain be deaf. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... Thursday supplied a head wind. We had absolutely no interest in reaching Moose Factory next day; the next week would have done as well. But Peter, deaf to expostulation, entreaty, and command, kept us travelling from six in the morning until after twelve at night. We couldn't get him to stop. Finally he drew the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... said, Mademoiselle de Nailles was sent for by the Mother Superior, who gave her to understand that, being so young, it was especially incumbent on her to be circumspect in her choice of associates. Her place thenceforward was to be between Madame de X——-, an old, deaf lady, and Mademoiselle J——-, a former governess, as cold as ice and exceedingly respectable. As to Madame Saville, she had been received in the convent for especial reasons, arising out of circumstances which did not make her a fit companion for inexperienced ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... he stood, he addressed them as follows:—"My countrymen, I used to grieve at the loss of my sight, but now I am sorry not to be deaf also, when I hear the disgraceful propositions with which you are tarnishing the glory of Rome. What has become of that boast which we were so fond of making before all mankind, that if Alexander the Great had ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... concocted the "Edinburgh Review," were rising into celebrity.' Principal Robertson, the historian, had departed this life in 1793, a kindly old man. With beaming eyes underneath his frizzed and curled wig, and a trumpet tied with a black ribbon to the button-hole of his coat, for he was deaf, this most excellent of writers showed how he could be also the most zealous of diners. Old Adam Ferguson, the historian of Rome, had 'set,' also: one of the finest specimens of humanity had gone from among his people in him. Old people, not thirty years ago, delighted to tell you how 'Adam,' when ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... Boston, sternly, "shouldn't never insult his entertainers until he's filled up wid grub. 'Tain't good business sense. Workin'!—but I will restrain myself. We five—me, Deaf Pete, Blinky, Goggles, and Indiana Tom—got put on to this scheme of Noo Orleans to work visiting gentlemen upon her dirty streets, and we hit the road last evening just as the tender hues of twilight had flopped down upon the daisies and things. Blinky, pass the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... of was the sleek people walking down Fifth Avenue, and the equally sleek crowds taking tea at the Waldorf. It struck me as ludicrous that I, who had been one of them, should be lying there lunchless. For a little while I was slightly deaf with the concussions. ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson

... I do, you would understand that an old woman of that peasant type, ignorant of the meaning of war, would hardly be likely to leave her house, no matter how many times she was ordered out, until shells began to fall about her. Even then, as she was rather deaf, she probably did not realize what was happening, and went into the street in such fear that she left ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... instructions how to act; and see that you carry them out to the letter. You will find no difficulty in keeping this person in a state of intoxication all the way. Go back to ———, engage old Bradbury to drive the chaise, for, although deaf and stupid, he is an excellent driver. Change the chaise and horses, however, as often as you can, so as that it may be difficult, if not impossible, to trace the route you take. Give Benson, who, after all, is the prince of ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... the clamour of his wife; for 'tis a mischief that is never removed but by removing the whole piece; and that has no remedy but flight or patience, though both of them very hard. He was, methinks, an understanding fellow who said, 'twas a happy marriage betwixt a blind wife and a deaf husband. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... over have they laboured deaf and blind; Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil might find. Now at last they've heard and hear it, and the cry comes down the wind, And their ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris

... slain Caesar, no power was left of deserting. He was doomed unless he was victorious. He was deserted by his soldiers, who left him in batches, and at last was taken alive, when wandering through the country, and sent (dead) to Antony. Marcus Brutus and Cassius seem to have turned a deaf ear to all Cicero's entreaties that they should come to his rescue. Cicero in his last known letter—which however was written as far back as in July—is very eager with Cassius: "Only attempts are heard of your army, very great in themselves, but we expect to hear of ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... your mind," said I, "stood above you just now and marked you for his victim. You are not blind or deaf." ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... said my old friend, "what makes you think yourself a child of grace? Speak out, if you please; I'm rather deaf." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... the village called her so by courtesy. Her cottage was over across the lane, and just a bit around the corner; and Polly flew along and up to the door, fully knowing that now she would be helped out of her difficulty. She didn't stop to knock, as the old lady was so deaf she knew she wouldn't hear her, but opened the door and walked in. Grandma was sweeping up the floor, already as neat as a pin; when she saw Polly coming, she stopped, ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney

... a word could either Captain Yorke or the florist draw from Matty, when the former had made known the purpose of his coming; and they both questioned her closely. One might have thought that she was utterly deaf and dumb as she sat opposing that stolid, determined silence to all they said. Johnny knew nothing which could throw any light on the subject; and after telling him of Tony's embarrassment, and bidding him be on the watch, the heavy-hearted ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... deaf to all her entreaties, and soon succeeded in pacifying her fears. Had I indeed been able to arouse the other inmates of the castle, it would have been of no avail, for it was now completely in the power of Caramitzo, as I have hitherto called him—for under that name I then ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... night; I perceive by this gear, That none is so deaf as who will not hear; I spake as plainly as I could devise, Yet me understand thou ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... my sister, Cry-Baby, appointed by me in my last will, whose wedding, alas! I cannot attend, I give and bequeath: thirty measures of barley; and of my nobler parts and property I give and bequeath, to the cobbler: my bristles; to the brawlers, my jaw-bones; to the deaf, my ears; to the shyster lawyers, my tongue; to the cow-herds, my intestines; to the sausage makers, my thighs; to the ladies, my tenderloins; to the boys, my bladder; to the girls, my little pig's tail; to the dancers, my muscles; to the runners and hunters, my ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... my man, are you deaf? Or are you doing it on purpose?... This isn't where I told you to go.... Rue Pergolese, do you hear!... Turn round at once ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... tea-pot. She began to laugh—she really couldn't help it. "You must have been deaf as well as blind!" she exclaimed. "They've been together perpetually! I admit that that's been his doing—not hers. For days past I've seen right into his mind—seen, I mean, the struggle that has been taking place between his pride and—yes, the extraordinary attraction that girl seems ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... the mission. I do not mean to say that Bolt made such facilities a study; nor would I be understood as casting a sneer at the diplomatic body in general, but when modern instances prove notorious facts, how can I turn a deaf ear to the belief that our diplomacy has embodied another function?—that of practising the most fashionable way of paying the most fashionable debts. Pardon this little digression. There was a never ending demand for Bolt's custom. Mr. Peppers, the distinguished ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... which makes the presence of any one real to us. We have an illustration of this in the pictures of the gramophone in which we see a dog listening for the master's voice. The sheep knows the shepherd's voice; the child is quick in recognizing its mother's voice; why do we turn a deaf ear to God's Voice? How tenderly He pleads with us, saying, "But My people would not hearken to My Voice." [Footnote: Ps. ...
— The One Great Reality • Louisa Clayton

... up and down, her feathers on end, her face swollen, her crest red, clucking away, trying to persuade her babies not to venture into the water. For hens, like cats, hate the water. It was unspeakable torture to her. The children would not listen; deaf to her prayers, her cries, these rascally babies ventured farther and farther out. They were at last and for the first time in their favourite element, lighter than little corks, they floated, dived, plunged, raced, fought, playing all ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar

... without further ceremony. Some of the most resolute once more applied to the Spanish court at this time as they had done before. But in that quarter not only had peace been concluded, but the hope of effecting a close alliance with England had been conceived. A deaf ear was turned ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... guessed that her own efforts were at the bottom of the change, or knew that a few words not meant for her ear had shamed Miss Bat into action. Coming home from prayer-meeting one dark night, she trotted along behind two old ladies who were gossiping in loud voices, as one was rather deaf, and Miss Bat was both pleased and troubled to hear herself ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... question the justice of this reasoning, that the Moors of the Marquisate of El Cenet were not expelled in a body, like those of the Alpujarra, but that many of them succeeded in remaining in the country, living in concealment, thanks to the prudence— or the cowardice—which made them turn a deaf ear to the rash and the heroic appeal of their unfortunate Prince, Aben Humcya; whence I infer that Uncle Juan Gomez, nicknamed Hormiga [The Ant], in the year of grace 1821 Constitutional Alcalde of Aldeire, might very well be the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... was strongly adverse to Ahmad; and some of the high Chinese officials on various occasions made remonstrance against the Minister's proceedings; but Kublai turned a deaf ear to them, and Ahmad succeeded in ruining most of his opponents. (Gaubil, 141, 143, 151; De Mailla, IX. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... seen t' thorn-trees on Greffington Edge," said Greatorex. He spoke to Ally as if she were deaf. ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... suddenly awakened. The business is generally accomplished by an organ-grinder or a little child (I would back the latter, at all events—give it a fair chance—to awaken anything in this world that was not stone deaf, or that had not been dead for more than twenty-four hours); and if an organ-grinder or a little child had been around Ostend station that morning, things ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome

... and crippled negress, the inference was irresistible that he "had money." Old Charlie, though by alias an "Injin," was plainly a dark white man, about as old as Colonel De Charleu, sunk in the bliss of deep ignorance, shrewd, deaf, and, by repute ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... get them there somehow—considering I hadn't had any time to practice. It made me wonder, though, what a deaf and dumb man would think if he got a job ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... grew merry, Wedded the king's daughter of Canterbury; For he alone, unlike squire, lord, and king, Watched a night by her without slumbering; He kept both waking. When he was but a lad He won a rich man's heiress, deaf, dumb, and sad, By rousing her to laugh at him. He carried His donkey on his back. So they were married. And while he was a little cobbler's boy He tricked the giant coming to destroy Shrewsbury by flood. 'And how ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas

... Save to go to mass, she never stirs beyond the house, and she is so deaf that you have to shout into her ear to make her hear the smallest thing. I will simply say to her that you have got a man-at-arms to go with you to the wars, and that until you leave he is to remain here in the house. You did not tell me whether I was ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... come into his world should know his intentions and have the opportunity to accept or reject that which he had to offer them. He hoped Cynthia would understand and forgive; he was fond of Cynthia. And he hoped, prayed, implored Heaven that Delight Hathaway would not turn a deaf ear to his entreaties, for without the prize on which his hopes were set life's race would not ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... and very quiet. The hubbub of voices, the brilliance of it all, overwhelmed her. If Scott had been on her other side, she would have been much happier, but he was far away making courteous conversation for the benefit of a deaf old lady whom no one else made ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... little playmate in the yard, shambling blindly for the open, deaf to the baby's cry of welcome, insensible to everything but the bitter burden of his pain. He slammed the gate behind him and set off at a lumbering run down ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... Biggs, you must know, Miss Sackville, is an ancient friend of the family, whom we consider it a duty to invite for a yearly visit. She is an admirable old soul, but very deaf, very slow, and incredibly boring. Her favourite occupation is to bring down sheaves of letters from other maiden ladies, and insist upon reading them aloud to the assembled family. 'I have just had ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... at this outrage of manhood and kindred affection. God knows that my will was good enough to have wrung his neck; or to have drained from his heartless system its last drop of blood! And yet I was obliged to turn a deaf ear to her cries for assistance, which to this day ring in my ears. Strong and athletic as I was, no hand of mine could be raised in her defence, but at the peril of both our lives;—nor could her husband, had he been a witness of the scene, be allowed any thing more ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... suffering the only evil, and selfishness the only sin. And the whole duty of man may be expressed in one sentence, slightly altered from Voltaire—Learn what is true in order to do what is right. If a man can tell you anything about these matters, listen to him; if not, turn a deaf ear, and let him preach to ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... was not deaf, and she could easily make him hear a cry for help; but she was afraid of Andreas. He kept the hotel garden in order, and if he found footmarks on the vegetable plots, or if anything went wrong with the plants, he always laid the blame ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... My little deaf and dumb boy slumbered a good deal now, and that was the case with all the children. They caused very little trouble to any one. They seemed, in my eyes, to get more like one another, not only in quiet manner, but in the face, too. The motion of the raft was usually so much the same, ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens

... my dear," said old Mazey, speaking in the high and hollow voice peculiar to the deaf. "You're the new maid—eh? And a fine-grown girl, too! His honor, the admiral, likes a parlor-maid with a clean run fore and aft. You'll do, my ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... that three-quarters of all have come from the country—from my campaign—and not over a quarter from the 'Standard Oil's' following and Wall Street," I answered. "Then you and Mr. Rockefeller will admit I was right when I told you that the public will respond to open and fair treatment when it is deaf and blind to stock trickery ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... mother-love, that knows no guile, That's deaf to flatt'ry, blind to art, A dimpled hand hath wooed thy smile— A baby's cooing touched ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... by a knocking outside; my landlady slept at the back, and she was deaf besides, so I went down myself. The wind put my candle out as I opened the door, but I saw a woman standing there in the rain, and I asked her what she wanted. She made no answer, but pushed past me into the passage, and went into my sitting-room. ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton



Words linked to "Deaf" :   desensitise, desensitize, people, hearing, hard-of-hearing, heedless, unhearing, hearing-impaired, unheeding



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