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Dully

adverb
1.
Without liveliness.
2.
Without luster or shine.  "Unpolished buttons glinted dully"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Dully" Quotes from Famous Books



... not thinking about herself at all, only of how she could help Allan, but there must have been something about her of the picture-book angel to the pain-racked man, lying tensely at length in the room's darkest corner. Her long, dully gold hair, loosening from its twist, flew out about her, and her face was still flushed with sleep. There was a something about her that was vividly alight and alive, perhaps the light in ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer

... toward the felucca, and, as she rolled toward it, curled in over her covering-board and poured in a heavy torrent across her deck, swirling round my raft and shifting it a foot or two nearer the side; and as it swept past I dabbled one of my hands in it, and was dully surprised that the contact did not cause the water to hiss and boil! Another mountain of water came brimming over the deck of the shuddering craft and shifted the raft so far that it fairly overhung the covering-board, ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... by then we should be so close to one another that you might find it in your heart to forgive. But I was wrong. I see it now. There are some things that no man can forgive. Some things," she repeated, dully, "which no ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... "Yes," she answered dully, "to-night. I have the the tickets. Don't you remember what day this is?" She strove to make her tone one of the most casual inquiry, but the attempt was miserably futile before the urge of ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... dies out.... Who is that coughing yonder so hoarsely and dully? Curled up in a ring, my aged dog, my sole companion, is nestling and quivering at my feet.... I feel cold.... I am shivering ... and they are all dead ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... elder to hear him, so slim and simple, discoursing so sweetly and reasonably on a theme on which few of us at the fag end of our days are ever able to utter one sensible syllable, but Lancelot always seemed to me wise beyond his time, so I listened, although dully enough and I fear sullenly. He slipped his hand into his breast and drew forth a small object which he held shut in his hand while ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... louder the trumpet-calls rang out to one another in answering voice, imperatively calling off the attacking forces. Impelled to retire by this constant clamour, all the Chinese soldiery must have retreated, except a few straggling snipers, who remained for a few minutes longer, dully and methodically loosing off their rifles at our barricades. Ten or fifteen minutes passed, and then, as if the growing solitude were oppressing them, these last snipers desisted, and, coolly rising and disclosing their brightly coloured tunics and sombre turbans, they sauntered ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... Dully he felt the beat of rocks. Then it flashed upon him that the dead man was sinking like a weighted thing. He freed himself. Fiercely he struggled to bring himself to the surface. It seemed an eternity before he rose ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... class lounging room is probably the most artistic as well as the most sumptuous apartment in the ship. The panels are of beautiful ingrained mahogany dully polished a rich brown. The white ceiling is of simple design with boldly carved mouldings and is supported by columns embossed in gold of exquisite workmanship. Some of the panels are of curiously woven tapestries, the fruit of oriental looms. Chandeliers of beautiful ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... was a considerable apparatus of rugs on the bed, and the night was warm. His ageing face (for he was the third man of fifty in that room) had an anxious look. But he made no movement, uttered no word, at sight of the doctor; just stared, dully. His own difficult breathing alone seemed to ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... there some poets gleamed, dully and coldly: the African Dracontius with his Hexameron, Claudius Memertius, with his liturgical poetry; Avitus of Vienne; then, the biographers like Ennodius, who narrates the prodigies of that perspicacious and venerated diplomat, Saint Epiphanius, the upright and vigilant pastor; or like ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... woman, dully, from her perch on the driver's seat. "But I reckon my man ain't never goin' ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

... abruptly there, and his face became drawn into deep lines. Then he continued dully: "When I crossed over ther Virginny line ... a posse was atter me—they sought ter hang me ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... spoil your chances, Decherd. Sit down." The man thus accosted involuntarily sank back into a seat. Then a sudden rage caught him, and he half-started up again. This time he saw something blue gleaming dully in the idle hand ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... sofa, with fixed white face and dull vacant eyes, counting the minutes till the funeral procession would have reached Kensal Green, and then following in mechanical fashion, prayer-book in hand, the service, stage by stage, until to my unspeakable terror, with the words, dully spoken, "It is all over", she fell back fainting. And here comes a curious psychological problem which has often puzzled me. Some weeks later she resolved to go and see her husband's grave. A relative ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... That would be the best thing for him. Had he not said the last time he was drunk and was crying so bitterly, "I don't suit this place. When my Sophia is a widow, will she love me more than she does now?" Yes, she would. He was quite right, and he had felt it dully in his intoxication. A monument should be erected to his memory, as beautiful a cross as could be ordered in Gradewitz, or even in Gnesen. If only he would depart, it only he would depart ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... "Just about," Beverley answered, dully. She knew that she could not sleep, but she was worn out with the effort of "keeping up" before her guests. She expected Roger to leave her at the door of her room, which he had entered only when the house was being shown to friends; but to her surprise, almost alarm, he followed her in. She ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... deformity as a whole—a vague, general, evenly blended, nicely adjusted deformity. There was a fox-like cunning in the face and the sharp little eyes, and also alertness and malice. And yet, this vile bit of human rubbish seemed to bear a sort of remote and ill-defined resemblance to me! It was dully perceptible in the mean form, the countenance, and even the clothes, gestures, manner, and attitudes of the creature. He was a farfetched, dim suggestion of a burlesque upon me, a caricature of me in little. One thing about him struck ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel's end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!' The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, As if by some instinct the wretch did know His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee: The bloody spur cannot provoke him on, That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide, Which heavily he answers with a groan, More sharp to me than spurring to his side; For ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... hymns the fleet— The fight by night—the fray Which bore our Flag against the powerful stream, And led it up to day. Dully through din of larger strife Shall bay that warring gun; But none the less to us who live It ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville

... him, just balking a blundering charge from the young man in the billycock. The young man threw himself impatiently on a hall chair. Flambeau looked at a Persian illumination on the wall; Father Brown, who seemed in a sort of daze, dully eyed the door. In about four minutes the door was opened again. Atkinson was quicker this time. He sprang forward, held the door open for an instant, and called out: "Oh, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... and coat on an old-fashioned couch that stood against the wall, and was about to sit down beside them, when the door opened again and a stocky man entered. His tanned face was expressionless, and the eyes looked dully at Marsh. A lock of light brown hair drooped over his forehead from under a cap, which he wore well back on his head. The cap seemed to be a fixture, for it was not removed while Marsh remained, and ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... Marcia longed to get out into the night. If she could have got downstairs without being heard she would have slipped out into the garden. But downstairs she could hear David pacing back and forth like some hurt, caged thing. Steadily, dully, he walked from the front hall back into the kitchen and back again. There was no possibility of escaping his notice. Marcia felt as if she might breathe freer in the open air, so she leaned far out of her window and looked up and down the street, and thought. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... them sabotaging the machines they worked on, Malone thought, was a tough one to take, too. But it had the advantage of making some sense. People, he told himself dully, will do nutty things deliberately. It's harder to think of them doing the same ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... dug into the furnace of melting iron with his pole, dully thinking only how many rails the lump would yield. It was late,—nearly Sunday morning; another hour, and the heavy work would be done,—only the furnaces to replenish and cover for the next day. The workmen were growing more noisy, shouting, as they had to do, to be heard over the deep clamor of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... vacation. This bathroom was as much as forty steps distant even from that populated spot, and not a single footfall had sounded in the corridor since Berta had disappeared into the gloom. The light from the outer apartment glimmered dully over the partition. At intervals in the stillness, a drop of water clinked from the faucet out there. Bea found herself holding her breath to listen for the tinkle of its splash. Outside the small window, a pale moon was drifting among ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... Dully, Arlee saw the preparations for a meal advancing. She shook her head at it; a cup of tea was all that she could touch. A lethargy had seized her; even the anger of revolt was gone. She closed her eyes languidly, grateful when the old woman went away, grateful when the darkness ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... It gets on my nerves to see them sitting there so dully, every day when I pass by on my way ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... disturbed because Mr. Mottram is again leaving England for the Indies." Catherine forced herself to say the words. She was dully surprised to see how quietly news so momentous to her was received ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... case for the coffee-house. It was economical, conduced to sobriety, and provided innocent diversion. When one had to meet a friend, a tavern was an expensive place; "in an ale-house you must gorge yourself with pot after pot, sit dully alone, or be drawn in to club for others' reckonings." Not so at the coffee-house: "Here, for a penny or two, you may spend two or three hours, have the shelter of a house, the warmth of a fire, the diversion of company; and conveniency, if you please, of taking a pipe ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... made in visiting their rabbit snares. In the fast gathering darkness the boy concealed himself in a bunch of willows which commanded a view of the door and window of the tiny cabin that lay half-buried in the snow. It was an old cabin evidently, rechinked by the free traders. The light shone dully through the little square window pane of greased paper. The Indian had already been admitted and Connie could see dim shadows move across the pane. The great wolf-dog crept close and, throwing his arm ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... Rohscheimer stared, dully. There were times when he suspected Haredale of being studiously rude to him. He preserved a gloomy silence throughout the rest of the period occupied by his toilet, and in silence descended ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... from Horng, who sat unmoving, staring dully over Rynason's shoulder at the wall behind him. "You should have seen yourself when you were under," she said. "I wanted to break the connection ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr

... stretcher; he was dimly aware of an appalling weakness, which grew hourly, then an agreeable indifference enveloped him, and for a long time he lived in a land of unrealities, of dreams. The day came when he began to wonder dully how and why he found himself in a freezing cabin with Doctor Thomas, in fur cap and arctic overshoes, tending him. Bill pondered the phenomenon for a week before he put his ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... was the New Testament, and in particular the Gospel according to St. Matthew. I believe it would startle and move any one if they could make a certain effort of imagination and read it freshly like a book, not droningly and dully like a portion of the Bible. Any one would then be able to see in it those truths which we are all courteously supposed to know and all modestly refrain from applying. But upon this subject it is perhaps better to ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... you were there," said Barbara dully. "Now I go with Joan at times, though mother frowns and says she is not fit. Eh, Audrey, if I could have a dress of red silk, with gold and bright stones, like you wore last night! Old days I had more than you, but all's changed ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... have been the shock of thus realizing suddenly how short a time remained in which I should have light which restored my senses. I know I stared at the dim yellow flicker dully at first, and then with a swift returning consciousness which spurred my brain into activity. In that instant I hated, despised myself, rebelled at my weakness. Faith in Claire Mortimer came back to me in a flood ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... try again if I rest," I thought, and meanwhile drifted out until the roar of the breakers came but dully to my ears—out where the water was ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... herself about Edith's presence, but the latter had also been watching her wiles—dully enough, however, until all at once a thought occurred ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... great heaviness came upon her, and she yielded herself to it, lying inert upon the couch in the drawing-room dully listening to the creak of the punkah that stirred without cooling ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... to persuade, my loving Proteus: Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. Were't not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein, Even as I would, when ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... conceptions worked dully in her. Yet she seemed then, as she always appeared to be, free from any action that should set the machine of penalty going against herself. She was inexorable, but she had never, knowingly, so much as slashed the hem of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the dark blue of the star-lit heavens. Moved as by one impulse, we plunged into the snow and took a few steps, as though to gain a nearer view of this strangely beautiful object. Almost immediately it was above us and the thuttering roar of its machinery came dully to our ears in waves and sharp gusts of sound. And we cried "Oh!" involuntarily, for we could see the dark spread of the vans plunging frantically in the air. I remember I stretched out my arms in an impotent ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... forehead and scalp lock of the Indian, and made to gleam intensely the gold earring in the ear of the mulatto. The scarlet cloth wound about the head of a Turk seemed to turn to actual flame. Under the baleful light vacant faces of dully honest English rustics became malignant, while the negro, dancing with long, outstretched arms and uncouth swayings to and fro, appeared ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... said, dully. "Well, you've taken my last holiday from me. I'll write to her tonight, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... about it," she replied dully. "I suppose a person with money might come to Brookville and want to buy a house. The old Bolton place used to be beautiful, mother says. I suppose it can be again. And if she chooses to ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... that I am—" he began, dully, and then burst into a mirthless laugh. "And knowing who I am, why do you not leap at the chance to become the Princess of Graustark? Why not realise ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... course overhead, their solid, heavily plated hulls glinting dully in the sun. Their levitator helices moaned dismally, and as their long, slanting shadows slid over the assembled thousands, it seemed that they cast a prophetic pall; that there ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... in the direction of a patch of grey water which shone dully at the end of the alley and while his thumb jerked his ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... he said dully. "Let me end quickly. Ay, I went with them, thinking that he would die on the way, for he was sorely wounded, and I mocked them and threatened them in vain. I led them to this place, and when they knew it they fled, and left him to me. Wherefore I brought him ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... travelling dully over the group of us, as if he expected somewhere to find help. At the same time he was not in the least thinking of us. He looked straight at me for a full minute before he awoke to ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... dully, her mouth and throat felt parched, and yet withal she had a feeling of contentment the reason for which did not immediately penetrate her dull consciousness. She realized only that some agreeable happening had left her with a sensation of ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... sat for an hour on the side of his bed, huddled in his dressing-gown, shivering and moistening his dry lips. He was like that when Therese came in to inquire how he was feeling. He saw her face alter as she caught sight of him, and he dully surmised that he must look pretty queer. He submitted without protest when she urged him to get back ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... "Yus, Cheapside!" the conductor dully repeated. "Go 'long Cheapside, turn to the left pas' St. Paul's, and you'll be in Ludgate 'ill. After thet, follow ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... swirls, wrapping them in a white sheet. Finally, from far off, mingling with the skirling pipes of the wind came a different, human sound. And, presently, when the call—if call it was—was repeated, the man sat up and looked dully around. But he made no effort to reply. He waited, listening stupidly, and the cry did not reach him again. Then, his glance falling to the woman, a ray of intelligence leaped in his eyes. He rose on his knees and moved her so there was room for his own bulk ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... head. He stared dully downstream to where a fifty-foot cliff extended across from side to side of ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... in his hands as his heart grew intolerably sad with the lack he felt in all the world, most of all in himself. He had often tried to tell himself what made the world so dully repellant, but he never could get beyond, "'Tis as though I was aslape an' yet not quite aslape—just half wakin', an' somethin' lovely is goin' on in the next room, an' I can't wake up to see what 'tis. The trouble's with th' people. They're ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... ghostly and stealthy figures advancing through the shimmering billows of vapor. Up, up, they came, like dream men, their eyes weird and unreal. Cursing the treachery of their late host, Nelson and Alden watched dozens upon dozens of hoplites come swarming up the stairs in solid, dully-gleaming ranks. Apparently intent to take them prisoners, the foremost Atlanteans made a rush, giving the American time to ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... He was wondering dully whether any of these men had ever felt the same degree of desperate anxiety about the future as he ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... "Reggie," he said dully, "I'm most awfully sorry. I had never dreamed of this. I was good pals with Yae because of you. I never dreamed of making love to her. You know how I love my wife. She must have been mad to think of me like that. Besides," he added ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... mass came tumbling about her face and shoulders. Under its glimmering splendour, and through it, she stared seaward out of wide, preoccupied eyes; and in her breast, stirring uneasily, a pulse, intermittent yet dully importunate, persisted. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... the words dully, sitting up to stare out toward the water. Then her head sank into her hands. "Can we—can ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... boys. I asked casually where I could find the stranger who had been in Skunk's Misery lately. But the woman only stared at me, as if the idea would not filter into her head. Presently she said dully that there had been no stranger there; I was the only one ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... him the tiny neon tube flickered dully, glowed briefly like a piece of red-hot iron, then went out. In a moment it was glowing again, and then quickly its brilliance mounted till it was a line of crimson. Morey snapped the switch from the general radar to the beam receiver, that he might ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... retorted the marshal. "You ain't no practical man. Keep yore hands where they are!"—his vibrant voice turned the shifting crowd to stone-like rigidity and he backed slowly toward the door, the poor light gleaming dully from the polished blue steel of his Colts. Rugged, lion-like, charged to the finger tips with reckless courage and dare-devil self-confidence, his personality overflowed and dominated the room, almost hypnotic in its effect. He was but one against many, but he was ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... seen soldiers of the Swiss guard, with their shining helmets, long halberds, and party-colored uniforms, designed by Michel Angelo,—chamberlains of the Pope, all in black, with their high ruffs, Spanish cloaks, silken stockings, and golden chains,—contadini from the mountains, in their dully brilliant costumes and white tovaglie,—common laborers from the Campagna, with their black mops of tangled hair,—forestieri of every nation,—Englishmen, with long, light, pendant whiskers, and an eye-glass ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... were drilling by hand, one man holding a bar of iron a few feet long which another was striking with a five-pound sledge that luckily never missed its mark. This was indeed working in Mexico. It would have been difficult to get farther into it; and a man could not but dully wonder if he would ever ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... longer reacted to disturbing thoughts and vague fears and she felt that she was drifting, peacefully, to some end that was by this time nearly indifferent to her. The day wore on, with a long interval in Ottawa, where she dully waited in the station, the restaurant permitting her to indulge in a comforting cup of coffee. All that she saw of the town was from the train. There was a bridge above the tracks, near the station, and on the outskirts there were winding and frozen waterways on ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... was called, Even by ourselves—that which springs Out of the years for all flesh, first or last, Commonplace, scrawled Dully on days that go past. Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wings Even in hours overcast: Aye, though this best thing of things, "Nought" ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... affairs it happened once that, as I was leaning out of my window gazing dully into vacancy, the lady's-maid from the castle came tripping across the road. When she saw me she came and stood just outside the window. "His Grace returned from his travels yesterday," she remarked, hurriedly. "Indeed!" I said, surprised, for I had taken no interest in anything ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... the Italian fury of her, was dully resentful even, suspecting that in such words from a woman were she twenty times his mother, there was something ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... he slightly raised the roof and then sat down before the car which was rapidly taking on shape and assuming that individuality and appearance of sentient life which hitherto he had only seen in dreams. But his eye, which had never failed to kindle at this sight before, shone dully in the semi-gloom. The air-car could wait; he would first have his hour in this solitude of his own making. The gaze he dreaded, the words from which he shrank could not penetrate here. He might even shout her name aloud, and only these windowless walls ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... together up on the dark balcony. It wasn't fair—it wasn't fair—just now, when she was so secure and happy! She had flung her arms across the railing, and buried her hot face on them, and had wept desperate and angry tears into the silken and golden tangle that shone dully ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... glare, there was no economy; and, beside, he had ever year a child, and very fond of his children was he. But none of them lived above three years. And being now, on the death of the dozenth, grown as dully sober, as if he had been a real husband, his good Mrs. Thomas (for he had not permitted her to take his own name) prevailed upon him to think the loss of their children a judgment upon the parents for their wicked way of life; [a time will come, Lovelace, if we live ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... it dully. He looked around him at the natural meadow sloping gently up from the river-bank to the grassy hills behind, a rich field ready to the farmer's hand and crying for tilth, and he said to himself, "This is ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... Greek and Latin, and the Latin verses were exercises out of which I got much real enjoyment, and some of the pride of authorship. But it was possible to be very idle, and to get much contraband help in work from other boys. Most of the school work consisted of repetition, and of classical books, dully and leisurely construed. I do not think I ever attempted to attend to the work in school; and there were few stimulating teachers. I needed strict and careful teaching, and got some from my private tutor; but otherwise there was no individual attention. The ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... listening to the song of a wild bird on the edge of a clearing at night, and how, standing entranced, the low, distant jar of thunder sounded at moments, scarcely audible—like his heart now, at intervals, dully persistent amid the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... who counsel can bestow, Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know? Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite; Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right; Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere, 635 Modestly bold, and humanly severe: Who to a friend his faults can freely show, And gladly praise the merit of a foe? Blest with a taste exact, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... you were dead," she said dully. "Drowned. I mean—oh, of course, it's the same thing, isn't it?" And she laughed, the shrill, ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... lamely, and fell suddenly into a settled silence. The hard lines about his lips deepened; his eyes, cast to the ground, glowed dully; and in every feature Lucy read the despair that was gnawing at his heart. And with it there was something more—a tacit rebuke to her for having brought Kitty there ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... hurriedly, and the frosty orbs between were too few to throw a light. The ocean ahead and around was the duskier for the spectral illumination of the near foam and the glimmer of the ice-coated ship. I tested the vessel with the tiller and found she responded but dully; she would be nimbler under canvas no doubt, but it was enough that she should answer her helm at all. Oh, I say, I was mighty thankful, most humbly grateful. My heart was never more honest ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... should not have been cold that August evening. Beyond the wooden bed a small, rectangular window with sash removed showed a square of warm sky and a few stars twinkling dully in the autumnal haze. An occasional impatient tinkle of the cow-bell down in the corral indicated midges, only present on bland days and nights when there is in the air no hint of frost to stiffen ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... it," snapped Tommy, to Evelyn's whispered question. "I think I know the rest. Aten!" He snapped question after question in his inadequate phrasing of the city's tongue. Evelyn saw Aten answer dully, then bitterly, and then, as Tommy caught his arm and whispered savagely to him, Aten's eyes caught fire. He nodded violently ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... but at the end of three hours he was compelled to put forth decided efforts to keep pace. His walking was no longer mechanical, but conscious. When it becomes so, a man soon tires. Thorpe resented the inequalities, the stones, the roots, the patches of soft ground which lay in his way. He felt dully that they were not fair. He could negotiate the distance; but anything else ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... ominous that she hastily did as he bid, wondering dully whether at last her day of reckoning ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... his eyes to see Mona bending over him, bathing his head. He looked around dully, blinked once or twice, frowned as though trying to ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... Belphin's demise, the Flockharts arrived en masse. "We won't need your secret weapons now," Ludovick told them dully. "The Belphin of Belphins ...
— The Blue Tower • Evelyn E. Smith

... you shake the head at so long a breathing;I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us; I will, in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring signior Benedick and the lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection, the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... muffled, from below. A bell jangled madly. The crackle of pistol-fire punched dully through the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... something gave way within him like a lump melting in his throat. The air cleared and became radiant with dawn, and turning over on his face he began to sob dully into the pillow. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... since he had entered the house. In reality, the time was short. As he had crossed the threshold, Beatrix had raised her head and looked at him dully. Then her reaction had come. Like the ebb and flow of the waves, excitement had followed apathy; and, as she had met his eyes, the wave had risen again and swept her away upon its tossing crest. Thayer was here at last. He never forgot her, never forsook her. He had come to her in this moment of ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... said Mrs. Peabody dully. "Only—well, I found this card from the new minister back of the pump this morning. It's a week old, and he says he's coming out to call this afternoon. There's no place in the house I can show him, and I haven't ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... you please," he said dully. "I don't justify myself, however. I have ruined her life and now I must pay ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... passed out through the gate and turned down the street, dully conscious of the continued rejoicing uproar behind him. Alternately buoyed by hope and weighted by fear, he had passed the most trying hour of his life, and now in his bosom he carried a heart that seemed sick and faint and scarcely able to pump ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... writing the ticket, and was pressing labels and a pink paper on him. The paper, he gathered dully, was a form and had to be filled up. He examined it, and found it to be a searching document. Some of its questions could be answered off-hand, others ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... again, he felt faint and sick, and his head ached dully. This was the effect of the powerful drug which had been used to overcome him, but for the rest he was unhurt and quite himself. He found at once that he was securely bound hand and foot. His ankles were fastened together by ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... crowded London street with his face turned westward. A few moments ago and he was scarcely conscious of where he was or where he meant to go: he was walking on mechanically in a heavy stupor, through which there stole a haunting sense of degradation and despair that tortured him dully. And suddenly, as if by magic, this has vanished: he seems to himself to have waked from a miserable day dream to the buoyant consciousness of youth and hope. Temperaments which are subject to fits of heavy and causeless depression have their compensations sometimes in the reaction which follows; ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... white-haired man with the twinkling eyes, who has sold me marvellous Venus de Milos, etc., times without number. I greeted him with real feeling and enthusiasm, for here was somebody I knew. He did not recognize me and stared dully, without answering, as one who is dazed; he was unshaven and dirty, his usually clear eye was lifeless and his face was thin and drawn. Could it be that he had not enough to eat, or was it despair? He must have had nephews and perhaps sons and grandsons at the front. But do the ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... forthcoming immediate resignation from the army: or else a written explanation of his farewell to Billie, following up the telegram; or thinking out business directions to Edwin Reeves. Suddenly, however, as he was dully wondering how best to send the heiress to New York without going back himself, a name spoken almost in his ear had the blinding effect of a ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... went on Maud, dully conscious of failure, but stippling in like an artist the little touches which give atmosphere and verisimilitude to a story. 'All scented. Horace will tease me about it, I ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... clear to those who may read, the truth of that which I would tell; and the histories of that great Redoubt dealt not with odd thousands of years; but with very millions; aye, away back into what they of that Age conceived to be the early days of the earth, when the sun, maybe, still gloomed dully in the night sky of the world. But of all that went before, nothing, save as myths, and matters to be taken most cautiously, and believed not by men of sanity and ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... higher than a tall man, holding lamps of silver on sliding arms, half-a-dozen or more in number, and all burning. The light was clear, bringing into view the panelling on the walls, the cornice with its row of gilded balls, and the dome dully tinted with violet mica. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... himself was interested purely as a spectator. He had views on the subject of tea-making which he liked to expound from an armchair or sofa, but he never got further than this. Mike, his back throbbing dully from the blow he had received, and feeling more than a little sore all over, prepared the Etna, fetched the milk, and finally produced the ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... Dully the mirror-force relay clicked. A hazy glow ran over the silver block, and died. Then—simultaneously the power was thrown from two small, compact atostors into the twin projectors. Instantly—a titanic eruption of light almost invisibly violet, spurted out in a solid, compact ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... "Well," he answered dully, "I can give you up—because I have to; but I shall never be resigned about it, and I fear I may be embittered. Is ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... up, yawned again, stretched himself, and looked around him dully. For a long time he eyed the grave. The half-darkness changed by imperceptible degrees to full day; the sun was about to appear. The sky was nearly cloudless. The whole wonderful extent of the mighty ridge behind him began to emerge from the morning mist... there was a part of Sarclash, and the ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... she repeated, dully, and her own voice sounded strange—like a voice she had never heard. "Where—where's Tex?" The question was not addressed to Purdy, it was merely the groping effort of a numbed brain trying to piece ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... years before, and after the first few months of observation he had aroused no interest. He had minded his business, paid his way, taken his turn in camp at greenhorn jobs, accounted for his presence on the ground of seeking health, and that was all. Life went on as usual, sluggishly and dully—but on. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... a loss what to do with the girl's shoe he was still holding in his fist. Finally, looking dully at me, he put it down on the chair from which ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... and have done a good deal to find this secret that we expected Egypt to give us," I said, dully, instead ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... vision of a home interior was so different from the low, heavy-beamed rooms and little diamond-paned windows of the Ordinary, even after all her attempts to make it cosy, that she seemed to have awakened in fairy land. She wondered dully why she had never trained ivies and Madeira vines over those dark beams, and blushed at the thought that so simple a device had never occurred to her. She lay motionless until she had recalled the incidents of the day. She had recognized Mr. Le Moyne at ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... known him. Something, too, had come over his face. His brow was clouded, and the tan of weather stood out hard and cruel on a blanched cheek. His eye seemed both wilder and sicklier, and for the first time I saw him with none of the appurtenances of his trade. He greeted me feebly and dully, and showed little wish to speak. He walked with slow, uncertain step, and his breath laboured with a new panting. Every now and then he would look at me sidewise, and in his feverish glance I could ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... girls. Their veils were streaming and fluttering out behind, many-hued and flimsy. They were all gazing at the office windows as they passed. "One might think it was a reformatory or the county workhouse or something," he thought. He turned dully to the stack of reports and began to count them. ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... and sister meet again, after their education is complete, a pair of strangers. It is a harsh law, and highly unpopular; but what a power it places in the hands of the instructors, and how languidly and dully is that power employed by the mission! Too much concern to make the natives pious, a design in which they all confess defeat, is, I suppose, the explanation of their miserable system. But they might see in the girls' school at Tai-o-hae, under ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... stood there, so near, so very near together and still so infinitely far apart. Dully, almost ploddingly, the ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... very thought he felt the perspiration stand out as he gazed dully at the swaying figure of Jerry which was slowly vanishing above him. However, there was no use speculating, he considered. Little by little the form of Jerry merged into the flickering lights and shadows overhead; staring up, he could ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney

... walk on, but somehow this impulse refused to act on his sense of locomotion. He waited, dully wondering what was going to happen when she came out. He had left her room that night in Paris, vowing that he would never intrude on her again. With the recollection of that bullet whizzing past his ear, he had been convinced ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... skulk, or make off, owing to persecution; and members were warned that noisy declamation was not a proof of zeal but might be a cloak for treachery. Above the chairman's seat was suspended a card with the words—"Beware of Orators." One would like to have witnessed the proceedings of these dully earnest men. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... woe, punishment, and all mournfulness to the people all the time. Where you find sin, go ahead and denounce it mercilessly; but do it crisply, cuttingly, not dully and innocuously. Speak to kill. Do not forget that the Master told the people of His day that they "were a ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... staring at her, dully. "Grace? Now wait a minute. You're travelling too fast for a mere man." His hand ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... Ann's heart ached dully—the happiness she had had in her lover had diminished of late. Constantly unpleasant words passed between them on subjects of so little importance that Ann wondered, when she was alone, why they should have been said at all. Several ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... the noise of dropping particles, behind in the room, came dully to my ears. Once, I heard a loud crash, and turned, instinctively, to look; forgetting, for the moment, the impenetrable night in which every detail was submerged. In a while, my gaze sought the heavens; turning, unconsciously, toward ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... comfortable room and groaned again. "She asked me to get an estimate from Digson," he said, dully. "She knows as well as I do her sister hasn't got any money. I wrote to say that it had better be left till she comes home, as I might not ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... desperate situation, and follow my silent conductor down some narrow and steep stairs until we stood upon the cemented floor of the basement. Here a heavy door in the stone division wall was opened; I was pushed forward into the dense darkness within, and the lock clicked dully behind me. So thick was the wall I could not even distinguish the retreating ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... sobbing wail began once more to rise. O'Keefe pushed me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... her eyes. But this abrupt and hard mask was only caused by the effort she was making after thought, after understanding. She pressed her feet upon the ground, and the toes inside her worn shoes curved themselves inwards. What had Valentine said? What—what? She stared dully at the doctor under her ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... she had dreamed and fancied and believed and cared for in man passed dully through her mind. Her own aspirations toward ideal womanhood followed—visions of lofty desire, high ideals, innocent passions, the happiness of renunciation, the glory ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... said Leighton, dully. Then he tossed back his head. He would not blur Lew's happy hour. He held out his hand. "I hear," he repeated, ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain



Words linked to "Dully" :   dull



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