"Dumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Kafka, advancing suddenly a step forwards from between the slabs. "Do with me? Do you speak of me as though I were a dog—a dumb animal—but ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... not prove his point. Savages are more demonstrative in their expression of all their emotions than we are; but this does not indicate that their emotions are deeper. On the contrary, as the poet has told us, it is the shallow brooks and the shallow passions that murmur; "the deep are dumb." It is a rule of etiquette in civilized society to repress any extravagant demonstration of feeling by gestures; and this is the reason why we are apparently less affected by music than savages. Yet, how difficult it is even to-day to repress the muscular impulses imparted ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... nightfall is beginning to be felt, and the shepherdess wears a hood and cape. Her face shows her to be a dreamer. These long days in the open air give her many visions to dream of. Her companionship with dumb creatures makes her more thoughtful, perhaps, than many girls ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... look after the cattle like a man, and keep up the fires, for there's a storm brewin', and neither the children nor dumb critters must suffer," said Mr. Bassett, as he turned up the collar of his rough coat and put on his blue mittens, while the old mare shook her bells as if she preferred a trip to Keene ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... an iron Fate lorded it, with dumb force, over the widespread families of men. A gloomy oppression swathed their anxious souls: the Earth was boundless, the abode of the gods and their home. From eternal ages stood its mysterious structure. Beyond ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... enter into its spirit you must be somewhat of a monastic turn of mind, and have spiritual affiliations, above all, with La Trappe. For the presiding muse of an old canal is Silence; yet, as at La Trappe, a silence far indeed from being a dumb silence, but a silence that contains all speech. My friend and I spoke hardly at all as we walked along, easily obedient to the spirit of the hour and the place. For there were so few of those little ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... to pecuniary exactions"] and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened, not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation, ["into his manner of life, who stoopeth to look?" according to the Hebrew] for he was cut off out of the land of the living; for, [or ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... minutes every gun was dumb. Then the Franklin, the French ship that had taken fire, began the fight again. But the Defence and Swiftsure brought down her masts, silenced nearly all her guns, and forced her to surrender. By midnight the first seven ships in that gallant French ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... up as in the act of being about to speak—nay, his lips had begun to utter a distinct negative—when the abortive attempt died away in the imperfect murmurs of the dumb. ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... And babbles in our name; the one is Prayer, Lending its licensed freedom to the tongue That tells our sorrows and our sins to Heaven; The other, Verse, that throws its spangled web Around our naked speech and makes it bold. I, whose best prayer is silence; sitting dumb In the great temple where I nightly serve Him who is throned in light, have dared to claim The poet's franchise, though I may not hope To wear his garland; hear me while I tell My story in such form as poets use, But breathed in fitful whispers, as ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a pair of dumb-bells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the rest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing seized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard-door. The ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... leader, a Teuton born, A sharp who worried the E flat horn; And Baritone Jake, and Alto Mike, Who never played any thing twice alike; And Tenor Tom, of conservative mind, Who always came out a note behind; And Dick, whose tuba was seldom dumb, And Bob, who punished the big bass drum. And when they stopped a minute to rest, The martial band discoursed its best; The ponderous drum and the pointed fife Proceeded to roll and shriek for life; And Bonaparte ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... N. animal, animal kingdom; fauna; brute creation. beast, brute, creature, critter [US dialect], wight, created being; creeping thing, living thing; dumb animal, dumb creature; zoophyte. [major divisions of animals] mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, crustacean, shellfish, mollusk, worm, insect, arthropod, microbe. [microscopic animals] microbe, animalcule &c. 193. [reptiles] alligator, crocodile; saurian; dinosaur [extinct]; snake, serpent, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... notions forsaking, The proud ANGELINA unbends; And her figure's a tall one for making A fit for the figures of friends. Our cynical latter-day Catos Are dumb when invited to dine With a Marquis who deals in potatoes, Or an Earl who takes orders for wine. And, though old-fashioned folk think it funny, It's as common as death, or as debts, To find gentlemen making their money Out of shops for the making ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... all the time, a mere murmur in the silence of dark houses with their shutters closed early against the night air, as is the custom of Sulaco. Only the sala of the Casa Gould flung out defiantly the blaze of its four windows, the bright appeal of light in the whole dumb obscurity of the street. And the murmur on the little balcony went on after a ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... which was Godwin—greater none than he Though fallen, and fallen on evil times, to stand Among the spirits of our age and land Before the dread tribunal of To-come The foremost, while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb." ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... perhaps of some coloured captive maiden, wreathed in hibiscus flowers, loudly proclaiming her distaste at the idea of being compulsorily converted into "long pig." I should, of course, have had to rescue her after exhibiting prodigies of valour, to find this dumb but devoted damsel clinging to me like a leech, remaining a most embarrassing appendage until she had learned sufficient English to answer "I will," when I could have united her to a suitable mate, a ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... dumb deaf tomb can aught or grateful or pleasing (Calvus!) ever accrue rising from out of our dule, Wherewith yearning desire renews our loves in the bygone, And for long friendships lost many a tear must be shed; Certes, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... two instances of blasphemy, and their very remarkable punishment, for it is impossible not to see the hand of God in what followed so close upon the offending. A desperate gambler called upon the Almighty to strike him dumb, if in the next deal a certain card turned up. It did turn up, and at the last accounts the man had not yet spoken. Another cast from his door a vendor of images and crucifixes with a curse and the remark that he would rather have the devil in his house than a ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... The crowd grows dumb and hearts beat quick, as those two stand there, face to face, the large-boned, solid Culver, and the compact, light- footed Dick, with his clean, fresh skin, and well-poised head, and tight, determined lips; and the signal goes forth that ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... For a moment the curtain is drawn, and we see what is actually transpiring in the future world. In these days there is a disposition in some quarters to make light of the future punishment of the wicked. Some preachers are dumb upon the awful punishment of sin, or preach only half a gospel, saying, as Bishop Warren puts it, "You must repent, as it were; be converted, in a measure; or you will go to hell, ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... passionate question which has revealed to them the secret of the heart of a man who was guileless enough to proceed by questioning! To question a woman! why, that is delivering one's self up to her; does she not learn in that way all that we seek to hide from her? Does she not know also how to be dumb, through speaking? What men are daring enough to struggle with the Parisian woman?—a woman who knows how to hold herself above all dagger thrusts, saying: "You are very inquisitive; what is it to ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... Croesus experienced the truth of what Solon had told him.(1106) He had two sons, one of which, being dumb, was a perpetual subject of affliction to him; the other, named Atys, was distinguished by every good quality, and his great consolation and delight. The father one night had a dream, which made a great impression ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... hot, violent grief seems now over; the mourners have settled down in their dumb sense of loss. This spirit of calm, noble resignation is what is expressed upon these monuments. All is chaste, dignified, simple. There are no labored eulogies of the deceased; no frantic expressions of sorrow; no hint (let it be also said) of any hope of reunions ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Hall, where, till midnight, mourning columns filed past the catafalque. The body lay in state under the Capitol rotunda at Washington for a day, and was borne thence, hardly a moment out of hearing of solemn bells or out of sight of half-masted flags and dumb, mourning multitudes, to the old home at Canton, Ohio. Here the late Chief Magistrate's fellow-townsmen, his old army comrades, and other thousands joined the procession to the cemetery or tearfully lined ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... in a joyous world as remote from him as Neptune. Mrs. Ware kept Katherine Holroyd engaged in mild talk of cooks and curates, while the other two maintained their baffling conversation, half banter, half serious, on a bewildering number of topics, and poor Dick remained as dumb as the fish and cutlets he was eating. He sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Ware at the foot. On his right hand sat Katherine Holroyd, on his left Viviette, and between her and his mother was Austin. With Viviette talking to Austin and Mrs. Ware to Katherine, ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... found in their dwellings, as also domesticated parrots, scarlet cranes, and some dumb dogs, which they fattened as an article of food. One day a number of natives were seen in a canoe, occupied in fishing. They employed a small fish, tied by the tail, the flat head of which was furnished with numerous suckers, by which it attached itself so ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... for once indifferent to her husband's dumb command; then tears welled into her tired eyes. She pocketed her pride for her child's sake. It had been her hopeless longing for years to give her darling's splendid ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... terminal with an addressable cursor; the opposite of a {glass tty}. Today, a terminal with merely an addressable cursor, but with none of the more-powerful features mentioned in sense 1, is called a {dumb terminal}. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... three, and a few other stray buildings, constituting the hamlet. As it seemed an impertinence to follow such an intrusive, inquisitive little road at all, we could, of course, do no less than maintain a dumb propriety in the presence of the children and kitchen-utensils, but, as we left them behind and struck across an open field, my eye fell on one of those way-side shrines common in all Roman-Catholic districts. It was a miniature arch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... fact. We go on taking everything for granted, and so we go on, until whatever we do, good, bad, or indifferent, we do from habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, when I am called upon to plead to my conscience, on my death-bed. "Habit," says I; "I was deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic, to a million things, from habit." ''Very business-like indeed, Mr What's-your-name,' says Conscience, ''but it won't ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... life she was afflicted with that inability to speak at critical times. Dumb always was she apt to be when her affections were concerned, except occasionally, in moments of strong excitement; and in anger, when she was driven to bay. The intensity of her feelings would probably have made her dumb in any ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... are reciprocal, and if these be badly fulfilled on the one side, they will be neglected on the other side. The child ought to love his mother before he knows that it is his duty to love her. If the voice of natural affection be not strengthened by habit and by care, it will grow dumb even in childhood; and thus the heart dies, so to speak, before it is born. Thus from the outset we are beyond ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... should be taking instead of letting him run me out," Ambrose thought dispassionately, as if it were somebody else. But he remained dumb. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... and then was dumb. The Mufti looked about the room, And straight made answer to his lord, Fearing ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... aged, hither come, For ye have felt his love: Soon shall your trembling tongues be dumb, Your lips ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... she would take her spirited part in the conversation of the 'faithful,' and would revel in all their fun; but, since the accident to her jaw, she had abandoned the effort involved in real hilarity, and had substituted a kind of symbolical dumb-show which signified, without endangering or even fatiguing her in any way, that she was 'laughing until she cried.' At the least witticism aimed by any of the circle against a 'bore,' or against a former member ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of the Cumberland. The old Crockett home still stands a few miles to the north of Jamestown beside the road that leads to Pall Mall. It was in a house upon land owned by Coonrod Pile that "Deaf and Dumb Jimmy Crockett" spent the last years of his life, and from which he made so many journeys to locate the silver mine of the Indians who had held him captive and who pinioned him to the ground while they dug their ore, never allowing him to see where they worked, but using him ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... had no spark took huge she-animals unto them. They begat upon them dumb races. Dumb they were themselves. But their tongues untied. The tongues of their progeny remained still. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked red-hair-covered monsters going on all fours. A dumb race to keep the shame untold." (And an ancient commentary adds 'when the Third separated and ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... died every day, and lay where they fell, for there was no one to bury them. Familiarity with the spectacle made men indifferent to it. They looked on in dumb despair waiting for their own turn to come. There was no complaint or lamentation, but deep, unutterable woe. In the midst of this appalling misery Guatemozin remained calm and courageous, and as firmly resolved not to capitulate as at the beginning of the siege. It is even said ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... which we contend, undoubtedly must; for, if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us. The freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent, we may be led like ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... I didn't mean to insult the dumb creation," responded Tom. "Baxter, you are the limit. I suppose you ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... triumphant snarl the blood-crazed Peruvian closed in, slashing for the throat. Knowlton slipped aside, evaded the thrust, swung the pistol down hard on his assailant's head. The man reeled, thrust again blindly, missed. Knowlton crashed his dumb gun down again. It struck fair on ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... sit here philosophising forever, or till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of doors: but Lieschen was his right-arm, and spoon, and necessary of life, and would not be flatly gainsayed. We can still remember the ancient woman; so silent that some thought her dumb; deaf also you would often have supposed her; for Teufelsdroeckh, and Teufelsdroeckh only, would she serve or give heed to; and with him she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs; if it were not rather by some secret divination that she guessed all his wants, and supplied ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... a waltz, the murmur of voices, the laughter of some of the people in the conservatory. Stafford sat, his head still upon his hands, as if her were half stupefied. And indeed he was. He felt like a man who has been seized by the tentacles of an octopus, unable to struggle, unable to move, dumb-stricken, and incapable even of protest. Sir Stephen had spoken of fate: Fate held Stafford under its iron heel, and the mockery of Fate's laughter mingled with the strains of the waltz, the murmur of voices. Unconsciously ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... fire, all at once we heard something without,—a slight rustling at the door. The door flew open, and we saw a little girl, three or four years old, and more beautiful than I can say, standing on the threshold, richly dressed, and smiling upon us. We were struck dumb with astonishment, and I knew not for a time whether the tiny form were a real human being, or a mere mockery of enchantment. But I soon perceived water dripping from her golden hair and rich garments, and that the pretty child had been lying ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... are her daily denunciations of slavery? Where now is Exeter Hall, so lately teeming with anti slavery harangues, but now cheering the slavery rebellion? Where are the abolition lords and ladies of England; where the reverend clergy; where the public press, and Parliament? Has England been struck dumb in a moment, that she can no longer denounce a system which, up to the hour of pro-slavery secession, she had, from day to day, during more than a fourth of a century, declared to combine all the crimes of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... it was at Salamis that the army had perished, and the city of Athens that had been chief among their enemies, the old men breaking in upon his story as he spake with their lamentations. But after a while the Queen Atossa stood forward, saying, "For a while I was dumb, for the trouble that I heard suffered me not to speak. But we must bear what the Gods send. Tell me, therefore, who is yet alive? and for whom ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... exhibition of the fire-arms. Pistol for pistol had been utterly out of the range of his calculations. He looked upon the stranger with astonishment, not un-mingled with a considerable portion of that wholesome feeling which begets self-preservation. In fact, he was struck dumb, and uttered not a syllable; and as the stranger made his parting bow, the other could only stare at him as if he had seen ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... despairing gestures with his hands, but still no words came from his mouth. He might have been struck dumb. I do not know what came over me; I took him by the shoulders and shook him. Looking back, I am vexed that I made such a fool of myself; I suppose the last restless nights had shaken my ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... hungry. He did his best, however, and the old pony was very patient, poor beast, and Geoff's natural love of animals stood him in good stead; he could never have relieved his own depression by ill temper to any dumb creature. And at last old Dapple was made as comfortable as Geoff knew how, for Matthew took care to keep out of the way, and to offer no help or advice, and the boy turned towards ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... Where was the strong sense—the lofty reason that should then have conquered with an unobstructed force, sweeping all before it, as the flame that rushes through the long grass of the prairies? Gone—prostrate—dumb. The fierce passion was upward, and my heart was then more an outlaw than I ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... it? Unreplying, Destiny the question hears, When the bleeding people lying, Dumb with grief, no cry uprears!— Now new songs chant forth, in sorrow Deeply bowed lament no more; Them the earth brings forth tomorrow, As she brought them forth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the calmness of one who knew and faced the worst. The torture in his eyes had turned to dumb endurance. "Only thus," he said—"only thus can we be true to our love. We sacrifice the little for the much. Mignonne, believe me, it is worth it. You are mine, and I am yours. So be ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... shape the destiny of our land, and we cannot afford to neglect them. The Legislature of Colorado has recommended that the National Government provide some general measure for the protection from abuse of children and dumb animals throughout the United States. I lay the matter before you for what I trust will be ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... number of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN I notice an ingenious method of teaching deaf and dumb persons to converse in the dark, which is also applicable to blind mutes, and it brings to my recollection a method which was in use among the "telegraph boys" some years ago when I was one of them. Sometimes when we were visiting and asked to communicate to a "brother chip," ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... Dumb with impotent rage I returned to the house, where presently the remains of the reed gate opened. Through it appeared Simba the King, the diviner with the injured foot walking upon crutches, and others of whom the most were ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... wicker hamper, addressed to "Mrs Thornton, The Vicarage, Raby," and bearing on the label the name of a well-known London fruiterer. To cut the string and tear it open was the work of a moment, when inside was revealed such treasures of hothouse fruits as left the beholders dumb and gasping ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a woman," I said after a little interval, feeling oddly that I had failed altogether to answer him, and yet had a strong dumb ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the science of angles as she had mastered tennis and French and German and Italian. She had naturally a fine intellect, with many of her father's characteristics, and a tender heart that made every dumb creature ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... over which the boats glided was black and smooth, rising into huge foamless billows, the more terrible because they were silent. When the sea hisses, it speaks, and speech breaks the spell of terror; when it is inert, heaving noiselessly, it is dumb, and seems to brood over mischief. The ocean in a calm is like a sulky giant; one dreads that it may be meditating evil. Moreover, an angry sea looks less vast in extent than a calm one. Its mounting waves bring ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... had elapsed had transformed her into a woman; but she had retained her old characteristics of shyness, simplicity, and a worshipful love of Raphael. She had followed him to Rome, so he told me, like some faithful, dumb animal which could not live away from its master, and moved by her great affection he had given her lodging and employment as his model. There lacked not malicious tongues who called her his mistress; but so modest yet unabashed was her demeanour that I can well believe that ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... and other bodily defects are similarly found in man as well as in other animals, according to Eccles. 3:19, "The death of man and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both equal." But in dumb animals death is not a punishment of sin. Therefore neither is it ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... in public after this, without begging the Lord to loose the string of the tongue; for, as he said (speaking from experience), "so many are held captive by that dumb devil." He became a true missionary for souls, and was very zealous in his testimony, especially amongst his old companions, who worked in the same factory: he had the joy of seeing many of them brought ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... prefer that name, I'm a Yankee—but we call only New-Englanders Yankees." He waited for her to speak, but as she sat dumb, helpless, overcome, he continued: "I tried to explain the mistake before, but your kindness cut me off. I can only say that, though you have given me a mother's care and a Christian's consideration under a misunderstanding, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Captain Passford," said he, evidently to prevent his superior from misinterpreting the lightness of his conduct. "As you are aware, he is deaf and dumb." ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... series of neat pamphlets, under the title of 'The Great Round World Natural History Stories.' These sketches need no commendation from us; you know what they are, for you have felt their gentle influence in inculcating a love for the faithful and affectionate dumb creatures that depend upon us for comfort and protection. A general distribution of these little books among young people would do incalculable good, and it would give their readers great pleasure, at the same time."—Philadelphia (Pa.) ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 30, June 3, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... future queen of Charles I. of England. The room was crowded with ministers and courtiers; Villeroy, the Chancellor, Bassompierre, and others, being stuck against the wall at small intervals like statues, dumb, motionless, scarcely daring to breathe. The King, with his hands behind him and his grey beard sunk on his breast, was pacing up and down the room in a paroxysm of rage ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... summer, half an hour, or even an hour, earlier. Immediately, with very little incumbrance of clothing, I begin a series of exercises, for the most part designed to expand the chest, and at the same time call into action all the muscles and articulations of the body. These are performed with dumb-bells, the very lightest, covered with flannel; with a pole, a horizontal bar, and a light chair swung around my head. After a full hour, and sometimes more, passed in this manner, I bathe from head ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... devoid of all her former interest in so doing things for herself as to save interference; and when Mrs. Ledwich and Mrs. Pugh walked in, overflowing with suggestions, she let them have their way, and toiled under them with the sensation of being like 'dumb driven cattle.' If Leonard were to be an exile, what mattered it to her who ruled, or what appearance ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the jurisdiction of the Parliament, had at first refused to answer the interrogatory; it was determined to conduct his case "as if he were dumb," but his friends had him advised not to persist in his silence. The courage and presence of mind of the accused more than once embarrassed his judges. The ridiculous scheme which had been discovered behind a looking-glass in Fouquet's country-house was ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... ye can answer me if you loike, for ye ar'n't dumb, me bhoy, an' ye can spake English fast enough. Now. I'll ax ye for the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Herald. They are liberally paid for their services. Any one bringing in news is well rewarded for his trouble. The composing rooms are located on the top floor, and are spacious, airy, and excellently lighted. A "dumb waiter," or vertical railway, communicates with the press room; and speaking tubes, and a smaller "railway," afford the means of conversation and transmitting small parcels between this room and the various parts of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... it, my dog? Dear Chimo, where is Frank?" cried the child passionately, while she embraced her favourite with feelings of mingled delight and apprehension. "Is he coming, Chimo?" she said, addressing the dumb animal, as if she believed he understood her. Then, rising hastily, she darted out once more, to cast a longing, expectant gaze towards the place where she had seen her companion disappear in the morning. But she was again ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... by the name of Crib, was the property and constant companion of Ben Marston, the innocent accomplice in many of his most daring stock-raids. Faithful unto the end, with the deep, uncalculating love which shames so often that of man, the dumb follower had apparently refused to procure food for himself, and pined to death at the feet of his dead master. Though the philanthropist may regret the untimely and violent end of men whose courage and energy fitted them for better things, it cannot be denied ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... and in those eyes—friend as he was of the young couple who had set him to this errand, he would have shrunk from it. Millicent made no verbal reply. Spasms chased each other over her white face. She seemed stricken dumb. Her hands, lifted to her forehead, trembled visibly. And Mr. Weil sat there, uncertain what to do, as silent ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... take back the money and I am dumb forever, never seeing or having seen or heard either you or this sahib here! Take ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... to cheer its inner gloom, the chambers haunted by the Ghost, Darkness his name, a cold dumb Shade stronger than ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... might have been made had not the speaker been suddenly struck dumb by the stern eye of an ancient lady who thrust forth her head from the coach, preparing to descend. As she emerged the people saw that her dress was magnificent, and her figure dignified in spite of age ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... But the eldest lady said, 'By Allah, we will not admit thee to our society but on one condition; and it is that thou enquire not of what does not concern thee; and if thou meddle, thou shalt be beaten.' Said the porter, 'I agree to this, O my lady, on my head and eyes! Henceforth I am dumb.' Then arose the cateress and girding her middle, laid the table by the fountain and set out the cups and flagons, with flowers and sweet herbs and all the requisites for drinking. Moreover, she strained the wine and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... temporarily have appeared queer and small; a person so haunted, even from an early age, with visions of life, that aridities, for him, were half a terror and half an impossibility, and that the said substitutes, the economies and ingenuities that protested, in their dumb vague way, against weakness of situation or of direct and applied faculty, were in themselves really a revel of spirit and thought. It had indeed again an effect of almost pathetic incoherence that our brave quest of "the languages," suffering so prompt and for the time at ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... "it's terrible. I'm all cold and dumb. Every power of affection that I had has gone out like a candle. I do neglect the children! It's because I can't look them in the face. I've failed him, and I've failed them, and I ought to tie a stone round my neck and jump into ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... "The dumb brute could teach a lesson in charity to many a human being," remarked Joseph, gravely; "he will not leave his dead master, and they too often flee away even from the living. Poor creature, how mournful are his cries! I would ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... had told her that the Forum was ringing with the fame of this new writer, and that from the Palatine to the Subura his poetry was taking like wildfire. She was dumb before such strange comfort. What was this "fame" to which men were willing to sacrifice their citizenship? Nothing in Rome had so shocked her as the laxity of family life, the reluctance of young ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... the scene. The old woman who owned the obstinate pig is the centre of a circle in which stand only familiar images,—stick, fire, water, cow, and the rest; but the wonder enters with the fact that these usually inanimate or dumb objects of nature enter so humanly into the contest of wills. So it is, also, with the doings of the three little pigs. Every image is explicable to the youngest hearer, while none suggests actual familiarity, because the ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... of mind. I had so much to say! sixteen folio pages, I was sure, would only suffice for an introduction to the case; yet, when the creamy vellum lay before me and the moist pen drew my fingers toward it, I sat stock dumb for half an hour. I wrote, finally, in a half-desperate mood, without regard to coherency or logic. Here's a rough draft of a part of the letter, and a single passage ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... eyes awaiting a verdict. The young man stooped and scratched behind its ears, the dog holding his head sideways and pressing against his ankles. He looked like a dog of the streets, but in his eyes there was the dumb appreciation of human sympathy which neutralizes breeding and blood. As Barstow returned to his work, the pup followed after him in a ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... entered a room of undreamed-of wretchedness. On the floor lay a sick man.[2] He was rather fine-looking, with an intelligent face, bright eyes, and countenance indicative of force of character. No sign of dissipation, but an expression of sadness, or rather a look of dumb resignation peered from his expressive eyes. For more than two years he has been paralyzed in his lower limbs, and also affected with dropsy. The spectacle of a strong man, with the organs of locomotion dead, is always pathetic; but when the victim of such misfortune is in the depths of abject poverty, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... of rum! There was chest on chest full of Spanish gold, With a ton of plate in the middle hold, And the cabins riot of stuff untold. And they lay there That had took the plum, With sightless glare And their lips struck dumb, While we shared all by the rule of thumb— Yo-ho-ho ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... and taps for its nourishment every spontaneity of human nature. If it be said that only the practical conviction is essential, this is not the same as to say that all else is superfluous. There may be no single utterance that my religion could not have spared, and yet were I to be altogether dumb my religion would, indeed, be as nothing. For if I believe, I accept a presence in my world, which as I live will figure in my dreams, or in my thoughts, or in my habits. And each of these expressions of myself ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... no more. The car rattled down into the little town, with its crooked, paved streets and its countless smells. Clair was the center of a farming community, and, in some cases, the human inhabitants and the dumb beasts ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... you some more signs," said Mr. George. "Or I wish we had a deaf and dumb boy here to go with us. Deaf and dumb people can get along excellently well where they do not understand the language, because they know how to ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... his cloth, was possessed of the insane impression that he was gifted with the sublime inspiration of eloquence, and being invited to preach on his return to the old home for vacation, he selected the somewhat startling text "and the dumb ass opened his mouth and spake." On this elevating theme he wrote a sensational sermon and committed it to memory in order that he might electrify his audience with eye power as well as by verbal flow of soul. The awful day arrived, but when the young apostle arose to ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... I s'pects dat's de ice man knockin' on de dumb waiter t' tell me he's put on a piece ob ice," went on ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... the air. It flashed from face to face, both ghastly with fear. Then an invisible hand gripped the man's, and drew him with irresistible force along the passage. The woman grasped his coat, and followed with shuffling feet and shaking limbs, dumb with wonder and fear. The hand led them down the passage, round the corner, and into the study. Then it released them. They heard the door shut and the key turn in the lock. Then there was a click, and the electric cluster above the writing-table shone out, apparently of its own ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... system, and by her eloquence and power as a public speaker, producing an effect unsurpassed by any of the highly gifted men of her day. Who dares to say that in thus using her splendid talents in speaking for the dumb, pleading the cause of the poor friendless slave, that she was out of her sphere? Angelina Grimke is now a wife and the mother of several children. We hear of her no more in public. Her sphere and her duties have changed. She deems it her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... (B. C. 480), perilous and precarious, and no longer on the site of their beloved and father-land. Their grief was heightened by the necessity of leaving many behind, whose extreme age rendered them yet more venerable, while it incapacitated their removal. Even the dumb animals excited all the fond domestic associations, running to the strand, and expressing by their cries their regret for the hands that fed them: one of them, a dog, that belonged to Xanthippus, father of Pericles, is said to have followed the ships, and swam to Salamis, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... high spirits; the tune of Camptown Races, which a street boy had been whistling as they started, pursued her. Miss Pinckney, dumb through the danger zone where chickens and dogs and nigger children might be run over, found her voice in ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... cruiser to African ports, or a thousand miles up a Chinese river on a gunboat, among the South Sea Islands on a light cruiser, some men return with dumb lips and others can keep you awake till morning with the tales ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... having husbands alive; and they also that support themselves by the profession of arms. That Sraddha which is censurable, consumeth the performer thereof like fire consuming fuel. If they that are to be employed in Sraddhas happen to be dumb, blind, or deaf, care should be taken to employ them along with Brahmanas conversant with the Vedas. O Yudhishthira, listen now unto whom thou shouldst give. He that knoweth all the Vedas should give only to that able Brahmana who is competent to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... without felicity. Already his inarticulateness was like an encumbering veil between them—a veil in which she struggled as helplessly as a moth in a net. And only a month ago she had believed that the very immensity of his nature rendered him dumb. ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... here or we could neither expect nor obtain assistance. Brother, the old man and his Hollander dogs talk very easily about the thing; but what shall we do, because if one speaks against it one is simply a rebel? So I remain dumb. ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... accord a replevy. But the great prelate found more delight in preaching in small villages than amidst such applause, though he everywhere met with the like fruit; and he looked on the poor as the object of his particular care. He took a poor dumb and deaf man into his family, taught him by signs, and by them received his confession. His steward often found it difficult to provide for his family by reason of his great alms, and used to threaten ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... been looked upon as a harmless fixture at the Inn—so much so that men and women pass and repass my easel, or look over my shoulder while I work without a break in their confidences—quite as if I was a deaf, dumb, and blind waiter, or twin-brother to old Coco the cockatoo, who has surveyed the same scene from his perch near the roof for the past ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... seemed as if the brother had guessed rightly, for though Jesus' face showed no interest in the brethren, nor in the cenoby, he seemed to enjoy the sympathy of the dumb animal. He liked to call to Caesar and to lay his hand upon Caesar's head, and to look into his eyes, and in those moments of sympathy the brethren said: he forgets his grief. But Caesar is coming into ramhood, Saddoc answered, and will have to go away with the flock. There were brethren ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... not Darwin's forte—and his English is sometimes wonderful. But there is a marvellous dumb sagacity about him—like that of a sort of miraculous dog—and he gets to the truth by ways as dark as those of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... You will marvel that I can write at such length when the very skies seem to be pressing down upon us. But it is the greatest relaxation possible and a kind of safety valve. It makes me think of some lines of Shakespeare where different conditions "oft make the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak." So I write on. The news we get may not be altogether authentic, as we receive nothing now except by word of mouth. By report it seems that England, France and Russia are prepared to defend the ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... the men, saluting the officers, and holding military councils. At sunset he bathed a third time and performed the five sacraments of listening to a prelection of the Veda; making oblations to the manes; sacrificing to Fire in honour of the deities; giving rice to dumb creatures; and receiving guests with due ceremonies. He spent the evening amidst a select company of wise, learned, and pious men, conversing on different subjects, and reviewing the ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... men alone His sinking, Bleeding heart to weep is fain, But poor dumb creatures sees He drinking Deep the bitter cup of pain, Hears the wailing, anguished cry, Hears ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hedge where the crabs hang yellow, Bright as the blossoms of the spring; Dumb is the close where the pears grow mellow, And none but ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... Syme was dumb for an instant. Then he rose to his feet erect, like an insulted man, and thrust the chair ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... kitten and take it on his arm to his own door, where he delivered it to a servant, with injunctions to feed and comfort the starveling. From which facts it may be seen that Mr. Caspar Brooke, in spite of all his faults, was a lover of dumb animals, and of children, and must therefore have possessed a certain amount of kindliness ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... towards church, when it is suddenly arrested by Paolo, who throws himself between the lovers. "Mine she was, before she knew you," he cries out, "to me she swore eternal faith, which she has now falsely broken." Giovanna, struck dumb by terror, is unable to defend herself.—Pietro orders his men to recapture the ruffian, but quick as thought Paolo has deprived the soldier nearest to him of his sabre and with the words "Thou shalt die first," has thrust it towards Pietro. Alas, it is Giovanna's breast, he ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... their great men, for whose advent into life the world is waiting in dumb expectancy. In due time the world seizes upon these wondrous youth, opens the shell of their possibilities like the valves of an oyster, swallows them at a gulp, and they are for the most part heard of no ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... agony. She heard the sisters pass up the echoing stone staircase to their dormitories, and then the silent house became as dumb as a vault. Not a ripple flowed into this still tarn from the great stream of the world that rushed and surged and swelled with the clangor of a million ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... dysentery of Jehoram, the withered hand of Jeroboam, the fatal illness of Asa, and many other ills, to the wrath of God or the malice of Satan; while, in the New Testament, such examples as the woman "bound by Satan," the rebuke of the fever, the casting out of the devil which was dumb, the healing of the person whom "the devil ofttimes casteth into the fire"—of which case one of the greatest modern physicians remarks that never was there a truer description of epilepsy—and various other episodes, show this same inevitable mode of thought as a refracting ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of American institutions or ideas, but of American opportunities. It is the poor immigrant who ought to sing the praises of this continent. He alone has the proper point of view; and he, unfortunately, is dumb. But often, when I have contemplated with dreary disgust, in the outskirts of New York, the hideous wooden shanties planted askew in wastes of garbage, and remembered Naples or Genoa or Venice, suddenly it has been borne in upon me that the Italians living there feel that they have ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... pity for the earth, And long to aid it, do not look so high, You pass some poor, dumb creature faint with thirst - All life is equal ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... are curious and inquisitive, or on the contrary unmoved by what is said? is it the faculty of hearing? It is no other than the faculty of the will. Will this faculty then, seeing that it is amidst all the other faculties which are blind and dumb and unable to see anything else except the very acts for which they are appointed in order to minister to this (faculty) and serve it, but this faculty alone sees sharp and sees what is the value of each of the rest; will this faculty declare to us that anything else is the best, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... In America they are regarded as a great success, and we all love dearly to talk about them. It is a kind of weakness with us. I never knew but one American who hadn't something—some time—to say about the Rocky Mountains—and he was a deaf and dumb man, who couldn't say ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne |
