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Lull   /ləl/   Listen
Lull

verb
(past & past part. lulled; pres. part. lulling)
1.
Calm by deception.
2.
Become quiet or less intensive.  Synonym: calm down.
3.
Make calm or still.  Synonyms: calm, calm down, quiet, quieten, still, tranquilize, tranquillise, tranquillize.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Lull" Quotes from Famous Books



... Tom in a momentary lull of the wind. Then the roar began again, and the building quivered, while the shutter was lifted and beaten down again ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... happier things they have given, and more of grace Than falls to man's light race; For lighter are we, all our love and pain Lighter than thine, who knowest of time or place Thus much, that place nor time Can heal or hurt or lull or change again The singing soul that makes his soul sublime Who hears the far fall of its fire-fledged rhyme Fill darkness as with bright and burning rain Till all the live gloom inly glows, and light Seems with the sound to cleave the core ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... feeling about, however, they decided he was not there. Neither were Rob nor Edgar. They then groped their way along the passage at the back of the house, to the sitting-room end. During a momentary lull of the storm they thought they heard voices. On opening the door, they presented themselves to the astonished eyes ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston

... move upon the part of our Boys in Blue was followed by an ominous lull or quiet, which continued about three hours. Meanwhile the silence was fitfully broken by an occasional spit of fire, while every preparation was being made for a last, supreme effort, which it was expected would decide the mighty contest. The scales were ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... wire. When told to move from one part of the trench to another where there was desperate need, a word was sufficient. They understood what was wanted of them, these veterans. They went. They seized every lull to drop the rifle for the spade and repair the breaches. When they were not shooting they were digging. The officers had only to keep reminding them not to expose themselves in the breaches. For in the thick of ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... a circle round them, and listened meekly to the dialogue until luncheon. What an appalling picture! One sympathizes with Carlyle on the occasion when he was asked to dinner to meet a great talker, who poured forth a continuous flow of jest and anecdote until the meal was far advanced. Then came a lull; Carlyle laid down his knife and fork, and looking round with the famous "crucified" expression on his face, said in a voice of agonized entreaty, "For God's sake take me away, and put me in a room by ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... of an unfortunate gentleman on board one of the Philadelphia boats, whose sickly-looking wife, exhausted with her vain attempts to quiet three sickly-looking children, had in despair given them into his charge. The miserable man furnished each of them with a lump of cake, and during the temporary lull caused by this diversion, took occasion to make acquaintance with my child, to whom he tendered the same indulgence. Upon my refusing it for her, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... is man—how short life's longest day! Here lies the worthy Potter, turned to clay! Whose forming hand, and whose reforming care, Has left us lull ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various

... A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor, who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss Jennie Barton and ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... darkness of the bush. So five breathless minutes passed, Trooper Shannon standing tense and straight with every nerve tingling as he braced himself for an effort, Courthorne stooping a little with forefinger on the trigger, and the Marlin rifle at his hip. Then through a lull there rose a clearer thud of hoofs. It was lost in the thrashing of the twigs as a gust roared down again, and Trooper Shannon launched himself like ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... themselves, nor was his whereabouts during his absence discussed in other than a friendly way. Nevertheless, the returned wanderer was not wholly at ease. He suspected that the kindly and refined nature of these friends silenced many questions which doubtless were in their minds, and often a lull in the conversation filled him with fear and dread of ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... Some landed, and their aeronauts took cover and became energetic infantry soldiers. Others hovered above the fight, their men ever and again firing shots down at some chance exposure below. The firing came in paroxysms; now there would be a watchful lull and now a rapid tattoo of shots, rising to a roar. Once or twice flying machines, as they circled warily, came right overhead, and for a time Bert gave himself body and soul ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... perhaps asleep he sank, Lull'd by this fountain in the summer-tide; This water was perhaps the first he drank When he had ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... they were fairly beaten from the chief parts of the town, and numbers of them were penned up as prisoners; more, in fact, than the pirates could guard. The battle paused for a while at this stage, and the pirates took advantage of the lull to get their wounded (perhaps a dozen men), into one of the churches to have their wounds dressed. As the doctors of the party began their work, John Watling sent a message to the fort, charging the garrison to surrender. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... and was called Emperor, the name always given to a victorious general; the Romans gave him all their offices of state, and he ruled over all their great dominions without anyone to dispute his power, any enemy to conquer at home or abroad. There was a great lull and hush all over the world, for the time was come at last. But the King was neither Herod in Judea, nor Augustus at Rome! Nay Herod, as a son of Edom, was but proving that the Sceptre had departed from Judah; and the reign of Augustus was a time when darkness ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... clover, old fellow," said Tom, laughingly "no more toils, no more hardships, no bullets, or hard tack, or want of soap. A snowy shirt every day—kid gloves if I wanted them—and the sound of cannon at a very remote distance to lull me to repose, my boy. Things had changed, they had indeed! I looked back with scorn on the heavy musket and cartridge-box. I rode a splendidly groomed horse, wore a new uniform shining with gold braid, a new cap covered with ditto, boots which you could see your face in, a magnificent sash, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... a lull so profound, after the discharge of the last barrels of the boys' revolvers, as to be almost startling. Running up-stairs, they fitted fresh chambers to their weapons, left the empty ones with their sisters, and joined ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... said, 'of course on the strict condition that you do not reveal yourself, and hence, though you see him, he must not see you, or your manner might betray you and me. I will lull him into a nap in the afternoon, and then I will come to you here, and fetch you indoors by a ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... calves, and dragged him so powerfully down that his face struck the floor hard and his nose bled profusely. The hemorrhage and the blow quieted him for a time, and then Ashmead gave him more brandy, and got him to the "Swan" in a half-lethargic lull. This faithful agent, and man of all work, took a private sitting room with a double bedded room adjoining it, and ordered a hot supper with champagne and madeira. Severne ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... visited many other minds since, the regret, namely, that the old, pensive, use-and-wont Catholicism, which had accompanied the nation's earlier struggle for existence, and consoled it therein, had been taken from it. And for himself, indeed, what impressed him in that old Catholicism was a kind of lull in it—a lulling power—like that of the monotonous organ-music, which Holland, Catholic or not, still so greatly loves. But what he could not away with in the Catholic religion was its unfailing drift towards the concrete—the positive imageries of a faith, so richly beset with ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... and still, while the storm was holding its breath for the thunder-burst which in a few more seconds rolled overhead, shaking door and window throughout the house. As the awful sound died away, in a moment's lull, came the gun again. He threw up the window, and as the blast of wind and rain swept howling into the room, it brought ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... children. Engaging humble apartments, she devoted herself entirely to their education. Both of the children were richly endowed; inheriting from their mother and their father talents, personal loveliness, and an instinctive power of attraction. Thus there came a brief lull in those dreadful storms of life by which Josephine had been so ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... hands, And let them press My weary eyelids with the old caress, And lull me till I sleep. Then go your way, That Death may say: He touched her ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

... there came a lull in the hellish, howling hurricane; the fact being, I suppose, that we had reached the centre of the cyclone. I suggested that we should try to go on deck and see what was happening. So we started, only to find the ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... joy of all, the ship was found to make no more water than usual. All hands soon settled down quietly again, wondering what the run-down schooner could have been, and pitying her unfortunate crew, when a faint shout from the forecastle was heard in a lull of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... country where no such strangers had ever come before, and wondering, as she lay awake, who they were and what their past has been, and if she was ugly compared to the women of their native place. I, however, not being poetically inclined, will take advantage of the lull to give some account of the people among whom we found ourselves, compiled, needless to state, from information which ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... vanity could dictate, so that in a short time her awe of this grave personage was lost in the sense of ascendency which her beauty gave her over him. It was no difficult matter—in fact it happens every day—for the beautiful woman to lull the wise man into what is not inaptly called a fool's paradise. The sage was induced to attempt feats of youth which his years rendered ridiculous; he could command the elements, but the common course of nature was beyond his power. When, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... A lull had now taken place, and Tom heard a laugh from the stranger which he did not much relish; it was contemptuous and sarcastic, and gave him no very good opinion of his companion. They had now arrived ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... screamed in my ears. The city was flushed with bucketfuls of rain that tasted salt from the neighbouring ocean. It seemed to darken and lighten again in the vicissitudes of the gusts. Now you would say the lamps had been blown out from end to end of the long thoroughfare; now, in a lull, they would revive, re-multiply, shine again on the wet pavements, and make ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it was that she paced her room in that strange agony that was worse than grief, and more sharp than despair. No use now to try to lull her conscience back to quiet sleep again; that time was past, it was thoroughly and sharply awake; the same All-wise hand which had tenderly freed one soul from its bonds of clay and called it home, had as tenderly and as wisely, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... quickly have been turned over. This, however, made her very heavy to pull, while from the same cause the sea continually washed into her. At length they agreed that she must be put before the wind. They waited for a lull, and then getting her quickly round, hoisted the jib, which had been before taken in, to the end of the spreet, which they lashed to the stump of the mast. The wind blew as strong as ever, but the tide having turned there was ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston

... calculated to produce a change of ministers to quiet the minds of their own people and reconcile them to a continuance of the war, while it is meant to amuse this country with a false idea of peace, to draw us from our connection with France, and to lull us into a state of security and inactivity; which taking place, the ministry will be left to prosecute the war in other parts of the world with greater vigor and effect. Your Excellency will permit me on this occasion to observe that, even if the nation ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... during this lull that Bob, looking back from where he was sheltered by a little hill of earth and ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... to speak on that now," he shouted and during a lull in the cheering managed to make himself heard. "I wish to say that I want to withdraw ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat

... and in places where he should have kept silent. I fear my life is one of too great inactivity, of too great ease, of too much pleasure, for to me study is a delight. I even doubt my love of God, because I feel too lightly the love of my neighbour. I am often reminded that the mystic pleasures may lull my conscience on this point. You, Maria, you live your faith; you visit the sick, work for the poor, you comfort, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... thrilled pleasurably. He held cards and spades, big and little casino, four aces and the joker; therefore he knew he could sweep the board at his pleasure. And during his absence Shirley would have opportunity to cool off, while he would find time to formulate an argument to lull ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... Gourgaud. This is their freedom of the press! The fact is there is an awkward "composition" between the Government and the people of France, that the latter will endure the former so long as they will allow them to lull themselves asleep with recollections of their past glory, and neither the one nor the other sees that truth and honesty and freedom of discussion are the best policy. He knows, though, there is an answer; and that is all I ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy—he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled—he listened to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... During a lull in their performance, he heard a rapid tread of feet coming toward the spring, and beheld his mother, followed by Cora. No sooner did the negroes see them, than they left off lashing the water with their whips and, with the ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... foot was ever set within its threshold. But how they fought, those Frenchmen! Their lives were no more to them than the mud under their feet. There was one—I can see him now—a stoutish ruddy man on a crutch. He hobbled up alone in a lull of the firing to the side gate of Hougoumont and he beat upon it, screaming to his men to come after him. For five minutes he stood there, strolling about in front of the gun-barrels which spared him, ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... find that great Masters in the Art are able, sometimes, to set their Hearers in the Heat and Hurry of a Battel, to overcast their Minds with melancholy Scenes and Apprehensions of Deaths and Funerals, or to lull them into pleasing Dreams of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... another lull, and from the imperial tribune above Dea Flavia watched the horrible spectacle, and Taurus Antinor drank into his soul the beauty of her eyes as they watched—fascinated—every movement of the sleek black panther, and of those fair-skinned ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... boat up in the wind, had lowered the sail so that she was now riding the waves comparatively motionless, for there came a lull in the gale. ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum

... hurrying eastward on Forty-second Street, huggingly against the shadow of darkened shop-windows, there was a new sting of tears at the smell of earth, daring, in the lull of a city ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... the morning, the whole party fell asleep; the gentle breeze, the quiet rustling of the leaves, all combined to lull the senses. While they thus slept, the day wore on, and the sun was declining when they awoke and wondered that they had wasted their time for ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... Republican party, as enabling them to stigmatize more pungently the political theories of the Illinois Senator, by coupling polygamy and slavery, "twin relics of barbarism," in the resolution of their Philadelphia Platform against Squatter Sovereignty. In the lull which succeeded the election, Mr. Buchanan had leisure, at Wheatland, to draft a programme for his incoming administration. His paramount idea was to gag the North and induce her to forget that she had been robbed of her birthright, by forcing on the attention of the country other questions of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... Never will I forget the noiseless Fairy Grove, Lin [Tai-yue], beyond the confines of the mortal world! Alas! now only have I come to believe that human happiness is incomplete; and that a couple may be bound by the ties of wedlock for life, but that after all their hearts are not easy to lull into contentment. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Douglas to talk of old times and the new, Trevalyon lay perfectly still, alternately dreaming and smoking, now there is a lull, and he says: ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... wind on our quarter we were off like a shot out of a gun. I knew we were too near the vortex of the disturbance for the wind to hang long in one quarter, so watched anxiously for a change. The sea rose rapidly while we were running to the northward on her course, and after a lull of a few minutes the wind opened from the eastward, butt end foremost, a change of eight points. Nothing was to be done but heave to, and this in a cross sea where pitch, weather roll, lee lurch, followed one another in such earnest ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... itself. I profit by the lull to put my nose out of the window. There was not a star there, not even a tip of the moon; heaven and earth seem to make but one, and in that intensity of inky blackness, the lanterns winked like eyes of different colors attached to ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans

... beds of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) With half-dropped eyelids still, Beneath a heaven dark and holy, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill— To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine— To watch the emerald-coloured water falling Thro' ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... the wind whistled through the grasses and moaned round the corners of the life-saving station; the gusts were cold, damp, and penetrating. With the setting of the sun there was a lull, but when the patrols started out at eight o'clock, on their four-hours' tour of duty, the wind had risen again and was blowing with renewed force. Separating at the station, one surf man went east and ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... of Fredericksburg; the pickets had ceased to bicker; the gunboats had disappeared, and "all was quiet on the Rappahannock." Many of the senior officers in the Confederate army took advantage of the lull in operations to visit their homes; but, although his wife urged him to do the same, Jackson steadfastly refused to absent himself even for a few days from the front. In November, to his unbounded delight, a daughter had been born to him. "To a man of his extreme domesticity, and love for ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... the death of Claverhouse at Killiecrankie in 1689. And by this means the varying phases of the struggle are traced almost step by step, through the preachings of John Knox and the early image-breaking outrages, to the comparative lull of the reign of James the First of England, and thence again from the renewed exasperating of opposition by the shifty and infatuated Martyr King to the climax of the "Killing Time" under the younger of his sons. Few incidents of ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... rebellion against the sovereignty of God, and every different act of it equally violates his law, and, if persevered in, disclaims his supremacy. To the inconsiderate and the gay this doctrine may seem harsh, while, vainly fluttering in the sunshine of worldly prosperity, they lull themselves into a fond security. "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... advice to you both is, not to enter into any engagement, and to keep the matter of your affections known only to yourselves. Confidence reposed in a third party is always hazardous, and generally betrayed. This will lull Moncton's suspicions, for he can greatly annoy you, should you marry Charlotte without his consent, before her minority expires. Her property, which is considerable, would then ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... British escape; British battle-cruiser Inflexible and French battleship Gaulois are badly damaged by shells from the forts; most of the forts suffer severely from the fleet fire; French submarine is sunk in the Dardanelles; there is a lull in bombardment of Dardanelles and of Smyrna; German submarine sinks British steamer Glenartney in English Channel; Copenhagen report says a German sea Captain states that the Karlsruhe was sunk ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... didst lull with thy awful and solemn voice as anxious and also as happy hearts beneath the soft furs that wrapped those dusky maidens—mingling their sweet voices with thy deep bass, dancing beneath the old trees on thy wild banks—as any there have been since in the princely halls where the old trees once ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... upon the midnight roof; the cooing of doves, the hush of falling snow, the murmur of brooks, the long summer song of grasshoppers in the field, the tinkling of fountains, and everything else that can soothe, lull, or tranquillize; and what are these to the serenity of this sail-swinging, ripple-stirring, gently-creaking craft, in her veil of luminous vapor? "How delightful ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... the shining shores of light, Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born, Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse Which I presume on Nature to compose For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be Peerless in every grace at every hour— Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest O'er sea and land the savage works of war, For thou alone hast power with public peace To aid mortality; since he who rules The savage works of battle, puissant Mars, How often to thy bosom flings his strength O'ermastered by the eternal wound of love— And there, with eyes and ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... wilt but venture with me, My daughter shall dandle thy form on her knee; My daughter, who dwells where the moon-shadows play, Shall lull ye to sleep with the song of ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... all the inferences from his doctrine unfavourable to human improvement, and reduces the "Essay on Population" to a commentary illustrative of the unanswerableness of "Political Justice".), calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind into a security of everlasting triumph. Our works of fiction and poetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom. But mankind appear to me to be emerging from their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... effort—during which the pounding of the mallet was utterly lost in the noisy enthusiasm and excitement, in which both the Freedom-loving men and women of the Land, there present, participated —the Speaker at last succeeded in securing a lull. ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... bridles of the pack-horses. A detachment of British soldiers followed the Indians. In an hour the entire army appeared on the river bluff not three hundred yards from the Fort. They were in no hurry to begin the attack. Especially did the Indians seem to enjoy the lull before the storm, and as they stalked to and fro in plain sight of the garrison, or stood in groups watching the Fort, they were seen in all their hideous war-paint and formidable battle-array. They were exultant. Their plumes and eagle feathers waved proudly in the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... really heard a huehuetl. The player used two sticks with padded heads, beating with great force in excellent time. The booming of the instruments was audible to a great distance. The whole village had gathered, and in a momentary lull in the music, I told the people of the ancient use of the huehuetl; that Bernal Diaz, in his history of the Conquest of Mexico, tells us what feelings filled the hearts of the Spaniards, when they heard the great huehuetl, in the temple of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan; ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... "Sir Guy Carleton is using every art to soothe and lull our people into a state of security. Admiral Digby is capturing all our vessels, and suffocating as fast as possible in prison-ships all our seamen who will not enlist into the service of his Britannic Majesty; ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... the right steps in time we can certainly avoid the disastrous excesses of runaway booms and headlong depressions. We must not let a year or two of prosperity lull us into a false feeling of security and a repetition of the mistakes of the 1920's that culminated in the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

... at last, because her eyes were weary of seeing; and she would fain have shut out all sounds. The occasional flicker of a tiny blaze, however, and the fall of a cinder in the hearth, served to lull her senses, and it was not long before she slept. But, oh, the horrors of that sleep! The lines of Maria's note stared her in the face—glaring, glowing, gigantic. Sometimes she was trying to read them, and could not, though her life depended on them. Now Mrs ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... sobs she spoke to him in endearing words. Her tears, dried at their source for three weeks, were now rolling down her cheeks. But at last she fell upon her knees, and took Jeanne in her arms to lull her to deeper slumber against her shoulder; and at intervals whilst her child thus rested she raised to Henri's eyes glistening ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... life, thy joy. Come, pr'ythee bird, I pr'ythee come away, Why should this net thee take, when 'scape thou may? Hadst thou not wings, or were thy feathers pull'd, Or wast thou blind, or fast asleep wer't lull'd, The case would somewhat alter, but for thee, Thy eyes are ope, and thou hast wings to flee. Remember that thy song is in thy rise, Not in thy fall; earth's not thy paradise. Keep up aloft, then, let thy circuits ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... wouldst thou chase the nimble deer, or dark-eyed antelope, She'll lend thee to their woody haunts, behind the mountain's slope, And when thy hunter task is done, and spent thy spirit's force, She'll weave for thee a plantain bower, beside a streamlet's course, Where the sweet music of the leaves shall lull thee to repose. Hence in Zenia's watchful love, from harmful beast, or foes, And when the spirit of the storm, in wild tornades rides by, She'll hide thee in a cave, beneath ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various

... Julien, "I cannot give it to you. There is no opium to lull asleep doubts such as those horrible anonymous letters have awakened. What I know is this, that if you do not follow my advice Madame Gorka will not have a suspicion, but certainty. It is now perhaps too late. Do you wish me to tell you what I concealed from you on seeing you so troubled? ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... Nueces. The new wells were furnishing a limited supply of water, but we rigged pulleys on the best of them, and when the wind failed we had recourse to buckets and a rope worked from the pommel of a saddle. A breeze usually arose about ten in the morning and fell about midnight. During the lull the buckets rose and fell incessantly at eight wells, with no lack of suffering cattle in attendance to consume it as fast as it was hoisted. Many thirsty animals gorged themselves, and died in sight of the well; weak ones being frequently trampled to death by the stronger, while ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... Phoenicia, trophies, tributes, colonies: Follow thou me—mark what it all avails." Him Gebir followed, and a roar confused Rose from a river rolling in its bed, Not rapid, that would rouse the wretched souls, Nor calmly, that might lull then to repose; But with dull weary lapses it upheaved Billows of bale, heard low, yet heard afar. For when hell's iron portals let out night, Often men start and shiver at the sound, And lie so silent on ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... a lull, certainly the shrieking of the gale seemed to subside, but only for half a moment, and in the doubly fierce renewal of elemental strife, amid deafening peals if thunder and the unearthly glare that preceded each reverberation, there came other sounds more appalling, and as ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... himself borne away by the current, after an ineffectual resistance. Like the navigator, he may direct the vessel which bears him along, but he can neither change its structure, nor raise the winds, nor lull the ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... such a mother was no more a real mother than our good cousin—I knew that much from the fairy tales to which I was ever ready to hearken. But I saw this very stepmother wash and dress little Elsie, her husband's youngest babe and not her own, and lull her till she fell asleep; and she did it right tenderly, and quite as she ought. And then, when the child was asleep she kissed it, too, on its ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... succeeded, and darkness came again to increase the perils of the Scud. A lull in the gale, however, had induced Cap to come by the wind once more, and throughout the night the cutter was lying-to as before, head-reaching as a matter of course, and occasionally wearing to keep off the land. It is unnecessary to dwell on the incidents of this night, which resembled those of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... Shirley's cabin Asher Aydelot turned from a lull in the sick man's ravings to see Dr. Horace Carey entering the door with a pair of saddle bags ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... there trickled softly down, A gentle stream, whose murmuring waves did play Amongst the broken stones, and made a sowne, To lull him fast asleep, who by it lay: The weary traveller wandering that way Therein might often quench his thirsty heat, And then by it, his weary limbs display; (Whiles creeping slumber made him to forget His former pain), and ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... declaration the signature and seal of a notary public of pure character, $5, the certificate of the clerk of a court of record as to the genuineness of the signature of the notary public, his term of appointment and $5." These documents were sent, after which there was a lull of about three months. Then the swelling in Mr. Fitznoodle's head had gone down a little, but there was still a seal brown taste in his mouth. So he wrote the claimant that it would be necessary to jog the memory of the department ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... O.W. admits that the dinner is a success. When it is over and the dishes are cleaned and put away, and the camp slicked up, there comes the usual two hours of lounging, smoking, and story telling, so dear to the hearts of those who love to go a-fishing and camping. At length there is a lull in the conversation, and Bush D. turns to the old woodsman with, "I thought, Uncle Mart, you were going to show us fellows such a lot of kinks about camping out, campfires, cooking, and all that sort of thing, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... half, which certainly was made the most of by both; somewhat artificially, a perceptive visitor might have said, if one had been there to see. The jeremiads over this unfortunate misadventure must have lasted fully ten minutes before a lull came; for the gentleman could catch no other wind in his sails, and had to let out every reef to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... myself," whimpered the mate in the first lull, "with an extra turn to make sure. I ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... me now. It may temper my impetuous wishes; lull my intoxication; and render my happiness supportable; and, indeed, it has produced partly this effect already. My blood, within the few minutes thus employed, flows with less destructive rapidity. My thoughts range themselves in less disorder. And, now that ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature's watchmen—links which connect the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... end of the reflective revery he closed his desk, locked his office, and went once more to the bank. It was the hour of the noon lull, and Johnson, the paying teller, was ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... during the lull in the battle, two of the Taubes approached the area above the French lines, and after ascending to a great height, began the volplane toward their own lines. Such a maneuver was found to be the most advantageous, as it gave the scouting aeroplane the advantage ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... difference in that respect between Shetland and the east coast of Scotland?-We have a heavier sea, and more uncertain weather here. Our present boats can go out in a lull, and some more quickly ashore when the weather gets rough; but the heavier decked vessels could not do that. In order to fish with decked vessels, the men would require to remain at sea ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... A lull followed the storm; the heavens were clear again. Rudolf made out by the light of his lantern a triangular spot made by three footpaths crossing. It was bare of all vegetation; black ashes were heaped up in the middle as if gipsies had lately ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt

... the morning of spring, the noon of summer, and the evening of autumn; its time of rest, its night drew nigh—winter was coming. Already the storms were singing, "Good-night, good-night." Here fell a leaf and there fell a leaf. "We will rock you and lull you. Go to sleep, go to sleep. We will sing you to sleep, and shake you to sleep, and it will do your old twigs good; they will even crackle with pleasure. Sleep sweetly, sleep sweetly, it is your three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth night. Correctly speaking, you are but a ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... will by no means allow that they started into being only in the sixteenth century. In fact, it is quite pathetic to watch the strenuous efforts they make, and the extravagant means to which they have recourse, in order to lull themselves into the peaceful enjoyment of so ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... displayed, The still vale lengthens underneath its shade Of low-hung vapour: on the freshened mead The green light sparkles;—the dim bowers recede. [58] While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull, 220 And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull, In solemn shapes before the admiring eye Dilated hang the misty pines on high, Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers, And antique castles seen through ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... before all the fine company? I've nothing fit to put on; I never have:" and so the dispute went on—Mr. Esmond interrupting the talk when it seemed to be growing too intimate by blowing his nose as loudly as ever he could, at the sound of which trumpet there came a lull. But Dick was charming, though his wife was odious, and 'twas to give Mr. Steele pleasure, that the ladies of Castlewood, who were ladies of no small ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a deep sigh; and, from some convulsive motions, appeared to be troubled in her sleep. Her agitation increased, accompanied by an indistinct moaning. One of her companions, remembering the physician's instructions, endeavoured to lull her by singing, in a low voice, a tender little air, which was a particular favourite of Annette's. Probably it had some connexion in her mind with her own story; for every fond girl has some ditty of the kind, linked in her thoughts with ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... past him on a blast. It did not sound like a call from earth but it swept frightfully through the upper air mingled with the hoarse accompaniment of the wind. The teeth of the squatter were compressed, and his huge hand grasped the rifle, as if it would crush the metal. Then came a lull, a fresher blast, and a cry of horror that seemed to have been uttered at the very portals of his ears. A sort of echo burst involuntarily from his own lips, as men shout under unnatural excitement, and throwing his rifle across his shoulder he proceeded ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... friends of men who, for the sake of smoothing away the terrible side of the Gospel, minimise or hide the reality of the awful penalties which attach to every transgression and disobedience, because they thereby maim the notion of the divine forgiveness, and lull into a fatal slumber the consciences of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... like some great fish at the bottom of a pool, and gave no sign of life or animosity. This did not lull Henry into a false security. He never relaxed a single precaution. He avoided "Woodbine Villa;" he dodged and doubled like a hare, to hide his own abode. But he forged, handled, and finished, in spite of ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... not left him. The dance began. All were in the little house or at the two doors, peering in, save Darrel, who sat with his pipe, and Thurston Tilly, who was telling him tales of the far west. In the lull of sound that followed the first figure, Trove came to look out upon them. A big, golden moon had risen above the woods, and the light and music and merry voices had started a sleepy twitter up in the ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... induce our hero to believe he was his friend, or, at least, not hostile to him. To this he was impelled by two motives. First, to secure his silence respecting the robbery; and, next, to so far get into his confidence as to draw out of him the object of his present expedition. Thus, he would lull his suspicions to sleep, and might thereafter gratify his malice the ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... as on the day before, but the stillness was of another kind. It was not the awful lull which goes before the bursting of the storm, when the very air seems to start at the fall of a leaf for fear lest it be already the thunder-clap. It was more like the noiseless rising of the hungry flood that creeps up round the doomed house, wherein is desperate, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... regiment at this time were considerable and the fire seemed to be without material effect, the command was withdrawn to its position on the hill where it found protection in a sunken road. In this condition this regiment lay when Capron's battery made its lull at 11.30. The fearful fire this regiment met can be estimated by the losses it sustained, which during the day were as follows: Killed, 1 officer and 33 enlisted men; wounded, 4 officers and 95 enlisted men; missing, 3 enlisted men. The Seventeenth Regiment ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... the next afternoon, when Betty and Grace were having a game of tennis on the court that had been laid out back of the High School, that Alice Jallow and Kittie Rossmore came past, arm in arm. They paused for a moment to watch the game, and during a lull Alice remarked: ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... my place in a boat, or a coach, than lose my money. But young fellows like you never learn wisdom. Experience is all thrown away upon you. But as we can't remedy the evil now, we had better step in and get a morsel of breakfast. This raw air makes one hungry. The wind may lull by that time." Then gazing at the sky with one of his keen orbs, while he shaded with his hand the other, he continued—"It rains too hard for it to blow long at this rate; and the season of the year is all in your favour. Go in—go in, and get something to eat, and ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... cloth by a certain gaiety of manner that was by no means displeasing. He seemed to consider himself one of the links of sociability, as well as master of ceremonies; and he had a way of speaking for others that suggested considerable social tact and versatility. Thus, when there was a lull in the conversation, he started it again, and imparted to it a vivacity that was certainly remarkable, as Helen thought. At precisely the proper moment, he seized Miss Hornsby, and bore her off home, tittering ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... branches overhead. In the far distance towered the outer range of those lofty mountains we were leaving, perhaps for ever; while round us were scattered the temporary wigwams which our attendants had put up for themselves. The never-ceasing murmur of the waters tended to lull us to sleep in spite of the strange sounds which ever and anon came from the forest, caused by tree-toads and crickets; while occasionally owls, goat-suckers, and frogs joined in the concert with their hooting, wailing, and hoarse croaks. My faithful dog True had taken up ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... his forehead where the perspiration stood in drops, and watched with amazement the sudden lull in the tempest. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson



Words linked to "Lull" :   comfort, assure, appease, lenify, pacify, assuage, suspension, tranquillise, break, interruption, silence, console, pause, still, gentle, shut up, solace, conciliate, reassure, hush, gruntle, intermission, soothe, calmness, compose, agitate, placate, hush up, mollify



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