"Motionless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the loss of Beverley's papers. Besides, she had been seen. For once, Clo's wits refused to work. Like a frozen flower, she remained motionless in the window. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his voice produced a great surprise in the room. Those who heard it did not know what to say. Father Salvi looked in another direction, perhaps so as not to meet the dark look which the old man directed toward him. Maria Clara dropped her flowers and sat motionless. Father Sibyla, the one who knew how to keep silent, appeared to be the only one who knew ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... and turned toward the library door. Bansemer was standing close by her side. He turned to move away as David Cable stepped to the door to look in. Cable's coat collar was about his ears and he was removing his gloves. For a moment he stood motionless, gazing upon ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... with black grizzled beard and thick silvery hair, stood motionless, holding a cup of honey, looking down from the height of his tall figure with friendly serenity at the gentlefolk, obviously understanding nothing of their conversation and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... edge of the forest, the boys stopped with a cry of delight. A motionless heap of yellowish brown lay half in half out of the fringe of trees, the shelter of which the poor creature had striven ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... vomiting steam and piled about with cairns of living coal, lay what remained of the two engines, one upon the other. On the heathy margin of the line were many people running to and fro, and crying aloud as they ran, and many others lying motionless like sleeping tramps. ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... astonished at the warmth of the September night. The little wind that had been chilly this afternoon had dropped with the coming of the dark, and high overhead he could see the great masses of the leaves motionless against the sky. He passed round the house, and beneath the yews, and sat ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... come over the crew and the four young friends were unconsciously affected by it. Now there was not a breath of air stirring; the sails hung heavy and motionless from the yards. Blacker and blacker grew the sky; the stillness all about became appalling. No one spoke a word, but every one stood around as though waiting for something serious to happen. The crew was gathered about the forward hatchway silently ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... to the passage. Then she stood motionless, with drooping eyelids, while the two girls passed out. Alora, greatly unnerved and still fearful, clung to ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... immediately to give an account of the day's happenings standing motionless on the third step from the top ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... fright, but dashing into the circle of light and seeing their fettered companions, they reared on their hind legs; after which, snorting, they implanted their hoofs in the ground and remained for a while motionless. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... foul fiend has distraught them!" groaned the landlord, motionless with astonishment; but the more active Meg, calling to the varlets and scullions, whom the tymbesteres had collected in the yard, to follow her, bounded up the stairs, unlocked the door, and arrived in time to throw herself between the captives and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... How many days we were washed by the sea I do not know, but it must have been fully a week, and we were both entirely exhausted, when something happened to our boat, and everything appeared motionless, but still I could hear a terrific roaring sound. When I regained my senses, I recognized Tom bending over me, and the first words I remember were: 'I thought you would never come to again.' I learned that we had been cast ashore the night before, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... some time sitting motionless in my corner, with my eyes bent upon the ground; at last I lifted my head and looked upon the packet as it lay on the table. All at once a strange sensation came over me, such as I had never experienced before—a ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Fustov got up, lay down on the sofa, turned his face to the wall, and remained motionless. I waited a little, but seeing that he did not stir, and made no answer to my questions, I made up my mind to leave him. I am perhaps doing him injustice, but I almost believe he was asleep. Though ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... me in the first moment when I looked at him. A dreadful apathy had possessed itself of this naturally restless and energetic man. He lay quite motionless, except an intermittent trembling of his hands as they rested on the counterpane. His eyes opened for a moment when I spoke to him—then closed again as if the effort of looking at anything wearied him. ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... animated now. In her motionless blue eyes like melted sapphires, around those red lips that almost without moving could breathe enchanting sounds into the world, there was a play of light, that mysterious ripple of gaiety that seemed always to run and faintly quiver under her skin even in her gravest moods; just as ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... you,—to see elsewhere the calm regularity of those lives united in love and order, keeping account of happy hours, the unbroken timepiece of home, as if nowhere else the wheels were arrested, the chain shattered, the hands motionless, the chime still! No, the grave itself does not remind us of our loss like the company of those who have no loss to mourn. Go back to thy solitude, young orphan,—go back to thy home: the sorrow that meets ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... she passed the young man, and she left the room with as much haste as at all became her. Paul stood motionless quite a minute after she had vanished, nor did he awaken from his reverie, until aroused by an appeal from Captain Truck, to sustain him, in some of his matter-of-fact opinions concerning England, against the visionary and bookish ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... apple-butter, and sweetnin'. The black cue shortens one by one till the last hungry devil is supplied, and all have assumed the squat posture, and the grove is filled with black heaps again. But not now as before. Then all were glum, silent, motionless—the rain pelting them remorselessly. Now every one is alive with movement and talk. By and bye the weather clears up a little. One after another, human forms reappear upon the scene. The drummers sound their call;—it is the Assembly—the summons ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... stairway. Figures in blue and amber garments posed gracefully in panels, conceived by some craftsman of the Eighties to represent Love and Purity and Beauty, and these figures, leaded to unalterable attitudes, were little more motionless than the two human beings upon whom fell the mottled faint light of the window. The colours were growing dull; ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... few persons concerned in it stood as in a picture, absolutely motionless and silent as the dead. Sense, if not feeling, was benumbed in them all, as in another moment it was benumbed in the breasts of these new arrivals. Tragedy was there in its most terrible, its most pathetic, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... calculation can create a hypothetical static condition of the sea and discover the level from which heights and depths should be measured. No more than the economist can he actually bring the subject he is dealing with to a motionless condition. The economic ocean will defy any modern Canute who may try to stop its movements; but it is necessary to know what shape and level it would take if this ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... a shadow she crept in beside her baby sister and the moonlight slowly edged across the room and rested for a long time on the two curly heads, motionless in childhood's slumber. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... terror half wild, He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child; He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,— The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead. ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... him silent and motionless. It had not entered his heart before. He had been searching for the lad upon this dreary, sea-beaten shore, without a thought of anything beyond. Was he really standing upon a heavenly shore, where no waves beat ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... terrible as some he had before experienced. While he was thus employed, they shipped a sea on the starboard side, which all thought would send them to the bottom. For a moment the vessel seemed to sink beneath its weight, shivered and remained motionless. It was a moment of critical suspense, and, fancying that they were gradually descending into the great bosom of the ocean, John Stevens gave himself up for lost and summoned all his fortitude to bear the approaching death as became a ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... "L'Aiglon," with scarcely a gruesome detail omitted. The vast plain glimmering in phantasmal light; the ghostly squadrons hurling themselves against one another (seen only through the eyes of the poor little Duke of Reichstadt); the mangled shapes lying motionless in various postures of death upon the blood-stained sward; the moans of the wounded rising up and sweeping by like vague wailings of the wind—all this might be taken for an artful appropriation of Victor Hugo's text; but I do not think it was, though ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... noisily down, over falls and cascades, making its own music to the accompaniment of the singing voices of the trees. Now and again the creek comes to a quiet, pastoral stretch, where it becomes absolutely "still water". Not that it is motionless, but noiseless, covered over with trees and vines, that reflect upon its calm surface and half hide the trout that float so easily and lazily through its clear, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... sweet laughter became audible among the trees. His heart beat fast; he advanced a few steps and stopped. In a moment more the nymph of the island appeared, in her white robe, ascending the cliff in pursuit of her truant bird. She saw the strange man, and suddenly stood still; struck motionless by the amazing discovery that had burst upon her. The Captain approached, smiling and holding out his hand. She never moved; she stood before him in helpless wonderment—her lovely black eyes fixed spellbound on his face; her dusky bosom palpitating ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... child. Just put those fashion books on the table and take the easy chair." Persis bent over the finishings of the little frock with a vague satisfaction in the nearness of the motionless figure. She was growing fond of Diantha, a not unnatural result of the adoring attention Diantha had lavished upon her for a week past. But because Persis was a woman with a living to make, and Diantha was a girl with a dream to be dreamed, scarcely ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... knife and awaited its rush, but it stood stationary for half a minute, swayed to and fro, and then fell on its side. Godfrey leaned over it and plunged his knife in deep behind its shoulders, pressing it until the blade disappeared. Then feeling certain it was dead he ran to Alexis, who lay motionless on the ground. By the side of him lay the stock of the gun and a portion of the barrel; it had exploded, completely shattering the Russian's left hand. But this was not his only or even his most serious injury. The bear had struck him on the side of ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... He'll wake up presently," I said to myself as I lifted him up; and heavy enough he seemed as I carried him down to his kennel, just inside the door, where he lay motionless, snoring ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... him in laid him upon a couch and gazed for some moments in silent awe upon the noble features, so pale and placid, which now lay motionless ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... drawing room Patricia—or Patsy, as she preferred to be called—was seated at the piano softly playing the one "piece" the music teacher had succeeded in drilling into her flighty head by virtue of much patience and perseverance. In a thick cushioned morris-chair reclined the motionless form of Uncle John, a chubby little man in a gray suit, whose features were temporarily eclipsed by the newspaper that was spread carefully over them. Occasionally a gasp or a snore from beneath the paper suggested that the little man was "snoozing" as he sometimes ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... instant; and as the smoke clears away, the red robbers are seen sprawling upon the plain. Our shots have proved fatal. Before we can reload, the struggles of the fallen horsemen have ended; and both lie motionless upon the grass. ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... days were more than ever dedicated to roaming over the country; and in the evening I used to love to scull my skiff far up the stream, and then float quietly down while I watched the sun setting, and the luxurious yet modest forget-me-not, on the banks; then leave my boat to sit motionless on a retired stile, and listen to "the still small voice" of the mysterious bat, or the drowsy soothing hum of the beetle. One of these evenings, by the bye, was ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... impetuous attack from Rutolo, but the latter did not move. For about a minute, they stood watching each other closely without ever crossing swords, almost motionless. Sperelli bending his knees still more, on guard with the point low, assumed the tierce guard and sought to provoke his adversary by the insolent challenge of his eyes and by stamping his foot. Rutolo made a step forward with a menace of straight thrust, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... the wind fell, and the Lily lay motionless on the glassy ocean; the sun shining forth with intense heat, making the pitch in the seams of the deck bubble up, and every piece of metal feel as if it had just come out of a furnace. The seamen sought every spot of shade which the sails afforded, ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... immediately they spied her, led by Nora, they burst into the old English carol, "God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen." They sang it with their rosy, eager faces raised to her, a world of fellowship in every note, while she stood motionless and listened, a smile of supreme love and content making ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... Preoccupied she seemed Now with some painful thought, and in a slow, Half-automatic manner she replenished With scanty bits of coal her little stove; Then, with a like absorbed, uncertain air, Threw off her cloak and bonnet, and sat down; Motionless sat awhile till she drew forth A pocket-book, and from it took a letter, And read these words: "You guaranteed the debt: It now has run three months, and if to-morrow It is not paid, we must seek legal help." A bill of wood and coal for Rachel's ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... the pursuers found further effort useless, he checked his horse. Willock now sat erect on the broncho's bare back, lightly clasping the halter. Looking behind, he saw seven horsemen in varying degrees of remoteness, motionless, doubtless fixing their wolfish eyes on his fleeing form. As long as he could distinguish these specks against the sky, they remained stationary. To his excited imagination they represented a living wall drawn up between ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... for a moment, thinking. The servant remained motionless. The silence in the room was ominous; so, also, was the strange look of disquietude in the ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the fearful things of the night came back to him; he realized that he had shot himself, and he waited for the end, not daring to move, his eyes closed, his hand still gripping the scratched butt of the revolver in his lap. For a long time he lay back in the chair, motionless, his consciousness slowly returning like an incoming tide. At length he started to his feet with an expression of scorn and incredulity; he was as sound as ever, there was neither scratch nor scar upon him; he had not shot ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... few persons in the car, and Pinky carried the child to the upper end and sat him down with his face turned forward to the window, so as to keep it as much out of observation as possible. He sat motionless, stunned with surprise and fear. Pinky kept her eyes upon him. His hands were laid across his breast and held against it tightly. They had not gone far before Pinky saw great tear-drops falling upon the ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... vehemence, so much so that the host, and not only he but everybody in the inn, awoke, and he got up to ask who knocked. It happened at this moment that one of the horses of the four who were seeking admittance went to smell Rocinante, who melancholy, dejected, and with drooping ears stood motionless, supporting his sorely stretched master; and as he was, after all, flesh, though he looked as if he were made of wood, he could not help giving way and in return smelling the one who had come to offer him attentions. But he had hardly moved at all when Don Quixote lost his footing; and slipping ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... quickly to a keen white light. Heat waves ran over the rocks and danced down the hillside. Waring lighted a match and blackened the front sight of his carbine. The sun rolled up and struck at him, burning into the pocket of rock where he lay motionless gazing down the slope. Sweat beaded his forehead and trickled down his nose. Scattered boulders seemed to move gently. He closed his eyes for an instant. When he opened them he thought he saw a movement in the brush below. ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... silently regarded the motionless figure at the window, wondering, thinking, on her part, of many things. When it had disappeared in the adjoining room ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... the boys, as if with one breath, and while the poor animal's head was beginning to subside back to the blood-stained grass upon which it had lain the doctor fired again, and the mutilated animal sank back motionless with a deep, ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... most curious districts in the world. You have seen the solid continuous sand of the endless ocean strands. Well, imagine the ocean itself turned to sand in the midst of a storm. Imagine a silent tempest with motionless billows of yellow dust. They are high as mountains, these uneven, varied surges, rising exactly like unchained billows, but still larger, and stratified like watered silk. On this wild, silent, and motionless sea, the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Rynason stood motionless, watching them come up. Manning still had his two stunners, but they were in their holsters. He kept behind the girl all the way, pausing before pushing her up the open ramp at the top, then moving even more closely ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were passed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out glassy, motionless, and the pennon hung limp on the mainmast. The keleustes slowed his beatings, but the men did not obey him. No whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phoenicia, but freemen born, sons ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... forgot Their craft, that they pause, idle on the strings? His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless there?— His eyes are set.... What is it stills to stone His hands, his lips? and mails him, head and heel, In terrible marble, motionless and cold?— Behind the arras, can it be he feels, Black-browed and grim, with eyes of sombre fire, Death towers ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... through part of their exercise. When the first volley was fired, they were struck with astonishment and terror; the old man, in particular, threw himself down upon the deck, pointed to the muskets, and then striking his breast with his hand, lay some time motionless, with his eyes shut: By this we supposed he intended to shew us that he was not unacquainted with fire-arms, and their fatal effect. The rest, seeing our people merry, and finding themselves unhurt, soon resumed their cheerfulness and good humour, and heard the second and third volley ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... in the shady corner in front of the Seigneurie, with four dogs basking in the sun beyond, and beyond them the shaven lawns and motionless trees, the leafy green tunnel that led to the lane, and a lovely glimpse into the enclosed gardens through the ancient gateway whose stones had known the saints ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... was universal sorrow in the village and the church was constantly filled with parishioners who prayed that he might be spared. But the physicians gave no hope. One of them as he touched the cold hand of the motionless figure, exclaimed aloud: "He has only ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... two approached and they all shook hands. They looked over the amazing little rooms, watched the luggage stowed away in some marvellous manner, saw the crew, every one at his station like a motionless figure. Then a whistle was blown, and once more ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... minutes after she had left it, but the instant she entered she was conscious of a change. Violet was lying quite straight and stiff with glassy eyes upturned. Max was bending over her, tight-lipped, motionless, intent. He spoke without ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Nothing can be seen from the bastions of the castle of the Holy Trinity, to the right or to the left, in front or in the rear, but dense, motionless, snowy mist; a spectral image of that deluge-wrath which, as it rose to sweep o'er earth, once broke against these stern, steep cliffs and beetling peaks of rock: no trace is to be seen of the buried ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hail! The whole earth seems still clothed in a white shroud, held in bondage by a load of ice, of pitiless crystals, so uniform, sharp, and agonizing. After the year 1200 especially, the world is shut in like a transparent tomb, wherein all things look terribly motionless, hard, and stiff. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... the fur flew when they git t' going',' she remarked, and then hurried on, her head erect, her body motionless, her legs flying. Such energy as she gave to the pursuit of mourning I have never seen equalled in any ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... of death, but there was still less prospect of entire recovery. He had begun to remember a little, to speak a word or two, to use his hands in the weak, uncertain way of a young child; but in the main he lay like a giant, bound by invisible and invincible bonds; speechless, motionless, seeking through his large, pathetic eyes the help and comfort of those who bent over him. He had quite lost the fine, firm contour of his face, his ruddy color was all gone; indeed, the country expression ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fixed candlesticks With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips, The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes, And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit Lies foul with chew'd grass, still, and motionless; And their executors, the knavish crows, Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour. Description cannot suit itself in words To demonstrate the life of such a battle, In life so ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... moonlight, fifty feet or so in from the road, lay Sir John de Bury, his eyes closed, his face upturned, motionless—to all appearances a corpse. De Lacy sprang down ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... the room from one to another in speechless amazement, while the two innocent causes of all the trouble stood motionless, with their noses tip-tilted ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... after the disjointed and unhappy recital was complete, she sat for some moments, motionless and silent. Then she arose and made as if to leave the tent, but Rachel caught at ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the deep flush which crept across his face betrayed the fact that it was recognized. He commenced to read the sheet with a studied carelessness; as he proceeded, the carelessness gave way to a troubled frown. For some time after he had finished, he sat motionless. When he looked up, his mood was contemptuous. "So this ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... through that platform of broken rock whereon they stand. The air around, even the fair sky above, is fraught by them with I know not what of subtle bale. One would say they had been waiting here for many days, motionless, eager but not impatient, knowing that at this hour the two horsemen would come. And we—it is strange—have we not ere now beheld them waiting? In some waking dream, surely, we have seen them, and now dimly recognise them. And the two horsemen, forcing their steeds ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... tears fall from the eyes of Mantegna's women and no tears fell from Lady Holme's eyes. Still making grimaces, she sipped the lemonade. Then she put down the glass, leaned back on the sofa and shut her eyes. Her face ceased to move, and became beautiful again in its stillness. She remained motionless for a long time, trying to obtain the mastery over herself. In act she had obtained it already, but not in emotion. Indeed, the relinquishing of violence, the sending of the footman to bed, seemed to have ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... an infinite past, benefactors of the valleys, themselves unblest, almoners of a charity which leaves them in the heights indeed, but the heights of eternal desolation, raised above all sympathies, all tenderness, shining but repellent, grand and cold, mighty and motionless,—we stand before them hushed. They fix us with their immutability. They shroud us with their Egyptian gloom. They sadden. They awe. They overpower. Yet far off how different is the impression! Bright ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... pastures, the gray hills and the radiant sky. Cuddy reared abruptly striking out with his front legs, crouched and sprang against his halter again, but it held him fast. Willet, on returning with his worsted, found him as he had left him, motionless as a bronze horse on a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... opening where Arthur sat. As the creature saw him, its start of surprise would have shattered the nervous system of anything but a cat. It stood half thrown back on its haunches, its ears flattened, its eyes glaring in a petrifaction of amazement. Arthur sat motionless as marble, laughing inwardly. For full two minutes the two stared at each other without moving a muscle, and then, without relaxing its tense attitude, the cat by almost imperceptible degrees withdrew one paw and then another, and, thus backing ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... devastated, and the whole population decimated periodically. Out of the ruins of the old Egypt, Psamatik had to raise up a new Egypt. He had to revivify the dead corpse, and put a fresh life into the stiff and motionless limbs. With great energy and determination he set himself to accomplish the task. Applying himself, first of all, to the restoration of what was decayed and ruined, he re-established the canals and the roads, encouraged agriculture, favoured the ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... feather-shafts and a brilliant scarlet head-band, must be conspicuous. But so perfectly did the soft colors harmonize with the rough, sun-touched bark, so misleading were the shadows of the leaves moving in the breeze, and so motionless was the bird flattened against the trunk, that one might look directly at it and not ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... masts and spars were all branched, and covered thickly with leaves until it looked like a little wood. Thinking from the stillness that there could be no one on board, the Prince pushed aside the branches and sprang over the side, and found himself surrounded by the crew, who lay motionless as dead men and in a most deplorable condition. They, too, had become almost like trees, and were growing to the deck, or to the masts, or to the sides of the vessel, or to whatever they had happened to be touching when the enchantment fell upon them. Mannikin was struck with pity for ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... Kneeling there, motionless, hardly breathing, his lips apart, his face expressing the fear and anguish that were in his heart, Isaiah heard ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... to tell of the feathered life around us,—the blackbirds that build securely in these thickets, the stray swallows that dip their wings in the quiet waters, and the kingfishers that still bring, as the ancients fabled, halcyon days. Yonder stands, against the shore, a bittern, motionless in that wreath of mist which makes his long-legged person almost as dim as his far-off booming by night. There poises a hawk, before sweeping down to some chosen bough in the dense forest; and there fly a pair of blue-jays, screaming, from tree to tree. As for wild quadrupeds, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... was also imposing, as its dark masses of infantry were ranged along the position, from whence they looked sullenly down upon their skilful and gallant foe. The Sikh cavalry, in constant and unnecessary motion, gave some life to the stillness which brooded over the long lines of the compact and motionless infantry of the Khalsa army. It was a moment of extreme suspense, for upon the fortune of this battle much depended. If the sirdar repulsed the British, he would undoubtedly cutoff their communications, oblige them to fall back upon Loodiana, and paralyse ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... old-fashioned horse-hair sofa, lay a boy of fourteen, white all over—white, with a yellowish tinge like wax or old marble—he was strikingly like the girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, a patch of shadow fell from his thick black hair on a forehead like stone, and delicate, motionless eyebrows; between the blue lips could be seen clenched teeth. He seemed not to be breathing; one arm hung down to the floor, the other he had tossed above his head. The boy was dressed, and his clothes ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... always be with us; the wing, although still vibrating at that enormous rate, would appear to be stationary, and so would every other moving thing on the earth, however quick its movement, and everything would continue in that motionless state for a million years, provided we continued our flight with the rays of light. If we travelled a little slower than light, say one minute less in a thousand years, the same scene would be presented to us, but, that which was acted upon this earth during one minute of Time, ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... Bill sat motionless on the edge of the bed in their little room in San Jose that night, a musing expression in ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... long while, Samuel stood motionless, hearing the swish of the rain and the crashing of the thunder as an echo of the storm in his own soul. It was as if a chasm had yawned beneath his feet, and all the castles of his dreams had come down in ruins. He stood there, stunned and horrified, staring ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... who stood trembling at her father's knee, caused him to forget his habitual delicacy of feeling, and to overlook what might perhaps be termed almost a law of society. Instead of moving, therefore, as Mildred had both hoped and expected, he remained motionless in his seat. Dutton's mind was too obtuse to comprehend his daughter's allusions, in the absence, of ocular evidence of a stranger's presence, and his wrath was too much excited to permit him to think much of any thing but ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... motionless in bed. His buttocks tingled with pain, as if they were pricked with needles, or dug with knives; giving him to boot a fiery sensation just as if fire were eating into them. He tried to change his position a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... eye-sockets his eyes looked out unwinking, as though his lids had been cut off. He held himself halfway between a reclining and an upright position. No normal person could hold himself that way for long, but the sick boy kept himself motionless with maniacal strength. The flies hung over him like a cloud of black cinders. One of his friends attempted to keep them away with a leafy branch which he had found, Heaven knows where! I could see no other sign of green in the place. As we passed, I noticed the branch sweep back and forth ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... they are admiring the divine beauty. Their countenances are animated with a lively and brilliant fire; and their eyes, which cannot be made to close during the entire duration of the ecstasy, remain completely motionless, open, and fixed, as on the object which seems to interest them. They are in some sort transfigured; they appear quite changed. Even those who, out of this state, have in their physiognomy something mean or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Here she found home, her own place and her own people. She had, though it absorbed most of her salary, an excellent nurse for Hugh. She herself put him to bed and played with him on holidays. There were walks with him, there were motionless evenings of reading, but chiefly Washington was associated with people, scores of them, sitting about the flat, talking, talking, talking, not always wisely but always excitedly. It was not at all the "artist's studio" of which, because of its persistence in fiction, she had dreamed. Most of them ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... from Boy, she went to the far edge of the porch to watch him slide swiftly through the pear orchard toward the lane. Glancing along the line of his flight, she saw Waldstricker on his horse directly in Boy's path. Fear and horror held her dumb and motionless. Evidently the rider hadn't seen the swift-coming sled—but ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... the temperature still lasted she developed a stupor which persisted for about a year. During this time her temperature rose to 100 deg. without ascertainable cause. She lay for the most part motionless, changing her position but rarely; her expression was stolid; she retained and drooled saliva, wet and soiled herself. She never answered any questions; showed no interest whatever. At times she was quite stiff ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... Edward stood motionless when he had perused this letter; for the conclusion was inevitable, that, by the Colonel's journey in quest of him, he had incurred this heavy calamity. It was severe enough, even in its irremediable part; for Colonel Talbot and Lady Emily, long without a family, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... a black veil hid her face so completely that not one feature could be seen. When she entered the station the change from the blinding glare outside to the shade within seemed to bewilder her. She stood for a few moments perfectly motionless; then she looked around her in a cautious, furtive manner, as though she would fain see if there was any ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... leads to obstinate gangrene. By slaughtering its population, by tearing up its roads and otherwise injuring them, and by burning and pulling down its houses, a king should destroy a hostile kingdom. A kings should be far-sighted like the vulture, motionless like a crane, vigilant like a dog, valiant like a lion, fearful like a crow, and penetrate the territories of his foes like a snake with ease and without anxiety. A king should win over a hero by joining his palms, a coward by inspiring him with fear, and a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... sat down on a natural cushion of thick green moss between two roots of an oak. The place was clean and soft and sweet-scented. For some little time he sat there motionless, in a sort of mental haze. Then his round body slowly slid down flat upon the moss, his head lolled to one side and, the reaction having come, Mr. Trimm's limbs all relaxed and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... seemingly ridiculous attitudes, so instantaneous and therefore so grotesquely rigid were they. There was another of a high jump, seen from one side at the very moment of clearing the pole, so that the figure poised solid in mid-air as motionless as a statue. And there was a third, equally successful, of a man throwing the hammer, in which the hammer, in the same way, seemed to hang suspended of itself like Mahomet's coffin between earth ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... recalled the dreadful standing motionless for an hour, book in hand, while the knees felt like wax and the head grew ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... on nothing; poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped and hooded heads merged in the dim roof; motionless and shadowy. Shadowy and dark, although he saw them by some light belonging to themselves—none else was there—each with its muffled hand upon its ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... nothing. Presently he strained his eyes in another way—he crept cautiously to the edge of the quarry, and looked over the broken railing, and far down on the limestone rocks beneath he saw Stoner, lying on his back, motionless. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... rapid flight, its cunning and strength are such that its prey rarely escapes. Should the terrified hare hide itself in some thicket, the goshawk patiently perches on an elevated branch near at hand, where it will wait hours, motionless, until the poor hare, thinking its enemy departed, ventures from its retreat, when in an instant it is swooped down upon, and struck dying to ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... until we reached the very summit of the pass. Then we passed quietly into the full glory of the winter morning—a tranquil flood of sunbeams, pouring through air of crystalline purity, frozen and motionless. White peaks and dark brown rocks soared up, cutting a sky of almost purple blueness. A stillness that might be felt brooded over the whole world; but in that stillness there was nothing sad, no suggestion of suspended vitality. It was the stillness rather ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... carry back with him to Sagres. For this purpose, he landed at the beginning of the night with nine associates, and having advanced about ten miles into the interior, discovered a native following a camel. The sudden appearance of the Portuguese rendered the astonished Moor perfectly motionless, and before he could recover from his surprize he was seized by Gotterez. On their return to the shore with their prisoner, they traced some recent footsteps on the sand, which led them in view of about forty natives, who withdrew ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... he started for Burlington, where he had an engagement on the following day. Half a mile above the wharf, he came up with a schooner, which on examination proved to be the Missisque. It was a dead calm, and her new mainsail hung motionless from the gaff. The little captain had not seen her skipper since the day on which the old sail had been blown from the bolt-ropes by the squall; and he ran the Woodville alongside of her, in order "to pass the ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... Valparaiso was amply worth recapture. With all haste the governor got together a force of two thousand men, horse and foot, and at their head hurried to the port. There in the offing was the dangerous rover, lying motionless in a calm, and offering ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... Motionless upon her beaches Did the grey Sea still remain, And the Terek foaming yellow In displeasure ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... at the end of the float, absolutely motionless, taking it in. His intellectual faculties were as though non-existent. All the sensitiveness of his nature, like the sensitiveness of a photographic plate, was exposed to that which took place before him. No ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... of dried plants; before thee lay open the works of Haller, Humboldt, and Linnaeus; on thy sofa a volume of Goethe, and the Enchanted Ring. I stood a long time contemplating thee, and everything in thy apartment; and again turning my gaze upon thee, I perceived that thou wast motionless—thou ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... tore herself from the girl's hands, slipped, staggered, shrieked, and the next moment was in the water, floating downward with the current and struggling vainly to get out; while Leam, scarcely understanding what she saw, stood paralyzed and motionless on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... often gets into trouble trying to keep out of it, so the Ashcroft chaps lost by trying to win; and here it is consoling to know that all a man does or says in this world sinks and lies motionless in the silent past, for in this case it will only be a matter of time when people will cease to remember. But to leave all joking aside, we beg to advise that the adventurers were dumped unceremoniously into Moscow ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... time in its heartiness and gallant bluffness. The leap-up of pride and joy in a boy's heart at the moment of death in his Emperor's cause could hardly be more intensely imagined than it is in the poem of the French camp, and all is made more real and vivid by the presence of that motionless figure, intent on victory and sustaining the weight of imperial anxieties, which yet cannot be quite impassive in presence of a death so devoted. And side by side with this poem of generous enthusiasm is placed the poem of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Again they sat motionless. Harold swam with his eyes fixed upon them. Every face was turned his way and none was looking shoreward. Then, almost at the same instant there was a shout from both boats. The men with torches seemed to lose their balance. The lights described a half circle ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... her eyes and fixed them on Celinda; Celinda in return fixed hers on Marionetta. They were at remote points of the apartment. Scythrop was equidistant from both of them, central and motionless, like Mahomet's coffin. ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... every word I dictated to his wife without indicating that he was not deaf, or that he was capable of judging whether my words were good, bad, or unworthy of consideration. Not only did I endeavor not to think of him, but I tried not to see either him or his wife. The silent, motionless figure of the one, and the silent but animated and vivacious figure of the other, filled with an eager desire to do her work properly, with a bubbling and hearty love for her husband, and an evident joyousness ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... chose, I may not say, so uniform was all, Liveliest and loftiest. She my secret wish Divin'd; and with such gladness, that God's love Seem'd from her visage shining, thus began: "Here is the goal, whence motion on his race Starts; motionless the centre, and the rest All mov'd around. Except the soul divine, Place in this heav'n is none, the soul divine, Wherein the love, which ruleth o'er its orb, Is kindled, and the virtue that it sheds; ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... and full; his back was bent supply. His face lit up with a debonnaire and pleasant smile. The lady's eyes turned upon the girl, forbidding and suspicious; she remained motionless, even her lips did not move. Cromwell said that this was a Katharine of the Howards, and one fit to aid her Ladyship and Magister Udal with their erudite ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford |
