"Unresponsive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... surprised at this, for Ruth had always seemed so cold and unresponsive, that it didn't seem as if she had any affection in ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... dumb appeal on the face of unresponsive nature, the sound of nearing wheels sent a pulse of hope through my being; increasing to rapture as I recognised in the approaching vehicle the familiar carriage of the old doctor. If ever a god emerged from ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... balance and falling backward, to the great amusement of his guests. No one went to his assistance; he regained his feet by climbing a high-backed chair, hand over hand, and during the dinner he sat for the most part in a comatose state, his eyes bleared and staring, his tongue unresponsive. Lorelei had little opportunity of watching him, since Bert Hayman monopolized her attention. The latter made love openly, violently now, and it added to her general disgust to see that Bob had again fallen into the clutches of Miss Wyeth, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... faintly, and it was followed by a noise like the closing of a door. I drew back from the house, keeping an eye upon the upper storey, for I thought it possible the woman might reconnoitre me thence. But the windows stared at me blind, unresponsive. To the right and left lights twinkled in the scattered dwellings, and I found something very ghostly in the thought of this woman entombed as it were in the midst of them and moving alone in the shuttered gloom. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... was worse. They all four hailed bedtime with thankfulness. Never before had Eustace and Nesta felt so shut in—so pinned down and overawed. Never, thought Herbert and Brenda, had they met such queer, unresponsive children. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... European tragedy with that intensity and readiness of utterance and that moral conviction which had so moved all others with whom he had come into contact during this memorable visit to the United States; but Mr. Wilson was utterly cold, utterly unresponsive, interested only in ending the war. The talk lasted for a whole morning; its nature may be assumed from the many letters already printed; but Page's voice, when it attempted to fire the conscience of the President, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... music brought forward by the visit of the composer who is at present in this country as envoy of his school, convinces us that the work of the men of his party, elegant and brilliant as it often is, is the work of men essentially unresponsive to the appeal of their compatriots. For them, as it is for every Russian musician, Russia was without their windows, appealing dumbly for expression of its wild, ungoverned energy, its misery, its rich and childish laughter, its deep, great Christianity. It wanted a music that ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... a young-gentleman visitor, looking hopefully for approbation toward the unresponsive ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... man to have hosts of acquaintances and only one or two real friends. You know, you rather scare people. I think it is partly your manner and greatly your monocle; you have such a detached air, and often I have noticed you very unresponsive when people were trying to be amusing. Oh, I don't mean you are ever rude, but you are sometimes chilling. If I hadn't known from Boggley that you were, as he puts it, a perfect jewel, I think I should have shrunk away from before you that ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... her since that kiss at their first interview, which threw her into such a paroxysm of weeping. But one evening, when she had been more silent and dull than usual, and more unresponsive to his efforts to interest her, as he rose to go he drew her a moment to his side and pressed his lips to hers, as if constrained to find some expression for the tenderness so cruelly balked of any outflow in words. He went quickly out, but she continued to ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... be taken as a general principle that if an offer be not accepted in its terms and a new condition be introduced, then the acceptance really becomes an offer, and if the one who made the original offer goes ahead, it can be assumed that he has agreed to the modifications of the unresponsive acceptance. If X writes to Y making an offer, one of the conditions of which is that it must be accepted within ten days, and Y accepts in fifteen days, then X can, if he likes, disregard the acceptance, but he can waive his ten-day time limit and take Y's acceptance ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... consolation; when she beheld tears follow fast and without intermission down cheeks as pale as marble; when she felt that the hand which she pressed in order to enforce her arguments turned cold within her grasp, and lay, like that of a corpse, insensible and unresponsive to her caresses, her feelings of sympathy gave way to those of hurt ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... which followed his last words a big brown moth, attracted by the yellow candlelight, blundered into the room, and began to flutter madly round the unresponsive flame; and in the poignant hush the beating of his ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the boy completely, and to cast him in upon himself entirely. Later on he remembered that he had felt at that time that he had nothing to say to any one. He had wondered what the others could have thought of him, and had thought how dreadfully unresponsive they must be finding him. His sister should have been of some use. But she can only think of herself then as of some strange figure, veiled and petrified with grief—grief not for her mother, but for the young hero whose magnetism had thrilled through every moment of her ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... she flung herself to the other end of the room. It was more from nurse than from Janet that Carey learnt the particulars, such as they were, namely, that the girl had been half- dressed when she had taken alarm from her grandmother's unresponsive stillness, and had rushed down to her father's room. He had found that all had long been over. His friend, old Dr. Lucas, had come immediately, and had pronounced the cause to have ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... providential time to eat my luncheon; and I took shelter under a scraggy pine that had rooted itself in the edge of the rocky slope. The shower soon passed, and I continued my journey, creeping over the slippery rocks, and continuing to show my confidence in the unresponsive trout. The way grew wilder and more grewsome. The thunder began again, rolling along over the tops of the mountains, and reverberating in sharp concussions in the gorge: the lightning also darted down into the darkening passage, and then the rain. Every enlightened being, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and looked into his quiet face, touched even now with the noble stateliness of death. He put his arms about the unresponsive form, and his face ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... that would have seemed churlishness. Faith took them as gravely as she could without being unkind. Her illness helped her, and also hindered the effect she wished to produce. Feeling weak and weary and unable for any sort of exertion, it was the easier for her to be silent, abstracted, unresponsive to anything that was said or done. And also her being so signified the less and testified the less of her real purpose. Faith knew it and could not help it. She could not besides be anything but natural; and she felt kindly towards Dr. Harrison; with a grave kindness, that yet was more earnest ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... puzzled gentleman. He was very unresponsive, and showed in his face that he thought little of this exhibition ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... had lashed out a few times with their lighter weapons, but, finding the Sirius unresponsive, had soon shut them off and were stolidly plunging along toward Jupiter. Brandon flung out a tractor rod and threw the mass of his cruiser upon it as it locked into those sullen green walls. But as ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... broke into laughter, her little figure quivered gleefully; she raised her hand, and struck a blow at a muslin curtain. "Do you, know I even asked Uncle James...." But, with a sudden dislike to mentioning that incident, she stopped; and presently, finding her friend so unresponsive, went away. She looked back from the pavement, and Irene was still standing in the doorway. In response to her farewell wave, Irene put her hand to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as if the name alone would explain both his visit and its manner; but I could see by my companion's unresponsive face that it meant no more ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not altogether unresponsive. It was putting some "krumps" into the neighborhood of the British first line and one of the bands of prisoners ran into the burst of a five-point-nine. Ran is the word, for they were going as fast ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Arnaud, helped to administer a charity. Olivier got her to allow him to help. But at the outset he had more than one setback: the poor people who were given into his charge were not all worthy of interest, or they were unresponsive to his sympathy, distrusted him, and shut their doors against him. Besides, it is hard for a man of intellect to be satisfied with charity pure and simple: it waters such a very small corner of the kingdom of wretchedness! Its effects are almost always piecemeal, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... lay back in the comfortably upholstered corner of the brougham, staring straight before her, sullen red mouth unresponsive to the occasional ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... the blaze of popularity which had greeted his arrival in Europe was already dimmed; the Paris Press jeered at him openly; his political opponents at home were taking advantage of his absence to create an atmosphere against him; England was cold, critical, and unresponsive. He had so formed his entourage that he did not receive through private channels the current of faith and enthusiasm of which the public sources seemed dammed up. He needed, but lacked, the added strength of collective faith. The German terror still overhung us, ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... councilmen from one ward are shamefully unresponsive to the needs and desires of citizens in other wards. Just this summer the council of Duluth, Minn., granted saloon licenses for a ward in which 90 per cent of its citizens signed a written protest against such action. The councilmen representing ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... one by one they appeared with their followers. The excitement had died down. Ranger Steele was out of the way and Linrock was once more wide open, free and easy. Blome alone seemed sullen and spiritless, unresponsive to his comrades and their admirers. And now, at the time of my arrival, the whole gang, with the exception of old Snecker, were assembled in ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... for me, sir," he said with a paternal smile. He fired again. Once more the target stared back, blank and unresponsive. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... her small fists,—kicked the unresponsive stone with her thin little shoes,—her blows gave out no sound. If she only had something to ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... blind stones, inarticulate and dumb! In the deep gloom of their hearts there is a gleam Of the primeval sun which looked upon them When they were begotten. So in the heart of man shines forever A beam from the everlasting sun of God. Rude and unresponsive are the stones; Yet in them divine things lie concealed; I ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... glimpse of it." "But it is only a field's length from the road!" "Well, we never saw it." Ah, but these two friends were lovers. They were so absorbed in each other that they had no spare attention for Warwick Gaol. Their glorious fellowship made them unresponsive to its calls. They were ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... her muff, Mrs. Frayling became sensible that Damaris' hand grew unresponsive, at once curiously ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... was a small grey-haired man of sixty with something dry and unresponsive about him. Being a silent man, he had created an impression of remarkable shrewdness and ability. After a lifetime spent in hard labour and in the practice of the most rigid economy he had come up to wealth, and had got into the firearms ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... top-note staggered passers-by. But now I hear the running taps alone, A faint and melancholy monotone; Or just a gentle swirl when sober hope Searches the bath's profound to salve the soap. Sadly I kick the unresponsive door; Youth, with its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... four days now. You've got to be more encouraging or I can't work or eat or sleep. (He looks around helplessly as if searching for new words to clothe an old, shopworn phrase.) We'll have to make a start. I like having to make a start together. (His forced hopefulness fades as he sees her unresponsive.) What's the matter? (He gets up suddenly and starts to pace the floor.) It's Dawson Ryder, that's what it is. He's been working on your nerves. You've been with him every afternoon for a week. People come and ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... THE EXAMINER. Doubtless there are persons so lacking in personal adaptability that success in this kind of work would be for them impossible. The wooden, mechanical, matter-of-fact and unresponsive personality is as much out of place in the psychological clinic as the traditional bull in the china shop. It would make an interesting study for some one to investigate, by exact methods, the influence on test results of the personality of different ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... something of her contour. Midway of the sleeves were fine, individual wrinkles made by the movements of her arms in working for his comfort and pleasure. A delicate but impelling odor of bluebells came from it. John took it and looked long and soberly at the unresponsive grenadine. Katy had never been unresponsive. Tears:—yes, tears—came into John Perkins's eyes. When she came back things would be different. He would make up for all his neglect. What was ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... with her in the exuberance of his delight. As he spun round, however, his eyes fell suddenly upon the pale and silent stranger who stood by the door. Hector blushed furiously, and made an awkward sailor bow, standing with Laura's cold and unresponsive hand still clasped ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... there, tears raining fast on the tiny, unresponsive face in the coffin, she heard a step behind her. Thinking it was Jemima again, she did not ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... the book also runs the idea that in the United States, government is unresponsive to popular desires—a 'negative' government, House ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... all love and understand; dear Amabel, you who were so unjustly punished for trying to give pleasure to an unresponsive aunt; poor, ill-used, ill-treated, innocent Amabel; blameless, suffering Amabel, we await your words,' that fluttering, tiresome butterfly-thing inside her seemed suddenly to swell to the size and strength of a fluttering albatross, ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... all, I praise you for your charity to me, Love's mendicant,—ah, believe me, Matthiette, that atones for aught which follows now. Come what may, I shall always remember that once in old days you loved me, and, remembering this, I shall always thank God with a contented heart." He bowed over her unresponsive hand. "Matthiette," he whispered, "be happy! For I desire that very heartily, and I beseech of our Sovereign Lady—not caring to hide at all how my voice shakes, nor how the loveliness of you, seen now for the last time, is making ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... the diffident never speak if they can write. That is why my apology for a furtive existence is here set down in solitude instead of being told face to face. You have borne so many years with my unresponsive and incomprehensible ways that shame at last constrains me to this poor defence; for I must either justify myself in your sight, or go far away where even your kindness cannot reach me. The first alternative is hard, but the second too grievous for impaired powers of endurance; ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... so did my peace of mind. It seemed to me tragic that that burly infant under the rugs should have been martyrized at a poor little morning match in front of a few sparse hundreds of spectators and tens of thousands of unresponsive empty benches. He had not had even the glory and meed of a great multitude's applause. When I last inquired about him, at the end of the day, he was still unconscious, and that was all that could be definitely ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... despair, Cummins saw his own efforts fail. As the days passed Melisse mingled more and more with the Indian and half-breed children, and spent much of her time at the company's store, listening to the talk of the men, silent, attentive, unresponsive to any efforts they might make to engage her smiles. From her own heart she looked out upon a world that had become a void for her. Jan had been mother, brother, and everything that was tender and sweet to her—and he was gone. Mukee, whom she had loved, was gone. Williams was gone. ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... was so great as to oblige him to pause for a few moments; but it was to be regretted that nine out of ten of the mountaineers remained entirely unresponsive, crossing their jean-covered legs and rubbing their lean and grizzled jaws in a soulless manner. They displayed this apathetic indifference to the most graceful flight of rhetoric, to the most musical appeals to the hearts of all men loving freedom, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... any here, I fear, but as he has been often strange and depressed and, as he says, unresponsive to your kindness, he does want you now to ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... waverers. Speech No. 4, to parents. Speech No. 5, rebuttal to argument that victim already has enough reading matter. Speech No. 6, general appeal to patriotism and love of progress. Then on Commencement day the hopeful young collegians would go forth to argue with the calm and unresponsive farmer's wife and sell her something that she had never needed and had never wanted, until hypnotized by the classic eloquence of a bright-eyed young man with his foot in the ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... even while they added to her terror, these poor ravings were some vague comfort, since they told her that he loved her. More than once her friend the doctor entered the room, and found her kneeling by the bedside, holding the unresponsive hand, with a white face and wide, tearless eyes; and seeing her thus, he read clearly that his pretty, inexperienced protege had more at stake than he had even at ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... most impressive of human pictures, with no trust of love in him but an overwhelming faith in every vicious possibility. If there is no evidence to prove that, even at the moment when Jeanne was supreme, when he was induced to go to Rheims to see the coronation, Jacques d'Arc was still dark, unresponsive, never more sure than any of the Inquisitors that his daughter was not a witch, or worse, a shameless creature linked to the captains and the splendid personages about her by very different ties from those which appeared—there is at least not a word to prove that he had changed ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... was the unresponsive reply. "I haven't burst any buttons off my waistcoat watching you and Mr. Covington do the turtle-dove act while I drag out a tabloid existence in a two by twice hall bedroom, and stay tied down to my desk all day. Where does the fun ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the announcement as if the name alone would explain both his visit and its manner, but I could see, by my companion's unresponsive face, that it meant no more ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was still unresponsive, and Hope thinking she ought to be the one to answer, let some indignation creep into her own voice as ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... interests, so they will see that from an impersonal, unselfish standpoint, if they have no personal need, they are under the most commanding obligation to add their strength to ours to make better conditions for working women? We might despair of reaching either the overworked, underpaid and unresponsive wage-earner, or the indifferent, irresponsible and almost inaccessible woman of fortune, were it not that all along the social line we are linked by one common possession, our womanhood, which, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... no reply. He stood as he did so often, still and silent, with folded arms, and a look that was haughty, unresponsive. ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... that distinguished him later on. For one thing he disdained the drudgery of committee work: he chafed at the confinement of the conference room; eagle-like he yearned to spread his wings. His forte was talking. He loathed to mull over dull and unresponsive reports. He frankly admitted a disinclination to work, and it makes him one of the most superficial of men in what the world calls culture. His intelligence has more than once been characterised as ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... moment at the top of the steps while Monck, his dark, lean face wholly unresponsive and inscrutable, took out a cigar. The night was a wonderland of deep spaces and glittering stars. Somewhere far away a native tom-tom throbbed like the beating of a fevered pulse, quickening spasmodically at intervals and then dying away again into mere monotony. The air ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... scrutinized her little daughter with fresh interest the few days she had been with her. Molly had always been an unresponsive child since she was a baby. In spite of her beautiful pink coloring, carefully preserved by country life, she was scarcely more alive than an automaton. Whatever individuality she had was so deeply buried that her mother could not discover it. Why was it? Why ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... fingers must keep their rounded position and be strong enough to bear up under the weight you put upon them. As you say, this work can be done at a table, but I generally prefer the keyboard; wood is so unresponsive. ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... Sergeant Thompson sang the words and the orchestra played a soft accompaniment that made the whole thing most effective. Major Pierce was a splendid Villikins, and as Dinah I received enough applause to satisfy anyone, but the curtain remained down, motionless and unresponsive, just because I happened to be the wife of ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... half extended his hand, the girl's face grew pale and she imitated Diana to the extent of dropping her eyes and bowing with frigid indifference. Standing close he whispered "Louise!" in a pleading tone that made Diana frown wickedly. But the girl was unresponsive and another instant forced him ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... illustrated programme of the forthcoming Sing-song whereof he was not a little proud. He also intended to write on many other matters which do not concern us, and doubtless would have done so but for the slight feverish headache which made him dull and unresponsive at mess. ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... all mention of that subject, it was her earnest desire to show him by every trick of woman's infinite variety and shade of manner that she had nothing but admiration for his soldierly conduct, and trust and friendship for him in his troubles. Poor Mac was but vague, unresponsive, and embarrassed in his acknowledgments, and then—she noted how his eyes were constantly wandering away up the road, and, with woman's quick intuition, divined that he was out there for no other purpose than to watch for the return of the ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... of the club wrote that they had failed to hold the boys in everything but manual training and baseball; that the boys were insubordinate and unresponsive, and that their school reports were very poor. I found the conditions even worse than I had anticipated. It was necessary to train eighty boys to listen, as well as to interest them, and so, I told very short stories at first. I chose the ones that were full of dramatic action, that had little ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... taken for so long an imperious and instinctive delight, had become a mere burden. She longed to creep into some quiet place, alone with Oliver, out of reach of this army of servants and dependents, these impassive and unresponsive faces. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unresponsive. An old political reporter remembers being in the national headquarters late in the campaign, and hearing Blaine, who had been stumping for Garfield, say, "You want to fold up the bloody shirt and lay it away. It's of no use to us. You want to shift ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... contact in any way bridged the chasm between them. She felt, presently, from her mother's inarticulate murmurs of compunction and pity, that this was, apparently, what she had hoped for. It was evidently with difficulty, before her child's unresponsive ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... friends; he had no confidences to exchange; nor did he offer to become the repository of other men's pasts. But he would share his bread and his rupees, when he had them, with any who asked. Many tried to dig into his past, but he was as unresponsive as granite. It takes a woman to find out what a man is and has been; and Warrington went about women in a wide circle. In a way he was the most baffling kind of a mystery to those who knew him: he frequented the haunts of men, took a friendly drink, played cards ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... that he should like it above all things, and looked the scraps gloomily over. One Elfrida had called "A Street Minstrel." Seeing him unresponsive, ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... girls feeling their back hair, and the men settling down with a "Come, let's get it over!" air, or glowing up worshipingly, like Eugene Field Linderbeck, or determined not to miss anything, like Carl—the captious college audience, credulous as to statements of fact and heavily unresponsive to the spirit. Professor Frazer, younger than half a dozen of the plow-trained undergraduates, thin of hair and sensitive of face, sitting before them, with one hand in his pocket and the other nervously tapping ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... not much of a singer, but his voice was good and he sang as though he meant it. Outfield sat unresponsive until the verse was nearly done; then he moved restlessly and waited for the chorus, and when it came joined in with the rest; and the strains of Hilltonians rang triumphantly through ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... crystal reflected harsh brightness as unsullied as the moss-filtered, unstable drips which gathered second by second and were gone. How like those drips, how unlike the scarred, time-chastened rock, that steadfast slip of light which since the dawn of creation had flashed messages across the unresponsive sea. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... thou'rt on the terrace to-day. Still Jesus did not answer him, and feeling that nothing venture nothing win, he struck boldly out into a sentence that change of air is the best medicine after sickness. Jesus remaining still unresponsive, he added: sea air is better than mountain air, and none as beneficial as the air that ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... in Irish, and showed enthusiasm for this branch of study. Wishing to find out something about his undergraduate career, I wrote to a member of the Faculty, and received the following reply: "Many persons found him almost morbidly indifferent and unresponsive, and he seldom showed the full measure of his powers.... I grew to have a strong liking for him personally as well as a respect for his intellectual power. But I should never have expected him to ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... every day under the Great Taskmaster's eye. Many country ministers again,—we, miserable men that we are, are never happy or well placed,—complain continually that their people are so few, and so scattered, and so ignorant, and so uninteresting, and so unresponsive, that it is not worth their toil to go up and down in remote places seeking after them. It takes a whole day among bad roads and wet bogs to visit a shepherd's wife and children, and two or three ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.' Then there rises before him the thought of how transcendent and unparalleled a love is that which pours its whole preciousness on unworthy and unresponsive hearts. He thinks to himself—'We are all ungodly; without strength—yet, He died for us. Would any man do that? No! for,' says he, 'it will be a hard thing to find any one ready to die for a righteous man—a man rigidly just and upright, and because rigidly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the topic of conversation among women. They seldom, if ever, discuss their ideals, and all of them, myself included, have a most evidently-conscious air whenever dear Robert's name happens to be mentioned, no matter how trivial the mention. But I am the least touched, and surely the more unresponsive of the entire seven, consequently he is more devoted to me than to any of the others. He was by my side the entire evening at Mrs. Babbington Brooks's elegant and most fashionable ball the other night; he was ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... reveries, that one would have preferred that he should begin to speak, to move, nay, even, to tell lies. For a lie, spoken by a human tongue, had been truth and light compared with that hopelessly deep and unresponsive silence. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... bared to friend and foe. Scarce to his foes will generous judgment lean— Foes mean as merciless, and false as mean, Their poisoned pens, which even softening Death, Which hate should hush and stifle slander's breath, May not deprive of venom, prodding still The unresponsive corse they helped to kill, Is an ignoble sight. Turn, turn away! Mean hates pursue the MARMION of our day, A nobler foe, like DOUGLAS, well may rue His fall, and sigh, "'Tis pity of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... we would not leave you alone!" Mellicent's eyes were wide with horror, she stretched out entreating hands towards the unresponsive figure. To see Peggy cross and snappish like—any other ordinary mortal was an extraordinary event, and quite alarming to her placid mind. "They will ask you, too, dear! I am sure they will—we will all be asked together!" ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... particular day. They are piled high on a long table at one side of the barrack yard, and behind it on the day of my visit stood Madame Balli, Mrs. Allen, Mr. Holman-Black and myself, and we handed out packages with a "Bonne chance" as the men filed by. Some were sullen and unresponsive, but many more looked as pleased as children and no doubt were as excited over their "grabs," which they were not to open until in the train. They would face death on the morrow, but for the moment at least they were ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... cow, who greeted him at first with enthusiasm and wanted to adopt him, but has grown cold to him since on discovering that he is not a calf. I have been trying to make friends with her, but she is so very unresponsive. She doesn't seem to want anything but grass, and prefers to get that for herself. She doesn't seem to want ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... hostile audience. They had come to look at and listen to the actresses who had been promised them, and they thought they were being deprived of that privilege by an interloper. Never before had I gazed out on a mass of such unresponsive faces or looked into so many angry eyes. They were exchanging views on their wrongs, and the general buzz of conversation continued when I appeared. For some moments I stood looking at them, my hands ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... felt chilled and saddened, and it was in silence that she walked beside him across the fields from Rottenburg to Madame de Ruth's house. A stout peasant followed them carrying her scanty baggage. Friedrich talked volubly to his unresponsive companion, and though he expressed the hope, with much politeness, that she was not fatigued by her journey, he did not listen to her reply, but plunged into an exact account of his own position at court and of his poverty and difficulties. His sister was weary, and an overpowering sense ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... information with a little pinch of the Colonel's ear. The Colonel remained coldly unresponsive; he had steeled his heart; the kisses and the pinch were hard to resist, but hardest of all the look of wide-eyed innocence in the dark eyes uplifted to his. Mrs. Fortescue would never see forty again, and her rich hair had a wide streak of silver running ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... it made the feast an ordeal which both Cranston and Davies would gladly have eliminated from memory could they do so. The latter had never yet spoken reprovingly to his wife, but this night he felt that something must be said. Just in proportion as her manner to her hostess had been unresponsive and cold so had her assumption of little wifely airs and proprietorship been comical. She seemed bent on extracting from Percy public and frequent demonstration of his lover-like side, and her appeals and endearments had furiously embarrassed him. They went home early, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... shaped. You see at a glance that she is blind. One eye is larger than the other, and protrudes noticeably. She rarely smiles; indeed, I have seen her smile only once or twice since I came. She is unresponsive and even impatient of caresses from any one except her mother. She is very quick-tempered and wilful, and nobody, except her brother James, has attempted to control her. The greatest problem I shall have to solve is how to discipline and control her without breaking her spirit. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... party displayed varying emotions. It afterward transpired that the hunters had spent most of the afternoon in her ladyship's distant lodge playing bridge for rather high stakes. Little Miss Folsom was pitifully unresponsive to the mirth of Mr. Odwell. She could ill afford to lose six hundred dollars. Lady Bazelhurst was in a frightful mood. Her guests had so far forgotten themselves as to win more than a thousand dollars of the Banks legacy ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... shopmen, however, the patriot's confidence in his own psychological diplomacy began vaguely to wane. Despite the care with which he considered the peculiar rationale and the peculiar glory of each separate shop, there seemed to be something unresponsive about the shopmen. Whether it was a dark resentment against the uninitiate for peeping into their masonic magnificence, ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... his arm, and Maxwell was a little at a loss, though anxious not to seem unresponsive to Virginia's enthusiasm for ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... thirty years, and never had one single quarrel, but oddly enough, when the rare inharmonious moments came, these groups of trees bridged the fleeting difference of opinion or any slight antagonism of will and purpose; when these unresponsive moments came, one or the other would begin to admire those forest giants, to suggest improvements, to repeat the admiration of others for their graceful outlines—to, in fact, direct thought and conversation into the common channel ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... the churchyard and separated from it by a low wall. A lane lies along one side of the churchyard and leads from the street to the vicarage gates. The garden, which was Emily's care, where she tended stunted shrubs and borders of unresponsive flowers and where Charlotte planted the currant-bushes, is beautiful with foliage and flowers, and its boundary wall is overtopped by a screen of trees which shuts out the depressing prospect of the graves from the vicarage windows and makes the place seem less "a churchyard ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... being in an ocean of spiritual and inspiring thought: surely our problem is to find the conditions that will avail to put us in touch with this lively world of inspiration in which we are accustomed to pass so dead and unresponsive ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... expecting to see her face aglow with the warmth of it. She stood beside him, the one unresponsive soul in the room, on her ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... his desk, went to his own boarding-house for dinner, and returned to the mill, but always with a sense of unbroken suffering. What had happened? Why had Ida been so unresponsive? Why had he felt angry with her? These questions repeated themselves incessantly, and were lost again in a chaotic humming that seemed to fill his ears and to shut out the usual sounds of the day, making him feel as if thrust away ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... over Henry Smith, rudely disturbing his lotos- eater's sense of being. He felt almost annoyed by this well-meaning but indefatigable young man who seemed to think folks should be gadding all the time. His manner was unresponsive as he took ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... not answer; unresponsive as a statue, she did not move. The sun shot beneath an obstructing branch, and long, searching shafts found access to the room. Mauville moved forward impetuously, until he stood on the verge of the sunlight on ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... They sang as only Italians can sing—as naturally as they breathed, and with a rich and overflowing innocent joy in the art which Nature had taught them. They sang loudly, swingingly, glancing full of naive hope up at the windows of the vast, unresponsive hotel. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that he made a discouraging audience "to play to." He was not, however, unresponsive—far from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warm ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... knee made her look down. Binks—tired of his abortive blasts at an unresponsive hole—desired refreshment, and from time immemorial tea had been the one meal at which he was allowed to beg. He condescended to eat two slices of saffron cake, and then Vane presented the slop basin ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... whispering groups; but Thayer never heeded them. It is not certain that, heeding, he would have cared. Relief he must have at any cost, and this was the one means at his command. His own voice, laden with passionate sadness, came echoing back to him from the unresponsive walls, and in time the echo checked his outcry. It taught him anew the lesson which already he had conned again and again, the lesson that his bitterest plaint fell on no one else's ears with half the compelling fervor with which it reached his own, that ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... the peculiar down twist of his mouth, glanced darkly at Tessibel, but the girl's unresponsive, serious face turned his attention ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... apparently non-operative piece of apparatus. It must be borne in mind, however, in considering a duplex system, that a differential relay is used AT EACH END of the line and forms part of the circuit; and that while each relay must be absolutely unresponsive to the signals SENT OUT FROM ITS HOME OFFICE, it must respond to signals transmitted by a DISTANT OFFICE. Hence, the next figure (4), with its accompanying explanation, will probably make the matter clear. If another battery, D, be ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... in amazement. Her thin, sensitive lips were drawn back at the corners, enough to make her mouth look a trifle wider—and enough to suggest dimly that their motion was the start of a vindictive grimace. Otherwise, she was unmoved, unresponsive to the open threat of what he ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... remained a stranger to his children. He seemed proud of their healthy beauty, and glad of Mary's happiness in them; but their nearness bored and tired him, and they, quick to perceive this, became hopelessly unresponsive in his presence. Ellie would back solemnly away from the approaching chair, and Rosamond would hang mute upon her mother's shoulder. "It's strange," Mary said to the Sparrow, who was quick to notice any failure to appreciate her adored charges; "they're his own, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... saw it distinctly. Yes, it was a woodchuck, and no mistake. And it seemed to be making mute appeal to him to come and save it from a dreadful doom. Chris hesitated, looking doubtfully at his companion's heaving back. It looked an unresponsive back. Moreover, Chris felt half ashamed of his own compassionate impulse. He knew that he was considered foolishly softhearted about animals and children and women, though few men cared to express such an opinion to him too frankly. He suspected that, in the present ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... away with Charlie, who was waiting for his turn, and Mac roamed about, wondering if anywhere in all that crowd his future wife was hidden, saying to himself, as he glanced from face to face, quite unresponsive to ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Double is seen by persons in the house, or in the neighborhood... the Double may be seen or heard; when seen it shows the dreamy hazy consciousness alluded to, is silent, vague in its aspect, and unresponsive.... This astral corpse remains near the physical one, and they disintegrate together; clairvoyants see these astral wraiths in churchyards, sometimes showing likeness of the dead body, sometimes as violet mists ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... hand Max held out, and then did nothing with it, in the aloof, impersonal way that had always irritated Max, and made him want to fling away the unresponsive fingers. Now, however, for the first time in his life he did not notice. He was lost in his desire for and ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... upon her lips. For a long moment he gazed upon her, standing as if stricken into stone. Then heedless of those about him, he bared his head, and thus silently saluted and paid homage to her. She did not see him. He had not thought that she would. He saluted her as the devout salute the unresponsive image of a saint. The tumbril crawled on. He turned his head, and followed her with his eyes for awhile; then, driving his elbows into the ribs of those about him, he clove himself a passage through the throng, and so followed, bare-headed now, with fixed gaze, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Unresponsive as all nature to human emotions, the tumbled grass lay about him, a picture of confusion and ruin. The futility of human effort was borne in upon him as he scanned the waste. A pile larger than the surrounding piles separated itself from the scattered heaps at last. He regarded it eagerly. Yes! ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... She seemed to have all sorts of reasons for putting off the invitation for which Miss Bannister was evidently waiting. Of course there was no reason for waiting, but girls are queer. A word from Miriam would bring her, but Miriam was very unresponsive ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... silent. Seeing that he could awake no enthusiasm in that unresponsive mind, he turned to another subject and asked with a change of tone: "And what are you doing for the memory of your mother and your brother? Is it enough that you come here every year, to weep like a woman over a grave?" And he ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... half-minute she waited; then she glared petulantly at the unresponsive barrier, and pounded ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... words Aurora glued her beauteous lips to the slender blowpipe of the bassoon, and, having inflated her lungs to their capacity, breathed into it a respiration that seemed to come from her very soul. But no sound issued from the cold, hollow, unresponsive bassoon. Aurora repeated the effort with increased vigor. There ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... not been most pronounced. Of course, if I wanted to, I could show you a transcript of everything he has said to me in the last couple of months. He didn't know it, but I managed to get most everything down in shorthand. I did it at the risk, too, your lordship, of being considered cold and unresponsive by him. It's most difficult to take conversation without the free use of your hands, I must say. But I've preserved in my own black and white, ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... I remember, in a most extraordinary degree upon the temper of his audience. I have heard him read downright flatly and badly to an unresponsive house, and I have seen him vivified and quickened to the most extraordinary display of genius by an audience of the opposite kind. The first occasion on which he ever read for his own profit was in the old Broad Street Music Hall at Birmingham, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... lavender cape Cleo had discarded when she climbed through the window, while Mary stood like a statue, in her clinging white, with Cleo beside her, looking as if she had stepped out of a comic opera in her blue bird pajamas. But the audience was unresponsive. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... but not enfolding, and now she said nothing for a long time, while her eyes, with their strained look of pain, gazed widely, and as if in astonishment, before her; and he, knowing only the silence, the unresponsive silence, continued to sob his protestation, his reproach, with a helplessness and ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... reduction of activity and dullness. A rather cumbersome electrical apparatus (for the purpose of getting a good light for pupil examination) was brought to her bedside. Whereas before, she had been totally unresponsive, she suddenly wakened up, asked whether "those things" would blow up the place, and whether she was to be electrocuted. During this anxious state she responded promptly to commands, but after a short time ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... fact, had been frightened out of her; for weeks she had lived in imagination so vividly through that day that when the day really arrived it found her physically and mentally unresponsive; the endless reiteration of names sounded meaninglessly in her ears, the crowding faces blurred. She was passively satisfied to be there, and content with the touch of hands and the pleasant-voiced formalities of people pressing toward ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... over the prospect of dancing with him. Presently her turn came; she rose with a sudden odd loss of self-possession as he was presented, stood dumb, shy, unresponsive, suffered him to lead her out, became slowly conscious that he danced rather badly. But awe of him persisted even when he trod on ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... so?" said Langshaw absently in his turn. He had a momentary sense of being set back in his impulse to confidences that was not, after all, untinged with pleasure. His delightful secret was still his own, unmarred by unresponsive criticism. "By the way, Clytie, I don't like the way George has been behaving lately. He hasn't shown me his report from school in months; whenever I ask him for it he has some excuse. Hello! ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... silence. "We have been thinking that the best thing we could do would be to send her to America." He made another pause, only to be met by the same ominous silence. He sighed at the thought of these unresponsive people. "Her ticket has ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... consolation, she has no intention of forgetting you, and Arthur—that's the fellow's name—is anxious to make your acquaintance. She says there are men who're not so unresponsive as you are, but Arthur has never been into the ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... lemme get in! O God!" she pleaded with desperate entreaty, as Mrs. Kane stood coldly unresponsive, "you have your baby. I haven't seen mine in seven months, and they never wrote. I'll never ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... rest on earth either to herself or to those whom she honoured with her confidence. From the first time she heard Knox preach she formed a high opinion of him, and was solicitous ever after of his society.[87] Nor was Knox unresponsive. "I have always delighted in your company," he writes, "and when labours would permit, you know I have not spared hours to talk and commune with you." Often when they had met in depression he reminds her, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the ring of grinning, unresponsive faces, it was plain to see that all sympathy was against the stranger, as is the way of bird, beast, fish, but especially man, the world over—and I experienced a sudden sense of loneliness which was, I think, only natural. Yet, as I put up my hand to ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... from persuasion to profanity with no satisfactory result. His language, whether eloquent or fiery, beat upon an unresponsive ear. But being in that condition that demands sympathy, he found the mere talking a relief, and presently drifted into a recital of ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... Miss Bentley, "I liked him. He turned out to be altogether different from my first impressions. That afternoon at the Country Club he seemed rather stiff—nice, assured manners, of course, but unresponsive. But then the way in which we bounced in upon each other was enough to break any amount of ice." She laughed at the recollection, clasping her hands ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... forward the work he began, of reinforcing the workers, of bearing Mongolia upon our prayers until Buddhism shall fade away before the pure truth and the perfect love of Jesus Christ, and even the hard and unresponsive Mongols come to recognise the truths James Gilmour so long and so faithfully tried to teach them—that they need the Great Physician even more than they need the earthly doctor, and that He is more able and willing to heal the hurt ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... efforts to draw Haddan into a discussion of the princess and her household resulted unsatisfactorily. The young guard was annoyingly unresponsive. He had his secret instructions and could not be inveigled into betraying himself. Baldos went to sleep that night with his mind confused by doubts. His talk with Haddan had left him quite undecided as to the value of old Franz's ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... know why they do things—not even you and I invariably know, though of course we are superior to the unresponsive masses. Many people are even unconscious that they are doing things or being things—being gentle or cruel or creative or parasitic. Quite without knowing it, Father was searching for his place in the world. The New York shoe-stores had decided that he was too old to be useful. But age is ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... was no unusual performance for her. In the midnight solitude of her chamber she regularly gave rein to the feminine side of her nature. By day she was the severe, matter-of-fact, businesslike Eliza Appleton, deaf to romance, lost to illusion, and unresponsive to masculine attention; but deep in her heart were all the instincts and longings of femininity, and at such times as this they came uppermost. Her bedroom had none of the Puritanical primness which marked her habit of ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... be put off by his seeming a bit unresponsive," Mrs. Phillips would explain. "He's shy with women. What I'm trying to do is to make him feel you are one ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... lay in bed, her eyes closed. She did not stir at his entrance. He locked the bank-notes in a drawer of the dressing-table, undressed with his usual elaborate care, approached Rachel's bed and gazed at her unresponsive form, turned down the gas to a pinpoint, and got into bed himself. Not the slightest sound could be heard anywhere, either in or out of the house, save the faint breathing of Rachel. And after a few moments Louis no longer heard even that. In ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... Wallace Hood, one look at him sitting there, as unresponsive to the spell as the cup from which he was sipping its third replenishment of tea, would have explained his domestication in that household;—the necessity, in fact, for domesticating among them some one who was always buoyantly upon the surface, whose talk, in comfortably rounded ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... straight cues to crooked ones; and why he should prefer round balls to chipped ones; and why he should prefer a level table to one that slants; and why he should prefer responsive cushions to the dull and unresponsive kind. I wonder at these things, because when we examine the matter we find that the essentials involved in billiards are as competently and exhaustively furnished by a bad billiard outfit as they are by the best one. One of ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... little heed to the sights that so interested his fellow passengers. To his fellow passengers, themselves, he had been as indifferent. To those who had approached him casually, as the sometimes tedious hours passed, he had been quietly and courteously unresponsive. This well-bred but decidedly marked disinclination to mingle with them, together with the undeniably distinguished appearance of the young man, only served to center the interest of the little world of the Pullmans more strongly upon him. Keeping to himself, and engrossed with his own thoughts, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... incapable of rising to the necessary heights. He was hollow, artificial; his tricks and mannerisms showed through like familiar trade marks. Strangely enough, the girl also had failed to get the most out of the scene, and this morning, both star and leading woman seemed particularly cold and unresponsive. They lacked the spark, the uplifting intensity, which was essential, therefore, in desperation, Phillips finally tried the expedient of altering their "business," of changing positions, postures, and crosses; but they went through ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... with the rosy tints of youth. Her figure was a bit slim and unformed, and her shoulders stooped a little more than was desirable; but in Cloverton Elizabeth had the reputation of being "a pretty girl," and a sullen and unresponsive one ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... Osborn come in and go to the dining-room and hit an unresponsive mass of coal vigorously, but she gave no sign. In the darkness she listened for all the sounds she had learned to know so well; his movements in the dressing-room, his splashing as he washed face and hands in the bathroom, his pat-pat tread in carpet slippers along ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... took my dear lady in my arms, and holding her against my heart, I kissed her hair, her closed eyes, her pale, unresponsive lips, and bearing her to the door, contrived to open it and stepped forth of the cave. And here I found Adam, pistol in hand, with divers of his fellows and the three gentlemen who scowled amain, yet, eyeing Adam's weapon, did ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol |
