"Unmeaning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... once had a pastor (don't tell it), But we chanced on a time to discover That his sermons were writ long ago, And he had preached them twice over. How sad this mistake, tho' unmeaning, Oh, it made such a desperate muss! Both deacon and laymen were vexed, And decided, "He's no man ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... read brags, with, I trust, the like success? Be it remembered that Pistol, a braggadocio, is made up of brags and slang; and for that reason I would also read, with Hanmer, bull-baiting, instead of the unmeaning ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... hurt your feelings, but my strength is not great enough for unmeaning flattery. This marriage was so dear to my heart that I have put it before a very large interest about which I have no time to lose, and still am helpless upon this bed. I will trust you to do my errand. Go to that chest, Judge Custis, and you will find a package of papers in the cedar till ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... THE SOUND OF A STORM.] What! can the everlasting elements Feel with a worm like man? If so, the shaft Of mercy-winged lightning would not fall On stones and trees. My wife and children sleep: 5 They are now living in unmeaning dreams: But I must wake, still doubting if that deed Be just which is most necessary. O, Thou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fire Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge 10 Devouring darkness hovers! Thou small flame, Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls, Still flickerest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... ancient gilded Dionysi at Corinth were smudged all over with cinnabar, like fetish-stones in India or Africa.(1) As a rule, however, the statues of historic times were beautiful representations of kindly and gracious beings. The older works were stiff and rigid images, with the lips screwed into an unmeaning smile. Older yet were the bronze gods, made before the art of soldering was invented, and formed of beaten plates joined by small nails. Still more ancient were the wooden images, which probably bore but a slight resemblance to the human frame, and which were often mere "stocks".(2) ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... looked up the clean, empty street stretching away under the shade of its thrifty young trees, it seemed made only to lead her forward into the life for which she had been so long preparing herself. Endbury, with its shops, its bustle of factories so unmeaning to her, the great bulk of its inexplicable "business," existed only as the theater upon the stage of which she was to play the leading role in the drama of life—she almost consciously thought of it in those terms—which, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... have failed. For as soon would I doubt the truth of heaven itself, as question the patriotic faith of the conqueror of Spartacus! But left at thy house, my Crassus, it seems almost senseless and unmeaning. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... was silent. Conversation was more or less general, but it sounded vague and unmeaning to him. He heard a voice on his left holding forth with energy, but he did not heed it until Mrs Jefferson touched his ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... and for all; at the same time, he must have known that an invocation to spirits, coupled with the hope of obtaining some benefit therefrom, is worship pure and simple, and cannot be explained away as an unmeaning ceremony. ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... a long talk ensued, as unmeaning and useless as that we have above related, and George left with a heavy heart, promising ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... his feet. Nothing could be more pitiably effeminate than the appearance of this young man. His eyes were heavy and vacant, his forehead low and retiring, his cheeks sallow, and his form curved as if with a premature old age. An unmeaning smile dilated his thin, colourless lips; and as he looked down on his strange favourites, he occasionally whispered to them a few broken expressions of endearment, almost infantine in their simplicity. His ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... were left together on the garden bench, with the same thought for a bond of union. They sat for a long time, saying little save vague, unmeaning words, watching the father walk away in his happiness, gesticulating as if he were ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... unexpected, too difficult of belief to be at once accepted or understood. Moor started at the name, then leaned forward, breathless and intent, as if to seize the words before they left her lips; words that recalled incidents and acts dark and unmeaning till the spark of intelligence fired a long train of memories and enlightened him with terrible rapidity. Blinded by his own devotion, the knowledge of Adam's love and loss seemed gages of his fidelity; the thought that he loved Sylvia never had occurred to him, and seemed incredible even when her ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the stranger, 'you speak like a mere man of the world, and I think you something better. Therefore, pray do not sink your real character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... and yell of the savages, as they closed in deadly conflict; not a sound was to be heard but the hoarse cry of the vulture, flapping her wings and mounting into the air, alarmed at the intrusion of man. Those countenances, which had so lately beamed with daring and defiance, were unmeaning and inexpressive; and what with the effect produced on the dead bodies, by the excessive heat and the mangling and disfiguration of the tomahawk and scalping knife, scarcely one could be distinguished from another. Friends tortured themselves in vain, to find friends, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... more than invective; the latter, having encountered an enormous mastiff on his road, has caressed him, enticed him, and led him along with him as an auxiliary. To the mastiff, clever argumentation is only so much unmeaning sound; with his eager eyes fixed on his temporary master he awaits only his signal to spring on the adversaries he points out. On the 20th of June he has almost strangled one of them, and covered him with his slaver. On the 21st,[2608] he is ready to spring ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... some really great cause; it was an age of gallant soldiers—an age, however, that brought out none more gallant than Berwick. Of him it might fairly be said that "his mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes." This unmeaning little war—unmeaning in the higher sense—was also the last campaign of the illustrious Prince Eugene. Eugene did all that a general could do to hold up against overwhelming odds, and but for him the victory of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... by this which deceived also the rhetorician Theopompus, when he blames even Plato for wishing everything to be defined. For what does he say? Did none of us before you use the words good or just, or do we utter the sounds in an unmeaning and empty way without understanding what they severally signify? Now who tells you, Theopompus, that we had not natural notions of each of these things and preconceptions ([Greek: prolaepseis])? But it is not possible to ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... The soul of the woman was gone; the spirit had evaporated from the human bottle! She sat, with open mouth and glassy eye, in her chair, sidling herself to and fro, with the low, peevish sound of fretful age and bodily pain; sometimes this querulous murmur sharpened into a shrill but unmeaning scold: "There now, you gallows-bird! you has taken the swipes without chalking; you wants to cheat the poor widow; but I sees you, I does! Providence protects the aged and the innocent—Oh, oh! these twinges will be the death o' me. Where's Martha? You jade, you! you wiperous ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... action of their instincts. They set themselves against each other in attitudes as well chosen and as peculiar as those of a well-trained fencer. Before the assault they often go through a singular performance, which consists in picking up bits of twigs or pebbles. These they cast into the air, an unmeaning movement which may be compared to the like meaningless though similarly graceful salute with which swordsmen preface their contests. Then, with their legs flexed so that they may be ready for the spring, ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... fashion to say that her ladyship had no heart; in most instances an unmeaning phrase; in her case certainly an unjust one. Ninety years of experience had assuredly not been thrown away on a mind of remarkable acuteness; but Lady Bellair's feelings were still quick and warm, and could be even profound. Her fancy was so lively, that her attention was soon engaged; her ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... in some respects more remarkable than any of those I have seen, lay in a line from east to west, across the middle of the cave, on that part of the floor where the ice was thickest. The central mass was extremely solid, but somewhat unmeaning in shape, being a rough irregular pyramid; its size alone, however, was sufficient to make it very striking, the girth being 66-1/2 feet at some distance from the ice-floor with which it blended. The mass which lay to the east of this was very lovely, owing to the good ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... of Gaubertin's house was decorated with the unmeaning commonplaces of modern luxury. Rich papers with gold borders, bronze chandeliers, mahogany furniture of a new pattern, astral lamps, round tables with marble tops, white china with gilt lines for dessert, red morocco chairs and mezzo-tint engravings in the dining-room, and blue cashmere ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... act recalls the introduction to the first, which also begins with the hymnlike phrase, and sets the key-note of pathos which is sounded at every dramatic climax, though pages of hurdy-gurdy tune and unmeaning music intervene. Recall "Ah, fors' e lui che l'anima," with its passionate second section, "A quell' amor," and that most moving song of resignation, "Dite all' giovine." These things outweigh a thousand times the glittering tinsel ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... her from the door, but the "Good night" which fell from her lips was lifeless and unmeaning. Jan shivered when he went out. Under the cold stars he clenched his hands, knowing that he had come from the cabin ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... on this occasion is one which I may well carry as lightly as possible. In our society, I am told, one needs an introduction to a beautiful woman; but I have never heard of men needing an introduction to a beautiful song. Prose before poetry is an unmeaning interruption; for poetry is perhaps the one thing in the world that explains itself. The only possible prelude for songs is silence; and I shall endeavour here to imitate the brevity of the silence as well as ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... authorized use of them on the other, merely to avoid the utterance of a monosyllable of two letters, when the effect is a deception upon the public, it is not a subject for present discussion. Both practices are abuses of the times, which have been carried to such an extent that nothing can be more unmeaning than references of this kind—in regard as well to schools, and "institutes," and "seminaries," as to the publication of books by subscription, and the superior merits of patent blacking and razor-straps; as to which, by the way, it has always been ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... in a tone, though it utters but one unmeaning word. Bill dropped a handful of nails upon a table and came striding down the long room to the door; pushed Jim unceremoniously aside and stood upon the step. He was just in time to look into the rageful, blue eyes of Jack Allen, walking with a very straight ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... glistening thoroughfare in front of the vast hotels, and I was struck, as I never fail to be, with its futile and unmeaning splendour. I think there is nothing in our dun-coloured civilisation prettier than that habit the ladies have in Saratoga of going out on the street after dark in their bare heads. When I first saw them wandering about so in the glitter of the shop-windows and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... there; no one in whom she had any interest; none of Mr. Bowdoin's grandchildren could make it convenient to come to his funeral. The large gathering of friends and neighbours and distant relations were but an unmeaning crowd to ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... in the pit, were often extravagantly lavish of their applause. They sometimes clapped a single solitary sentiment, that was almost as unmeaning as it was short, if it happened to be pronounced only with some little emphasis, or to contain some little point, some popular doctrine, a singularly pathetic stroke, ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... peculiarly American mode of self-immolation. Or perhaps it may with more propriety be said that he was a Faust in ordinary life, and that he had called upon a national demon to be his aid and his foe. He had worked himself to death—a phrase by many supposed to be hollow and unmeaning, but one too sadly illustrated every day ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... state of existence, and are recovered by reminiscence (anamnesis) or association from sensible things. The sensible things are not realities, but shadows only, in relation to the truth.' These unmeaning propositions are hardly suspected to be a caricature of a great theory of knowledge, which Plato in various ways and under many figures of speech is seeking to unfold. Poetry has been converted into dogma; and it ...
— Meno • Plato
... incongruous positions. These, and the many similar freaks of inventors in their search after perfection, have signally failed, a result to be expected when it is considered that the changes mentioned were unmeaning, and had nothing but novelty to recommend them. But what is far more extraordinary is the failure of the copyist, who, vainly supposing that he has truthfully followed the dimensions and general features of the Old Masters, at last discovers that he is ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... question of supremacy, and if the right of the States to tax the means employed by the General Government be conceded, the declaration that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof shall be supreme law of the land, is empty and unmeaning declamation.... We are unanimously of opinion," concluded the Chief Justice, "that the law... of Maryland, imposing a tax on the Bank of the United ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... middle portions honourable in the extreme. So welcome in my eyes, after witnessing an unending stream of concave and attenuated barbarian ghosts, was the sight of these perfections of Jones Bob-Jones, that instead of the formal greeting of this Island—the unmeaning "How do you do it?"—I shook hands cordially with myself, and exclaimed affectionately in our own language, "Illimitable felicities! How is ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... in that case, the squares, cubes, and all other powers alike, would be I; and thus, under any apparent alteration, the real relations of A and B would always remain the same. But this is an impossible and unmeaning case in Political Economy, as might easily be shown.] Hence, therefore, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... inspiration, was to be seen in forms grotesque and sensuous enough in those very festivals, when the gayer and coarser part of the population, in town and country, broke out into frantic masquerade—of which the silly carnival of Rome is perhaps the last paltry and unmeaning relic— "when," as the learned O. Muller says, "the desire of escaping from self into something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, broke forth in a thousand ways; not merely in revelry and solemn ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... proverbial—I can conceive the apostle putting it in this way, "Ye would have plucked out your own eyes for me," or, "to show the strength of your affection for me;" but it seems to me that it is absurd and unmeaning to say, "and have given them to me", unless under the idea of such giving being of some service to the apostle, as a kindly fancy would naturally dwell upon the thought of its being, if St. Paul's own eyes were injured ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... flagged considerably, especially among the older men, as to them, these characters alone, were as yet, unmeaning sounds. Some of them got up and lit their pipes, and moving around, divided their time between the lesson and the smoking. Of course I had to let them smoke. I might have found it a difficult matter to have stopped them if I had been so ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... words, "Our Father who art in heaven," be unmeaning ones to you; but strive to realize the great goodness and condescension of God in permitting you to call him by so sweet a name, and give him the only thing you can in return,—your young ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... of wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning Sunday tinkle. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... in them, or to use words like beauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise meaning than they would otherwise have. Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty, not in the most abstract but in the most concrete terms possible, to find not its universal formula, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that [viii] special manifestation ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... alas! this attempt at the Absolute,—wholly! I, who believed not in her, because I would fain believe nothing, Have to believe as I may, with a wilful, unmeaning acceptance. I, who refused to enfasten the roots of my floating existence In the rich earth, cling now to the hard, naked rock that is left me,— Ah! she was worthy, Eustace,—and that, indeed, ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... many days have I watched him going up and down through all the empty reputations, the unmeaning noises of the world, living his life like some low, old-fashioned, modest Hymn Tune he keeps whistling—and I have seen him in fear, and in danger, and in gladness being shrewder and shrewder for God, now grimly, now radiantly, hour by hour, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... within them; so that their deeds are the veritable pulsations of their hearts. And so it is in this play. The course of action, as we have seen, was partly borrowed. But there was no borrowing in the characteristic matter. The personal figures in the old tale are in themselves unmeaning and characterless. The actions ascribed to them have no ground or reason in any thing that they are: what they do, or rather seem to do,—for there is no real doing in the case,—proceeds not at all from their own natures or wills, but purely because the author chose to have it so. So that the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... incoherence with some wild unmeaning gestures; but they trail off into the progressive inaction of stupor, and he lies ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... while a heavy sort of smile settled about her lips, the upper one protruding a little, on account of two prominent teeth. Eustache had seen the peasant type at home, the low forehead, the deep-set eyes, the short nose, flattened at the base, the wide mouth and rather broad, unmeaning countenance, the type of women who bear burthens without complaining and do not resent when they are beaten. Marie had an abundance of blue-black hair, a clear skin, and a soft color ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Elizabeth, was destined to endure from the penury of her supplies and the magnitude of her requisitions. His words were all carried to the queen, mingled with such artful insinuations as served to impart to these unmeaning ebullitions of a hasty temper the air of deliberate contempt and meditated ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... union. After much hesitation, she resolved to be as explicit as her own respect for the feelings of filial piety would permit. "I will own," said she, "that what fell from me in a transport of joyful surprise, was not an unmeaning exclamation, but the confession of a strong preference. But now that I have had time for reflection, I must remember that you long struggled against your partiality for me, and even now you seem rather vanquished by a combination of circumstances and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... would require pratisrotasas; the meaning is that those that flowed east to west now flow west to east, &c. For kurddanti some texts have narddanti which is certainly better. Kurddanti means play or sport; wells playing like bulls would be unmeaning, unless the sport is accompanied ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... story has grown dim, The plot confused; the hero fades Behind unmeaning words, and over him The covers close like window shades On empty windows. The watchful room Is weary. Dully the green lamp stares Into the shadows. The coals are dumb, The clock ticks heavily. The chairs Wait sullenly for ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... country, and attracted crowds of visitors. Some of these were fine ladies of superficial minds, who came from mere curiosity, so as to be able to say that they had seen a sewing-machine. I was often struck with the shallow, unmeaning questions which these butterflies of fashion propounded to us. Some of them made the supercilious, but disreputable boast, that they had never taken a stitch in the whole course of their lives. But ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... breeze,' 350 In the next line, it 'whispers through the trees:' If crystal streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep,' The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with 'sleep:' Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line, 360 Where Denham's ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... made damp and green by the willow's shade, to the crowded church and the bustle and confusion of life. Then followed the presentation of the parchment rolls and the ceremonies usual at the winding up of this time-honored day. It all seemed like unmeaning mummery to me. The majestic president, with his little flat black cap, set like a tile on the top of his head, was a man of pasteboard and springs, and even the beautiful figures that lighted up the walls had lost their coloring and life. There was, indeed, a wondrous change, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... dwellings, pictures, reading, is of the same nature. It results from the dull, unmeaning gaze with which one looks at things; the shiftless, slipshod way of doing work; the "don't care" habit of mind which calls anything that happens to fall in its way ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... all the favours conferred on me, without turning pale with horror, then kindling with indignation at the commonplace thanks, which insultingly reminded her of her innocence given in exchange for unmeaning acknowledgments. ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... in her career, her whole ambition seemed to be narrowed down to surprising the world by displays of vocal power. As long as these displays would dazzle and astonish, it made little difference how absurd and unmeaning they were. Had she assiduously cultivated the dramatic part of her profession, such were the powers of her voice, her sense of the beautiful, her histrionic passion and energy, her charms of person, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... a man has any clear thought or knowledge in him, his aim will be to communicate it, and he will direct his energies to this end; so that the ideas he furnishes are everywhere clearly expressed. The result is that he is neither diffuse, nor unmeaning, nor confused, and consequently not tedious. In such a case, even though the author is at bottom in error, the error is at any rate clearly worked out and well thought over, so that it is at least formally correct; and thus some value always attaches to the work. But for the same reason ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... desires that his authority and renown shall receive some of the lustre of a far-shining triumph. What we complain of in Napoleon Bonaparte, for instance, is not that he sought power, but that he sought it in the interests of a coarse, brutal, and essentially unmeaning personal ambition. And so of Robespierre. We need not discuss the charge that he sought to make himself master. The important thing is that his mastery could have served no great end for France; that it would have been like himself, poor, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... come! who choke your house's entry With dear, unmeaning lumber, from your easels; Dull heads of the Nobility and Gentry; Full length of fubsey ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... Duchess was indulging her unmeaning questions and comments, a rapid and careless glance at Mlle. de Chateaudun explained the admiration that she commanded from the crowded house. Were I to tell you that this young creature was a pretty, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... My reason for wishing to tell this first portion of my history is, that when I look back upon it, it seems to me not only so pleasant, but so full of meaning, that, if I can only tell it right, it must prove rather pleasant and not quite unmeaning to those who will read it. It will prove a very poor story to such as care only for stirring adventures, and like them all the better for a pretty strong infusion of the impossible; but those to whom their own history ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... rubbish, stuff, fatras[obs3], frippery; "leather or prunello"; chaff, drug, froth bubble smoke, cobweb; weed; refuse &c. (inutility) 645; scum &c. (dirt) 653. joke, jest, snap of the fingers; fudge &c. (unmeaning) 517; fiddlestick[obs3], fiddlestick end[obs3]; pack of nonsense, mere farce. straw, pin, fig, button, rush; bulrush, feather, halfpenny, farthing, brass farthing, doit[obs3], peppercorn, jot, rap, pinch of snuff, old son; cent, mill, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... which they have been called by their aboriginal inhabitants is still adhered to, this new territory will have the name of Dacotah. It is the correct or Indian name of those tribes whom we call the Sioux; the latter being an unmeaning Indian-French word. Dacotah means "united people," and is the word which the Indians apply to seven of their bands.[1] These tribes formerly occupied the country south and south-west of Lake Superior; from whence they ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... the whole world of men and women. The best of friends weary of one another and large spaces of separation are necessary, but these two were always happy together. Theirs was the blessed intimacy which is never unmeaning and yet can endure silence. They never felt that unpleasant stricture of the chest caused by a search for entertainment or for ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... repeated, word for word, to the breathless Lestocq, her conversation with Anna Leopoldowna. Lestocq listened to her with most intense interest, taking a piece of paper from the table and mechanically writing some unmeaning lines upon it with an appearance of heedlessness. Perhaps it was this mechanical occupation that enabled him to remain so calm and circumspect. During the narration of the princess his features again assumed their expression of firmness and determination; ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the pictures still on the wall. In one place a lamp stands on a chest of drawers, on a shelf of floor cut off completely from the world below.... Pheeee—-woooo—-Bang! One would be irresistibly reminded of a Sunday afternoon in the city of London, if it were not for those unmeaning explosions. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... Are deposited the remains of one Who possessed beauty without vanity, Strength without insolence, Courage without ferocity, And all the virtues of man without his vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery If inscribed over human ashes, Is but a just tribute to the memory of BOATSWAIN, a dog, Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803, And died at Newstead Abbey, ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... in the legends of the Scandinavians a marvelous record of the coming of the Comet. It has been repeated generation after generation, translated into all languages, commented on, criticised, but never understood. It has been regarded as a wild, unmeaning rhapsody of words, or as a premonition of some ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... their faces large. They were dressed apparently in light pink doublets and hose, and on his head each wore a huge purple turban the shape of a cottage loaf, surmounted by a ragged plume. They varied greatly in stature, but their countenances were all fixed in the same unmeaning stare. Take it all in all, it was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... the rough stone, the yielding clay, the jarring metallic strings, the common speech of every day. Philosophy, in its turn, with enlarging purpose, would project a similar light of intelligence upon the at first sight somewhat unmeaning world we find actually around us:—project it; or rather discover it, as being really pre-existent there, if one were happy enough to get one's self into the right point of view. To certain fortunate minds the efficacious moment of insight would come, when, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... a feast of general uneasiness and embarrassment everywhere, even in the sunny, pleasure-loving south; every one is glad when it is over, and when the flowery, unmeaning speeches and exaggerated compliments are brought to a fitting and happy conclusion. Among my assembled guests, all of whom belonged to the best and most distinguished families in Naples, there was a pervading atmosphere of undoubted ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... bearing on the genuineness of this dialogue: (1) that the manners of the speakers are less subtle and refined than in the other dialogues of Plato; (2) that the sophistry of Socrates is more palpable and unblushing, and also more unmeaning; (3) that many turns of thought and style are found in it which appear also in the other dialogues:—whether resemblances of this kind tell in favour of or against the genuineness of an ancient writing, is an important question which ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato
... comes the climax—'eat a crocodile?' Here is a regular succession of feats, the last but one of which is sufficiently wild, though not unheard of, and leading to the crowning extravagance. The notion of drinking up a river would be both unmeaning and out ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... no unmeaning gallant fribbling, but the solemn language of one who had death and judgment before his face. He conducts the inquiry with great care, as becomes a subject of such universal interest: and the great majority of Christians remain to this day his disciples. The Society of Friends is an exception, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... far off, that Cross of Jesus, and it really is so near! For it is lifted up so high that the waves of time roll unheeded and unmeaning at its foot. It is the power of perfection ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... he is stung to the quick. She is ridiculed and he is mortified to death. He is able to meet open resistance, but he is for ever in dread of an ambuscade. He sees a sneer in every smile, he fears an insult in every whisper. The unmeaning jest must have a hidden point for him. Politeness seems cold, even good-nature looks like the insolence of condescension. If his wife is addressed, it is manifestly to draw her out. If her society is not sought, it is equally plain there is a conspiracy ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... very large, ill-made, broad-shouldered man, with a lack-lustre eye, a pair of thick lips, and a very unmeaning countenance. He wore a large pair of epaulettes; he was irritable in his temper; and when roused, which was frequent, was always violent and overbearing. His voice was like thunder, and when he launched out on the poor midshipmen, they reminded me of the trembling bird which, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... however they may be practised for a while by men of great minds and wonder-working hands, unhelped by the lesser, unhelped by each other, are sure to lose their dignity of popular arts, and become nothing but dull adjuncts to unmeaning pomp, or ingenious toys for a few rich ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... and mentioning some papers which he had prepared, the writer says: "We will not tire the reader's patience with transcribing these prayers, in which we can see nothing more than commonplace phrases and unmeaning Guthryisms." What {621} is the meaning of this last word, and to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... changed, and instead of astronomical signs, punctuation marks are used. You have succeeded, I see, in finding the key to the upper part, but you do not seem to have thought that the lower part required a separate examination. You seem to suppose that all this mass of letters is unmeaning, and was inserted by way of recreation to the mind that was wearied with writing the first, or perhaps to mislead. Now if you had read it all you would have seen the entire truth. The man that wrote this was a villain: he has written it so that the upper ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... mischievous pleasure of her coquetries was forgotten, and in a rush of glad confidence she felt a woman's pride in him. This was the way she should see the man who was to win her, not in stuffy rooms, not dressed in stiff, ungainly clothes, not saying unmeaning things to fill the time. This tale of laborious days bounded by the fires of sunrise and sunset, this struggle with the primal forces of storm and flood, this passage across a panorama unrolling in ever wilder ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... not unmeaning smiles, Though worldly clouds may fly before them; But let me see the sweet blue isles Of radiant eyes when tears wash o'er them. Though small the fount where they begin, They form—'tis thought in many a sonnet— A flood to drown our ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... was fresh from a contrasting society, these friends with whom he now hobnobbed seemed a little strange. Sitting down as a level member of the dairyman's household seemed at the outset an undignified proceeding. The ideas, the modes, the surroundings, appeared retrogressive and unmeaning. But with living on there, day after day, the acute sojourner became conscious of a new aspect in the spectacle. Without any objective change whatever, variety had taken the place of monotonousness. His host and his host's household, his men and his maids, as they became intimately known to Clare, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... as profuse as those he telegraphed. Herewith I send you my paper, "The New Sophistry", which I have written at a few vehement sittings, and have carelessly copied. If you think it worth while, will you have the kindness to send it for me to The Critical? I haven't signed it, as my unmeaning name would perhaps indispose the fellow to see much good in it. I should thank you if you would write in your own person, saying that you act for a friend; you are probably well known in those quarters. If it is accepted, time enough to claim my glory. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... who had made a conquest of the heart of Delia, were the same person. The surprise at which she was taken, and the unwelcome manner in which her doubts were now at once resolved, were too much for the delicate frame of our heroine. She sat for a moment gazing with an eager and unmeaning stare upon the face of sir William. But she presently recollected herself, and, bursting out of the room, flew to her chamber in the same instant, and was relieved by ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... tapers shine their little lives away; There let her practise from herself to steal, And look the happiness she does not feel; The ready smile and bidden blush employ At Faro-routs that dazzle to destroy; Fan with affected ease the essenc'd air, And lisp of fashions with unmeaning stare. Be thine to meditate an humbler flight, When morning fills the fields with rosy light; Be thine to blend, nor thine a vulgar aim, Repose with dignity, with Quiet fame. Here no state-chambers in long line unfold, Bright with ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... senseless noises announces that within, in the unseen world, the soul neither recks of nor knows truth or falsehood, and has just been murdering the innocent herald who was bringing these phantasms before it! These rude unmeaning sounds which will for a long time distort even the best face, the most mechanically ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... Collar of SS. takes its name from the word Seneschallus, it might be contended that the initial letters of the lines above quoted mystically stand for "Collar, S. S." Enough, however, has already been written on this unmeaning point to show that some of us are "great gowks," or, in other words, stupid guffs, to waste so much pen, ink, and paper on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... his words, he began to talk hurriedly of an important order. Sidonie had disappeared after exchanging a few unmeaning words with the impassive Frantz. Madame Dobson continued her tremolos on the soft pedal, like those which accompany critical ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... written by him during the same time in the names of the successive Gothic Sovereigns, give any sufficient information as to the real course of public events. Great misfortunes, great crimes, and the movements of great armies are covered over in these documents by a veil of unmeaning platitudes and hypocritical compliments. In order to enable the student to 'read between the lines,' and to pierce through the verbiage of these letters to the facts which they were meant to hint at or to conceal, it will be necessary briefly to describe the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... where she teaches too, they call her Waterfall. Nobody has ever given Frau Doktor M. a nickname, not even an endearing one. The only one that could possibly be given to her is Angel, and that could not be a real name, it's quite unmeaning. In the drawing class we are going to draw from still life, and, best of all, animal studies too, I am ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... and Swift in the modern world, is the natural enemy. Nor must we forget that in modern times also there is no fallacy so gross, no trick of language so transparent, no abstraction so barren and unmeaning, no form of thought so contradictory to experience, which has not been found to satisfy the minds of philosophical enquirers at a certain stage, or when regarded from a certain point of view only. The peculiarity of the fallacies of our own age is that we live within them, and are therefore ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... threat was not unmeaning had been seen a few years earlier in a case even more noted, and in the same city. During the last decades of the sixteenth century, Dietrich Flade, an eminent jurist, was rector of the University of Treves, and chief ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... perhaps his face might be a shade redder. He had the jolliest face you ever saw, gentleman: something like Punch, with a handsome nose and chin; his eyes were always twinkling and sparkling with good-humour; and a smile—not one of your unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry, hearty, good-tempered smile—was perpetually on his countenance. He was pitched out of his gig once, and knocked, head first, against a milestone. There he lay, stunned, and so cut about the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... repeated, according to the directions, so as to make four verses or songs; four, as already stated, being the sacred number running through most of these formulas. Four blowings and four circuits in the rubbing are also specified. The words used in the songs are sometimes composed of unmeaning syllables, but in this case dnuwa and dayuha seem to have a meaning, although neither the interpreter nor the shaman consulted could explain them, which may be because the words have become altered in the song, ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... opposite side of the Almond, above Caerlowrie, was designated by a name, having apparently the Celtic "battle" noun as a prefix in its composition—viz., Cat-elbock. This fine old Celtic name has latterly been changed for the degenerate and unmeaning term Almond-hill.] ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... trench with his spurs. He wished the schoolma'am would not limit herself so rigidly to that one adjective. It became unmeaning with much use, so that it left a ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... enlightenment, which in him was experience in life, was in Harold, betimes, the result of study and reflection. The few books of the classical world then within reach of the student opened to the young Saxon views of human duties and human responsibilities utterly distinct from the unmeaning ceremonials and fleshly mortifications in which even the higher theology of that day placed the elements of virtue. He smiled in scorn when some Dane, whose life had been passed in the alternate drunkenness of wine ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to the library and proceeded to examine the treasure trove. It consisted of a long strip of thin bluish paper less than a quarter of an inch in width and containing a succession of apparently arbitrary and unmeaning characters written in ink. I reproduce a section of the strip, which should make my ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... were brought together in a strange fantastic way. As will be easily conceived, the fearlessness and stillness of those quiet creatures, on the brow of the rock, pursuing their natural occupations, contrasted with the restless and apparently unmeaning motions of the dwarf soldier, added not a little to the general effect of this place, which is that of wild singularity, and the whole was aided by a blustering wind and a gloomy sky. Coleridge joined us, and we went up to the top of ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... he labored as the hours flew, building together close-fitted word on word, sentence on sentence. As the sculptor must dream the statue prisoned in the marble, as the artist must dream the picture to come from the brilliant unmeaning of his palette, as the musician dreams a song, so he who writes must have a vision of his finished work before he touches, to begin it, a medium more elastic, more vivid, more powerful than any other—words—prismatic bits of humanity, ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... only uttered that very unmeaning monosyllable: nevertheless, Archie jumped from his seat as though he had ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the front in a conspicuous place. Thus directed, Dick walked street after street, asking to see the wounded; and the fourth day, coming to a residence, rather handsomer than the others on the street, not two blocks from Mrs. Raines, Jack's Samaritan, he found a wasted figure, with bandaged head and unmeaning eyes, that he recognized ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... for "Vanity Fair" that it is all clever. The brightest wit must say some dull things, and a comic journal can hardly help letting some dreary attempts at mirth slip into its columns. We could point out paragraphs in this serial which are most chaotic and unmeaning, and some, indeed, which fall below its own excellent standard of refinement; but we do not remember ever to have met in its pages a double-entendre or a foulness of speech. We must advise its conductor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... approximate, suggesting that stars and nebulae of every species might be formed out of variously aggregated meteorites, failed of verification by exact inquiry. And spectroscopic coincidences admit of no compromise. Those that are merely approximate are, as a rule, unmeaning. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... yet with her parched heart thirsting for affection, was flinging herself upon a breast to which an iceberg was warm; upon a man to whom love was an unmeaning word, except as the most brutal of all passions. Mary set about to complete the Catholic reaction. She had restored the Catholic orthodoxy in her own person, and now was resolved to bring over her own subjects. But clouds gathered ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... my arm and dragged me along. I obeyed, for I was insensible, soul-less; and even when the return of thought came, it was all confusion. Was this Oxford? Were these its manners? Were such its inhabitants? Oaths twenty in a breath, unmeaning vulgar oaths; ribaldry, such as till that hour I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... or rather has just finished, the engraving of a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, by the same painter. What has depended upon him has been charmingly done: but the figure of the great Original—instead of giving you the notion of the FIRST CAPTAIN OF HIS AGE[195]—is a poor, trussed-up, unmeaning piece of composition: looking-out of the canvas with a pair of eyes, which, instead of seeming to anticipate and frustrate (as they have done) the movements of his adversary, as if by magic, betray an almost torpidity or vacancy of expression! The attitude is equally unnatural and ungraceful. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... sometimes for what he has left undone in allowing the Folio text to remain. The instance that has surprised us most is his not admitting (As You Like it, Act iv. Sc. 1) the reading,—"The foolish coroners of that age found it was Hero of Sestos," instead of the unmeaning one, "chroniclers." He has been forced, for the sake of sense, to make some changes in the Folio text which seem to us quite as violent, and we cannot help thinking that the gain in aptness of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... of tawny port three or four times, or it may be five, a year, when the walnuts come round in their season? If you drink no port, then what are walnuts for? Such things I hold for the reward of vast intervals of abstinence; they justify your wide, immaculate margin, which is else a mere unmeaning blankness on the page of palate God has given you! I write of these things as a fleshly man, confessedly and knowingly fleshly, and more than usually aware of my liability to err; I know myself for a gross creature more given to sedentary world-mending than to brisk activities, and ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... of various orders of nobility, even now, when the rank within the prince's gift was become an additional reason for the free barbarian despising the imperial noble. That the Greek court was encumbered with unmeaning ceremonies, in order to make amends for the want of that veneration which ought to have been called forth by real worth, and the presence of actual power, was not the particular fault of that prince, but belonged to the system of the government of Constantinople for ages. Indeed, in its trumpery ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... growing more and more embarrassing; nothing but downright effrontery could get through with it now; and never did a man's heart more fail him than did mine at this conjuncture. I made the' effort, however, and stammered out certain unmeaning commonplaces. Inez replied, and I felt myself conversing with the headlong recklessness of one marching to a scaffold, a coward's fear at his heart, while he essayed to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than minute and unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in verse. The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... letter relating to an engagement for a private dinnerparty)—his politics were not at all revolutionary. In this respect he was a mere pettifogger, full of chicane, and captious objections, and unmeaning discontent; but he had none of the grand whirling movements of the French Revolution, nor of the tumultuous glow of rebellion in his head or in his heart. His politics were cast in a different mould, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... offices, to restore it to something more of its primitive 'plainness,' to rid it of its modern corruptions, its wearisome ornaments and flourishes so that the Priest's part, on the one hand, might be intelligible and distinct, not veiled in a dense cloud of unmeaning notes, and the people's part made so easy and straightforward as to render their restored participation in the public worship of the Sanctuary at ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... compelled into this contest, in defence of the institutions of my own State, the persons and firesides of her citizens, from the insatiable grasp of the slaveholding power as being used and felt in the free States. To say that I am opposed to slavery in the abstract, are but cold and unmeaning words, if, however capable of any meaning whatever, they may fairly be construed into a love for its existence; and such I sincerely believe to be the feeling of many in the free States who use the phrase. I, sir, am not only opposed to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... classes wear, but was threadbare and patched ; and on his feet were placed a pair of moccasins, ornamented in the best manner of Indian ingenuity. The outlines of his face were grave and dignified, though his vacant eye, which opened and turned slowly to the faces of those around him in unmeaning looks, too surely announced that the period had arrived when age brings ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... to unfold matters of moment and secrecy. A Latin letter was delivered to "David Ramsey of the clock," to hand over to the king: a copy of it has been preserved in a letter of the times; but it is so unmeaning, that it could have had no effect on the king, who, however, declared that he would not admit him to an audience, and that if he could tell where "the President of the Rosycross" was to be found, unless he made good his offer, he would hang him at the court-gates. This served the town and country ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... coquet, and sprightly; more gallant than sensible; more flatter'd by the vanity of inspiring passion, than capable of feeling it themselves; and, like their European countrywomen, prefer the outward attentions of unmeaning admiration to the real devotion of the heart. There is not perhaps on earth a race of females, who talk so much, or feel so little, of love as the French; the very reverse is in general true of the English: my fair countrywomen seem ashamed of the charming sentiment ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... submit to discipline; but this is more the fault of the Government than of them. As citizens, no one can complain of them. To talk with one of them after reading the leading article of a newspaper is a relief. A French journalist robes himself in his toga, gets upon a pedestal, and talks unmeaning, unpractical claptrap. A French workman is, perhaps, too much inclined to regard every one except himself, and some particular idol which he has set up, as a fool; but he is by no means wanting in the power ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... show me the way of life: Thou shalt make me full of joy with Thy countenance." Here, and here alone, is the cure, the relief, the leading into peace and serenity and exaltation. It is not that the "fierce energy" of life is in excess, but that its application is in wrong and unmeaning directions. Let the soul find its true refreshment and infinitely sustaining tide of energy in God, and immediately "old things have passed away," and "all have become new," and life is full of exhilaration and joy. "Every day we ought ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... my esteemed Kauka. At last I meet with a legal representative and a man, who can both write and think without using unmeaning formulas. You can scarcely imagine how I long for the end of this affair, as it not only interferes with my domestic expenditure, but is injurious to me in various ways. You know yourself that a sensitive spirit ought not to be fettered by miserable anxieties, and much that ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... that we would counsel Miss Barrett, or any one else, to propose these works to themselves as direct objects of imitation. Far from it. Such directions would be very vague and unmeaning, and might lead to the commission of the very errors which they aimed at preventing. The words "purity and propriety of diction" are themselves very vague words. Let us say, then, that a style which goes at once to the point, which is felt to get through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... is n't there;" for the brevet pronouns are commonly not on duty. To employ them with the reckless prodigality that characterizes our conversation would strike the Tartar mind like interspersing his talk with unmeaning italics. He would regard such discourse much as we do those effusive epistles of a certain type of young woman to her most intimate girl friends, in which every other word is ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... annoyance, for his ignorance was awful, and his assurance, great as it was, not always sufficient to get him clear of his difficulties. His foreign accent, however, worked wonders for him, and whenever too hard pressed, afforded him a secure and happy retreat. An unmeaning grin, and "me not pronounce," had saved him from precipices, down which an Englishman, caeteris paribus, must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... fine of 3, the correct reading is Karnanchapy akarot kradha, etc., the reading in the Bengal text is vicious and unmeaning. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... elegance of speech take as much or more with me than the weight and depth of the subject; and forasmuch as I am apt to be sleepy in all other communication, and give but the rind of my attention, it often falls out that in such poor and pitiful discourses, mere chatter, I either make drowsy, unmeaning answers, unbecoming a child, and ridiculous, or more foolishly and rudely still, maintain an obstinate silence. I have a pensive way that withdraws me into myself, and, with that, a heavy and childish ignorance of many very ordinary things, by which two qualities I have earned this, that ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Mariana, whose partner had been reft from her, as the Queen had related, was in no mind to lose the new one she had gained. She pressed upon him from time to time the wine-flask and the fruits; and in those unmeaning courtesies her hand gently lingered upon his. At length, the hour arrived when the companions retired to the Palace, during the fiercer heats of noon—to come forth again in the declining sun, to sup by the side of the fountain, to dance, to sing, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... horror of the chattering face of Whim. Hates, cruelties new fallen from the trees Whereto we clung with impulse sad for love, Shames we have had all time to rid us of, Disgraces cold and sorrows long bewept, Recalled, revived, and kept, Unmeaning quarrels, blood-compelling lust, And snarling woes from our ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest passage—the scene in Hades—was fortunately ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... of the solemn and formal introduction! A great happiness might lie in their intercourse, but conventionality solemnly and selfishly forbade it, unless they could find a common acquaintance to mumble a few unmeaning words over them. Mumbo-Jumbo! What a fantastic world of stupidly obedient puppets this world of London was! She said to herself that she hated it. Then she thought of her first widowhood and of her curious ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... the portrait of her august parent, smiling at her. He was splendid in state robes and orders, and there was a charger, and an obviously expensive looped-up curtain, and much smoke as of nations furiously raging together in the background, and outside this magnificence meandered the unmeaning rosebuds of Priscilla's cheap wallpaper. His smile seemed very terrible under the circumstances. Fritzing felt this, and seized him and flung him with a desperate energy under the table, where he went ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Mr. Hogarth, has depicted in his picture of a Modern Midnight Conversation;—nor such a one as the author of Joseph Andrews has, above all authors, so inimitably drawn to the life; nor yet was he such a one as thou hast often seen at a quarter sessions, with a large wig, a heavy unmeaning countenance, and a sour aspect, who gravely nods over a cause, and then passes a decision on what he does not understand; and no wonder, when he, perhaps, never saw, much less read the laws of his country; but of Justice Brown, I can assure the reader, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... and excels in offices of pity and kindness; who will read him news, recount him gossip, play backgammon or cribbage, knit him comfortables, make him jellies, and repay by affectionate solicitude and unselfish attentions the unmeaning, heartless, worthless admiration which he bestowed upon them in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... describes the various symptoms in plain and intelligible terms; rejecting such unmeaning appellations as syphiloidal, pseudo-syphilis, &c. as designating no particular phenomena, and therefore of no use in ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... absence of every sort of intermediate form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his theory—rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative—the theistic view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do not ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... man, and the company ain't most especial judges, criticise. "A leetle out o' keeping," says you. "He don't use his grays enough, nor glaze down well. That shadder wants depth. General effect is good, though parts ain't. Those eyebrows are heavy enough for stucco," says you, and other unmeaning terms like these. It will pass, I tell you. Your opinion will be thought great. Them that judged the cartoons at Westminster Hall, knew plaguey little more nor that. But if this is a portrait of the lady of the house, hangin' up, or it's at all like enough to make it out, stop—gaze on it, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... clatter of noise broke forth. Men rattled dishes nervously in relief or disappointment, and the room was filled with the rumble of voices in unmeaning chatter. But in the quick glances which passed from man to man there was much ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... it not; I knew it not; and yet how infinitely beautiful were the imaginations of my solitude! Fancy shook her kaleidoscope each moment as chance directed, and lo! what new, fantastic, brilliant, but what unmeaning visions. My ambitious anticipations were as boundless as they were various and conflicting. There was not a path which leads to glory in which I was not destined to gather laurels. As a warrior I would conquer and overrun the world. As a statesman I would reorganize and govern it. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. |
