"Dumbly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "You must spare me further humiliation," she answered. He knew her meaning without more words. He must not speak to her of her mistake, nor hint of the possibility of her freedom. Yet it was this possibility that struggled dumbly within them for recognition, so that now their mood was one of storm, all the more intense from its repression. They were conscious each moment of the man who stood between them, no longer the familiar figure, but one evoked by their mutual guilt and sublimated by Cardington's prophetic ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... off her throat with the back of her hand, dumbly, mechanically thinking: "What have I done to be treated like this? What HAVE I done?" No answer came. And such rage against men flared up that she just stood there, twisting her garden-gloves in her hands, and biting the lips he would have kissed. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that I could not speak? And she, why was she also silent? Why did she draw away before me dumbly, with fascinated eyes? Was this love? or was it a mere brute attraction, mindless and inevitable, like that of the magnet for the steel? We had never spoken, we were wholly strangers: and yet an influence, strong as the grasp of a giant, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contumely, Cold inhumanity, Burning insanity, Into her rest! Cross her hands humbly, As if praying dumbly, Over her breast! ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... Baldos by the arm. His eyes were stern and accusing. Above, Yetive and Beverly had clasped hands and were looking on dumbly. What did ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... words were as blasphemy, for they contradicted the whole spirit of the teaching which she had received. But she did not dare to contradict her mother's opinions. She looked down, and reflected dumbly that her mother knew more about the subject than she could possibly do. The good Sisters had talked to her about heavenly love; she had made no fine distinctions in her mind as to the kind of love they meant—possibly there were two ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... did not try to grapple or reason with the fact. What was the use? It was the end of all things. He merely sat and gazed dumbly at the monstrous thing that ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... they were seeking. She, too, had always stood aloof, a fine and vital personality, before the eyes of men sufficient to herself. But as the evergreen had stretched its hundred arms toward light and sunshine, so Beulah Rutherford had cried dumbly to life for some vague good ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... the boat. I had noticed these dumbly before, but now I drew them eagerly forth from the bottom, and quickly fitted them into the oarlocks. They were stout, ashen blades, unusually large for the craft in which they had been stowed, yet workable. The boat itself was a mere shell, scarcely capable ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... with its roofs and wings, its great gate-posts and splendid cedars. I could laugh at its dim terrors on regaining my freedom; but I had not the least spark of gratitude or loyalty; such kindnesses as I received I had taken dumbly, never thinking that they arose out of any affection or interest, but treating them as the unaccountable choice of my elders;—we stopped for an instant at the little sanatorium—that had been a happy place at least—and I was tearfully hugged to Louisa's ample bosom, Louisa alone ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for a full minute, she gazing dumbly at the bleak waste before her, he lovingly at ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... a short day with the dusk coming on as suddenly as if some one had drawn a curtain hurriedly over the tiny aperture above the door. And all the world outside seemed wrapped in silence. Twice again his warder came dumbly serving a meal, otherwise the prisoner might have been immeasurably remote from any life and wholly forgotten. There was, besides his visions of Olivia, one other thing to comfort him; it was when he heard briefly from some distant ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... dumbly, sufferingly, at each other. Billy saw the agony he had awakened and his heart sank within him. After a moment of silent doubt, Janet arose and stood in front of Billy, laying her cold hands upon his shoulders. There was no need for her ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... young fellow think that I tricked him into this thing for you or all the rest of the women of your kind on earth. God! I might have known that you, and the others like you, couldn't be square. [The girl looks at him dumbly. He glances at his watch, walks up stage, looks out of the window, comes down again, goes to the table, and looks at her across it.] You've made a nice mess ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... Coroner's Court myself." he said good-naturedly. "So you can come along of me. You see there's that big Avenger inquest going on to-day, so I think they'll have had to make other arrangements for—hum, hum—ordinary cases." And as she looked at him dumbly, he went on, "There'll be a mighty crowd of people at The Avenger inquest—a lot of ticket folk to be accommodated, to say ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... time Kate had come down-stairs, and with pallid face was listening dumbly to her father's words. She seemed hardly to heed the presence of the strangers. Not until the captain had emerged from his furs and stood robust and ruddy, yet a little short of breath, did she lay her hand upon his arm ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... trembling in every member, this unaccountable nausea, this unconquerable feeling of horror and repugnance as the draft of the picture was contemplated? Did instinct arise and dumbly plead for mercy? What mercy had been shown that mercy could be expected? None whatever. There was not only revenge to be satisfied, but justice also. Still, it was horrible! Admit that she deserved ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... adoringly. At sixteen one loves the gods easily. Jim, with averted face, watched the waves dumbly. It had been easy that morning to toss speech back and forth with the boat crowd. But now, as always, when he felt that his need for words was dire, speech deserted him. Suddenly he was realizing that Pen was no longer a little girl and that she admired ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... he looked down at the boy lying before him, he wondered in his heart if there was really a spark of life left in that still, pale, bleeding body. As for Elinor, after the first outburst, she sat dumbly trembling. ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... lived on so much closer terms, when the words and deeds, the feelings and fancies of the boys, among whom he was to live, were of the deepest and most vital importance, he entered upon the new life, dull and careless, without interest or excitement, simply going because he was sent, just dumbly desirous of ease and tranquillity. He had been elected on to the foundation of an ancient school, and the surroundings of the new place did indeed vaguely affect him with a sort of solemn pleasure. The quaint mediaeval chambers; the cloisters, with their dark and mysterious ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a telephone waited: McGuire sensed this but dumbly, and the way to that room was long to his stumbling feet. He was blinded: his mind would not function: he saw only those fluttering things, and the moonlight on their wings, and the shadows that took them so softly at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... at last. He had blundered clumsily, and he knew it. The colour drained from Eileen's face and she stood rigid as a statue for a moment. Then slowly she swayed forward. He stretched out his arms to prevent her from falling. She waved him aside dumbly and tottered to a couch. His directness had been more merciful than he had thought. She was stunned, dazed by her calamity. Her very silence frightened the man. She sat bolt upright, her hand resting limply in her lap ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... raised and there stood Gordon. I saw him as plainly as I see you, Jasper, and should have sprung to meet him, but something held me back. He was deathly pale, dripping with water, and in his bonny blue eyes was a wild, woeful look that made my blood run cold. I stared dumbly, for it was awful to see my friend so changed and so unearthly. Stretching his arm to me he took my hand, saying solemnly, 'Come!' The touch was like ice; an ominous thrill ran through me; I started up to obey, and ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... looked at each other dumbly. A thing remained to be done. The sun mustn't rise upon the horror that lay in the cabin yard. Neptune went to his small barn and trundled out a wheelbarrow, in which were several gunny-sacks, a piece of rope, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented, by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... "stepped in" and was lending Ann the money to study stenography. Katie had made a wry face over stenography, which did not have a dream-like or an Ann-like sound—but a very Wayne-like one!—but had entered no protest; at that time she had been too dumbly miserable to enter protest ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... that one cry only, as man and horse careened above the pit. She now sat dumbly staring where the two had disappeared. Nothing could she see of Van or his pony. A chill of horror attacked her, there in the blaze of the sun. It was not, even then, so much of herself and Elsa she was thinking—two helpless women, lost in this place of terrible silence; she ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... human beings of flesh and blood who can still take a newspaper in their hands and not foam at the mouth with rage? Can one carry in one's brain the picture of wounded men lying exposed on slimy fields in the pouring rain, slowly, dumbly bleeding to death, and yet quietly read the vile stuff written about "perfect hospital service," "smoothly running ambulances," and "elegantly papered trenches," with which these fellows poetize themselves ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... He looked dumbly at the man who addressed him, a stout, black-haired captain, who fixed him menacingly ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a word to say. In a blind tumult of feeling he caught her hand, and pressed his lips to it, as though appealing to her dumbly to understand him. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dumbly. Already her heart was heavy because of her own disappointment. Her mouth was dumb and pathetic. But he did not notice, he went ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... diligence he may produce for himself some faint twilight notion of the Flight of Time in remote Brandenburg,—convince himself that remote Brandenburg was present all along, alive after its sort, and assisting, dumbly or otherwise, in the great World-Drama as that ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... not control them, but McCoy's gentle presence seemed to rebuke and calm them, and the muttering and cursing died away, until the full crew, save here and there an anxious face directed at the captain, yearned dumbly toward the green clad peaks and beetling coast ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... Consciously, he did not know where he was going, nor care. If he thought at all, his numbed brain was simply trying to run away from its own bitter imaging—which, if he had thought at all, he would have known to be a hopeless task. But he did not think; he simply acted, dumbly, miserably. His eyes saw, optically; his body reacted, mechanically; his thinking ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... panting and dumbly resisting the sentries up beside the first Jews. They were citizens who dared not rejoice aloud. They followed the young Roman with brightened eyes, saying each within ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... his side. Arriving there, she looked at him heavily, dumbly, and laid her head on his shoulder. He held her fast as he looked round. They were safe enough from all but the small, lonely cows over the river. He sunk his mouth on her throat, where he felt her heavy pulse beat under his lips. Everything was perfectly still. There was nothing ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... ordinarily the most courteous of persons, and certainly one of the most talkative, did not return the salutation. Astonishment congealed his faculties, tied his tongue and paralyzed his biceps. He stared dumbly a moment, and then, having regained coherent powers, he jammed his brown-varnished straw hat firmly upon his ancient poll and went scrambling up his gravel walk as fast as two rheumatic underpinnings would take him, and on into his house like a man bearing incredible ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... there, looking at her dumbly, hating myself for being the cause of the anxiety in her eyes. If I had struck her, I could not have felt more despicable. In my misery I cursed Cynthia for leading ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... hearts, there can be found underneath the inarticulate, inexpressible yearning for something they haven't. And they don't know enough to know what it is they long for. But they are conscious of the constant, weary, yearning tug within. The great heart of the non-Christian world to-day is asking dumbly, but earnestly, as only the heart can ask, for the light we have. Its knocking at our front door is growing ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... maid, To serve you—doth he love you as of old? For, call it lovers' quarrels, yet I know Tho' men may bicker with the things they love, They would not make them laughable in all eyes, Not while they loved them; and your wretched dress, A wretched insult on you, dumbly speaks Your story, that this man loves you no more. Your beauty is no beauty to him now: A common chance—right well I know it—pall'd— For I know men: nor will ye win him back, For the man's love once gone never ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... small-pox had once raged. 'It seemed,' says Jefferies, 'to quite spoil the violet bank. There is something in disease so destructive; as it were, to flowers.' And as the violets shared the scourge, so the creatures shared the curse. And as they stared dumbly into the eyes of the Son of God they seemed to half understand that their redemption was drawing nigh. 'In Nature herself,' as Longfellow says, 'there is a waiting and hoping, a looking and yearning, after an unknown something. Yes, when above there, on ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... holding me as steadily as when I went over before. I stopped at the church to lay a few wild flowers on the little gray mound where Elsket slept so quietly. Olaf said not a word; he simply waited till I was done and then followed me dumbly. I was so filled with sorrow for him that I did not, except in one place, think much of the fearful cliffs along which we made our way. At the Devil's Seat, indeed, my nerves for a moment seemed shaken and almost gave way as I thought of the false young lord ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... to a heavy cart had come to a standstill in the middle of the street, and a group of excited negroes were vainly trying to induce him to move on. With one ear cocked forward, and his forefeet firmly planted, the decrepit animal dumbly made his declaration of independence, taking the blows that rained upon his back with the dogged heroism of one who has resolved to ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... Biggleswade, standing on a chair and shouting 'Order! order!' in the Masonic Room of the 'Red Lion' at Tulse Hill, while the members of the Tulse Hill Parliament, divided into two camps, yelled at one another, and young Tom Barlow, in his official capacity as Mister Speaker, waved his arms dumbly, and banged the table with his mallet in his ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... along the road was not shut up and the dooryard deserted—for everybody was going to the barbecue. All but the Dickerson family. Sam was at work in the fields, and the haggard Mrs. Dickerson looked dumbly from her porch, with a crying baby in her scrawny arms as ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... "Teresa!" There was no reply. He called again. A faint cry at his back from the trail he had just traversed made him turn. Only a few paces behind him, blinded and staggering, but following like a beaten and wounded animal, Teresa halted, knelt, clasped her hands, and dumbly held them out before her. "Teresa!" he cried again, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short, And piece the way out with a heavy heart. Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief, Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief. One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part; Thus give I mine, and thus ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... dumbly offered, more to be on the safe side of every bit of chance than because she really believes it can ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... shop-window and regarded him dumbly. There was a twinkle in the shipbroker's eyes which irritated him almost beyond endurance, and in the doorway Mr. Kybird—his face mottled with the intensity of his emotions—stood an unwelcome and frantic ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the cries ceased, as abruptly as if the sound had been cut off with an axe, and the silence that followed said dumbly that it was forever. The farm sank into the darkness of night like an extinguished world. "Our mistress is dead!" said Lasse, shivering and moving his fingers over his lips. "May God receive her kindly!" ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... standing aside to give him precedence. On the second floor was a door painted in Oriental fashion. It possessed neither bell nor knocker, but as one stepped upon the threshold this door opened noiselessly as if dumbly inviting the visitor to enter the square apartment discovered. This apartment was richly furnished in the Arab manner, and lighted by a fine brass lamp swung upon chains from the painted ceiling. The intricate perforations of the lamp were inset with colored glass, and the ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... more alarmed now than when he saw the flames of the burning oil threatening the destruction of the building, and he dumbly wondered why Gladys did ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... I sat dumbly gazing into the receiver. Where could I go? Lucy, I was sure, would squeeze me in somewhere if I applied to her—she always can—but a letter received from Lucy two days before had contained a glowing description of some celebrated ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... this cursed coat off!" he dumbly sobbed. "If only I could get rid of these damned laced boots!" Bad words would have been forgivable even had he ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... did not greet one another. She was sitting at her writing-table, but did not rise, and for a moment he stood opposite her, just looking at her with those blue, boyish eyes which she knew could be so merry, but did not know could be so dumbly, hopelessly sad. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... common as a tavern-threshold to every blockhead in the parish,—or that any Pharisee who kept carefully to windward of his virtues, out of the way of infection, has thereby earned the right to mismoralize his failings after he is dumbly defenceless. The moral compasses that are too short for the aberration may be, must be, unequal to the orbit. We would not deny that Burns was a chamberer and a drunkard because he was a great poet; but we would not admit that whiskey and wenches made him any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... urged Breede. "No good. Better lie down. She says she's got it all reasoned out, don't I tell you?" He put a throttling hand over the anguished voice, and looked dumbly at Bean. He noted the evil sneer and traced it to the cuffs. Slowly he hung up the receiver and took one of the cuffs in ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Armstrong settled back dumbly. Unconsciously he passed his handkerchief over his mouth. The hand that carried it ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... must have been a little uncertain, for he did not so much as turn his head toward the house. Trembling with excitement she hurries little Frank into his wagon and telling Hattie to bring me, sets off up the road as fast as she can draw the baby's cart. It all seems a dream to me and I move dumbly, almost stupidly like one in ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... her stepmother's judgment; like all of the new Mrs. Breckenridge's friends, she was deeply, dumbly impressed with that lady's amazing efficiency. She had been a spoiled and discontented little rowdy. She became an entirely self-satisfied little gentlewoman. Clarence, jealously watching her progress, knew that Rachael ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... to the chateau leads upwards from Culoz, and is a trifle hot and dusty. Alan wondered dumbly whether Cora had an object in dragging him so far away from the inn, and what that object was. But he took small annoyances patiently. It was something gained, at least, that his wife should seem content. Anything ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... little consoled by Perigal's letter, but, in her heart of hearts, something told her that, despite his brave words, the marriage was indefinitely postponed; indeed, it was more than doubtful if it would ever take place at all. She suffered, dumbly, despairingly; her torments were the more poignant because she realised that the man she loved beyond anything in the world must be acutely distressed at this unexpected confounding of his hopes. Her head throbbed with dull pains which gradually increased in intensity; these, at last, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... hand as she glided by him. He followed her dumbly into the front drawing-room, where the three lawyers waited for the end ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... there; there, in that ancient house, rooted in that quiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to mature, and the gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks stand deep in the fern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the sun-dial on the terrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time which was as much the property of every Dedlock—while he lasted— as the house and lands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, opposing his repose and that of Chesney Wold to the restless ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to suppress the sudden exclamation of horror that rose to them. He must not cry out, he told himself. Terrible as were the words he heard, unbelievable as they seemed, if he were to be of any help at all he must know the entire plot. Therefore he listened dumbly, struggling to still the beating ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... could make a tweed suit last longer than one would have believed possible; they had called him "Fill" and helped him in more than usually lean times with small loans: but to-night they had eyed the waistcoat dumbly and shrank ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... was laden with a strange perfume, blend of logwood flower, pimento, and aromatic cedars. He lost himself in unprofitable speculations born of that singular fragrance. He was in no mood for conversation, nor was Pitt, who stood dumbly at his side, and who was afflicted mainly at the moment by the thought that he was at last about to be separated from this man with whom he had stood shoulder to shoulder throughout all these troublous months, and whom he had come to love and depend upon for ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... that time did mark Stands under the staircase in the dark, Indulging in long deserved rest, As four times it saw a new little guest. Then when sun sunk, and all round slept, From some dark corner a shadow crept, And staggered dumbly and grew and rose, And crept with stretched arms to the ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... The man looked around dumbly; he hunted in his rather slow mind for some excuse—some reason for withdrawing from the venture that ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... mistress Helen calls Salome. There is no question as to Salome's complete subjection to the attractions of the young embryo clergyman; she pursues him with eyes and heart, and seeing him by Helen's side, she is miserably but dumbly jealous. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the seat is empty, and the nurse is gossiping in the distance. She runs on angrily—and stops! For, under a sheltering tree, He stands bidding their little child good-bye. She can hear his gentle words, and the soft, cooing answers, and she dumbly stretches out her arms, as a great wave of love surges in her heart and drowns the bitter thoughts for ever. In a little while he will go, and then this tide of love and repentance will have come ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was not yet done. He was hungry again, but for him there could be no more food yet, and he turned with the same immutable and dumbly dogged air that characterized so many of his actions, and made off down the "sea-bank." Once he hid—vanished utterly would better express it—to avoid the passage of an eel-spearer, an inhabitant of the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... of the other girls. Beth took an observation of the new boys and decided that the lame one was not 'dreadful', but gentle and feeble, and she would be kind to him on that account. Amy found Grace a well-mannered, merry, little person, and after staring dumbly at one another for a few minutes, they suddenly ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of James and the words that this child was uttering stopped Tim Fisher. Puzzled, he nodded dumbly, found a chair, and sat on the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... and his look was returned dumbly by the woman who had played so strange a part in the late passages of his life. Never a word with her had Law spoken regarding his plans or concerning what he had learned from Pembroke. As to this, Mary Connynge had been afraid to ask, nor dare ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... protection that should be hers? Artifice was foreign to her. Yet what was there, short of implicating Raven, she would not do for the child? But a glance at Tenney's face, the tightness of reserve, the fanatical eyes, closed her lips, and they moved about together dumbly at their common tasks. As she grew paler and the outline of her cheek the purer over the bones beneath, he watched her the more intently, but still furtively. One forenoon when the sky was gray and a soft snow fell ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... deny it. She nodded dumbly. Besides, she counted on his possession of common sense, though his use of it ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... was in fact God, why didn't He plainly say there was another life? Why didn't He tell us something about it? Why didn't He turn the tear-stained hope of immortality into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did He go dumbly to his death, and leave the world in darkness and in doubt? Why? Because He was a man and didn't know. I would not destroy the smallest star of human hope, but I deny that we got our idea of immortality from the bible. It existed long before Moses existed. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... a day following the destruction of his Eden John Cardigan sat dumbly beside his wife, his great, hard hand caressing the auburn head whose every thought for three years had been his happiness and comfort. Then the doctor came to him and mentioned the matter of ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... grandfather. She was no longer frightened, and she moved like a swift bird about the cabin, getting water and bandages and pillows, and the sight of fresh blood and of Cassidy's dead-white face brought a glow of tenderness into her eyes. McKay, sitting dumbly, saw that her hands were doing twice the work his own could have accomplished, and not until he heard a low moan from the wounded man did he come to ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... wonder at the time. Those last minutes before the ship took off. The leader had stared long and piercingly into his eyes and Hanlon, wondering and puzzled as to what the man was seeking, merely stared back dumbly. Now he remembered the flashing thought—quickly dismissed as ridiculous—that even if he did find out where he was going, he must never tell anyone; must forget it entirely and instantly on ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... dog which had been hers and which they sometimes allowed to be with him after the life sentence had been passed upon him and when he was awaiting removal. He would sit for hours with the little animal in his lap, caressing it dumbly. There was a mute sorrow in the eyes of both man and dog, and they seemed to take comfort in each other's presence. There was no need of any sign between them. They had both loved her, had they ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... For seconds they became one of the speechless couples, standing dumbly in the great dingy station, unnoticed ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... him, her face white, her breath coming in sobs. At first he thought the vision a dream, a delirium born from his long struggle; he could not conceive the possibility of such a presence in this lonely place, and staggering to his feet, gazed wildly, dumbly at the slender, gray clad figure, the almost girlish face under the shadowing dark hair, expecting the marvellous vision to vanish. Surely this could not be real! A woman, and such a woman as this here, and alone, of all places! He staggered from weakness, almost terror, and grasped the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... up the steps again and stood looking dumbly from one to the other of these two. At last he deserted his master and went over and laid his big head on Miss Lady's lap, looking up at ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... knocked at her door with a formal proposition: Would that do?—dumbly. She changed a point or two: That would do, and signified good night. Sam, looking at her face, turned away from it, hesitated, turned back, broke. Fear increased his admiration, and, to do him justice, the fear was not wholly for conventions and comforts; the man had certain broad moralities ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... intellect wallowed in anticipation, and so suffered much that, given exercise of restraint, he might have escaped altogether. He was brave enough, but personal bravery would not be called for. He sat now staring dumbly at an imaginary series of events abominable and unseemly in every particular to his order of mind. He was so concerned with what the future must hold in store for him that for a time the present quite escaped ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... none. No shell upon the dry sands could lie more lifeless than Medicine Bow. Looking in at the store, I saw the proprietor sitting with his pipe extinct. Looking in at the saloon, I saw the dealer dealing dumbly to himself. Up in the sky there was not a cloud nor a bird, and on the earth the lightest straw lay becalmed. Once I saw the Virginian at an open door, where the golden-haired landlady stood talking with him. Sometimes I strolled in the town, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... no reply, but only held out one of the hilts. I took it dumbly. In that instant he could have struck my head from my ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... spiritless when she reached the ranchhouse, and very tired, physically. Agatha's questions irritated her, and she ate sparingly of the food set before her, eager to be alone. In the isolation of her room she lay dumbly on the bed, and there the absurdity of Levins' story assailed her. It must be as Corrigan had said—her father was too great a man to descend to such despicable methods. She dropped off ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... beside My Beautiful One, and reached out and took her hands very gentle into mine; but still they fluttered so needful; and she looked at me, dumbly; ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... crowded to the rail of The Sarah and stared dumbly at the slim girl in a pink frock who ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... cast down, her cheeks pale. It was a good long walk from the door to the table, and Bob made a full inspection of her as she came up to a chair at the remotest corner, in the direct rays of the morning light, where she dumbly sat ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... dazed bird, held and stricken in the hypnotic gaze of a snake, Jerry took one stiff, unconscious forward step. Another, and another. He strove dumbly, helplessly, for realization—there was nothing in the universe but the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... the unknown darkness for thee. There the gentle Jizo would care for thee, and hide thee in his great sleeves, and keep all evil from thee, and play shadowy play with thee; and this thy forsaken mother, who now comes to ask an alms for thy sake, dumbly pointing to thy strange beauty with her patient Japanese smile, would put little stones upon the knees of the dear god that ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... I nodded dumbly. I could not speak just then—but the young woman in front of me could. Very distinctly as I passed ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... life how far Soars his new life through radiant orb and zone, While we in impotency of the night Walk dumbly, and the path is hard, and light Fails, and for sun and moon the single star Honour ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... at him with a look of such strong interrogation as he was about to follow her into the house that he paused with his foot on the step and eyed her dumbly. ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... and brightness came to her from Rollo's eyes. Mr. Falkirk lifted his dumbly, not knowing how to take the girl. He had not, so far in the talk, touched the subject of Mrs. Coles' communications, though no doubt they had not been out of his mind for one instant. But somehow, Mr. Falkirk had lacked inclination to call his younger coadjutor to account, and probably ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... forgotten in quiet, Endured without question, endured in our loneliness all your incessant child's antics and riot. Our lips we kept tied, though aching with silence, though well all the while in our silence we knew How wretchedly everything still was progressing by listening dumbly the day long to you. For always at home you continued discussing the war and its politics loudly, and we Sometimes would ask you, our hearts deep with sorrowing though we spoke lightly, though happy to see, "What's to be inscribed on the side of the Treaty-stone What, ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... became frightened. After a period of immobility in the arms of Mrs. Fyne, the girl, who had not said a word, tore herself out from that slightly rigid embrace. She struggled dumbly between them, they did not know why, soundless and ghastly, till she sank exhausted on a couch. Luckily the children were out with the two nurses. The hotel housemaid helped Mrs. Fyne to put Flora de Barral to bed. She was as if gone speechless and insane. She lay on her back, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Foundation building jumped at the thunderous noise and reached for his gun. He dropped his hand sheepishly when he realized it was only a sneeze—though a gargantuan one. Brion came up, sniffling, huddling down into his coat. "I'm going out before I catch pneumonia," he said. The guard saluted dumbly, and after checking his proximity detector screens he slipped out and the heavy portal thudded shut behind him. The street was still warm from the heat of the day and he sighed happily and opened ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... one things of vital interest to all humanity which have not been said yet, which only you can say, a thousand and one aspects of the Deluge not yet presented to the world. Above all, Paul, there are millions of poor bereaved souls who suffer dumbly and vaguely wonder for what crime they are ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... eyes, dark circled, fixed upon him with a meek, sorrowful look, spoke dumbly the troublous tale of her mind. In her subdued mood the likeness to Madeleine was more obtrusive than it had ever yet been. He contemplated her with melancholy, and drew ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... think that you will awake and find that it is all a dream. You cannot believe that it is the sleeping room of your own sister that has been thus invaded and desecrated. At last from one of the older and more trusted servants you hear the truth, and while he speaks, you listen dumbly, wonderingly." ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... astonishment at the heavy sound of the cave-in. For a few minutes he had stared sullenly, not grasping the situation. Then very slowly it dawned on him that his prison walls had fallen. Yes, surely, there at last lay his way to freedom, his path to the great open spaces for which he dumbly and vaguely hungered. With stately deliberation he marched down from his knoll ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... dumbly. His thin hand twitched nervously, and his fists clasped and unclasped as the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... his mute passage with Maggie. His daughter's anxiety alone had depths, and it opened out for him the wider that it was altogether new. When, in their common past, when till this moment, had she shown a fear, however dumbly, for his individual life? They had had fears together, just as they had had joys, but all of hers, at least, had been for what equally concerned them. Here of a sudden was a question that concerned him alone, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... and rush of waters began to wear through our patience. We willed that this wracking tumult should cease; we willed it with all the force that was in us. Then, as this proved vain, we too humped our spiritual backs, cowled our souls with patience, and waited dumbly for the force of the storm to spend itself. Our faculties were quite as effectually drowned out by the unceasing roar and crash of the waters as our bodily comfort would have been had we lacked the protection ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... of them, have their whims and fancies, and I never looked at myself in the glass on high days and holidays, when a festive garb was desirable, without a scornful protest, dumbly uttered, against so shining a name. There was such a choice, and I would rather have been Deborah or Leah, or even plain Susan, or Molly; anything homely, that would have suited my dark, low-browed face. Tall and angular, and ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... She could hide the gladness of her heart from herself no longer. She was frightened that he had come, but she was glad, and she knew he knew that she was glad. She made no further protest. She held out her hand dumbly. And on the morrow she found him awaiting her even as ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... sickening moment of fear. How little he actually knew of her and of her way of thought. What assurance had he that she would not laugh, jump back upon the horse, and ride away? He was afraid as he had never been afraid before. Dumbly his mind groped about for a way to begin. Expressions he had caught and noted in her strong serious little face when he had achieved but a mild curiosity concerning her came back to visit his mind and he tried desperately to build an instant idea of her from these. And then turning his face from ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... was dead. She tried persistently to forget the five years that had intervened between Constance's death and his. For five years, he had lived almost directly across the street and Miriam saw him daily. Yet she had not given him the letter, though the vision of Constance, dumbly pleading for some boon, had distressed her almost every ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... Irish consumption. Irish judges are presented with white gloves with a regularity which may even be annoying to them, and were it not for political trouble they would be unable to look their salaries in the face. The Irish Bar almost weep in chorus at the words "Land Act," and stare, not dumbly, on destitution. These tales are meant for England and are sent there. They will cease to be exported when there is no market for them, and these men will perhaps end by becoming patriotic and social ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... Bishop only reckoned with two things: Firstly, he had forgotten that the Governor was an old Indian fighter, and ready for surprises; and, secondly, he had not taken into account the usual apathy of the common people when their leaders fight. Dumbly and quite unmoved the people stood, staring like armadillos at a snake, and made no sign. Then word was brought that the Governor had left the church and was assembling ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... down," said she. "It's a long story." So Lydia sank upon the zone left by the corset and stockings. "Who's been talking to you?" asked Madame Beattie: but Lydia looked at her and dumbly shook ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... joy and surprise of this unexpected meeting was over, Mr. Joshua Middleton said, as if apologizing for his emotion, "I'm dumbly afeard, Bill, that I acted mighty baby-like, but hang me if I could help it. Such a day as this I never expected to see, and yet I have lain awake o' nights thinkin' mebby you'd come back. But such ideas didn't last long, and I'd soon give you up ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... eyes. He stepped close to her and jerked her blouse down from her shoulder. She writhed away from him, silent in her rage and fear and fighting dumbly. She made no appeal. At that moment her heart was so full of hatred that it was hardened to pride. He lifted his brand and set it against the bare ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... descriptive reporters put it. Mr. Tomlin was dumbly but unanimously elected chairman of the meeting, and was vaguely aware of his responsibilities. He drew himself a fresh ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... looked to the past for their greatest pleasures. And now for Rainham the whole of life was a thing so essentially weary and flavourless that the ennui of little things seemed hardly worth consideration. He was dumbly content to let destiny lead him whither it would, without apprehension, without expectation. Oswyn had asked him, one evening, just before they parted on the doorstep of the club, with a certain abruptness which the other had long since ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... poor woman dumbly covered his hands with obedient kisses. "Go, go!" she cried. "I ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... quite methodically about putting things away while Runnels waited, though every move was dumbly mechanical. Something seemed to have died inside of me, and I suppose the psychologists would say that it was the subconscious Bert Weyburn who put the books in the vault, locked the iron door, set the high desk in order, and turned ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... violent colouring, its sands, rocks, breakers and by-laws regulating the costume of bathers, merely exasperated my nerves. How far more subtle the appeal of these grey and dun-coloured opacities, these tent-cloths of fog pressed out into uncouth, dumbly pathetic shapes by the struggle for existence that seethes below it always—always! Decidedly I must begin to-morrow to practise walking. It seems a necessary step towards acquainting myself with the inner life of these inchoate millions, ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the front through the waning night, the cheerless dawn, the gray dark day. It cut him to the heart to see his soldiers go so silently and so sullenly. Here and there a regiment did cry: "Vive l'Empereur"; here and there a voice sounded it, but in the main the men marched dumbly, doggedly. It was only the old guard that gave him the imperial salute in full ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Helen was still gazing dumbly at the woman, seeming not to have heard the last question. "I—I can't tell you," she said, when it was repeated again; "you ought not to ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... her. "What, dear heart, have you so long been concealing from me? Not one tear did you shed at parting from father and mother. Hardly a word of farewell did you speak to those remaining behind. Coldly and dumbly you left the land of home; pale and silent you have been on the voyage, taking no food, taking no sleep, deeply troubled, rigid and wretched,—how am I to endure to see you thus, to be nothing to you, to stand before you as a stranger? ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... bud of Dorothy's childhood swell to the slim charms of girlhood, held his own counsel and worshipped her dumbly. Perhaps he remembered the gulf that had separated his father's log cabin from her uncle's manor house in the old Virginia days, but of these things ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... continuously, presently walked to the alley door, and remarked in a weak voice, "I'm sick at my stummick." He paused, then added more decidedly: "I'm goin' home. I guess I've stood about enough around here for one day!" And bestowing a last glance upon his friend, who was now sitting dumbly upon the floor in the exact spot where he had stood to fire the dreadful shot, Sam ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... in that other tower ... you, so much more important than the rest of us...." Phrases I heard; but only phrases, for in those few seconds I stood dumbly confused, fascinated by watching the blackness in which we had enveloped ourselves now ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... "Not so fast! You see, I happened to be in New York this morning, and so I—" Something in Billy's face sent a pause to his words just as his eyes spied the two men at the girl's side. For a moment he stared dumbly; then he gave a ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... Dumbly, but most reassuringly, Steve shook his head. From the top of her hatless, wind-tossed, brown-crowned head to the tips of the absurdly small boots tucked up beneath her, he scanned her slim body. Barbara realized that he was trying to speak and finding the effort hard. Slowly ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... beside the bed, unable to speak a word. His eyes were tearless. The room was full of serving-maids and nurses. Here and there a stifled sob was to be heard. He neither saw nor heard anything. He only gazed dumbly, stonily, at the dying woman. On each side of the bed a familiar form was kneeling—Flora ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... breaking all the commandments themselves; a people at the bottom dimly striving towards religious freedom and political life out of abject social, ecclesiastical, and political serfdom, and perhaps even then dumbly feeling within its veins, with that prophetic instinct which never abandons great races, a far distant and magnificent Future of national unity and Imperial splendour, the very reverse of the confusion which was then the hideous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... time came to my ears from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some suspense common to all held them speechless, if not dumbly apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this, he could not have been quite blind to it, for he bestowed one curious glance around the table before he proceeded ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Claire nodded dumbly. In the case of previous Belgian admirers affairs had been checked before they reached the extreme stage, and she found this, her first spoken proposal much less exciting than she had expected. As a friend pure and simple, she had thoroughly ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... dumbly. She supposed she should have to force him to go, after all. Of course, you couldn't expect that a man who had committed a crime will admit it to the first questioner; you couldn't expect him to go back willingly and face the penalty. ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... a silence. Mr Goble, who was having difficulty with his vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr Pilkington stared dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Lizards and other creeping creatures scuttled across their wide tracks. The patient oxen toiled under the yoke, their dappled nostrils widespread, their great dewy eyes strained and dim with weariness. They dumbly wondered why they must labour in the daytime when all night long they had travelled without rest. The glorious sunrise had flamed in crimson and gold behind the eastern ranges full five hours before. They were weary to death, and no dorp or farm was yet in sight. The Cape boys who ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Jason shouted at Mikah as he ran at Narsisi who had been dumbly watching the performance and mulling over Mikah's words. Slow as he appeared, there was nothing wrong with his reflexes and his shield snapped up and took Jason's blow while his club spun over neatly and rapped Jason on the back of the hand: the numbed fingers opened and the ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... to ascertain his weight. Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bones there ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a broken thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered him a silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might have belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full of pain it was. He did not reach for the money—he did not know what it was. There were dozens of such children in this particular mill. A physician who was with me said that they would ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... at the sound of his pen, and watched him dumbly. He had apparently dismissed her and her small affairs from his mind. His hand travelled with swift decision over the paper. He was evidently immersed in his own private concerns. He wrote rapidly and without ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... was no check upon the bosses in their natural and lawful effort to get that profit which is the most high god of our civilization. A few of the youngest and most spirited girls—those from families containing several workers—indignantly quit. A few others murmured, but stayed on. The mass dumbly accepted the extra twist in the screw of the mighty press that was slowly squeezing them to death. Neither to them nor to Susan herself did it happen to occur that she was the cause of the general increase ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... shriek!—Great God! what superhuman Peal was that? Not man, nor woman, Nor twenty madmen, crush'd, could wreak Their soul in such a ponderous shriek. Dumbly, for an instant, stares The field; and creep ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... animal. As Gunner Sobey hauled Hosken's blue boat to shore, poor Pleasant came down the slip-way and rubbed her muzzle against his sleeve, dumbly beseeching him to fetch the horse-boat that she too might cross. He struck her sharply across the nose, and, jumping aboard, thrust ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I'd not be pitying— I could forget him now— But for the childish look of trouble That fell across his brow, For the twisting hands he looked at dumbly As if they'd sinned, he knew ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... dog of yours?'—for the dog which had been following all day pretty obediently, except for a wild dash down to the lagoon to scatter the wild duck, had of a sudden picked up bearings and was running forward, halting, returning, wagging his tail, running forward again, turning, asking dumbly to be understood, in the way all dogs have who invite you to follow ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... reached me, and I pointed, dumbly; and yet, as I did so, it was with the knowledge that he would not be able to see what I saw. (Queer, wasn't it?) And then, almost in a breath, I lost sight of the thing, and became aware that ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson |
