"Stupefaction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still fixed in a gaze of stupefaction upon Galliard's face, Kenneth took the paper. Then slowly, involuntarily almost it seemed, he dropped his glance to it, and read. He was long in reading, as though the writing presented difficulties, and his ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... like a shot rabbit, reddening to the neck with stupefaction, excruciating sheepishness and annoyance. Never in the whole course of his life had he been caught in such an ineffable predicament. He strode to and fro in futile speechless rage and shame. The situation was intolerable. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... it to the head of Hans Ruprecht, which, wild, horrible, and bloody, now stared the Bishop in the face. His reverence let fall his knife, and sank back in a feinting fit; while the whole company sat in lifeless horror and stupefaction. ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... of the picture was painted with a brush of fire in his brain. The girl was bareheaded. Her face was as white as any face he had ever seen, living or dead; her eyes were like pools that had caught the reflection of fire; he saw the sheen of her hair, the poise of her slender body—its shock, stupefaction, horror. He sensed these things even as his brain wobbled dizzily, and the larger part of the picture began to fade out of his vision. But her face remained to the last. It grew clearer, like a cameo framed ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... Peter, kept pricking him and breaking through the stupefaction of this sudden tragedy. He kept nodding a mechanical agreement until the undertaker had arranged all the details. Then the little man moved softly out of the cabin and went stepping away through the dust of Niggertown with professional briskness. A ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the patient's cravat and dashed cold water upon his head, and chafed his hands, while his mother, slowly awakening from her state of stupefaction, drew near, and bent over him. But not a finger did she raise to minister to him; she would not have known what to do, so little were her hands accustomed to ministration,—so seldom had they been stretched out to perform the slightest service for ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... a kind of stupefaction. Was it of Farrington the man was talking such drivel? Farrington, who only the week before had told him in high gratification that within the last month he had added a cool million to his ward's marriage portion. Farrington, who had, but two days ago, hinted mysteriously ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... consternation and confusion which reigned every where within the encampment, he sought his own tent, and, rushing into it, sank down, amid the luxury and splendor which had been arranged to do honor to his anticipated victory, in a state of utter stupefaction ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... hurry of this alarming contingency, he might not have observed it. But Porteous and his friends alike wanted presence of mind to suggest or execute such a plan of escape. The former hastily fled from a place where their own safety seemed compromised, and the latter, in a state resembling stupefaction, awaited in his apartment the termination of the enterprise of the rioters. The cessation of the clang of the instruments with which they had at first attempted to force the door, gave him momentary relief. The flattering hopes, that the military had marched into ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... by the publicity of a betrothal which was never to lead to marriage. The Princess took care that as much light as possible should be cast upon the whole affair, and to the Baroness Volterra's stupefaction and delight, told every one that the match had been made under her auspices, and that the Conti family owed her eternal gratitude for it and for her care of Sabina during nearly three months. The Princess told the story ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... that I had expressed an independent desire to confess the Lord by the act of public baptism, immediately after which I should be admitted to communion 'as an adult'. Emotion ran so high at this, that a large portion of the congregation insisted on walking with us back to our garden-gate, to the stupefaction of the rest ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... of stupefaction had quickly passed away, and even before the Caesar had recovered consciousness Hortensius Martius had risen to his feet. There had been no hesitation in him from the first. Whilst the others pondered—vaguely frightened ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Reb Moshe awaken from the stupefaction into which the sudden assault had plunged him, and disengaging his burly frame from under the ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... with him. Nor did he ever, whether in private or in public, breathe an unfriendly word against his Christian fellow-citizens. All were sons of the same Father, as he would frequently say from the platform. But in his heart of hearts he cherished a contempt, softened by stupefaction, for the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... from him, then it was Casey against the world; a hopeless business for him, yet he would get in a blow if possible. And Casey had got in his blow. The incredible had happened; but (Gilbart groaned) why had it happened to him? In his stupefaction he returned again and again upon this, catching in the flood at that one little straw of self; not inhumanly, as callous to the ruin of others; but pitifully, meanly, because it was the one thing familiar in the roar and din. He cursed Casey; ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... time as his wife, though she kept out of his sight, and thus they had full opportunity of conversing together; for though the sick man often called Mrs Morgan, yet as soon as he saw she was in the chamber he sunk again into that state of stupefaction from which he never recovered. Mrs Morgan put a bed up in his room, and lay there constantly, but as he was as solicitous to know she was present in the night, as in the day, she could never quite undress herself the whole time ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... strong, marched out into the darkness. The majority, however, decided to shift for themselves, and stole away in threes and fours. Of those that remained, some broke into the village wine and beer shops and drank to stupefaction; while others, exhausted by the efforts of the day, threw themselves ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... might almost call it my stupefaction—at the unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to him without an ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... the first year of the war. Need I add that it was a failure—a total failure? As he stood forth fully and comprehensively revealed by the light of the adjacent transparency, Mr. Cassidy's squint of suspicion widened into a pop-eyed stare of temporary stupefaction. ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... they have found water at the period of great inundations. In proportion as the pools become dry, these animals penetrate into the mud, to seek that degree of humidity which gives flexibility to their skin and integuments. In this state of repose they are seized with stupefaction; but possibly they preserve a communication with the external air; and, however little that communication may be, it possibly suffices to keep up the respiration of an animal of the saurian family, provided with enormous pulmonary sacs, exerting ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... utterance to this sage opinion with the sententious solemnity of an oracle, or the portentous gravity of "an ass"—as modern slang might put it—the youth resumed his pipe and continued the stupefaction of ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dawson looked at me; and I saw the stupefaction in his eyes. I looked back at him, a direct glance of hatred, as I put my finger-tips gingerly on ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... her in stupefaction, with his hand on his hat and stick, like a man who doubts whether he has heard aright. Presently a shiver passed over him, another light came into his eyes, and he said quietly, "I'm ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... lady walking gingerly along, both hands occupied in keeping her skirt from contact with the greasy pavement. She looked at the parcel with blank indifference, and passed quietly on her way. The twins gasped with stupefaction. Could such things be? Was it possible that a human creature could be so surfeited with the good things of this world, that she could behold an unopened parcel lying on the ground, and feel no curiosity ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... saw to her stupefaction that tears trickled from the eyes of the maudlin man; she heard him whimpering. Once more, he poured himself a drink. He mumbled unintelligibly for a little. Then, of a sudden, his voice rose in a last flare of energy, before he rolled on ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... man himself gazed in a stupefaction at Monsieur Hulot's living masterpiece. Hortense, forewarned, at once identified him as the artist, from the color that flushed a face pale with endurance; she saw the spark lighted up in his gray eyes by her question; she looked on the thin, drawn features, like those of a monk consumed by asceticism; ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... thine importance," Khalid asks himself in the K. L. MS., "when a little ptomaine in thy cheese can poison the source of thy lofty contemplations? Why this inflated conception of thy Me, when an infusion of poppy seeds might lull it to sleep, even to stupefaction? What avails thy logic when a little of the Mandragora can melt the material universe into golden, unfolding infinities of dreams? Why take thyself so seriously when a leaf of henbane, taken by mistake in thy salad, can destroy thee? But the soul ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... form of Count Schwarzenberg, casting a long, dark shadow upon the shining surface of the inlaid floor. Gabriel Nietzel saw all this, and yet he felt as if he were dreaming, and that all would vanish so soon as he should venture to move or step forward. The count's voice aroused him from his stupefaction. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... young Turk.... It was Edgar de Meilhan! A little cup filled with a greenish conserve rested on a cushion near by. I remembered that he had often spoken to me of the wonderful effects of hashish, and of the violent desire he had of experiencing this fascinating stupefaction; he had also told me of one of his college friends who had been living in Smyrna for some years; an original, who had taken upon himself the mission of re-barbarizing the East. This friend had sent him a number of Indian poinards ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... the man suddenly comprehended. The expression of his face, up to that time sombre and harsh, bore the imprint of stupefaction, of doubt, of joy, and became extraordinary. He began stammering like a ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... bathe; but the intercourse is only on a distant and conventional footing, and no familiarity or intimate association is under any circumstances permitted. To such a height is this exclusiveness carried, that even amidst the terror and stupefaction of an elephant corral, when an individual, detached from his own party in the melee and confusion, has been driven into the enclosure with an unbroken herd, I have seen him repulsed in every attempt to take refuge among them, and driven off by heavy blows with their trunks as often ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... blind stupefaction at the strange bolt, but did not move to her assistance. Her head was bent low over the intricate thing; but it was useless,—it would not move, and she suddenly raised her eyes beseechingly to him; ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... effects. In the first place, in the work itself, since repetitions of one or one simple set of responses may impair speed and accuracy. On the part of the worker, it promotes varying degrees of stupefaction or irritation. Excesses of drink, gambling, and dissipation among factory populations are often traceable to this continual frustration of normal instincts during working hours, followed by a violent search ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... would not bear it, and for a moment was upon the point of flying; but there seemed to be leaden soles to his shoes, which he could by no means raise from the ground. He was powerless to move hand or foot, and stood there in a sort of stupefaction; to the great astonishment of Scapin, who, thinking that he must have forgotten his part, whispered to him the opening phrases of his tirade. The public thought that their favourite actor desired another round of applause, and broke out afresh, clapping, stamping, crying bravo, making a tremendous ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... circled about that golden wonder, gasping with delight and stupefaction, touching it gingerly with his hands as if it were something sacred. At every moment his thought returned to Trina. No, never was there such a little woman as his—the very thing he wanted—how had she remembered? And the money, where had that come from? No one knew ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... from her stupefaction on seeing her sister. Mrs. Blake explained that she had come chiefly for the benefit of the voyage and announced her intention of returning on ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... around her waist, and his lips so closely pressed to hers, that through her soft thick hair she could feel the throbbing of his temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he waked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter though not incensed stupefaction,—to stammer,— ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... stared in terror and stupefaction. Rising above the center of the lake where the day before they had beheld the agitated waters, was an enormous, scale-covered neck surmounted by a long, snake-like head whose round, red eyes were sheltered beneath black, horny hoods. The horrible creature's head was swaying back ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... pretender to be the son of Hur? But, as will presently appear in full, the brave Roman sailor was dead. Judah had felt the loneliness before; to the core of life the sense struck him now. He stood, hands clasped, face averted, in stupefaction. Simonides respected his ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... them as a new scourge of God, like Attila and his Huns; they overran Poland, ravaged Hungary, and seemed about to break like a great flood upon the West, and overwhelm it utterly. Then the tide rolled back. Gradually the West lost its first stupefaction and terror and began to look hopefully towards the Tartars as a possible ally against its age-old foe, the Moslem. The Christians of the West knew that the Tartars had laid the Moslem power low through the length and breadth of Asia, and they knew too, that the Tartars had no very sharply defined ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... the statue of Genevieve, still frozen in place with an expression of stupefaction on her white face. The older woman put her arms around the bride's neck and ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... the man quite understood; his face, the expression of which till then had been gloomy, and hard, now expressed stupefaction, doubt and joy, and became absolutely wonderful. He began to stutter like ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... wholly stupefied, wholly intoxicated. This was, for her, language wholly new and never heard before, at which her heart trembled in blissful awe, which rushed around her in enchanting melodies and lulled her into a sweet stupefaction. Now she herself even forgot that she was queen, that she was the wife of Henry, the bloodthirsty and the jealous. She was conscious only of this, that the man whom she had so long loved, was now kneeling at her side. With rapture she drank ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... two centuries, when torturing the accused was in vogue, some individuals were found to be insensible to the most fearful tortures, and some even, who were plunged into a species of somnolence or stupefaction, slept in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... Newton seemed irretrievably condemned, was, on the contrary, beginning quite a new life. A little later—in 1808—he might have witnessed the discovery made by Malus of polarization by reflexion, and would have been able to note, no doubt with stupefaction, that under certain conditions a ray of light loses the ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... survey of the hut, and then of its owner, putting her head on one side as she looked about her with a quick, bird-like movement, he still staring in stupefaction. ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... a blow with the whip. The painter looked at her with stupefaction, and a child-like surprise showed on his face, mingled with ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... see features become shrunk and hideous; there a countenance which had assumed a yellow and even a greenish hue, some men seemed thunderstruck and chained down to their places, without strength to move. When they had recovered from the stupefaction, with which they were at first seized, numbers gave themselves up to excess of despair; while others uttered imprecations upon those whose ignorance had been so fatal to us. An officer going upon deck, immediately after the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... A momentary stupefaction followed this astounding performance, succeeded by a passion of indignation, in which the words traitor and imbecile were associated with the name that had been so dear to his people. This again yielded to a settled grief: they felt ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... you,' Trent heard the voice of Mr Cupples say. He forced himself out of his stupefaction like a diver striking upward for the surface, and with a rigid movement raised his glass. But half of the wine splashed upon the cloth, and he put it carefully down again untasted. He drew a deep breath, which was ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... and lay his finger down, as though identifying features in a map. Meanwhile a third was walking to and fro, polling among the rocks and peering over the edge into the water. While I was still watching them with the stupefaction of surprise, my mind hardly yet able to work on what my eyes reported, this third person suddenly stooped and summoned his companions with a cry so loud that it reached my ears upon the hill. The others ran to him, even dropping the compass in their hurry, and I could see the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... greater part of the contents had been poured out upon the ground, lay scattered about near the carcass of a horse and three human corpses, two of the latter being those of Carlists, and the third that of one of the defenders of the house. A few peasants stood by, looking on in open-mouthed stupefaction; and above the whole scene of desolation, a thick cloud of black smoke floated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... lion, with a terrible gesture, "if I am not master of myself, I will be, I promise you, of those who do me outrage. Come with me, M. d'Artagnan, come." And he quitted the room in the midst of a general stupefaction and dismay. The king hastily descended the staircase, and was ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... blindly with the brushes, and finding it difficult, when he sat down, to summon the energy to move again. His limbs, his jaw, were slack and nerveless. But he was very tired. He got to bed at last, and slept inert, relaxed, in a sleep that was rather stupor than slumber, a dead night of stupefaction shot ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence
... awful for everybody in the Kenway pew. The girls' cheeks burned. Mrs. MacCall glared at the boy in utter stupefaction. ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... roar of that second broadside, Colonel Bishop awoke from stupefaction to a recollection of where his duty lay. In the town below drums were beating frantically, and a trumpet was bleating, as if the peril needed further advertising. As commander of the Barbados Militia, the place of Colonel ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... silence. I could not speak. Under the pressure of thoughts and recollections that came sweeping in upon me, I was dumb; and so I wandered away, and fell into a seat. Yet, in my stupefaction, I could see that Hiss O'Halloran showed an emotion equal to mine. She had not spoken a word. She sat down, with her eyes on the floor, and much ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... led him to push forward the poor woman whose testimony might prove so decisive. When he saw, however, that the magistrate was not alone, and when he recognized Polyte Chupin—the original of the photograph—in the man M. Segmuller was examining, his stupefaction became intense. He instantly perceived his ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... been so sudden that he desired to complete it; a few days later he went to the lazaretto.[16] One can imagine the stupefaction of these wretches at the entrance of the brilliant cavalier. If in our days a visit to the sick in our hospitals is a real event awaited with feverish impatience, what must not have been the appearance of Francis among these ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... a tiny glass vial spilling out its dark, volatile fluid upon the dust. He picked it up, but it was snatched from his hand. The dull pig-eyes of Chang stared very close to his, with the stupefaction of sleep still extending the irises into round dark pools. The vial was in his hand, and he was sampling its odor, waving it slowly back and forth under his wide nostrils. He shouted, and turbaned men filed into the tent, and carried the gray ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... presented herself. Paquin and the Fairy Godmother would have approved her gown; as to her coiffure, if her employer could have seen it, he would have wanted to put her in his window. Tricotrin gave her his arm with stupefaction. "Upon my word," he faltered, "you awe me. I am now overwhelmed with embarrassment that I had the temerity to tease you while you dressed. And what shall I say of the host who is churl enough to welcome you in such a ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... not tell what he was going to say, his attitude dispelled our fears at once. He gazed at us with wide astonished eyes from under the peak of his shako, and came on quietly, as if he were taking a walk, his hands in his pockets, murmuring in a tone of stupefaction: ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... bright as day, and observed the people there waiting to welcome him home, he seemed like one in a dream. It was only when Betty danced about him and caught both of his hands in hers, that he aroused from his stupefaction. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... en stupefaction, lorsqu'on apercut le domino jaune attable pour la cinquieme fois, et que les mets eurent recommence a disparaitre dans son estomac insatiable. On se demandait: "Quel est donc ce masque a l'appetit ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... and, making a great effort to throw off the incubus of babyhood that weighs so heavily upon them, they burst open the back door of their shell and slowly creep out backwards. It takes about five minutes for them to get entirely out, head, legs and all, and then for a moment or two they gaze in stupefaction at their old shell, amazed to find that they have, by their own efforts, unaided and alone, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... was not to be expected; it was doing one's duty to hold one's tongue and keep one's hands off one's own windpipe, and other people's. Roderick had long silences, fits of profound lethargy, almost of stupefaction. He used to sit in the garden by the hour, with his head thrown back, his legs outstretched, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes fastened upon the blinding summer sky. He would gather a dozen books about him, tumble them out on the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... not cultivate, or had been forcibly deprived of their beards, were wont to go into battle clad in heavy false whiskers, which, when an enemy seized hold of them, came off instantly in his hand, and the ancient Egyptian was enabled to despatch him while in a trance of stupefaction and horror. Clean-shaved men became, by this cowardly stratagem, very much prized as fighting men, and thus the foundation of ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... that his mind reverted to Edith, with renewed stupefaction over what she had done. Stupefaction was the word. Reflection on the subject only left him the more hopelessly bewildered. If she hadn't loved him her course might have been explicable. As it was, he found himself driven to a choice between ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... be impossible to paint his rage and stupefaction, when hidden behind the pine trees, he saw two men join Pepe, especially when in one of them he recognised the terrible hunter whom he had seen engaged with the tigers at Poza, and in the other, Fabian, who had already twice escaped his vengeance. A mortal fear chilled his heart; he ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... and to our imagination his appeal had almost the force of a command. "I wonder if half-a-crown would help?" I privately wailed. And our fasting botanist went limping away through the park with the grace of controlled stupefaction still further ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... animated by his blunders, took it into his head that Dupont d'Aisy himself might well have kept Pinteville at dinner and excited the peasants in order to secure the retreat of the brigands, and issued a warrant against him to the stupefaction of Caffarelli who thus saw imprisoned all those whose conduct he had praised, and whom he had given as examples of devotion. Thus, in a region where he had only to touch, so to say, to catch a criminal, Captain Manginot was unlucky enough to incarcerate only the innocent, and to complete ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... another word. He watched the tall, black figure until it turned in at the gate and was lost to view, a sort of stupefaction gripping him. Presently he aroused himself and walked slowly homeward. As he passed through his own gate he looked over at the window of the room in which Viola had sought seclusion. The curtains hung limp and motionless. He wondered what was ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the brigands now began to recover from the state of stupefaction into which this sudden and unexpected attack had thrown them, and accustomed to rapid action upon emergencies such as the present, they prepared to fall simultaneously upon ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... an audience in the Emperor's antechamber, and began to talk to him about the miracle of the bloody exudation. In the course of conversation, Eginhard happened to allude to the remarkable fineness of the garment of the blessed Marcellinus. Whereupon Abbot Hildoin observed (to Eginhard's stupefaction) that his observation was quite correct. Much astonished at this remark from a person was supposed not to have seen the relics, Eginhard asked him how he knew that? Upon this, Hildoin saw he had better make a clean ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... instantly roused from his stupefaction. He clasped his hands and flew to his son. "Pierre, mon enfant! Why, I didn't know you!" He pressed him in his arms and the tears rolled ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... general stupefaction I told them what I knew, and what good fortune had enabled me to ascertain. I told them how I had overheard the plan of Faruskiar and his Mongols, when it was too late to stop it, but I was silent regarding the intervention of Kinko. The moment ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... They had come up on the same boat. Still, one never could tell. The young fellow was almost as odd in his way as the girl was in hers. He seldom spoke, and drank with a persistence that was sinister. He was never drunk in the accepted meaning of the word; rather he walked in a kind of stupefaction. Supposing Ah ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... middle of the blade, awkwardly. Turning his eyes from the hostile wood, he looked at the sword as he held it there, and seemed puzzled as to what to do with it, where to put it. In short, this weapon had of a sudden become a strange thing to him. He looked at it in a kind of stupefaction, as if he had been endowed with a trident, a sceptre, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... that followed immediately, and filled the country with stupefaction, made havoc on all sides of her. Among the victims were comrades of her childhood, numbers of her friends and acquaintance and their relatives—as well in Berry as in the capital—many arrested solely on suspicion of hostility to the ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... of the free air, the rushing of the horses over high and low, the ringing of the bridles, the excitation at once arising from a sense of freedom and of rapid motion, gradually dispelled the confused and dejected sort of stupefaction by which Queen Mary was at first overwhelmed. She could not at last conceal the change of her feelings to the person who rode at her rein, and who she doubted not was the Father Ambrosius; for Seyton, with all the heady impetuosity of a youth, proud, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the folds of a scarf crossed on the bosom and negligently knotted. If the light had not thrown into relief her face, which she seemed to show in preference to the rest of her person, it would still have been impossible to escape riveting the attention exclusively upon it. Its expression of stupefaction, which was cold and rigid despite hot tears that were rolling from her eyes, would have struck the most thoughtless mind. Nothing is more terrible to behold than excessive grief that is rarely allowed to break forth, of which traces were left on this woman's face ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... Moody was holding in Birmingham one of those remarkable series of meetings which so deeply stirred our country in the early 'seventies, Dr. Dale, who followed the work with the keenest sympathy, and yet not without a feeling akin to stupefaction at the amazing results which it produced, once told Moody that the work was most plainly of God, for he could see no real relation between him and what he had done. Is not this disparity the very sign-manual of the Holy Spirit's ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... meeting were desirable. Instead of telegraphing to Madame Bonanni, she wrote her answer, proposing to go to the prima donna's house. But Madame Bonanni was impatient, and as no telegram came when she expected one, she did not wait for a possible letter. To Margaret's dismay and stupefaction, she appeared at Versailles about luncheon time, arrayed with less good taste than the lilies of the field, but yet in a manner to outdo Solomon in all his glory, and she was conveyed in a perfectly new motor car. When Margaret, looking on ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... it happened that John Tatham, who had meant to go down to the Cottage the very next Saturday to see how things were going, was driven into a kind of stupefaction one morning in May by a letter which reached him from the North, a letter conveying news so unexpected and sudden, so unlike anything that had seemed possible, that he laid it down, when it was half read, with a gasp of astonishment, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... a chair in a state of almost stupefaction, holding this attitude as long as possible. ANNIE enters, and in a characteristic manner begins her task of tidying up the room; LAURA, without changing her attitude, and staring straight in front of her, her elbows ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... Julio's countenance expressed stupefaction and terror. During the development of the frightful plot he kept his eyes fixed on his master's lips, and he continued to stare at him ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... keep back a chuckle of satisfaction. He longed to make Spruce understand what was going on, but that unfortunate individual was slightly stunned by Leach's heavy blow, and sitting on the grass with his head between his two hands, was gazing, in a kind of stupefaction at the 'new Missis'; so that any 'bellowing' into his ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... in the old woman's voice that brought genuine stupefaction into the face of Uncle Ripley. Of course, in this case, as in all others, the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... central apparatus toward the back wall. The men followed him. Then as they rounded the apparatus and saw for the first time the incredible things lining that rear wall, tier upon tier, they stopped short in utter stupefaction. Before them was Life, but Life so hideously and abysmally alien that their ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... matter. Herries dislikes composition, and is yet drawn to it by a sense of fearful responsibility. Neither have, fortunately, the least artistic jealousy. Herries regards a man like Musgrave with a sort of incredulous stupefaction, as a stream of inexplicable volume. Herries has to Musgrave all the interest of a very delicate and beautiful type, whose fastidiousness he can almost envy. As a rule, literary men will not discuss their art among themselves; they have generally arrived at a sort of method of their own, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... certain other telekinetic happenings were proved, to the stupefaction of most of those in the group. One special experiment, the success of which confounded the shrewdest, was the attempt to secure on a smoke-blackened paper the print of one of the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... notice the arrival of persons whom he had summoned, looked at them, so to speak, without seeing them, and sometimes remained nearly half an hour without addressing them; then, as if awaking from this state of stupefaction, asked them questions without seeming to hear the reply; and even the presence of the Duke of Bassano and the Duke of Vicenza, whom he summoned more frequently, did not interrupt this condition of preoccupation or lethargy, so to speak. The hours for meals were the same, and they were served ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... moment's stupefaction following on the horrid revelation, a murmur of indignation ran from mouth ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... champagne, drunk himself without drinking a drop, solely with the music which brought him back to life. He mimicked the piston, he mimicked the harp, he snapped his fingers over his head, and rolled his eyes and danced his steps, to the utter stupefaction of the tourists running in from all sides at the racket. Then suddenly, as the exhilarated musicos struck up a Strauss waltz with the fury of true tziganes, the Alpinist, perceiving in the doorway the wife of ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... chosen my hero so strong that there was little fear of his being ousted; so my sympathies were on the winning side. But once he met his master, and was pitched with terrific violence across the sand, striking on his head, to his evident stupefaction. When he recovered he gave up his property without demur, and started for another venture. Then I, the deus ex machina, stepped into the epic, pitched the usurper three times as far as he had thrown ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... body, it is continually modified by the different degrees of density in the atmosphere; by the variety of the seasons, and by the various properties of the aliments received into the stomach: in short, he would be obliged to acknowledge that at some periods it manifests visible signs of torpor, stupefaction, decrepitude, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... for the recording point and set the motor in motion once more. To the complete stupefaction of Rebecca, the repetition ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... his neck. He drew back, a look of stupefaction in his face. He held up his large thumb and looked ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... once or twice, in a state of mind bordering on stupefaction. Robert Ratman, cad, sharper, blasphemer, insolent profligate, his brother! The notion was ludicrous. And yet, when he tried to laugh, the laugh died on his lips. He walked over to the portrait on the wall and looked at the wild, mocking boy's face there. For a moment, as he met its ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... well; "it is not an affair which can be arranged by a friendly agreement. Farewell! Good-day to you, too, gentlemen," he continued with the same dignity, turning to them all. "I hope that my plaint will lead to proper action being taken;" and out he went, leaving all present in a state of stupefaction. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... scattered papers from the work-table in the middle of the room. Morhange took them from my hands and devoured them greedily. His face expressed unbounded stupefaction. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... were alone I turned on Harry. "What on earth did you mean?" I demanded, half in anger, half in a stupefaction of surprise, at his daring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... not honestly glorify himself in his own heart, because it appeared to him that he had acted exactly like an automaton. He blankly marvelled, and thought the situation agreeably thrilling, if somewhat awkward. His father let him go. Then all Edwin's feelings gave place to an immense stupefaction at his father's truly remarkable behaviour. What! His father emotional! He had to begin to revise again ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... motionless; then replace the pipe, and with fast-glazing eyes blow the smoke slowly through his pallid nostrils. As the narcotic effects of the opium began to work he fell back on the couch in a state of silly stupefaction that was alike pitiable and disgusting. Another smoker, a mere youth, lay with face buried in his hands, and as he lifted his head there was a look of despair such as I have seldom seen. Though so young, he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... recognizing at first sight by his dress, weapons, mask, one of the men who had stopped the coach on the preceding day, was at first sight stupefied, then little by little, as he grasped the purport of this mysterious brigand's visit to him, he had passed from stupefaction to joy, through the intermediate phases separating these two emotions. His bag of gold was beside him, yet he seemingly dared not touch it; perhaps he feared that the instant his hand went forth toward it, it would melt like the dream-gold which vanishes during that period of progressive ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... mind like Fanny's, as it received the conviction of such guilt, and began to take in some part of the misery that must ensue, can hardly be described. At first, it was a sort of stupefaction; but every moment was quickening her perception of the horrible evil. She could not doubt, she dared not indulge a hope, of the paragraph being false. Miss Crawford's letter, which she had read so often as to make every line her own, was in frightful conformity ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... drifting rapidly away to leeward, and the full length of our warps was almost paid out; it was therefore imperative that the men on the wreck should act quickly. I shouted to them to this effect, and, awaking from the momentary stupefaction produced by the painfully sudden loss of their comrade, the remaining eight men made a dash for the brig's quarter, and succeeded in reaching it just as the vessel was uphove upon the crest of another tremendous sea. We saw them slip ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... He had changed colour, and through his eyes, wide and staring, his stupefaction glared forth ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... his breath in stupefaction. Had she, then, recognised him? Was it possible that her intuition had been keen enough to pierce ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... in the spot where a signature might have been there was a rough pen drawing of two hands, with fingers extended, talon fashion, menacingly, as though poised to strike at some unseen enemy. Quest, after their first moment of stupefaction, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in 1659 by Don Jose Balderan, and restored in 1787 by Don Diego Nicholas Eduardo, whose fine fronting staircase has been much admired. The Holy Tribunal broke up in 1820, when, the Constitution proving too strong for St. Dominic, the college-students mounted the belfry; and, amid the stupefaction of the shuddering multitude, joyously tolled its death-knell. All the material was sold, even the large leather chairs with gilt nails used for ecclesiastical sitting. 'God defend us from its resurrection,' mutters the civil old huissier, as he ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... walked from his wife's sitting-room, along the corridor and into the studio, in a state of stunned stupefaction. ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, blinked astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. Prince Victor, again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive snarl. She would not see, but it was plain that she was ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... lady," broke in Mr. Bingle, who had been slow to grasp her meaning and even slower to recover from his stupefaction; "you— you really have knocked me silly. I ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... herd turn off to roll with hogs, To run with horses, or to hunt with dogs; But, sad example! never to escape Their infamy, still keep the human shape. But she, good goddess, sent to every child Firm Impudence, or Stupefaction mild; 530 And strait succeeded, leaving shame no room, Cibberian forehead, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... and departed in a state of partial stupefaction, brought on by a glimpse of the instabilities of life. He had also, not relief, but a sense of vacancy and loss; for Milla, out of his reach, once more ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... I hastily departed, leaving the good woman in a state of stupefaction, since, for the first and only time in our long and controversial association, had I retired with the last word. Taking a second turn in the garden I encountered Malachy, and my conscience reproached me. "Am I doing right," I asked myself, "in withholding the glad news from this faithful servant ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... naked Swords in hand to pierce their tender and naked Bodies, and spill their generous and Noble blood, till not one of them was left alive on the place, and the rest following his example in other parts, (to their inexpressible stupefaction and grief) seized on all these Provinces. Nor will the Inhabitants till the General conflagration ever discontinue the Celebration of these Festivals, and the Lamentation and Singing with certain kind of Rhythmes in their Arcytos, the doleful ditty of the Calamity ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... opened. It had been a short game. It was a season of high stakes, and Carigny, as a loser, had doubled and doubled till the last quick hand that finished him. He was a slim youth, with a face smooth and pale. He sat back in his chair, with his head hanging, staring with a look of stupefaction at the cards that spelled his ruin, his finish, and his exile. About him, some of the onlookers began to talk loudly to cover his confusion, and their voices seemed to restore him. He blinked and closed his mouth, and sat up. "Well," he said, then, "there's ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... so designed in our every fibre, that evil tortures us like a diseased nerve; and it always will till we get rid of it. Therefore, Egbert, remember—O that I could burn it into your consciousness—the best that you can gain from your proposed evil course is a brief respite in base and sensual stupefaction, or equally artificial and unmanly excitement, and then endless waking, bitter memories, and torturing regret. Face this truth now, before it is too late. Good-by for a time. I will come again when I can; or you can send for me when you ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... such levities: the spirit of the age is no longer frivolous; and I dare say as the march of gravity proceeds, we shall get rid of galas altogether." The queen said this with an air of inconceivable wisdom, for the "Society for the Diffusion of General Stupefaction" had been recently established among the fairies, and its tracts had driven all the light reading out of the market. "The Penny Proser" had contributed greatly to the increase of knowledge and yawning, so visibly ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... turned a blanched face and glaring eyes upon those witnesses who still remained. "He's Sam Kirby. I had to get him or he'd have got me." He pressed a hand to his side, then raised it; it was smeared with blood. In blank stupefaction the man stared ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... with fear of a curse, and thinking much within herself, an utter stupefaction of the senses came upon her. And she was so confounded that she could not settle what to do. Afraid, on the one hand, O king, of the reproach of friends if she obeyed the deity, and, on the other, of his curse if she disobeyed him, the damsel ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... stupefaction at a man who thus employed the unlimited power with which he was clothed by the confidence of a king in the prosecution of his intrigues. Buckingham saw by the expression of the young man's face what was passing in ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and Page listened almost in stupefaction. They had always rather liked Brimmer. Yet they were convinced that Darrin spoke ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... taken "active service" in its present literal sense, and, as he frequently declared to his companions, he preferred giving an Indian warrior a chance for his scalp any hour after breakfast, to rising at daybreak, when, from very stupefaction, he seldom knew whether he stood on his head or his heels. "If the men must be drilled," he urged, "with a view to their health and discipline, why not place them under the direction of the adjutant or the officer of the day, whoever he might ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... own race, yet even among us large numbers of dabblers in this ancient art adopt some plan of self-hypnotization, such as the gazing at a bright spot or the repetition of some formula until a condition of semi-stupefaction is produced; while yet another school among them would endeavour to arrive at similar results by the use of some of the Indian systems of regulation ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... them, but hastened on. He described the hidden sink in a boulder-ringed draw, the difficulty he had had in bringing his horse to the scene and his own stupefaction. And when he had done all of this with his customary detail he declared that he had come upon a yearling bull, dead as a door nail and slaughtered after a fashion that made Sandy's eyes widen in ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... this change, so frequent, so great, so general, and so necessary, no searcher has yet found either the efficient or final cause; or can tell by what power the mind and body are thus chained down in irresistible stupefaction; or what benefits the animal receives from this alternate ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... same process is carried on in an opposite manner. We see a mental agony before we know its substantial cause; and we only see the cause as reflected in it "Ned Bratts," again, conveys in its first lines the sensation of a tremendously hot day in which Nature seems to reel in a kind of riotous stupefaction; and the grotesque tragedy on which the idyl turns, becomes a matter of course. It would be easy to ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... whence he had issued. The surprise of the Indians on reaching this point was now too powerful to be dissembled; and incapable either of advancing or receding, they remained gazing on the scene before them with an air of mingled stupefaction, rage, and alarm. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since they had proudly strode through the naked area of the fort, and yet even in that short space of time its appearance had been entirely changed. Not a part was there now of the surrounding buildings ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various |
