"Stun" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... division of time to which I refer, none had so confounded, perplexed, alarmed, and grieved me, as the discovery of Mr Clayton's criminality and falsehood. There are mental and moral concussions, which, like physical shocks, stun and stupify with their suddenness and violence. This was one of them. Months after I had been satisfied of his obliquity, it was difficult to realize the conviction that truth and justice authoritatively demanded. When I thought of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... a tree this morning after wild grapes. Come near falling. Gin me a little crick in the back. Willie hes got a stun bruze. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... sagged forward. But Taggi, outraged at the nature of creature he had attacked, squalled and retreated. Shann had had his precious seconds of distraction. He fired, the core of the stun beam striking full into the flat dish of the ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... you, too, Norton!" called Tom through his headpiece telephone. "We'll all attack it at once. I'll fire, and then you begin to hack it. The electric charge ought to stun it, if ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... power to return in a few days' time with two or three friends to do this thing? You must come disguised and armed. If I am in the way I will do what I can to protect her, but you will easily knock me down and stun me—do you understand? Don Hilario must not know that we are in the plot. From him fear nothing, for, though he is brave enough to threaten a woman with death, before armed men he is like a dog that hears thunder. You can then take her to Montevideo and conceal her there. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... a quick eye and good glasses, even though he should want nerve for the Scilly rocks," cried the mate, who was looking out from the mizzen rigging. "There go his stun'-sails already, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... overpower me. At length, however, I managed to master her; but her strength was far from exhausted, and she would not yield. She was mad; time was passing. I could not afford to be nice in my methods, so I contrived to stun her, and proceeded to tie her hands with my handkerchief. Then, panting, I stood ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... schooner," muttered the captain, as he shut up the glass with a bang. "I won't trust her. Up with the royals and rig out stun'-sails, Mr. Wilson, (to the mate). Let her fall away, keep her head ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... his own needle-beam pistol up to full and fired hastily at the distant figure. At that distance, even the full beam would only stun. The figure collapsed backwards into the airlock, and ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... years at sea, the lawyer—a fine crusted Tory, High Churchman, the best of old fellows, the soul of honour—had been chief officer in the P. & O. service in the good old days when mail-boats were square-rigged at least on two masts, and used to come down the China Sea before a fair monsoon with stun'-sails set alow and aloft. We all began life in the merchant service. Between the five of us there was the strong bond of the sea, and also the fellowship of the craft, which no amount of enthusiasm for yachting, cruising, and so on can give, since one is ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... upwards shudderingly beneath them; and they all fell forward flat upon their faces. From all but Grom there went up a shriek so piercing that in their own ears it disguised the stupendous rending roar which at that moment seemed to stun the air. The mighty arch of the cave mouth had slipped and crashed down, completely jamming the entrance, and opening up a gash of ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... This speech seemed to stun the King. His eyes wandered from face to face aimlessly, then rested, bewildered, upon the boy before him. Then he said in a tone of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Greeks. The enemy of Osiris, of truth, good and purity. Discord and strife in nature. Horns who fights against him for his father Osiris, can throw him and stun him, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in seizing the reptile, the bird rose nearly in a vertical direction to a height of many yards, and then opening his beak permitted the serpent to fall to the ground. His object was to stun the latter by the fall; and the more effectually to do this, he would have carried the cobra still higher, had not the latter prevented it by attempting to coil itself around ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... strong, the tremor had left her hands. She had expected something like this, of course; yet when it came—somehow it failed to stun. She would not turn over the direction of the school, or the direction of the education of these people, to those who were most opposed to their education. Therefore, there was no need to hesitate; there was no need to think ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... down or stun any one. We settled the cull by a stroke on his nob; we stunned the fellow by ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... me to eat more than wuz good for me—rich stuff that I never did eat—and bought me candy, which I sarahuptishly fed to the pup. And he follered me round with footstools, and het the soap stun hotter than wuz good for my feet, and urged me to ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... trouble, for, after its own fashion, his heart was troubled, some temperaments might have found a kind of consolation in this sight, for while we witness them, at any rate, the throes and moods of Nature in their greatness declare a mastery of our senses, and stun or hush to silence the petty turmoil of our souls. This, at least, is so with those who have eyes to read the lesson written on Nature's face, and ears to hear the message which day by day she delivers with her lips; gifts given only to such as hold ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... of a stun and a lull for several seconds. Something very decisive and serious had occurred. One or two countenances wore that stern and mysterious smile, which implies no hilarity, but a kind of reaction in presence of the astounding and the slightly horrible. There ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... held her up above him at arm's length. When he struck it was full on his back, the back of his head coming in contact with the hard ground with such force as to stun him almost to the point of unconsciousness. As he struck he gave Dimples a little throw so that she cleared his body, landing on the ground ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... somewhere near the town's centre the earth split and roared apart. The world reeled and a brain-shattering crash compounded of all the elements of pain and hurled from the shoulders of a thousand thunderclaps smote the senses. It was a blast of sickening and malignant fury. It did not so much stun as it stopped one—stopped the breath and the heart's beat, suspending thought, halting life itself for a fraction of time. One was, somehow, aware of existence but without sensation. And then came reaction and the realization of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... new sense was developed, such as I had heard of the deaf possessing. I seemed existing in a new medium. I felt the sound in my lungs, in my bones, on all my nerves to the minutest fibre, and yet it did not stupefy nor stun me with a harsh clangor. It was deep, DEEP. It was an abyss, gorgeously illuminated of velvet softness, in which I floated. The sound was fluid like water about me. I closed my eyes. Where was I? Had some prodigious ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... went down, but Nicol his son Ran awa' afore the fight was begun; And he run, and he run, And afore they were done There was many a Featherston gat sic a stun, As never was seen since the world begun. I canna tell a', I canna tell a', Some got a skelp and some got a claw, But they gar't the Featherstons haud their jaw. Some got a hurt, and some got nane, Some had harness, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to let Tom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! At first it stunned him,—and it is a compliment to any woman to stun Tom Pollard. But Tom doesn't stay stunned long and I only succeeded in suppressing him after he had landed two kisses on my shoulder, one on my hair and one on ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... I'll deceive you, For the Country now I leave you: Who can bear, and not be Mad, Wine so dear, and yet so bad: Such a Noise and Air so smoaky, That to stun, this to choak ye; Men so selfish, false and rude, Nymphs so young and yet ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... lay out a hundred and fifty or more," said Petrovich, and pursed up his lips significantly. He liked to produce powerful effects, liked to stun utterly and suddenly, and then to glance sideways to see what face the stunned person would ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... solemn 'caves,' To score off sins by rosaries and aves! Number the gnats that cloud the dewy lawn, Or flitting flies that light the sparkling corn; Or pirate hawks that haunt Rome's lawless sky, Or the fell fevers Pontine plains supply; The locust legions count; or say as soon What hoarse Cicadae stun the sultry noon With ringing dissonance; what flow'rets fair In early spring inebriate the air: Or count the gems in every dazzling shower That Roman rockets detonating pour, Dropping their liquid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the new vice be the worse, whether those who formerly lavished insincere praise on others, or those who now contrive by every art of beggary and bribery to stun the public with praises of themselves, disgrace their vocation the more deeply, we shall not attempt to decide. But of this we are sure, that it is high time to make a stand against the new trickery. The puffing of books is now so shamefully and so successfully carried ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... just stun her," she got into the way of whispering to herself. "Not kill her outright—just ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... sage! his ears they stun, And curse him o'er and o'er! 'You bloody-minded dog! (cries one,) To slit your windpipe were good fun, 'Od blast you for an impious son[300:1] 35 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... property, this 'ere farm," he said, surveying the scene around him with the air of a connoisseur. "None o' yer stun pastur land where the sheep can't get their noses down through the rocks without a file to sharpen 'em! Deacon Pitkin did a putty fair stroke o' business when he swapped off his old place for this 'ere. That are old place was all swamp land and stun pastur; wa'n't good for raisin' nothin' but ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... left alone with her husband and Mr. Bounderby, was sufficient to stun this admirable lady again without collision between herself and any other fact. So, she once more died away, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... that within my bosom aye Clamors and bids me still renew my tears, Doth stun my senses and my soul bewray With wandering fantasies and cheating fears; The gentle form of her that is but ta'en A little from my sight I seem to see At life's bourne lying faint and pale with pain,— My love that to these tears abandons me. "O ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... said the man. He turned and limped to the rear of the shop, followed by the three cadets. Opening a large cabinet, he pulled out a heavy rifle, a shock gun that could knock out any living thing at a range of a thousand yards, and stun the largest animal at twice ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... encounter the weasel would get the first hold, would draw the first blood, and hence probably effect his escape. So I carried the animal, writhing and scratching, to a place in the road removed from any near cover, and threw him violently upon the ground, hoping thereby so to stun and bewilder him that the terrier could rush in and crush him before he recovered his wits. But I had miscalculated; the blow did indeed stun and confuse him, but he was still too quick for the dog, and had him by the lip like an electric trap. Nip lifted up his head and ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... large rock-cod almost as quick as the lines could be baited, and the bottom of our own craft presented a gruesome sight—a lather of blood and froth and kicking fish, some of which were over 20 lbs. weight. Telling the two boys to cease fishing awhile and stun some of the liveliest, I unthinkingly began to bale out some of the ensanguined water, when a score of indignant voices bade me cease. Did I want to bring all the sharks in the world around us? I was asked; and old Viliamu, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... first dreadful stun, I grew wild, running up and down wringing my hands, and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a dreadful calm ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... robber-knight dealeth him a great buffet of his sword so as that it went nigh to stun him altogether. Howbeit the Coward Knight moveth not. Perceval looketh at him in wonderment and thinketh him that he hath set too craven a knight in his place, and now at last knoweth well that he spake truth. The robber-knight smiteth him all over his body ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... Then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and by these means turned him round. He then gave him another blow on the head, just to stun him till he came back again. Having completed these arrangements, he walked up to the gate, to read ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... that he did not know what to say next. That tolerant acquiescence of hers in what he had meant to sting intolerably . . . it was as though he had put all his force into a blow that would stun, and somehow missing his aim, encountering no resistance, was toppling forward with the impetus of his own effort. He recovered himself and looked at her, choking, "You don't mean . . ." he began challenging her incredulously, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... their long bearded husks would be wrenched free and would come hurtling through the air like fletched cannon balls. When one of them struck a tin roof there resulted a terrific crashing sound fit to wake the dead and to stun the living. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... plenty of it. She"—he meant Mrs. Lander—"has been tellin' my wife how they do; she likes to talk a little betta than he doos; and I guess when it comes to society, they're away up, and they won't stun' ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... There was a subtle plea in glance and words. The girlish need was driving the desperate woman back and out of sight. Cynthia could not kill the truth that had been born within her, but she could blind it, stun it and still keep for her own ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... been better for him if he had let go, for in that vehement struggle he felt the evidence of the sea-maid's power. He remembered—his last thought as he lost consciousness—that with the fishy nature is sometimes given the power to stun an enemy by an electric shock. Some shock came upon him with force, as if some cold metal had struck him on the head. As his brain grew dull he heard the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... long he stood staring at her in dumb, dazed bewilderment. After those mental pictures of the Mary Thorne he had expected to find, it was small wonder that the sight of this slip of a black-frocked girl, with her soft voice, her tawny-golden hair and wistful eyes, should stun him into temporary speechlessness. Even when he finally pulled himself together to feel a hot flush flaming in his face and find one gloved hand recklessly crumpling his new Stetson, he could not quite credit the evidence of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... on and on, up and down, up and down; he had not dared to stand still, and he had not known it would end. He had been so strong, that when he struck his head with all his force upon the stone wall it did not stun him nor pain him—only made him laugh. That ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... his feet, he had the definite feeling that but for himself and the Merchant, there were no survivors. And perhaps that was an over-calculation. His Floater had burnt out while still sufficiently distant from surface to have the fall stun him. The Merchant might have had less luck, ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... with all the fury of desperation; with his iron hand he made rapid and savage passes at the head of his assailant, knowing that a single well-directed blow would stun him. But the Doctor's science in pugilism enabled him to keep off the blows with ease, while he punished his antagonist in the most thorough and satisfactory manner. Finding himself likely to be overcome, the villain yelled at the top ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... cheerful ye sent it back. Some o' the fellers," he pursued with an affectation of a confidential tone, "some o' the fellers said mebbe ye wouldn't send it back cheerful. They said ye'd got no more compassion fer the poor than a flint stun. They said, them fellers did, that ye'd never in yer life let up on a man as owed ye, an would take a feller's last drop o' blood sooner'n lose a penny debt. They said, them fellers did, that yer hands, wite ez they looks, wuz red with the blood o' them ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... another advantage in heavy metal; a heavy ball will frequently stun a vicious elephant when in full charge, when a light ball would not check him; his quietus is then soon arranged by another barrel. Some persons, however, place too much confidence in the weight of the metal, and forget that it is necessary ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... part of the man who sins, and this for three reasons. First, because the more sound-minded a man is, the more grievous his sin, wherefore sins are not imputed to those who are demented. Now grave fear and sorrow, especially in dangers of death, stun the human mind, but not so pleasure which is the motive of intemperance. Secondly, because the more voluntary a sin the graver it is. Now intemperance has more of the voluntary in it than cowardice has, and this for two reasons. The first is because actions done through fear have ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... was started from his reverie by the attack upon him of some hundred dogs, who saluted his ears with such a volley of howls as nearly to stun him. These natural scavengers are protected by the laws here, and whenever a stranger is seen, one whose dress or manner betrays him as such, they set upon him like mad, but the staff that had stood him in such good service not long before, soon dispersed his canine tormentors, though he showed ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... stare at us. It was the most amusing thing in the world to see them finger my gloves, whip, and hat, in their intense curiosity. One of them had caught the following line of a song, "O, carry me back to old Martinez," with which he continued to stun our ears all the time we remained, repeating it over and over with as much pride and joy as a mocking-bird exhibits when he has learned a ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... always aiming at the Neck, where there is one particular Place, which if he hit, he knows he shall easily bring him to the Ground. I my Self observ'd the truth of this Experiment made upon one of the Bulls, who receiv'd no more than one Cut, which happening upon the fatal Spot, so stun'd him, that he remain'd perfectly stupid, the Blood flowing out from the Wound, till after a violent Trembling he ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... my sentiments, numbering the novels which I criticised, and speculating on the probability of my being plucked. "I was familiar with all the novels whose names he had ever heard." If so frightful an accusation did not stun me at once, I might perhaps hint at the possibility that this was to be attributed almost as much to the narrowness of his reading on this subject as to the extent of mine. There are men here who are mere mathematical blocks; who plod on their eight hours a day to the honours of the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... tiger—that is, an old tiger that could no longer run fast enough to catch deer. This man-eater used to hide near a village. He would creep up silently behind men and women, and stun them with a blow of his paw. Then he would drag them away and ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... talker is a sonorous bell, whom the least shock suffices to set in perpetual motion. With the talker, the flow of speech is always directly proportional to the poverty of thought. Talkers govern the world; they stun us, they bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood, and laugh at us. As for the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to say a word, they are cut ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... share of immortality by literature. Go to our noble Museum and look at the appalling expanse of books piled up yard upon yard to the ceiling of the immense dome. Tons upon tons—Pelion on Ossa—of literature meet the eye and stun the imagination. Every book was wrought out by eager labour of some hopeful mortal; joy, anguish, despair, mad ambition, placid assurance, wild conceit, proud courage once possessed the breasts of those myriad ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... hand. The hairless head snapped forward. His hands already hooked in the other's armpits, the Terran heaved the alien up and over onto the deck of the control cabin. It was only when he was about to bind his captive that Ross discovered the Baldy was dead. A blow calculated to stun the alien had been too severe. Breathing a little faster, the Terran rolled the body back and hoisted it into the navigator's swing-seat, fastening it with the take-off ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... Girls followed two of the men down the cellar steps. It was evident to them that resistance would be worse than useless. A single blow from the fist of one of those powerful men would stun any of the girls, if it did not knock her unconscious. In fact their captors could make quick work of them if necessary, and, cooped up as they were in this isolated prison, they could scarcely hope to send forth an effective cry of distress ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... Furbush buried near here?" asked George; and the landlord answered, "Little better than a stone's throw. I can see the very tree from here, and may-be your younger eyes can make out the graves. He ought to have a grave stun, for he was ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... The mighty dead that live in endless praise, Resolved I stand; and haply had survey'd The godlike Theseus, and Pirithous' shade; But swarms of spectres rose from deepest hell, With bloodless visage, and with hideous yell. They scream, they shriek; and groans and dismal sounds Stun my scared ears, and pierce hell's utmost bounds. No more my heart the dismal din sustains, And my cold blood hangs shivering in my veins; Lest Gorgon, rising from the infernal lakes, With horrors arm'd, and curls of hissing snakes, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the crocodile; it loves heat, and will bury itself in the mud in cold weather. It feeds mostly upon fish, and will drive them before it in a shoal, until they have got into some creek or narrow bend of the river, and then stun them by blows of its great tail. Mr. Waterton, who knew the South American rivers so well, tells us that he once came upon what he thought a pretty sight—a number of young alligators, about a foot long, playing ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... the old constable, slappin' his leg. "That's one on me, boys. Why, Lizzie Dorsett told me only last week that her mother had the stun took up and sent away to have the name of her second husband cut on't. Only last week she told me, and ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... maidens, the hoarse bellow of swamped obesity, the whine of the convalescent invalid, the yell of unmixed delight, the te-hee and squeak of the city exquisite learning how to laugh out loud, the splash of the brine, the cachinnation of a band of harmless savages, the stun of the surge on your right ear, the hiss of the surf, the saturnalia of the elements; while overpowering all other sounds are the orchestral harmonics of the sea, which roll on through the ages, all shells, all winds, all caverns, all billows ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... shocked by the dreadful report more than once, for the main band kept far away and each time a new company was sent into the battle. When the Wizard had fired all of his twelve bullets he had caused no damage to the enemy except to stun a few by the noise, and so be as no nearer to victory than in the beginning ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... is, and I'se a-gwine to help you, houn's or no houn's. Keep up de run a right smart ways, and you'se'll come ter a big flat stun'. Stan' dar in de water, an I'll be dar wid help." And the man disappeared ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... knew was that there was a chance for him—that he had the right to put forth the best effort of which he was capable—and he thanked God for that. At the same time he remembered Amy's parable of the rose. He would woo as warily as earnestly. With Burt's experience before his eyes, he would never stun her with sudden and violent declarations. His love, like sunshine, would seek to develop ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... "nuisance") that I cut him, and his pack of cards too. Just off to see the Dutch races. Shall pick up a little coin over this. You'll excuse my not writing any more this week, as I have to send a lot of stun to the Daily Graphic, besides cramming and reading up for it far more than ever I did at Oxford. However, the jeu d'esprit is well worth the chandelle. You don't want much about local politics—do you? If so, wire's the word, and I'm there. Looking forward to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... from underground which with their terrific noise will stun all who are near; and with their breath will kill men and destroy ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... requesting Omnipotence? What can stun and confound thy reason more? What more can ravish and exalt thy heart? It cannot but ravish and exalt; it cannot but gloriously disturb and perplex thee, to take in all that suggests. Thou child of the dust! Thou speck of misery and sin! How abject thy weakness! how ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... exhibits on the rostrum. He was learning the lesson of life then, and every now and then he would bump up against an octagonal mass of cold-pressed truth of the never-dying variety that seemed to kind of stun and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... opposite side of the fence, and wishes to communicate with her calf, she will put her head through the fence, place her mouth against his ear as if she were going to whisper, and then utter a roar that can be heard two miles off. It would stun a human being; but the calf thinks it over for a moment, and then answers with a prolonged yell in the old cow's ear. So the dialogue goes on for hours without either ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and down the room wringing my hands and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a calm stole over me—such a dreadful calm as I could fancy glide over one who floated in a boat under the shadow of the 'Traitor's Gate,' leaving ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... cruiser breakin' down, but we had our awnin's as well. They was all extricated from the various flats an' 'oles where they was stored, an' at the end o' two hours' hard work Number One 'e made out eleven sails o' different sorts and sizes. I don't know what exact nature of sail you'd call 'em—pyjama-stun'sles with a touch of Sarah's shimmy, per'aps—but the riggin' of 'em an' all the supernumerary details, as you might say, bein' carried on through an' over an' between the cutter an' the forge an' the pork an' cleanin' ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... proved, however, Mr. Slope had not a chance against Mrs. Proudie. Not only could she stun the poor bishop by her midnight anger when the two were alone, but she could assuage him, if she so willed, by ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... down amid a universal pounding of chest-lids, and cymbaling of tin pans; the few invalids, who, as yet, had not been actively engaged with the rest, now taking part in the applause, creaking their bunk-boards and swinging their hammocks. Cries also were heard, of "Handspikes and a shindy!" "Out stun-sails!" "Hurrah!" ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... remained on deck, and had followed our hero, watching over him and protecting him as a father. He had done even more, for he had with Jack thrown himself before Captain Wilson, at a time that he had received such a blow with the flat of a sword as to stun him and bring him down on his knee. And Jack had taken good care that Captain Wilson should not be ignorant, as he really would have been, of this timely service on the part of Mesty, who certainly, although with a great deal of sang-froid in his composition when in repose, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... out to buy a pot of black paint, with which to efface the gildings of the chair, and to reduce its appearance to that ordinarily used by the citizens. He was ordered to get a supply of rope, and some wood, to make gags for the men they were to stun. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... reply to the question. "Thar ain't no conveyance to the clarin'. It's off in de woods a piece, right smart. You sticks to de road a spell, till you comes to a grave—what used to be—but it's done sunk in now till nuffin's thar but de stun an' some blackb'ry bushes clamberin' over it. Then you turns inter de wust piece of road in Floridy, and turns agin whar some yaller jasmine is growin', an ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... scurcely get around the house. And that niece of hers sits there like a stick or a stun, not willin' to scurce lift her hand to help. Thank the Lord she's goin' home to-day. Her visit's come to an end. She don't like it down here. She says we're all a set of—er—hicks, I believe ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... which one course to run Permits not, calls me hence in sudden wise; And thither I return, where paynims stun Fair France with hosile din and angry cries, About the tent, wherein Troyano's son They holy empire in his wrath defies, And boastful Rodomont, with vengeful doom, Gives Paris to the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... had just come down to breakfast; Mrs. T. in her large dust-colored morning-dress and Madonna front (she looks rather scraggy of a morning, but I promise you her ringlets and figure will stun you of an evening); and having read the ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... motion. Dr. Droon, looking rather apologetic, pointed out to Telzey that her pet was in no pain, that the stungun had simply put her comfortably to sleep. He also explained the use of the two sets of webbed paralysis belts which he fastened about TT's legs. The effect of the stun charge would wear off in a few minutes, and contact with the inner surfaces of the energized belts would then keep TT anesthetized and unable to move until the belts were removed. She would, he repeated, be suffering no ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... Hailstones strike, harass, bruise, stun, crush. Snowflakes do worse: soft and inexorable, the snowflake does its work in silence; touch it, and it melts. It is pure, even as the hypocrite is candid. It is by white particles slowly heaped upon each other that the flake becomes an avalanche ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... low lay thine eare, And there such ghastly noise of iron chaines And brazen caudrons thou shalt rombling heare, Which thousand sprites with long-enduring paines Doe tosse, that it will stun thy feeble braines; And often times great groans and grievous stownds, When too huge toile and labour them constraines; And often times loud strokes and ringing sounds From under that deep ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... comin' into this world," said Uncle Terry once, "an' I don't 'spect to be 'bout goin' out. I was born on a wayback farm in Connecticut, where the rocks was so thick we used ter round the sheep up once a week an' sharpen thar noses on the grin'stun, so't they could get 'em 'tween the stuns. I walked a mile to school winters, an' stubbed my toes on the farm summers, till I was fourteen, an' then the old man 'greed to give me my time till I was twenty-one if I'ud pay him half I earned. I had a colt an' old busted ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... squire. It's a big one lashing about with its tail to stun the fish so that they float up ready for his meal. That's right, ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... digesting these experiences. Most of our fellows are. My mind and nerves have been rather bumped and bruised by the shelling, but not so much as you might think. I feel as though I'd presently not think very much of it. Some of our men have got the stun of it a lot more than I have. It gets at the older men more. Everybody says that. The men of over thirty-five don't recover from a shelling for weeks. They go ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... beings; they are used to stun the people and render them insensible. They are tools, the means wherewith our kind is rendered more convenient to the state. They themselves have already been so fixed that they have become convenient instruments in the hand that governs us. They can do whatever they ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... To the fearful stun succeeded the wildest distress. She ran to and fro like some wild animal bereaved; she kept wringing her hands and uttering cries of pity and despair, and went back to the boat a hundred times; it held ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... out of a large picture. The face may be pretty, but the meaning is lost. Such fragments of Shakspeare, for instance, as one sometimes still meets with reprinted in this way strike the mind like a fragment of rock hurled at one's head. They stun with rugged grandeur. As a rule, extracts, then, are a mistake—not as a rigid rule, but as a general principle. It would be better for the village reader to have a few books complete as to text, no matter how poorly ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... gun before the savage brute? He seized the barrel in both hands and raised the weapon above his head. It was too heavy for him to swing with any ease, and being so would fall but lightly on the creature, did he succeed in reaching it at all. He could not hope to stun the cat at a single blow. And beside, the tree, rocking now like a water-logged canoe, made his footing more and more insecure. In a moment it would be among the boulders and at ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... said she; "if you knew as well as I do what she has been through, you would not think her cold. You do know how suddenly her husband died, after only one day's illness, and what a nice fellow he was. She was very fond of him, and his death seemed to stun her. We hardly knew what to make of it, she was so quiet and natural. Then just a week later her little child died of diphtheria, suffering horribly, and she wild with despair because she could not relieve it. After that, she was ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Billy Byrne, who had entirely recovered from the blow that had merely served to stun him for a ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mental or physical, is apt to reduce man to the level of his brother beasts. Arthur, for instance, behaved very much like a wounded buffalo as soon as the stun of the blow passed away, and the rending pain began to make itself felt. For a few seconds he gazed before him stupid and helpless, then his face turned quite grey, the eyes and nostrils gaped wide, and a curious rigidity ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... not slept," said Villefort, showing his undisturbed bed; "grief does not stun me. I have not been in bed for two nights; but then look at my desk; see what I have written during these two days and nights. I have filled those papers, and have made out the accusation against the assassin Benedetto. Oh, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I know on; An' spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its 90 Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits; Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one, You wouldn't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun; We git the licks,—we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers; Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers. It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't, An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't; But glory is a kin' o' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... throw dirt and stones at him, carefully refraining from touching him the while, till the porcupine rolls himself into a ball of bristling quills,—his usual method of defense. Mooween slips a paw under him, flips him against a tree to stun him, and bites him in the belly, where there are no quills. If he spies the porcupine in a tree, he will climb up, if he is a young bear, and try to shake him off. But he soon learns better, and saves his strength for ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... little run, near by, steppin' as soft as a cat. I could just see a white stun on the side o' it. I lifted my foot to step on the stun an' jump acrost. B-r-r-r-r! The stun jumped up an' scampered through the bushes. Then I was scairt. Goshtalmighty! I lost confidence in everything. Seemed so all the bushes turned into bears. Jeerusalem, ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller |
