"Dumb show" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have perished in the Jackson Hole country, from starvation and exposure. The ranchmen of that region have had terrible times,—in witnessing the sufferings of thousands of elk tamed by hunger, and begging in piteous dumb show for the small and all-too-few haystacks ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... In the dumb show murder play, before the King and Queen Shakspere puts these phrases in the mouths of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... and in a place where no eaves-dropper could overhear their discourse without detection, than the stranger stopped. He appeared to examine the person, stature, and dress of Jacopo, from beneath his mask, with singular caution, closing the whole with a sign that meant recognition. Jacopo returned his dumb show, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... type, figure, emblem, cipher, device; representation &c. 554; epigraph, motto, posy. gesture, gesticulation; pantomime; wink, glance, leer; nod, shrug, beck; touch, nudge; dactylology[obs3], dactylonomy[obs3]; freemasonry, telegraphy, chirology[Med], byplay, dumb show; cue; hint &c. 527; clue, clew, key, scent. signal, signal post; rocket, blue light; watch fire, watch tower; telegraph, semaphore, flagstaff; cresset[obs3], fiery cross; calumet; heliograph; guidon; headlight. [sign (evidence) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... first nightof 'Myra'—the yells, howls, whistles, cat-calls which made the whole three acts a pantomime in dumb show. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road or some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, desisted, from a lack of sympathy and appreciation—not having, perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be content with the ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... can hardly be conceived, and amidst the turbulence that reigned placards were exhibited demanding "half-price." In vain the managers attempted to obtain a hearing—in vain favourite actors came forward, hoping to be heard—the play proceeded, but all in "inexplicable dumb show and noise." These riots were repeated on the nights of the 14th and 16th, when it was found necessary to close the theatre. Each night the same riotous behaviour was exhibited. In fact, to such an extent had it arrived that the Mayor was at length sent for, and read the Riot Act. The ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... occasion were by no means light, for his troop, being unaccustomed to study, found the utmost difficulty in committing the simplest sentences to memory. O'Riley turned out to be the sharpest among them, but having agreed to impersonate the First Bear, and having to act his part in dumb show—bears not being supposed capable of speech—his powers of memory had not to be exerted. Grim was also pretty good; but Davie Summers could not be got to remember even the general arrangements of the piece; and as for Buzzby, he no sooner mastered a line than he forgot ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... looked up, with saintly resignation, at the dirty ceiling—and asked in dumb show what she had done to deserve the ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... effect; and then in a despairing howl that quickly brought his mistress to a sense of her cruelty. She apologized to the victim so earnestly and caressed him so tenderly that Joshua grew ashamed of his want of doghood, and began to assure his mistress, in eloquent dumb show, that it was all a misapprehension on her part; that he wasn't hurt at all; that she never did hurt him and never could; that, in face, he was howling at—well, at the squirrel over yonder on the tree; or, yes, at the ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... simple explanation, made almost in dumb show, by action rather than in dialogue, was soon given. He was surprised, simply enchanted, at the entire frankness of her recognition; she acknowledged openly that it mattered to her tremendously whether or not he was on intimate terms or flirting with little Miss Argles, or ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... him, but he returns no answer. With a dumb show of misery, quite touching, he hands me a soiled piece of parchment, whereon I read what purports to be a melancholy account of shipwreck and disaster, to the particular detriment, loss, and damnification of one Pietro Frugoni, who is, in consequence, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... helps himself to meat and passes it to the others; the plate goes round the table. There is a constrained silence. Annie tugs at Rhoda's skirt, and asks in dumb show to have her breakfast given her. Rhoda fills the child's plate, with which she retreats to her place by ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... any way or seemed to notice her much. Sometimes a shopkeeper would offer her his wares in dumb show; but Marjorie had very little money with her, and, knowing nothing of the value of these things, was not to ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... carpet, or a Burmese gong, from Mhtoon Pah. A strange-looking effigy in tight breeches, with pointing yellow hands and a smiling yellow face, stood outside the shop, eternally asking people in wooden, dumb show, to go in and be robbed by the proprietor. He had stood there and pointed for so long that the green glaze of his coat was sun-blistered, but he invariably drew the attention of passing tourists, and acted as a sign-board. He pointed at a small ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... mallecho." Hamlet's description of the meaning of the Dumb Show in the play-scene, Act III, Sc. 2. "Hidden treachery"—see any ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... language but his own. She, an Italian lady, remarks: "You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me nor I him. He hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian. He is a proper man's picture, but, alas! who can converse with a dumb show." This moving plaint draws attention to a defect which is not yet supplied. There are few Englishmen nowadays who, on being challenged to court Portia in Italian, would not cut a sorry figure in dumb show—sorrier figures than Frenchmen or Germans. No true patriot ought to ignore the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... had come upon the gold boxes, and they wished to impress upon the visitors, in underwater dumb show, that the find had only been made that very minute. It was a strange enough performance. Half-seen hands snapped red fingers in triumph. Ponderously booted feet did a dance of ecstasy in three feet of gluey mud. And meanwhile, Kettle, with a hand on the haft ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... the beginnings can be traced as far back as the ninth century. In an old book of rules for Winchester Cathedral, written about 959, there are directions given for showing the death and resurrection of Christ in dumb show chiefly, with just a few Latin sentences to explain it. By degrees these plays grew longer and fuller, until in them the whole story of man from the Creation to the Day of Judgment was acted in what was called a cycle or circle of short ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... accomplished. He tilted back his chair with a reflective air, and looked steadily at the clock standing against the wall opposite to him. He said sententiously, 'Few faces are capable of expressing more by dumb show than the face of a clock. You may see in it every variety of incentive—from the softest seductions to negligence to the strongest ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... stone gutter, with two tansy puddings that were dug out of it, and three or four beds in a row, by a corner of the wall, with samples of grass, corn, and of en friche, like a tailor's paper of patterns! And you like this! I will tell Park-place—Oh! I had forgot your audience in dumb show—Well, as Madame de S'evign'e said, "Le Roi de Prusse, c'est le plus grand Roi du monde still."(154) My love to the old Parliament; I don't love ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Experiences in Africa had revealed the eagerness of barbarians to trade off their possessions for trinkets, and now the Spaniards began exchanging glass beads and hawks' bells for cotton yarn, tame parrots, and small gold ornaments. Some sort of conversation in dumb show went on, and Columbus naturally interpreted everything in such wise as to fit his theories. Whether the natives understood him or not when he asked them where they got their gold, at any rate they pointed to the south, and thus confirmed Columbus in his suspicion that ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... from a visit to a friend in Polymnia street, had scarcely got well seated in the omnibus before he witnessed from its window a singular dumb show. He had handed his money up to the driver as they crossed Euterpe street, had received the change and deposited his fare as they passed Terpsichore, and was just sitting down when the only other passenger in the vehicle ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... though, and the next day nothing else could be thought of or talked of. The Indians were questioned in dumb show, with the skin of the trogon for a text, and we got on more, Uncle Dick's spirits rising as it grew more plainly that the Indian fully understood about the birds we wanted. In fact, in dumb show he at last began to ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... acquaintance with native music. Dancing girls, in mask and tinsel, gyrate to the weird strains of the Gamelon, an orchestra of tiny gongs, bamboo tubes, and metal pipes. Actors perform old-world dramas in dumb show, and conjurors in gaudy attire attract people of all ages to those time-honoured feats of legerdemain which once represented the sorcery of the mystic East. The simple Malay has not yet adopted the critical and unbelieving attitude which rubs ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... front of the Palace, made offerings and commenced the sacrificial riles. When the Chorus turn towards the Stage, the whole Scene is ablaze with fires and trembling with clouds of incense, rich unguents perfume the whole Theatre, while a solemn Religious ritual is being celebrated in dumb show. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... and the ladies retired to the drawing-room, leaving the gentlemen to discuss coffee, cigars and the paradoxes of Sidney, who, tired of religion, looked to dumb show plays for the salvation ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Dude dando. Duel duelo. Duet dueto. Duke duko. Dukedom (duchy) duklando. Dull (unpolished) malbrila. Dull (sombre) malhela, nebula. Dull (stupid) malklera. Dull (blunt) malakra. Dumb muta. Dumbness muteco. Dumb show pantomimo. Dunce malklerulo. Dung sterko. Dungheap sterkajxo. Dungeon malliberejo. Dupe trompi. Duplicate duobligi. Duplicity trompemo. Durable fortika. Duration dauxro. During dum. Dusky malhela. Dust polvo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... who are incapable of receiving such things as do not directly fall under and strike the senses,' have, at last, got hold of it; when 'the groundlings, who, for the most part are capable of nothing but dumb show and noise,' have had their ears split with it, it will ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... observant of recent comings and goings, was standing at the door of the shop, and missed no item of this dumb show. He raised both hands in silent condemnation of Elkin's childishness, whereupon the horse-dealer jerked a thumb toward Grant's retreating figure, and went through a rapid pantomime of the hanging process. His crony ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... that part of the action which can be represented in dumb show. Only the essential parts of action can be represented without words, and you would set the puppets vainly to work on any material but that which is common to humanity. The permanence of a drama might be tested by the continuance and universality ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... fear I must revoke my gift (taking flowers from astonished colonel's hand), all except a single one for your buttonhole. Have you any choice, or shall I (archly) choose for you? Then it shall be this. (Begins to place flowers in buttonhole, COL. STARBOTTLE exhibiting extravagant gratitude in dumb show. Business prolonged through MISS MARY's speech.) If I am not wrong, colonel, the gentleman to whom you so kindly pointed out the road this morning was not a stranger to you. Ah! I am right. There, one moment,—a sprig of green, a single leaf, would set off the pink nicely. Here he is known ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... company of strolling players were exhibiting in an extemporary theatre, and here Hal incited both the youths to obtain seats. The drama was on one of the ordinary and frequent topics of that, as of all other times, and the dumb show and gestures were far more effective than the words, so that even those who did not understand the language of the comedians, who seemed to be Italians, could enter into it, especially as it was interspersed with very ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the outline of their position; and, that being explained, what I saw was simply this: it composed a silent and symbolic scene, a momentary interlude in dumb show, which interpreted itself, and settled forever in my recollection, as if it had prophesied and interpreted the event which soon followed. They were resting from toil, and both sitting down. This had lasted for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Suddenly from below stairs ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... complexion, and the innocence of her aspect, and began to repent of having pretended ignorance of the language, by which he was restrained from exercising his eloquence upon her heart; he resolved, however, to ingratiate himself, if possible, by the courtesy and politeness of dumb show, and for that purpose put his eyes in motion ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... in dumb show, and was sometimes of considerable proportions, vide one in 1348, where there were "eighty tunics of buckram, forty-two visors, and a great variety of other whimsical dresses were provided for the disguising ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... after appeared the earl himself, who was met by an ancient hermit, a secretary of state, and a soldier; each of whom presented him with a book recommending his own course of life, and, after a little pageantry and dumb show to relieve the solemnity of the main design, pronounced a long and well-penned speech to the same effect. All were answered by an esquire, or follower of the earl, who pointed out the evils attached to each pursuit, and concluded, says our reporter, "with an excellent but too plain ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... gentleman on the front bench below the gangway actually fell from his seat and rolled upon the floor, and the House laughed itself almost into hysteria, whilst the hapless orator stood waving in apologetic dumb show. Now here was a tragedy indeed: to have the dream of a whole lifetime at last actually realised and concrete and then to see it go to ruin in that way. So swift a transition from the very height of triumph to the very ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... May was waked from a doze by a very deferential 'I beg your pardon, sir,' and a sudden tweak, which abstracted a silver thread from his head; and Mab showed somewhat greater displeasure at a similar act of plunder upon her white chemisette. But the spying was followed by a sigh; and, in dumb show, Ethel was made to perceive that the Vintry hair had more affinity with the canine than the human. As to the scrapings of the window, nothing but vegetable fibre could there be detected; but on the stile, there was undoubtedly ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is beautifully said: but in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind of dumb show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making a toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature, without being perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of others. I am for the synthetical ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... and lightning all in black, with a burning torch in one hand, and a bloody sword in the other hand, and presently let there come forth a Lion running after a Bear or any other beast; then come forth an Archer who must kill the Lion in a dumb show, and then ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... the Hall—in ones and twos first, then in a steady stream which blocked the doorways. It was plain to the dullest intelligence that if there was going to be any more concert, it would have to be performed in dumb show. Mr Kay flung ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... it too, and knew full well that it would prove our destruction, should we not get to a safe distance. Still, the remainder of the crew were not to be deserted. Three were men, the other two boys. I could see the poor fellows, as I looked back, lashed to the rigging, holding up their hands in dumb show, imploring us not to desert them. Neither the coxswain nor his crew were men to do that; but already the boat was crowded, and should the sea break on board, some of those saved might be washed out of her. Sea after sea rolled in on the wreck; every moment I expected ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... for that issue between the two remaining parties for which each was preparing in his own fashion. Ralph had not beheld the dumb show, in which Edith was dismissed, without a rising impulse of choler. The manner of the thing had been particularly offensive to him. But the father of Edith, whatever his offence, had suddenly risen into new consideration in the young man's mind, from the moment that ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... when she shook her fist in their faces, they retired backwards, and took refuge among their party, bringing the victim in with them, however. Mr Enderby declared this retreat too bad, and was gone before the entreaties of his little nieces could stop him. He held his ground longer; and the dumb show he made was so energetic as to cause a laugh in the summer-house, in the midst of the uneasiness of his friends, and to call forth shouts of mirth from the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... doings in Gaul, Master Cook produced from his pocket a newspaper cutting. This, having previously planted a forcible blow in his friend's ribs with an elbow to attract the latter's attention, he handed to Knight, and in dumb show requested him to peruse the same. Which Knight, feeling no interest whatever in Caesar's doings in Gaul, and having, in consequence, a good deal of time on his hands, proceeded to do. The cutting was headed "Disgraceful Fracas", and was written in the ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... on, and he, too, caught sight of the exquisite design. He looked quickly at Patty, and, in dumb show, begged her not to sell the garment. Nor had she any intention of doing so. The moment she saw it, she wanted it for herself, and began hastily to fold it back in ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... length charge is excessive. Committee thought Irish Members might be left to look after that for themselves. Howled at ALPHEUS continuously for space of ten minutes; then he sat down, moving reduction in dumb show. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... puts up with his hoax and his lady-loss with a good grace; for he flourished about his never-absent pocket-handkerchief with one hand, shook hands with Miss Fringe with the other, stepped forward, did some more dumb show to the dissentients, and, with the rest of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... laughter drowned his further remarks, but he continued in dumb show, with fervid gesticulations, and a mouth that moved rapidly but produced no sound, concluding with a humble bow; and stalked back to his chair with stately dignity, unmarred by even the semblance of a ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... showed their hospitality in an original way. First, when one of the congregation went forward to the chancel railing and received from the priest the triple kiss of peace, which he then proceeded to communicate to another person, who passed it on in dumb show, and so on through the whole assembly, neither men nor women would run the risk of offending us by offering the simulated kiss. Secondly, and more peculiar, besides throwing light on their motives in omitting the kiss, they deliberately passed us by when ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... saw this sooner than any one; and, although all his previous orders had been carried out in dumb show, from our now having the wind with us to waft his voice forward, he once more managed to ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... The audience were politely impressed, and the heavy villain did a bit of dumb show with the leading serious, which only needed to have been a trifle ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... greater than Solomon typically denounced in foretelling the overthrow of that gorgeous pile. The Bible, as to its important verities and solemn doctrine, is transparent to the imagination and affections, and does not require the mediation of dumb show ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... triumph of expectation would exceed his control, when he would spring from the floor, and caper and strut about like a pigeon—soft as a shadow, for he knew his father could not bear noise in the morning—or behind his back execute a pantomimic dumb show of delight, in which he seemed with difficulty to restrain himself from jumping upon him, and hugging him in his ecstasy. Oh, best of parents! working thus even on a Sunday for his Gibbie, when everybody else was at church enjoying himself! But Gibbie never dared hug ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and as we rose to do them homage, they still presented the same surface to the view. Not being bona-fide representations of living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... three lectures in the morning. But the work in the library was a mere dumb show of research. He sat with many volumes open before him trying to make notes and extracts. His new tranquillity was like a flimsy garment, and seemed to float at the mercy of a casual word. Betrayal! Why! the fellow had done all that was necessary ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... plays he has introduced the encounter or the marshalling of hostile forces. "Alarums and excursions" is with him a very frequent stage direction; and as much may be said of "they fight," or "exeunt fighting." Combats and the clash of arms he obviously did not count as "inexplicable dumb show and noise." He was conscious, however, that the battles of the stage demanded a very large measure of faith on the part of the spectators. Of necessity they were required to "make believe" a good deal. In the prologue to "Henry V." especial apology is advanced for the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the teacher's desk, appealing in dumb show for order. A plunging horse tipped the desk over and the minister went down among the prancing legs. In a moment he was up, and again he raised both hands in a plea for silence. Douglas, laughing gaily, twirled his lariat, and pinioned the two pleading ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... sorrow: but a silent one; for they spoke only by their eyes, and by sighs, looking upon the lid, and upon one another, by turns, with hands lifted up. The presence of their young master possibly might awe them, and cause their grief to be expressed only in dumb show. ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Mr. Peregrin, Spy, our very learned agent and intelligencer, I have seen the world a little, Venice, and (as gentlemen are permitted to do) the great Council balloting. And truly I must needs say, that it is for a dumb show the goodliest that I ever beheld with my eyes. You should have some would take it ill, as if the noble Venetians thought themselves too good to speak to strangers, but they observed them not so narrowly. The truth is, they ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the next triumph: her acting was that of a triumphant fiend. I must follow these recollections no further; but the most admirable piece of dumb show that perhaps ever was conceived, was her "Banquet scene." That scene, from the terrible business on the stage—the entrance of Banquo's ghost, the horrors of Macbeth, stricken in the moment of his royal exultation, and the astonishment and alarm of the courtiers—is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... girls sang snatches of songs, and bits of old familiar airs, with no accompaniment but the roar and rattle around, their voices unheard save when some high-pitched note was struck; and others found odd moments when by lip-signs and dumb show they communicated with ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... "A Challenge for Beauty": and for all its simple grace of writing and ingenuous ingenuity of plot it may not improbably be best remembered by the average modern reader as remarkable for the most amusing and astonishing example on record of anything but "inexplicable" dumb show—to be paralleled only and hardly by a similar interlude of no less elaborate arrangement and significant eccentricity in the sole dramatic venture of Henri de ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the Greeks held that dancing awakened and preserved in the soul—as I do not doubt that it does—the sentiment of harmony and proportion; and in accordance with this idea Simonides, with a happy knack at epigram, defined dances as "poems in dumb show." ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... was not contented with this dumb show, eloquent as it was. As the crowd parted and these two imposing figures took their way down the steps to the carriage which had been sent for them, Mr. Sutherland cast one deep and long glance about him on faces he knew and on ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... soon put an end to this dumb show, by walking into the bed-room, when the girl escaped, and he shut the door. Barry sat up in his bed, rubbed his eyes, and stared at him, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... rather rough; for here I find they come in very usefully. I had to teach my boy how to cook and do things generally. It was rather an amusing piece of work, seeing that I knew nothing of the language. Each order I gave him was a comedy in two or three acts, all played out in dumb show. In telling him what I wished purchased I was obliged to imitate sounds which are peculiar to certain beasts and birds, which when he understood, he announced that fact by opening wide his eyes and emitting ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... "Yes, you may really eat it." For, in the excitement of carrying out her deed, she had forgotten her previous thought that the stranger would not be deaf, and had fallen into her habitual alternative of dumb show and shouting. ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground. Then, on the motion—made in dumb show—of Doctor Parker Peps, they went upstairs; the family practitioner opening the room door for that distinguished professional, and following him out, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Earl, who is evidently ready with a neat little speech which shall sum the applause that never comes, is disconcerted at this unwonted stillness. You might hear a pin fall as the old gentleman, in dumb show, places the certificate into the boy's hand and tries to get at the words which the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... on "the harrican deck," he would pitch him overboard. The next day Billy appeared whilst Aaron, off duty, was strolling up and down outside the pilot-house, and strolled offensively in his wake. Never a hostile glance or a word from Aaron. At last, tired of dumb show, Billy broke forth with a torrent of imprecation closing with "When are you going to pitch me off the boat, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... soon gone and we were left in ignorance of the situation. We knew only approximately the direction of the living enemy and the dead spoke to us only in dumb show, telling us unspeakable things about the ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... (Willing to have him pacified,) "You are above the rest endued With beauty and with magnitude; Your neck the em'rald's gloss outvies, And what a blaze of gemmeous dies Shines from the plumage of your tail!" "All this dumb show will not avail," Cries he, "if I'm surpass'd in voice." "The fates entirely have the choice Of all the lots—fair form is yours; The eagle's strength his prey secures; The nightingale can sing an ode; The crow and raven may ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... looking no bigger than flocks of birds feeding. And here came another steamboat—and yonder another! The very drift logs, so countlessly frequent, vast trees from vast forests, some of them not yet dead, told to her sobering mind in tragic dumb show as they came gliding and plunging by, the age-long drama of their rise, decline, and fall. Unbrokenly green, yes, forever the one same green, were the low willow and cottonwood jungles of the creeping shores; but ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... another when she was alive. Her things and mine was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha'n't cheat me out of 'em altogether. If I can't look at 'em wet Sundays, and shake 'em out, and have a good cry over 'em, I'll make 'em up into a kind of dumb show that will mean something to me, if it ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... pantomime of courteous surprise—What! she did not wish to be assisted?—and set the vessel on a high ledge, whence she had much ado to lift it down. As she did so, splash! half the water was spilled: then her tormentor went through a dumb show of sympathy and sorrow until the crone seemed like to burst with fury. At last he broke into a fit of shrill laughter, the first sound he had uttered, made a macaronic gesture, and capered off with the airiest gambols ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... was to hold in state, accompanied by his bodyguard, as when I was first presented to him. In the afternoon we proceeded to court accordingly, but found it scantily attended; and after the first sitting, which was speedily over, retired to another court, and saw the women. Of this dumb show the king soon got tired; he therefore called for his iron chair, and entered into conversation, at first about the ever-engrossing subject of stimulants, till we changed it by asking him how he liked the gun? He pronounced ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... weltering in their blood, proclaimed the growing deadly accuracy of the fire on either side. The pandemonium of sound was such that the human voice could no longer make itself heard, and the officers on the bridges were obliged to give their orders in dumb show. Even the shrieks of the wounded went unheard in that hellish babel of sound. As the distance between the contending ships decreased one began to realise the terrific character of the forces employed by man for the destruction of his fellow-man, for now it could be seen that the Tsarevich, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... a rising wind. Wait shook his head; rolled his eyes; he denied, cursed, threatened—and not a word had the strength to pass beyond the sorrowful pout of those black lips. It was incomprehensible and disturbing; a gibberish of emotions, a frantic dumb show of speech pleading for impossible things, promising a shadowy vengeance. It sobered Donkin into a ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... arm. I had left it, as you know, in the boat, and had heard no order given; but the boat I never saw again, and here was my bombardon. Hadji Hamid took it in both hands, felt it all over, patted it, and ended by turning it over to me and calling in dumb show for a tune. I tell you, my performance was a success. At the first blast he leaned back suddenly in his chair; at the second he turned a kind of purple under his yellow skin; but at the third he caught hold of his stomach and began to roll in his ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Chicago to Elkhart is something of an autocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back up to a car. None the less he handled the "Constance" as if she might have been a load of dynamite, and when the crew rebuked him, they did it in whispers and dumb show. ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... clasped his hands, then extended his arms, then stood with them folded as in deep thought; now he snatched up his portfolio as if to draw what so much enchanted him, then threw it down and kicked it from him as if in despair. I never saw such admirable dumb show: it was better than any pantomime. At length, however, he happened to cast up his eyes, as if appealing to heaven, and they encountered mine peeping down upon him from above. He stood fixed and motionless for two seconds, staring at me, and then snatching up his portfolio and his ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... place of great and enduring moment, a kind of prologue, on a small scale, sometimes anticipates the true opening of the drama; like the first drops which give notice of the coming storm, or as if the shadows of the reality were projected forwards into the future, and imitated in dumb show the movements of the real actors ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... could only point to his untouched plate and to the waves dashing against the portholes, and with that shrug of the shoulders, so suggestive to witness but so difficult to describe, would thus in dumb show explain the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... caught glimpses of him going through the dumb show of "Social Culture in the Smart Set," and her wondering soul was filled with astonishment at his amazing evolutions. She found it in her heart to speak of it to Mrs. Betty and Maxwell, and ask for their interpretation of ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... men met and seemed to have a heated argument, bitter and passionate on one side, studiously scornful on the other. This was all in dumb show. Not a word did I hear. My amazed wits were fully taken up with noting their clothes, their postures, the trappings of the horses, the eighteenth century aspect of the library. Strange, is it not, I did ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... and here I must digress awhile, and like a raw notary's clerk, enter my feeble protest against the tame and unimpressive manner in which that supernatural personage is permitted to make his appearance. It should seem that our managers reserve all their decorations for the inexplicable dumb show of the Wood Daemon (that diphthong is my delight), the Castle Spectre, &c. &c. The Bleeding Nun in Raymond and Agnes is ushered in with a pre-scent-iment of blue flame and brimstone. Angela's mother advances in a minuet step, to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... nervousness that alone prevented his willing hands acting with their natural cleverness. I felt a choking in my throat, when I saw the thin, pale little face, that should have been on the pillow hours before, lighted up with triumph as the supposed guests departed; the dumb show of folding the dinner napkins belonging to myself and the master, and putting them in their respective rings, told us the ordeal was over. What a weird scene it was,—the dim light, the silent house, the spread table, and the empty ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... from Moliere's Tartuffe, and what audience would bear its mere stage-business? Imagine the scene in which Iago poisons Othello's mind against Desdemona, conveyed in dumb show. What becomes of the difference between Shakespeare and Sheridan Knowles in the film? Or between Shakespeare's Lear and any one else's Lear? No, it seems to me that all the interest lies in the new opening for the mass of dramatic talent formerly disabled ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... purchases were being put up, an awkward silence prevailed, which the oil-suits hanging on the walls, broadly displaying their arms and legs, seemed to mock, in dumb show. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... a little child, asleep. The woman looked up toward the beam of the ceiling. One moment she would weep and the next she would stroke the child. When the soldier looked more closely, there was the ghost sitting up on the beam. She had passed the rope around her neck and was hanging herself in dumb show. And whenever she beckoned with her hand the woman looked up toward her. This went on for ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... speak, still you said to him very plainly and enthusiastically in dumb show, "Hello! you in town? Awful glad to see you, old fellow; when did you get back?" Concealed in your actions was what you have called "a misleading reservation of an explanatory fact" —the act that you had never seen him before. You ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and postures, and comes to rest leaning over a high chair, whence, in dumb show, he addresses a gathering. CRICHTON, with the best intentions, gives him a footstool to stand on, and departs, happily unconscious that ERNEST in some dudgeon has kicked the footstool across ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... afterwards upon the question whether the art of miming, one of the two main elements of the ballet, is or can be serviceable to the ordinary stage. Several seemed to have the opinion that the art of dumb show is almost useless to the player, the argument being that, as far at least as modern comedies are concerned, so little gesture is used on the stage that training in the mode of employing it is superfluous. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... You and I have the misfortune to belong to a social 'strattum' which is trampled flat and hard beneath the feet of the landowners. Mr. Cullen rises to such a point of fury that one dreads the consequences—to himself. Already the chairman is on his feet, intimating in dumb show that the allowed ten minutes have elapsed; there is no making the orator hear. At length his friend who sits by him fairly grips his coat-tails and brings him to a sitting posture, amid mirthful tumult. Mr. Cullen joins in the mirth, looks as though ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... excitement. One of the iron rules of the House of Commons is that the Speaker cannot leave the chair until a motion for the adjournment of the House has been carried. This is always proposed by the senior Government Whip. The motion is usually carried in dumb show, and with that mumble in which business is carried through in the House when there is no opposition. But it is one of the ancient and time-honoured privileges of the House of Commons to raise almost any question on the motion for the adjournment ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... She turned her head slightly back, and seemed to put a question—with her lips only. He replied in the same manner. A light rushed into her face and vanished. But not a feature moved and not a word had been spoken. Neither of her companions had seen the dumb show, and her friend stood where he was till they had left the house. Malcolm stood also, much inclined to follow him when he went, but, his attention having been attracted for a moment in another direction, when he looked again he ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... turning up the land in the valley as quiet as bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and told Dravot in dumb show what it was about. 'That's just the beginning,' says Dravot. 'They think we're Gods.' He and Carnehan picks out twenty good men and shows them how to click off a rifle, and form fours, and advance in line, and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see the hang of it. Then he takes out his ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... in this respect, they ventured to use their lips without sound—to speak, as it were, in dumb show—and the contortions of visage thus ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... he intends to support you," broke in Olympia, washing her hands over again in dumb show, and drawing in her breath till it hissed through her white teeth, as if a snake had crept ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... in her grandest proportions, and made a courtesy which was nothing less than a triumph of polite satire in dumb show. Sir Patrick answered by a profound bow and a smile which said, eloquently, "I believe every word of that charming ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... drew from a deep side-pocket a loaded revolver; but the hand of his companion was laid quickly upon his arm, and his lips, in dumb show, ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... native has shown, has been while hunting after a successful shot. The paddlers at once re-enact the scene, put imaginary guns to their shoulders give a loud bang and then describe circles with their hands to give a dumb show of the bird falling, laughing and shouting all the time. They are really just like young children and are easily pleased by trifles. After walking some distance the sergeant becomes wildly excited and clutches me violently by the arm but makes no noise. Looking up I see a large monkey but signify ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... Duval penitent. His wife in his arms. The young lady conveying in dumb show how platonic has been her attachment, of which, nevertheless, she seems a little ashamed. The sheriff benignant; the turnkeys amused; the comic servant, obviously in liquor, brandishing his fiddlestick, and the orchestra ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... calling out to him what sections are next required. Sachs then declares that this is indeed a master-song, and will win Walther the prize he so much desires; he and Walther go off to attire themselves for the contest, and Beckmesser limps in. In dumb show he describes his aches and pains and shows how he is thinking of his thrashing of the night before; and what he does not say the orchestra says very plainly for him. There is far too much of it—for English tastes, at any rate—before ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... the stage,(26) not only compelled the actor to exert his voice unduly, but drove Livius to the highly inartistic but inevitable expedient of having the portions which were to be sung performed by a singer not belonging to the staff of actors, and accompanied by the mere dumb show of the actor within whose part they fell. As little were the givers of the Roman festivals disposed to put themselves to material expense for decorations and machinery. The Attic stage regularly presented a street with ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... rise, Where the old Romans' deathless acts displayed, Their base, degenerate progeny upbraid: 80 Whole rivers here forsake the fields below, And wondering at their height through airy channels flow. Still to new scenes my wandering Muse retires, And the dumb show of breathing rocks admires; Where the smooth chisel all its force has shown, And softened into flesh the rugged stone. In solemn silence, a majestic band, Heroes, and gods, and Roman consuls stand; Stern tyrants, whom their cruelties renown, And emperors in Parian marble frown; 90 While the bright ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville |
