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Insensible   /ɪnsˈɛnsəbəl/   Listen
Insensible

adjective
1.
Incapable of physical sensation.  "Insensible earth"
2.
Unaware of or indifferent to.  Synonym: unaffected.
3.
Barely able to be perceived.  Synonyms: indiscernible, undetectable.  "An almost insensible change"
4.
Unresponsive to stimulation.  Synonym: senseless.  "Drugged and senseless"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Insensible" Quotes from Famous Books



... scarcely visible, resounded the neighing of horses, barking and the clucking of fowl,—the last signs of animal life before it sank to rest. That primitive man felt an impression of emptiness amid the Nature which was insensible and blind to the sufferings of its creatures. Of what concern to the points of light that looked down upon him from above could be that which he was now going through?... All creatures were equal; the beasts that disturbed ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... believe it, Mr. Boswick, and I'll have your hands free in a jiffy, and then you can climb the ladder to the deck, and we will go ashore in the boat. The two British guards are insensible, and ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox

... had elapsed. Loops of thread weighing one-fourth of a grain, left suspended on the lower petioles (f to l) during several days, produced no effect. Yet the three petioles f, g, and h were not quite insensible, for when left in contact with a stick for a day or two they slowly curled round it. Thus the sensibility of the petiole gradually diminishes from the tendril-like extremity to the base. The internodes of the stem are not at all sensitive, which makes Mohl's statement that ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... leave for ever of that glorious luminary; I raised one pious aspiration to the divine source of light and life; I was immediately stunned by the thunder of the fall, and my eyes were closed in darkness. How long I remained insensible I know not. My first recollections after this accident were of a bright light shining above me, of warmth and pressure in different parts of my body, and of the noise of the rushing cataract sounding in my ears. I seemed awakened by the light from a sound sleep, and endeavoured to recall my scattered ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... is nothing to say, for all the fishermen seem insensible to fear. He was only once scared, and that was when he found a man leaning against the boat one pitch-dark night, just after the fishers had hauled. Joe thought the fellow was loafing, so he hit him a clout on the head, and made very uncomplimentary remarks. ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... everything necessary for our journey, such as Arabian habits, and red caps, calicoes, and other trifles to make presents of to the inhabitants, and taking leave of our friends, as men going to a speedy death, for we were not insensible of the dangers we were likely to encounter, amongst horrid deserts, impassable mountains, and barbarous nations, we left Goa on the 26th day of January in the year 1624, in a Portuguese galliot that was ordered to set us ashore at Pate, where we landed without any disaster in eleven days, ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... priest, when questioned on the subject, was to reply that he had acted on Montholon's orders, without having any knowledge of the Emperor's wishes. It was accordingly administered, but apparently he was insensible at the time.[589] In his will, also, he declared that he died in communion with the Apostolical Roman Church, in whose bosom he was born. There, then, we must leave this question, shrouded in the mystery that hangs around so much of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... are carefully recorded" qualitative and quantitative analyses of the excretions,—estimates of "the amount of insensible perspiration, and of expired carbonic acid,—the quickness of respiration,—the beats of the pulse,—together with accurate notes of the duration of bodily exercise in the open air, the loss of weight of the whole body, the general ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... that, in a certain English family, lethargy seemed to have become hereditary. The first case was exhibited in an old lady who remained for fifteen days in an immovable and insensible state, and who afterward, on regaining her consciousness, lived for quite a long time. Warned by this fact, the family preserved a young man for several weeks who appeared to be dead, but who came to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... kept excellent discipline, for not a man of them entered the inn, though their lips were caked with dust and they were ready to drop with fatigue. Those who had knocked at the door were bearing an insensible comrade, and having left him they returned at once to the ranks. Several others were carried in in the same fashion and laid in the kitchen, while a young surgeon, little more than a boy, remained behind in ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... rural education. At present country children are educated as if for the purpose of driving them into the towns. To the pleasure which the cultured city man feels in the country—because he has been taught to feel it—the country child is insensible. The country offers continual interest to the mind which has been trained to be thoughtful and observant; the town offers continual distraction to the vacant eye and brain. Yet, the education given to country children ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett

... though a storm were rising within her. She thought of the Professor's little feast prepared so carefully, the flowers, the high-backed chair standing ready for the guest who never came. She could not bear to imagine his disappointment. How could Anna be so blind, so insensible? All her hard feelings towards her returned, and they were the more intense because she could speak of them to no one—a storm without the relief of thunder. She had a half-dread of her next meeting with Mr Goodwin, for with this resentment in her heart it would be difficult ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton

... avenging God who would punish me in some terrible way.... At nineteen, I had an attack of tonsilitis. Before I had quite recovered, I heard told a story of a brute who had kicked his wife down-stairs, and then continued the operation until she became insensible. I felt the horror of the thing keenly. Instantly this thought flashed through my mind: 'I have no use for a God who permits such things.' This experience was followed by months of stoical indifference to the God of my previous ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... only add, as practical proof that the rebels, even in their most rabid state, were not insensible to the force of proper "reasons," the following anecdote: Some officers of one of the black regiments—Colonel Higginson's, we believe—indiscreetly rode beyond our lines around St. Augustine in pursuit of game, but whether feathered ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... of which work I am not ignorant what it is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own weakness to sustain my purpose. But my hope is, that if my extreme love to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection; for that "It is not granted to man to love and to be wise." But I know well I can use no other ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... Miss Sophonisba was in the kitchen making preparations for tea, she was startled by a scream from her sister in the next room, succeeded by the sound of a heavy fall. She hurried into the work-room. Miss Faithful lay on the floor quite insensible. It was some time before her sister's anxious exertions were rewarded by signs of returning animation. When at last she opened her eyes, she burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... foreseen was now advancing with almost tropical rapidity. The whole surface of the sea had been dulled from its conspicuous brightness to an ugly hue of corrugated lead; already in the distance the white waves, the 'skipper's daughters,' had begun to flee before a breeze that was still insensible on Aros; and already along the curve of Sandag Bay there was a splashing run of sea that I could hear from where I stood. The change upon the sky was even more remarkable. There had begun to arise out of the south-west a huge and solid continent of scowling cloud; here and there, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... death to feel much intimidated at its approach! He was attended to the place of execution by a Roman Catholic Priest, who it was said labored to convince him of the atrociousness of his crimes, but he seemed deaf to all admonition or exhortation, and appeared insensible to the hope of happiness or fear of torment in a future state—and so far from exhibiting a single symptom of penitence, declared that he knew of but one thing for which he had cause to reproach himself, which was in sparing my life and not ordering me to be ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... other side of the fireplace, as she cosily established herself on her little bench at one corner with her letter: he had the magazine. Mrs. Rossitur between them at the table, with her one candle, was already insensible to all ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... came closer, I observed that he was entirely quiet, and had sunk out of view. Quick as thought I mounted up into the wreck, and then I saw the boy with a rope tangled round his leg, and lying quite insensible. Underneath him another man was lying, much mutilated, and evidently quite dead. As I was mounting up, a wave washed in under the wreck, but I escaped with only a little spray flying over me, which, however, did not ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... me honor, Monsieur," he said: "it has been my good fortune to cross the Col with many brave gentlemen and fair ladies—and in two instances with princes." (Though a sturdy republican, Pierre was not insensible to worldly rank.) "The pious monks know me well; and they who enter the convent are not the worse received for being my companions. I shall be glad to lead so fair a party from our cold valley into the sunny glens of Italy, for, if the truth must be spoken, nature has placed us on the wrong ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... finished, Napoleon, visibly affected, embraced Josephine, took her hand, and led her back to her apartments, where he soon left her insensible in the arms of her children. [Footnote: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat," ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... not insensible of the advantages of freedom. [70] From his studies he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on the caprice of a tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... endowed certain birds with power to endure the severest cold, and with the faculty of providing for their wants at a time when it would seem that there was not sustenance enough among the hidden stores of the season to keep them from starvation. The woodman, however insensible he may be to the charms of all such objects, is gladdened and encouraged in his toils by the sight of these sprightly creatures, some of which, like the Jay and the Woodpecker, are adorned with the most beautiful plumage, and are all pleasantly garrulous, filling the otherwise silent woods ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... but certain conclusions I feel in my bones will stand the test of an exhaustive criticism. The first is that a distinction will be drawn between what I would call "interesting work" and what I would call "mere labour." The two things, I admit, pass by insensible gradations into one another, but while on the one hand such work as being a master gardener and growing roses, or a master cabinet maker and making fine pieces, or an artist of almost any sort, or ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... little woman treated them as if she had known them twenty years. Jeanne was haunted by the fear that she would not again experience the strange shock she had felt in Julien's arms beside the fountain, and when they were alone in their room she was still afraid his kisses would again leave her insensible, but she was soon reassured, and that was her first night of love. The next day she could hardly bear to leave this humble abode, where a new happiness had come to her; she drew her host's little wife into her bedroom, and told her she ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... who, he said, enjoyed an excellent reputation. I was quick to notice that the two men had met before, and as I sat in the chair and gas was given to me I saw them exchange meaning glances. In a few moments I became insensible, but when I awoke an hour later I was astounded to feel a curious soreness in my ears. My tongue, too, seemed paralyzed, and in a few moments the awful truth dawned upon me. I had been rendered deaf ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... means that they do the business for which scavengers are employed. Vultures are very greedy and ravenous; they will often eat so much that they are not able to move or fly, but sit quite stupidly and insensible. One of them will often, at a single meal, devour the entire body of an albatross (bones and all), which is a bird nearly as large as the vulture itself. They will smell a dead carcass at a very great distance, and will soon ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... morasses, or deserts of barren sands. We have not any authority to say, with some learned and ingenious authors, that there were no mountains on the original earth, no unevennesses on its surface, yet it is highly probable that they rose and fell, by almost insensible degrees. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... affected my companion; she seemed as insensible to the grey solemnity, the dim mystery of the wood, as she had been to the vivid glory of the sea. She slipped a little velvet hand into mine, and when we drew near to ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... she asks; "where is he? what is his extent? what are his wishes? what his powers? what his promises?"—and here, in the light of analysis, all the divinities of heaven, earth, and hell are reduced to an incorporeal, insensible, immovable, incomprehensible, undefinable I-know-not-what; in short, to a negation of all the attributes of existence. In fact, whether man attributes to each object a special spirit or genius, or conceives the universe as governed by a single power, he in either case but SUPPOSES ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... loving, reconciling effort had done its work. Letty could not be insensible to such a flattery, a compliment so unexpected, so bewildering—the heart of a Marcella Maxwell poured out to her for the taking. She neither felt it so profoundly, nor so delicately as hundreds of ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... girl with a brilliant future on the stage discovered by her friend, Mrs. Boncour, in convulsions—practically insensible—with a bottle of headache-powder and a jar of ammonia on her dressing-table. Mrs. Boncour sends the maid for the nearest doctor, who happens to be a Dr. Waterworth. Meanwhile she tries to restore ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... present there is a slight beard, always shaved. Two beauty spots, black and velvety, on my left cheek, contrast with my blue eyes. My nose is thin and straight, with delicate nostrils and a slight, almost insensible curve. My voice is gentle, and people always regret that I have not learned to sing." This description is noteworthy as a detailed portrait of a sexual invert of a certain type; the whole ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Constance Grandison Doubtless, like all of her race, she might have chosen amid the wealthiest of the Catholic nobles and gentry one who would have been proud to have mingled his life with hers; but, with a soul not insensible to the splendid accidents of existence, she yielded her heart to one who could repay the rich sacrifice only with devotion. His poverty, his pride, his dangerous and hereditary gift of beauty, his mournful life, his illustrious lineage, his reserved and romantic mind, had at once attracted ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... should not see it; but it was of no use, for the King stepped upon tiptoes and looked over his shoulder; and as soon as he saw the portrait of the maiden, which was so beautiful and glittered with precious stones, he fell down on the ground insensible. The faithful John lifted him up and carried him to his bed, and thought with great concern, "Mercy on us! the misfortune has happened; what will come of it?" and he gave the young King wine until he came to himself. The first words he spoke were, ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... pretend to be insensible to such feelings and beliefs. Supposing the daughter could be won, there was no doubt whatever that Richard Boyce would be a cross and burden to a Raeburn son-in-law. But then! After all! Love for once made philosophy easy—made ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... would stay there, motionless, breathing in unheedingly the damp earthly scent in the air, her mind to all appearance an unintelligent blank, for the ceaseless burden of sorrow humming in her brain left her deaf to earth's harmonies and insensible to the delights ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... kind people come here before," he said to himself, "at that time when I needed them—when each kind word would have been of great advantage to me? Now I am as insensible as a stone—now it is ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... got him into the bed, nothing was omitted that they could think of to bring him to himself, but still he continued utterly insensible for about six hours. At the sixth hour's end he began to move a little, and in a very short time was so far recovered, to the great astonishment of everybody about him, that he was able to look up, and to make a sign to his sister to bring him ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe

... touched the ground she leaped nimbly from the chassis and sped over the burning desert floor to the side of the recumbent wayfarer. A second later Roy and Jess joined her. Very tenderly they turned the insensible man upon his back and dashed the water ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... of despair, precipitated himself into the empty air and came fluttering down like a wounded bird, to fall insensible into the arms that for the moment saved him from death or mutilation. An instant later there was a shriek from the negligent nurse, and the man- at-arms ran along the battlements, a bolt on his cross-bow which he feared to launch at the flying abductor, for in the speeding ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... pleased to find that Florida loved something, hoping that in time he might gain the place not of husband but of lover. He had no fear in regard to her virtue, but was rather afraid lest she should be insensible to love. After this conversation he began to consort with the son of the Infante of Fortune, and readily gained his favour, being well skilled in all the pastimes that the young Prince was fond of, especially in the handling of horses, in the practice of all kinds of weapons, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... bton lev; mais Tamango, les bras croiss, et comme insensible, retournait tranquillement sa place, tandis qu'Aych, fondant en larmes, ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen

... in the shadow of the fluttering violet arc light, with her eyes fastened to the silent, insensible windows. Ten minutes that seemed ten eternities went lagging by. Tears of disappointment rose to Patricia's eyes and she shivered as the gusts of west wind flung the drops from the saturated trees in a silver shower across ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... horrid trophy of my vengeance; there were the dull, staring eyes, the distorted features, and drops of wine oozed from between the set teeth. With a long, loud shriek, her ladyship fell to the ground insensible; muttering fierce curses on me, the Captain turned to raise her, and profiting by the opportunity, I escaped from the cellar and fled from the house. Making the best of my way to the 'Jolly Thieves,' in St. Giles, I sought safety and concealment ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... sprang, hosts will sit mute through a meal and think naught of it. But Mr. and Mrs. Spatt were of different stuff. All these five appeared to be in serious need of conversation pills. Only Mr. Ziegler beheld his companions with a satisfied equanimity that was insensible to spiritual suffering. Happily at the most acute moments the gentle night wind, meandering slowly from the east across leagues of North Sea, would induce in one or another a sneeze which gave some semblance of vitality and vigour ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... blow at the mother-heart of this friendless girl. The biographer says, "We may not infer from this that Harriet did not feel"—why put it in, then?— "but we learn that those about her could believe her to be hard and insensible." Who were those who were about her? Her husband? He hated her now, because he was in love elsewhere. Her sister? Of course that is not charged. Peacock? Peacock does not testify. The wet-nurse? She does not testify. If any others were there we have no mention of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Closer drew the encircling arms, more breathlessly the red lips pressed his. He struggled for breath, and fought to tear away the dimpled arms. The music of Glory's voice rose into unspeakable tumult, the warm pressure of Precious' arms rendered him powerless. He fell insensible, and two days later ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... of Isfendiyar now arrived, and pointed out to him the chamber of Arjasp, to which place he immediately repaired, and roused up the king, who was almost insensible with the fumes of wine. Arjasp, however, sprang ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... Heyst uttered no word of recognition or surprise. He gave Davidson only a dumb look of unutterable awe, then, as if possessed with a sudden fury, started tearing open the front of the girls dress. She remained insensible under his hands, and Heyst let out a groan which made Davidson shudder inwardly the heavy plaint of a man who ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... in the human heart, strange, varying strings, which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch. In the most insensible or childish minds there is some train of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the discoverer has the plainest and simplest end ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... watched the oncoming blindness of old Mr. Bronte. These months of 1846 during which, let us remember, Emily was writing 'Wuthering Heights,' must have been the heaviest and dreariest of her days; it was during their weary course that she at last perceived how utterly hopeless, how insensible to good, must be the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... last quoted letter to Mr. Cave concludes with a fair confession that he had not a dinner; and it is no less remarkable, that, though in this state of want himself, his benevolent heart was not insensible to the necessities of an humble labourer in literature, as appears ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... Keeper otherwise than as the most ignoble of mankind. Yet the intellect of Guildford was clear, his industry great, his proficiency in letters and science respectable, and his legal learning more than respectable. His faults were selfishness, cowardice, and meanness. He was not insensible to the power of female beauty, nor averse from excess in wine. Yet neither wine nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine, even in his earliest youth, into one fit of indiscreet generosity. Though of noble descent, he rose in his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to drink wine, became intoxicated. The wily magician, for such in fact was his pretended friend, watching his opportunity, infused into the goblet of his unsuspecting host a certain potent drug, which Mazin had scarcely drunk oft, when he fell back upon his cushion totally insensible, the treacherous wizard tumbled him into a large chest, and shutting the lid, locked it. He then ransacked the apartments of the house of every thing portable worth having, which, with the gold, he put into another chest, then fetching in porters, he made them take up the chests and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... near the yacht that there was no necessity for lowering the gig as we had hastened to do; and in a very little time we hauled them on board—Rollo jumping about in the highest spirits, as if he had been just having a quiet lark on his own account; but the rescued person was limp and insensible, though he presently came to by the aid of hot-water bottles and blankets. The Moonshine then made another start, and succeeded better in anchoring in a respectable fashion, as she had ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... plunged in barbarism and despotism, and the light of science or religion rarely penetrated into the interior. The monarchs were sensual and cruel, the nobles profligate and rapacious, the clergy ignorant and corrupt, and the people degraded, and yet insensible to their degradation, with no aspirations for freedom and no appreciation of the benefits of civilization. Such heroes as Peter and Gustavus Adolphus had not yet appeared. Nor were these northern nations destined to be immediately ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... insensible, but his weight and the squareness of his bulk made it a strenuous task to support him and at the same time remove his coat. Only a man of Wilson's size and prodigious strength could have accomplished the feat in anything like the time required, and both he and Watkins were purple and breathless ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... monarchs who intended to have domiciliated taste in the kingdom, and it might have been conjectured from this unfortunate prince, who so finely discriminated the manners of the different painters, which are in fact their handwritings, that he would not have been insensible to the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... rushed past him towards the settlement, unheeding his call to stop and explain the cause of this excitement. On the very outskirts of the crowd Almayer found himself arrested by an unyielding mass of humanity, regardless of his entreaties for a passage, insensible to his gentle pushes as he tried to work his way through it towards ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... it concerns men only I am not insensible to the appeal. Far be it from me to blame Mr. Williams for the follies and malignancies of his Christian predecessors. On a question of character, of merit or demerit, every man stands or falls alone. Imputed wickedness is just ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... old hypocrite that ever paced a metropolitan kerb. "Love, you young dogs,'' he seems to croak, "Love is the one thing worth living for! Enjoy your present, rooks and all, as I do!'' Why, indeed, should he alone be insensible to the golden influence of the hour? More than one supple waist (alas! for universal masculine frailty!) has been circled by that tattered sleeve in days gone by; a throbbing heart once beat where sodden straw now fails to give a manly ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... Philip in actions, you in words. If you are still satisfied with using the better arguments, it is an easy matter, and there is no trouble: but if we are to take measures for the correction of these evils, to prevent their insensible progress, and the rising up of a mighty power, against which we could have no defense, then our course of deliberation is not the same as formerly; the orators, and you that hear them, must prefer good and salutary counsels to those ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... it away. But now came a cloud which swallowed every other in my firmament. The next morning brought a letter from my aunt, telling me that my uncle had had a stroke, as she called it, and at that moment was lying insensible. I put my affairs in order at once, and Charley saw me ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... strange, misshapen, fish-like being, one of the servants of Prospero in The Tempest. He was the son of a foul witch who had potent ministers and could control moon and tides, but could not undo her own hateful sorceries, and who worshiped a god called Setebos. Morally, Shakspere's Caliban was insensible to kindness, had bestial passions, was cowardly, vengeful, superstitious. He had keen animal instincts and knew the island well. He understood Prospero in some measure; learned to talk, to know the stars, to compose poetry, and took ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... quickly. The old planter enjoyed seeing his daughters have so happy a time, and he was not insensible to the charm of his hostess' conversation, for Mrs. Spangler had studied carefully the art of ingratiating ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... good man then, sixteen days on the quarter-deck without going below; insensible to ice or fever or weariness. He had been autocratic, too; and had his boy servant carrying areca nuts, chunam and tobacco in two silk bags, another with a fan and a third holding an umbrella. Such things were all over now, he understood, in ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... which Mr. Bourne had seen her sitting. The empty bottle for medicine in her hand told him that she had not gone upon her errand. She was insensible and cold. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... certain modifications to German, though the almost entire loss of Old German poetry and the comparatively late date of Middle make the process less striking and more obscure, and the greater talent of the individual imitators of French interferes more with the process of insensible shaping and growth. German prosody, despite the charm of its lyric measures, has never acquired the perfect combination of freedom and order which we find in English, as may be seen by comparing the best blank verse of ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... the slightest mechanical jar be given to the wooden frame of the microphone, to the table, or even to the walls of the room in which the experiment takes place, a corresponding noise will be heard in the microphone. By this delicate arrangement we can play the eavesdropper on those insensible vibrations in the midst of which we exist. If a feather or a camel-hair pencil be stroked along the base-board, we hear a harsh grating sound; if a pin be laid upon it, we hear a blow like a blacksmith's hammer; and, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... of danger and anxiety, was still rent by factions, and neglected her last chance of organizing her forces to resist the common enemy. Never was a city more insensible of its doom. Three distinct parties were at war with each other, shedding each others' blood, reckless of all consequences, callous, fierce, desperate. At length the army of Titus advanced to the siege of the sacred city, still strong and ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... he was not insensible to the merits of another and more peremptory style of rhetoric,—"I pray you," said he to Walsingham, "let us hear some arguments from my Lord Harry out of her Majesty's navy now and then. I think they will do more good than any bolt that we can ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... an honest man? A wealthy one, too? And one whom her father gives to her? Trifling girl! Insensible to her happiness and interest. What objections had ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah

... opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degree, as that the evil will wear off insensible, and their place be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation, or deletion of the Moors. This ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... village. He lashed his horse and rode like a madman into the town. His faithful warriors had returned, but they hardly knew their beloved young chief, so changed was he. At the door of his father's lodge his brave horse fell dead, and Souk rolled over on the ground insensible. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... remarked Styles gravely to the middie, as we tucked the insensible Spring Chicken into his berth—"If you want to gamble, you'll do it—so I don't advise you. But these amphibious beasts are dangerous; so in future play with gentlemen and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... but without the slightest effect. He was insensible as a log. Finding more vigorous measures necessary, the boy shook him, but succeeded only in eliciting a few ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... exerted his strength and clasping the insensible man more firmly in his arms he made one or two steps forward. Unorna's foot slipped on the frozen ground and she would have fallen to the earth, but she clung to him with desperate energy. Seeing that she was in danger of some bodily hurt if he used greater force, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... I gazed with horror upon the pale face close to mine, fortunately insensible; my eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets with horror; there was a sensation as of a ghostly hand stirring my wet hair; and then once more I gave utterance to a strange hoarse cry that startled even me; for as—in spite of my weakness—my mental energies grew momentarily clearer I thoroughly ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... has amassed a tolerable quantity by working in his spare time, is constantly feeling to see whether his stock is safe. He weighs it two or three times a-day, to ascertain, I suppose, whether it exhausts itself by insensible perspiration, or other means, and invokes, by turns, every saint in the calendar—his patron-saint, Joseph, in particular—and all his old heathenish spirits, to keep his treasure safe. In accordance with a vow he made before he started from Monterey, he has ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks

... and vainglory, [1903]caecus amor sui, which Chrysostom calls one of the devil's three great nets; [1904]"Bernard, an arrow which pierceth the soul through, and slays it; a sly, insensible enemy, not perceived," are main causes. Where neither anger, lust, covetousness, fear, sorrow, &c., nor any other perturbation can lay hold; this will slyly and insensibly pervert us, Quem non gula vicit, Philautia, superavit, (saith Cyprian) whom ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... to blend the sounds. The terrific war-whoop arose out of the covers of the island, and some twenty savages, horrible in their paint and the other devices of Indian ingenuity, rushed forward, eager to secure the coveted scalps. Arrowhead was foremost, and it was his tomahawk that brained the insensible Jennie; and her reeking hair was hanging at his girdle as a trophy in less than two minutes after she had quitted the blockhouse. His companions were equally active, and M'Nab and his soldiers no longer presented the quiet aspect of men who slumbered. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... Square. That Rote, Subtracte from your first Semidiameter of the earth to your watry Superficies: that, which remaineth, is the heith of the water, in the middle, aboue the leuell." Which, you will finde, to be a thing insensible. And though ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee

... honest to detract from beauty as a quality. There cannot be a refined soul insensible to its influence. The story of Pygmalion and his statue is as natural as it is poetical. Beauty is of itself a power; and ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... at the beginning. When I was left for dead by my frightened comrades on the plains, I had not died, but was only insensible; and I do not believe they felt at all sure of my death, for they left me unburied, as if to give me a chance; and deserted me rather than take any risks by remaining any longer in that place. How long I laid insensible I do ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... pain of the body makes one insensible to the spiritual delight of virtue, without the copious assistance of God's grace, which has more strength to raise the soul to the Divine things in which it delights, than bodily pains have to afflict it. Thus the Blessed Tiburtius, while ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... the human heart have been affected emotionally by the nonsensical teachings of the King's Highway. These teachings are commonly known us 'Narrow-Gauge Ideas.' If these nerves are rendered insensible, there is scarcely any trouble of that kind again. We can, by an intricate operation, paralyze the mother-nerve leading to the heart, and thereafter you may expect to find the heart of this woman almost dead to the foolish influences that ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... is done," the prince said, "though your sport is of the roughest; but I fear that your leader is hurt, he moves not; lift his head from the ground." The boy was indeed still insensible. "My lords," the prince said to the knights who had now ridden up, "I fear that this boy is badly hurt; he is a gallant lad, and has the spirit of a true knight in him, citizen's son though he be. My Lord de Vaux, will you bid your squire ride at full speed to the Tower and ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... almost mutely, just tell him how the poor child had no clothes. Rising with a great sense of the burden having been lifted, I put the work away, locking it in a trunk, then went up on deck and lay down almost insensible from exhaustion. How long a time passed I do not know, but it could not have been more than half an hour when some one came and touched me, saying, "We have dropped anchor in Yokohama Bay, and a large bundle has been thrown up on deck from ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth

... hastened down the road towards the farm. He had clean forgotten his intention of bespeaking beds in the village; indeed, he walked as one insensible to all around him until he caught sight of the word GARAGE, painted in large white letters, illuminated by an electric lamp, over a gateway at the side of the road. Then he swung round and, passing through ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... he ever had wife or children. This disposes of the claim of subsequent John Smiths to be descended from him. He was the last of that race; the others are imitations. He was wedded to glory. That he was not insensible to the charms of female beauty, and to the heavenly pity in their hearts, which is their chief grace, his writings abundantly evince; but to taste the pleasures of dangerous adventure, to learn war and to pick up his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... to Leyden, whither Paul was bound, was not without incident of a somewhat romantic kind. As the vehicle in which Louise and the future great painter sat neared Leyden, they came upon a man who lay insensible upon the road. The tender heart of the girl was touched, and she stopped and restored the man to consciousness, and then pressed further assistance upon him. The grateful recipient of her kindness, however, soon feeling strong enough, proceeded ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... were turned anxiously on her husband she was perhaps not insensible to the contrast, but it was only mingled with other causes in making her more conscious of that new alarm on his behalf which was the first stirring of a pitying tenderness fed by the realities of his lot and not by ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... of Physicians and Surgeons, 1891.(35) Sanctorius worked with a pulsilogue devised for him by Galileo, with which he made observations on the pulse. He is said to have been the first to put in use the clinical thermometer. His experiments on insensible perspiration mark him as one of the first ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler

... infrequently the writing is reversed, so that it can be read only in a looking-glass (Spiegelschrift); the ability to produce such writing is often associated with the liability to spontaneous somnambulism. The hand and arm are often insensible in the act of writing. There are some cases on record in which the automatist has seemed to guide his hand not by sight, but by some special extension of the muscular sense (Carpenter, Mental Physiology, s. 128; W. James, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... noticing that neither Smellie nor I showed any signs of obedience, deliberately proceeded to prod us here and there with the point of his spear. Upon Smellie these delicate attentions produced no effect whatever, he evidently being either dead or insensible; but they aroused in me a very lively feeling of indignation, under the influence of which I launched such a vigorous kick at the unreasonable darky's shins as made him howl with pain and sent him hopping out of range in double- quick time—a proceeding which ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... even in the "decadence" of the fourth. Even yet they are not universally recognised, and it appears to be sometimes thought that because critics speak with enthusiasm of periods in which, save at rare intervals, and as it were by accident, they are not discernible at all, such critics are insensible to them where they occur. Never was there a grosser mistake. It is said that M. Taine, in private conversation, once said to a literary novice who rashly asked him whether he liked this or that, "Monsieur, en litterature j'aime tout." It ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... which damage was done to the British small boats and the four German destroyers were sunk. Captain Fox, senior British officer, had been on the Amphion when she sank the Koenigin Luise and had been rescued after being knocked insensible by the explosion of the mine that sent ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... had had an "attack" the last time she did this, and Swinny, who valued her place for more reasons than one, had been afraid to say anything about it. Preoccupied with her great passion, she had been insensible to the signs of sickness that showed themselves from day to day. In other words, there had ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... a miserable invalid—his hours and regimen are peculiar. Indeed I wish very much you would consider his case; he is, I believe, often insensible for a long time, and his mind in a strange feeble ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... (interrupting). No, allow me! I agree with the Professor. And here's the very best proof. After my illness, when I lay insensible, a desire to speak came over me. In general I am of a silent disposition, but then I was overcome by this desire to speak, and I spoke and spoke, and I was told that I spoke in such a way that every one was astonished! (To SAHATOF.) But ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... the pariahs of society fall and on which the inexperienced so cheerfully comment. Neglected by her own set, shunned by the respectable, her fortune quite gone, she was nevertheless determined that she would not be a back-street seamstress or a pensioner upon the bounty of quondam friends. By insensible degrees came first unhallowed relationships through friendship and passing passion, then a curious intermediate state between the high world of fashion and the half world of harlotry, until, finally, in Louisville, she had become, not openly, but actually, the mistress of a house of ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... Ossian is now ended. They are known to be a not very skilful forgery by James Macpherson. Yet their importance in literary history remains undiminished, and the life of Macpherson has a curious kind of pathos. He was the creature and victim of the Romantic movement, and was led, by almost insensible degrees, into supplying fraudulent evidence for the favorite Romantic theory that a truer and deeper vein of poetry is to be found among primitive peoples. Collins's Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland and Gray's Bard show the literary world prepared ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh

... of Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began "Madam, you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary friendship...." he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... sense of touch. The insect is apprised of the contents of the cell only by the end of that long horse-hair, a not very trustworthy witness, I should imagine. The absence of resistance tells it that it has reached an empty space; and this is probably the only information that the insensible implement can supply. The drill boring through the rock cannot tell the miner anything about the contents of the cavern which it has entered; and the case must be the same with the rigid ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... barbarous idea of deserting the sacred trust reposed in me. Indeed, I could but ill support her former yearly visits to the respectable mansion at Howard Grove: pardon me, dear Madam, and do not think me insensible of the honour which your Ladyship's condescension confers upon us both; but so deep is the impression which the misfortunes of her mother have made on my heart, that she does not, even for a moment, quit my sight without exciting apprehensions and terrors which almost ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... before he touched it. He was conscious, also, of a change within himself. A cold, hard, and heavy weight seemed to have gone out of his bosom. No doubt, his heart had been gradually losing its human substance, and transmuting itself into insensible metal, but had now softened back again into flesh. Perceiving a violet, that grew on the bank of the river, Midas touched it with his finger, and was overjoyed to find that the delicate flower retained its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight. ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... against the white man." These things occurred shortly prior to the Tippecanoe campaign, but a condition similar to this had existed for some time before the Treaty of Fort Wayne. The Governor was not insensible to the true state of affairs. He once said: "I wish I could say the Indians were treated with justice and propriety on all occasions by our citizens, but it is far otherwise. They are often abused and maltreated, and it is rare that they obtain any satisfaction ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... Signora; the Prussian guns spared his face. His wounds in themselves were not dangerous, but he lost a good deal of blood. Raoul and the Christian brothers found him insensible among a heap of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mamma provided for?" whispered Miss Aubrey, almost inarticulately. "When I look at her again, I shall drop at her feet insensible!" ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... horrible: but is, so to speak, the inevitable resultant of the first, and has its own awful moral. Ross tells how he came one morning to Oscar's death-bed and found him practically insensible: he describes the dreadful loud death-rattle of his breath, and says: "terrible offices had to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... the walk back was very pleasant; and neither she nor Cecil were insensible to the honour of having their father all to themselves, and at this unusual time of day too. He explained that he had met their mother in the village, so anxious about Jessie, that instead of waiting till towards ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... struck. Barnaby looked in his mother's face, and saw that the time had come. After a long embrace he rushed away, and they carried her away, insensible. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... or sage, croupier or harridan—lend her what personality you please—Fate hath the reins and so the laugh of the universe. Ever at its rump, her pricks are insensible alike to kicks or kisses. Folly, sceptre or rake in hand, she stands or sprawls upon Eternity, bending the ages to her whim. And we, poor things, at once her instruments and butts, stumble about her business, thinking it ours, setting ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... present day succeeds to the art of past centuries not immediately nor by an insensible gradation. It is preceded by an interval of absolute deadness in matters artistic. Sixty years ago art in almost every branch was a sealed book to the majority of even well-educated persons, and contentedly contemplated by them as such. All love for it, with all knowledge of its history ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... proved incontrovertibly that a right sense of art in the spectator can only be acquired by long and frequent observation, and that without proper opportunities to improve the mind and the eye, a nation would continue insensible of the true value of ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... above him. It is a matter, however, very doubtful to me, whether it is not still more the man than the apostle that Mrs D—— looks to in the present alliance. Though at the age of forty, she is, I assure you, very far from being cold and insensible; her fire may be covered with ashes, but it is not extinguished.—Don't be deceived, my dear, by that prudish and sanctified air.—Warm devotions is no equivocal mark of warm passions; besides, I know it is a fact, (of which I have proofs in hand, which I will tell you ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... it was seven or eight years ago, was a new sort of trial to Anne's nerves. She found, however, that it was one to which she must inure herself. Since he actually was expected in the country, she must teach herself to be insensible on such points. And not only did it appear that he was expected, and speedily, but the Musgroves, in their warm gratitude for the kindness he had shewn poor Dick, and very high respect for his character, stamped as it ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Sally's eyes was made clear to me, and a helpless rage at my own blindness, my own denseness, flooded my heart. George, because of some inborn fineness of perception, had discerned the existence of a sorrow in my wife to which I, the man whom she loved and who loved her, had been insensible. He had understood and had comforted—while I, engrossed in larger matters, had gone on my way unheeding and indifferent. Then the anger against myself turned blindly upon George, and I demanded passionately if he would stand forever in my life as the embodiment of instincts ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... in search of him, and spare further vexation. She had assumed all an elder sister's feelings, and suffered for him as she used to do, when he was in disgrace and would not heed it. She heard no more of the conversation, and was insensible to the honour of going in to dinner with the late Secretary of State, as she saw the empty ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... insensible but that for my thus writing, though I thereby have designed your honour and good order; I am like enough to run the gauntlet among you, and to partake most smartly of the scourge of the tongues of some, and to be soundly brow-beaten for it by others: ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... silken skirts were rustling, eyes challenging. But outside the light wind was singing in the palm trees, the warm air entered through the window beside him laden with the sweet perfumes of the tropics. The sky was as blue as heaven. He reflected gratefully that at least he had never grown insensible to the beauty of his island, never even contemplated deserting her for either the superior advantages or the superior dissipations of the great world. To live his life on Nevis and with Anne Percy! Oh God! He almost groaned aloud, and then came to himself as ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... patient was a ragged, disreputable-looking fellow of middle age, in grimy and tattered clothes, whose head had been roughly bandaged by the policemen who brought him. He had been knocked down and kicked on the head by a butcher's cart-horse, it seemed, in Moorgate Street, and he was quite insensible. A very short examination showed that the case was nothing trivial, and McCarthy sent me to sit in his private room to wait lunch, while he gave the ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... laws, one is very peculiar and surprising, which disfranchises all who stand neuter in a sedition; for it seems he would not have any one remain insensible and regardless of the public good, and, securing his private affairs, glory that he has no feeling of the distempers of his country; but at once join with the good party and those that have the right upon their side, assist and venture with ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... pencils will draw no other; my jack-knife will cut nothing else; I do not use it as a means." This was the muse and genius that ruled his opinions, conversation, studies, work, and course of life. This made him a searching judge of men. At first glance he measured his companion, and, though insensible to some fine traits of culture, could very well report his weight and calibre. And this made the impression of genius ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... been brought up at court," Hector said, "I should not be more insensible than others; but when one passes three-quarters of one's time on horseback, and that under a commander like Turenne, who sets us all an example in the matter of endurance and watchfulness, one has small leisure indeed for aught else, and ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... were close upon it—and there was no longer any doubt that we should strike to leeward of the promontory. Faster and faster! The spar spun round and round dizzily. I gripped it with all my strength, supporting Flora's half-insensible form with the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... tomahawk about the head of the captive, in such a manner as to give reason to suppose, that each blow would bury the weapon in the flesh, while it was so governed as not to touch the skin. To this customary expedient Hard-Heart was perfectly insensible. His eye kept the same steady, riveted look on the air, though the glittering axe described, in its evolutions, a bright circle of light before his countenance. Frustrated in this attempt, the callous Sioux laid ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... tired people to Islands of the Blest? "The immortal fragment," says Sir Richard Burton, who perhaps knew the Arabian Nights as did no other European, "will never be superseded in the infallible judgment of childhood. The marvellous imaginativeness of the Tales produces an insensible brightness of mind and an increase of fancy-power, making one dream that behind them lies the new and unseen, the strange and unexpected—in fact, all ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... seven in the morning until noon. When the awkward morsel was entirely swallowed, the serpent lay stiff, distorted, and apparently insensible along the edge of the marsh. I felt that now or never was the moment ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... not my eyes to these tears; my grief is reasonable, even though it be extreme; and when such a loss as mine must endure for ever, wisdom herself, believe me, may weep. 'Tis in vain that pride of regal sway bids us be insensible to such calamities; as vain for reason to come to our help, and desire us to see with unmoved eye the death of what we love. The effort required is barbarous in the eyes of the universe—'tis brutality rather than highest virtue. In this misfortune I will not wear a show ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... liberty. They seem to come to Paris merely to be hangers on and applauders in the train of that tyrant who has overthrown the hopes of France. To all that cruelty and injustice by which thousands of hearts are now bleeding, they appear entirely insensible. They speak with heartless levity of the revolutions of France, as of a pantomime got up for their diversion. Their time and thoughts seem to be divided between defences of American slavery and efforts to ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... his determination that the marriage with Paris shall be celebrated at once. Juliet implores the Friar's help, and he gives her the potion. The next scene is devoted to the wedding festivity, in the midst of which Juliet falls insensible from the effects of the sleeping-draught. The last act transpires in the tomb of the Capulets, where Romeo arrives, and believing his mistress dead takes poison. Juliet, reviving from the effects of the potion, and finding him dying, stabs herself ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... integrity, good faith and justice. Neither philosophic reason, artistic or literary culture, or even feudal, military or chivalric honor, nor any administration or government can replace it. There is nothing else to restrain our natal bent, nothing to arrest the insensible, steady, down-hill course of our species with the whole of its original burden, ever retrograding towards the abyss. Whatever its present envelope may be, the old Gospel still serves as the best auxiliary of the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... utterly insensible to it all. In the end he became impatient, and flung her away from him with an oath. She fell to the ground with a soft thud; and for a while there was no other sound, but the dreadful, low catch of her breath, as she sought ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... not to be readily changed. Generations must pass before a great amelioration of it can be expected. Like political constitutions, educational systems are not made, but grow; and within brief periods growth is insensible. Slow, however, as must be any improvement, even that improvement implies the use of means; and among the ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... hyacinths of all colors, ixias, wall flowers, tulips, geraniums, narcissus; and O, this is not half the variety of flowers! look into the shop; there are bushels of them and other flowers, all ranged round the wall; the perfume salutes the most insensible passer-by; it tells of the songs of birds, and of the delights of summer time. You cannot resist its influence. Let us go in and look at the flowers. The person who keeps the shop has the manners of a lady; she wishes you good morning; and, if you do not behave just as you would if you ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen

... bones, cartilages, ligaments, and synovial membrane are insensible when in health; yet they are supplied with organic nerves, as well as with ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... become of Carey and Loring. The fight was over, and Carey was growling lustily over a wound in his arm which the slippery savage had inflicted upon him, having managed in some mysterious way to gain momentary possession of his knife; but Loring was unharmed and the Indian was insensible. He had been knocked out of time by a vicious whack from the butt of a carbine held in the hands of the enraged Carey. The blow was not, however, as effective as the trooper intended it should be, for it had expended a good deal of its power upon the bushes which happened to be in the ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... denunciations. I began more and more to feel myself in a station above that of my fellows, and that I had now a character to sustain before the eyes of men. Young as I was, could it well have been otherwise? Let me, however, speak the truth. Spiritual pride at last crept upon me. Devotion by insensible degrees became tainted with self, and the image of God was, I fear, sometimes forgotten for that of His frail and unworthy creature. True it was, I still, without slackening, spoke comfort to the ear of suffering or repentant sin—I ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... Donner, whom all mention as one of the most lovely girls in the Donner Party, met with a cruel accident the night before the relief party left Starved Camp. Her feet had become frozen and insensible to pain. Happening to lie too near the fire, one of her feet became dreadfully burned. She suffered excruciating agony, yet evinced remarkable fortitude. She ultimately lost four toes from her left foot, on ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... happens that a patient is found in an insensible condition under circumstances which give no clue to the cause of his unconsciousness. He is usually removed to the nearest hospital, and the house-surgeon under whose charge he comes must exercise the greatest care ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... belligerents constantly in sight of each other, skulking, dodging, engaging in individual encounters poorly calculated to bring victory to either side. One of Carey's men lay near the barricade, insensible from a crack over the head from a rifle butt. His plight was causing uneasiness among his comrades, who began drawing back toward the shadows. Carey, seeing that their pluck was ebbing, cursed them. Only seven of the Governor's party had entered ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... quell; that he wielded an influence over the minds of thousands, such as kings or conquerors might envy. If St. Paul could stand by our side, think we that he, any more than ourselves, would be insensible to the power within him, and to the beauty and the glory without? Yet his words are recorded; he bids us not set our affections on things on the earth; he declares of himself, and of us equally, if we are Christ's servants, that we are dead, and that our ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... stooped to envy or suspicion of the men who served her. She was indifferent to abuse. Her good humour was never ruffled by the charges of wantonness and cruelty with which the Jesuits filled every Court in Europe. She was insensible to fear. Her life became at last a mark for assassin after assassin, but the thought of peril was the thought hardest to bring home to her. Even when Catholic plots broke out in her very household she would listen to ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... done. They found Mr. Francis Vanringham upon the hearthrug a tousled heap of flesh and finery, insensible, with his mouth gaping, in a great puddle of blood. To the rear of the room was a boy in pink-and-silver, beside the writing-desk he had just got into with the co-operation of a poker. Hugged to his breast he held a ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... beneath him. One might have thought that the extreme youth of the lad would have ensured him compassion; but no such thing. The robbers were doubtless of Amposta; and, being known to him, dreaded discovery. When both the victims had been rendered insensible, there was a short pause, and a consultation in a low tone between the ruffians, who then proceeded to execute their plans. The first went round to the left side of the diligence, and, having unhooked the iron shoe and placed it under the wheel, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various

... gambling, history has left us too many records to make us insensible of the importance of the safe-guards which society ought to erect, to defend itself from the poison of so infectious a contamination. Who would believe, that the great Wilberforce was once a gambler! That even Pitt once stood on the brink of a gambler's hell. But Wilberforce ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... implies the total absence of any pervading warmth of tint, such as artists usually call 'tone.' Every tint must be the purest possible, and above all the white. Partly, lest you should think, from my treatment of these two phases of effect, that I am insensible to the quality of tone,—and partly to complete the representation of states of weather undefiled by plague-cloud, yet capable of the most solemn dignity in saddening color, I show you, Diagram ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... hero. His body was taken back to England for burial, and Caroline Lamb stood at her window and saw the procession go by. The coffin was followed by a dog, howling piteously. Caroline uttered a heartrending cry, and sunk to the floor insensible. They raised her and placed her in her bed, from which she never rose; she was borne from it to ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... Lord Widdrington and Lord Kenmure, who had referred in terms of anguish to their wives and children, had made no appeal on the plea of those family ties, to which few of his judges could have been insensible. He returned to the Tower, under sentence of death, to be saved by the heroism of a woman; according to some accounts, of his mother;[26] but actually, by the fearless, devoted affection of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... these bleedings only took place at night, but after two or three months they occurred in the daytime, and were accompanied by paroxysms of ecstasy, during which she was insensible to all external impressions, and acted the passion of Jesus ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond

... life of a statesman, a merchant, a banker, or a mechanic, is not rewarded by tender emotions, but by power, applause, or money. The heart of such a man, too often, gradually ossifies, becomes insensible to those fine and noble fruitions which imperatively demand leisure, and a steady lucid sensibility. The hard devotions of an external utility devour the riches of the imagination, and destroy the overflow of the affections. But the woman, who, shielded from ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger



Words linked to "Insensible" :   numb, unaware, imperceptible, insensibility, unperceivable, sensible, anesthetic, undetectable, insensitive, benumbed, indiscernible, unconscious, anaesthetic, incognizant, asleep



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