Dummy

“ So when I got home I says:
"We won't need no help from Jim Hatch and his wife. We can just be dummies all the evenin' and they won't nobody know if we're ignorant or not."
"That's impossible, to be dummy all the time," says the Missus.
"Not for me," I says. "I know it'll be tough for you, but you can chew a lot o' gum and you won't mind it so much."
"You don't understand," she says. "The dummy is the pardner o' the party that gets the bid. Suppose one o' the people that was playin' against you got the bid; then the other one'd be dummy and you'd have to play your hand." ”

“ Home sent past the window an inflated dummy of gold-beater’s skin to represent himself, as many more wary persons have a tendency to suppose. I do not think so for a couple of reasons, either of which is quite sufficient. In the first place, though Mediums must run unusual risks whenever they favour us with unusual performances, it would be too much to risk the ludicrous discovery of a great dummy figure from the sputter of a chance lucifer match or the sudden flash of a concealed lantern. ”

“ I'm a bum.”
“Doesn't seem to bother you,” said his host.
“It don't,” asserted the dummy-chucker. “Except when the police butt into my game. I just got off Blackwell's Island this morning.”
“And almost went back this afternoon.”
The dummy-chucker nodded.
“Almost,” he said. His eyes wandered around the room. “Some dump!” he stated. Then his manner became business-like. “You mentioned a hundred dollars—what for?”
The young man shrugged.
“Not hard work. You merely have to look like a gentleman, and act like——”
“Like a bum?” asked the dummy-chucker. ”

“ IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. He went associating around with the neighbors, and they made much of him, and was proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them. ”

“ Because the cars were drawn through Boerum Street and Broadway by horses, a train had to be broken up into individual cars, and a six-horse or eight-horse team attached to draw each coach to the ferry. In the railroad's view this process was cumbersome and increased the chances of accident. Using a steam dummy seemed the best solution.
Nothing quite like the old-fashioned steam dummy exists today; perhaps the closest modern analogy is the little diesel switcher popular in rail yards and freight terminals. In size the steam dummy resembled a small horse car of the period. ”

“ Most persons had no clear conception of the difference between a steam engine and a dummy, although company representatives stressed that the dummy's speed was only four to eight miles per hour and that seven to eight cars could be drawn at one time, and stopped within the dummy's own length. ”

“ To placate the opposition, the Southern road had three of the newest and best dummy engines available constructed for its use. To secure even further public support, the railroad at great expense promised to use the much less suitable groove rail for the standard T rail on its Williamsburgh track. Notwithstanding all these gestures of appeasement, the opponents of steam operation continued their agitation to drive the railroad from the streets.
One of the best arguments in their arsenal of weapons against the road was the toll of human life taken by the dummies. ”

“ Meanwhile on May 31, 1870 the physical connection between the two roads was completed, and a South Side engine and construction train steamed into Hunter's Point for the first time. The segment of the old Flushing railroad between Forty-ninth Street, Blissville and Winfield was of no immediate value to the railroad, and originated no traffic since it passed entirely through farmland. The South Side management, rather than tear up the track entirely, placed a dummy, acquired cheaply from the Atlantic Avenue RR, on the route on August 6, 1870. ”

“ But if the dumb can evoke assistance, assuring of sincerity and disarming doubt, how hushed is the questioning when the blind apply! How much stronger than speech or silence are the sightless eyes that stare unblinking at a darkened world! ”

“ One gathers dimly something of what he felt from the look that would unconsciously come into his eyes when speaking of that enchanted journey, from the sudden dumbness with which the commonplace words would die away upon his lips. ”

“ I’ve had the third-day ague, and the seventh-day ague, the shaking ague, and the dumb ague—though why ’twas ever called ‘dumb’ beats me. If there’s anything calculated to make a man open his mouth and express his mind freely on the way things go in this neck o’ wilderness, it’s that particular kind. ”

“ Then the fluent speakers loosened their tongues in thanksgiving and glorification, while the dumb became as hard and lifeless stones; then the souls were purified, the hearts were attracted, the breasts were dilated, the characters were sanctified, the secret thoughts became manifest and the realities stepped into the arena of existence; they sought illumination, were guided, became ablaze, enflamed and enkindled, called forth and proclaimed, saying:
“Glad-tidings be unto the righteous ones! Rejoicing be unto the perceiving ones! Happiness be unto the favored ones! ”

“ If he had ever considered them at all it was as cold and conscious creatures who taught themselves to cover up what they felt, so that when their emotions strove to assert themselves they were found, through long disuse, to be dumb and inarticulate. ”

“ Your mind will be full of ideas; your hands will be perpetually busy to a purpose into which no human creature, beyond the verge of your brotherhood, must pry. Believe me, who have made the experiment, that compared with this task, the task of inviolable secrecy, all others are easy. To be dumb will not suffice; never to know any remission in your zeal or your watchfulness will not suffice. If the sagacity of others detect your occupations, however strenuously you may labour for concealment, your doom is ratified, as well as that of the wretch whose evil destiny led him to pursue you. ”

“ He drew breath to give his friend the benefit of this illustration, but another connection quickly caught him up. "How can you pretend to suggest that you're in these parts the faintest approach to an insignificant person? How can you pretend that you're not as clever as you can stick together, and with the cleverness of the right kind? For there are odious kinds, I know—the kind that redresses other people's stupidity instead of sitting upon it." ”

“ So that a change of the minutest kind in the structure of one of these nerves, or in the structure of the part in which it originates, or of the supply of blood to that part, or of one of the muscles to which it is distributed, might render all of us dumb. But a race of dumb men, deprived of all communication with those who could speak, would be little indeed removed from the brutes. ”

“ Out of the abundance of their hearts their mouths speak all sorts of irresponsible, whimsical, exalted, and splendid extravagance. They give voice to the dumb, and they amuse and stimulate the good listeners, but they bore the cleverly communicative, who dislike any consecutive talk but their own. ”

“ O.M. Let us drop that lying phrase, and call them the Unrevealed Creatures; so far as we can know, there is no such thing as a dumb beast.
Y.M. On what grounds do you make that assertion?
O.M. On quite simple ones. “Dumb” beast suggests an animal that has no thought-machinery, no understanding, no speech, no way of communicating what is in its mind. We know that a hen has speech. We cannot understand everything she says, but we easily learn two or three of her phrases. We know when she is saying, “I have laid an egg” ”

“ It is as if the dumb should speak for the first time, as if things should stammer out their own meaning, through the imperfect organs of mere sense. I wish that some of our fluent, plausible declaimers, who have such store of words to cover the want of ideas, could lend their art to this writer. ”

“ The purpose of life seemed suddenly clear to him, and the large patience of the sky passed into his own nature as he sat facing the white dawn. At rare intervals in the lives of all strenuous souls there comes this sense of kinship with external things—this passionate recognition of the appeal of the dumb world. ”

“ Because, my dear fellow, you understand one must never be singular. If one's lot is cast amongst fools, it is necessary to study folly. I shall, perhaps, find myself one day called out by some hare-brained scamp, who has no more real cause of quarrel with me than you have with Beauchamp; he may take me to task for some foolish trifle or other, he will send his seconds, or will insult me in some public place, and I suppose I am expected to kill him for all that. ”

“ Those who converse with the Dumb, know from the Turn of their Eyes and the Changes of their Countenance their Sentiments of the Objects before them. I have indulged my Silence to such an Extravagance, that the few who are intimate with me, answer my Smiles with concurrent Sentences, and argue to the very Point I shak'd my Head at without my speaking. ”

“ Lies unrequited still. No speck of doubt
Upon to-morrow's promise. Yet a pain
Of some dumb thing is on me, and I feel
How men go mad, how faculties do reel
When these old querns turn round within the brain. ”

“ No image giving of a thing on earth,
Nor thought significant in Reason's reach,
Yet, in their random shadowings give birth
To thoughts and things from other worlds that come,
And fill the soul, and strike the reason dumb. ”

“ The little mouth laughed.
"Who are you, seigneur dwarf?" she said.
"Bran is my name, and a man am I, and what is more a fool."
"How are you more than a man?"
"I weep when I laugh and laugh when I weep. I see what is not. What I know that I do not believe." ”

“ Note 5, page 280.—Green's attempt to discredit sensations by reminding us of their 'dumbness,' in that they do not come already named, as concepts may be said to do, only shows how intellectualism is dominated by verbality. ”

“ The difficulty for me is simply that if I've seen the handsome grow ugly and the ugly handsome, the fat grow thin and the thin fat, the short grow long and the long short; if I've even, likewise, seen the clever, as I've too fondly, at least, supposed them, grow stupid: so have I not seen—no, not once in all my days—the stupid grow clever. ”

“ The creature we call dumb is not dumb to its mates, and it is very likely our human modes of communication appear as absurd to the dog or horse as theirs do to us. We know what we think of the so-called dumb creatures ”

“ The time and place so thoroughly agree,
'Twill be impossible our freaks to see;
But 'twill be right that one should watch with care;
While t'other with the lad seeks joys to share,
And irksome gloom endeavours to dispel:
He's dumb, you know, and tales can never tell. ”

“ What strides he is constantly taking to the ridiculous, and not always from the sublime! How strong! how weak! How wise! how foolish! Consistent only in folly, and steady in the purpose of being foolish. ”

“ Antonyms: TACITURN. Synonyms:
Dumb, mute, silent and speechless refer to fact or state; taciturn refers to habit and disposition. The talkative person may be stricken dumb with surprise or terror; the obstinate may remain mute; one may be silent through preoccupation of mind or of set purpose; but the taciturn person is averse to the utterance of thought or feeling and to communication with others, either from natural disposition or for the occasion. One who is silent does not speak at all; one who is taciturn speaks when compelled, but in a grudging way that repels further approach. ”

“ Think how dumb we find ourselves and stifled! I know we seem to have a sort of freedom.... Have you ever tried to run and jump in petticoats, Mr. Capes? Well, think what it must be to live in them—soul and mind and body! It's fun for a man to jest at our position. ”

“ Scarcely had the rattling of the iron latch of the saddle-house apprised them of his arrival before every dumb brute—dumb, as dumb men say—experienced a cheerful change of mind, and began to pour into his ears the eager, earnest, gratifying tale of its rights and its wrongs. What honest voices as compared with the human—sometimes. ”

“ There are many people, especially Europeans and especially women, who not only talk but who write things that appear intelligent, in the same way as dumb people speak; as a matter of fact, it isn’t any more natural for them to think than for a dumb person to speak, but both one and the other, both the stupid and the dumb, have been taught. ”

“ Dumb, not from despair, but from faith; dumb, not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother’s feet, and looking up into her face and watching her doings, understanding none of them as yet, but certain that they are all done in love. ”

“ Humour is the whimsical Oddity, or Foible, which fairly appears in its Subject, of itself; whereas Wit, is the Lustre which is thrown upon one Subject, by the sudden Introduction of another Subject.
To constitute Humour, there need be no more than one Object concern'd, and this must be always some Person in real Life;--whereas to produce Wit, there must be always two Objects arranged together, and either or both of these may be inanimate. ”

“ In Goth. dumbs, OIc. dumbr the adj. is equiv. to AS. and E. dumb; the OHG. word, in addition to the meanings of MidHG., has likewise the signification ‘deaf,’ which also belongs to dumm in early ModHG. ‘Dull in sense and intellect’ may be the primary sense of the adj., which has not yet been found in the non-Teut. languages; stumm too has a peculiar history; see schmecken, hell. Words expressing the perceptions of one sense are often transferred to those of another. ”