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More "Stammer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stammer out thanks, and promises of explaining the whole of Robson's peculations (little he knew the whole ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he hadn't any ship, Any flocks at his command, Nor to feed them any land; Said he never in his life Owned a mine to keep a wife. But the guilty stammer so That his meaning wouldn't flow; So he thought his aim to reach By some figurative speech: Said his Fate had been unkind Had pursued him from behind (How the mischief could ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... maid for mate, But thou shalt die, thou knight enamour'd; So make thy shrift 'neath the linden straight, The little birds shall hear it stammer'd. ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... all such assemblies, signed by some dolt who cannot even spell the name he assumes—'Pom-de-Tair.' A commissary of police sat yawning at the end of the orchestra, his secretary by his side, while the orators stammer out fragments of would-be thunderbolts. Commissary of police yawns more wearily than before, secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes his penknife and pares his nails. Up rises a wild-haired, weak-limbed silhouette of a man, and affecting a solemnity of mien which ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rage, eyes blazing with passion, and demanding to know, in furious tones, what we wanted and meant by creating a disturbance in the neighbourhood at that hour in the morning, hammering at her gate in that manner. We were almost struck dumb, at least I was, but Mr. Parsons, I believe, managed to stammer out something or other, in the midst of which the gate was slammed to violently in our faces and we had to beat an ignominious retreat. It is, of course, needless to say we never repeated our visit nor tried to induce the ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... place stools near the stove, but whether he was quite drunk or whether some narcotic had been mixed with the brandy, he fell back on his seat, trying to stammer out ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to reissue thence than was one of the frail nuns built into the wall in the old times likely to come stepping out again. Bobby has at length ceased to offer me every object which it devolves upon him to hand me, with a quavering voice and a prolonged stammer, since, though I was at first excellently vulnerable by this weapon of offense, I am now becoming hornily hard and indifferent to it. We have stepped over the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... effects on their dreams. But some absorb especially whispered words in such a way that their power becomes evident after the waking of the sleeper. Much more is this true of children. A suggestion to give up vicious habits, perhaps in the sexual sphere, or to speak fluently and no longer stammer may thus be beneficial. Yet the danger of this method is not small and extensive use of it is certainly not advisable. The more easily it can be carried into every bedchamber and can thus give to every mother and nurse the tools of a rather powerful ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... these absences that Jim Spalding, the old timber-jack, told Mrs. Gaynor in his abashed stammer that Mark King had showed up while they were gone. Gloria, on her way to her room, whirled and came back, and extracted the tale in its entirety, pumping it out of the brief, few-worded old Spalding in jerky details. King had appeared late yesterday afternoon, coming out of the woods. Looked ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... who does duty in the daytime. Waggoner suffers from an affection which in a large community might prevent him from holding such a job as the one he does hold. He has an impediment of the speech which at all times causes him to stammer badly. When he is excited it is only by a tremendous mental and physical effort and after repeated endeavours that he can form the words at all. In other regards he is a first-rate officer, sober, trustworthy ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... its hospitality. Another cabin, higher up the creek, will be likely to claim them for its tenants?" Marian blushed; while the young backwoodsman, although turning equally red at the allusion, had the courage to stammer out, that he always "thort his cabin war big enough ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... an experience in love. He did not turn red or white, or yellow or green, nor did he tremble or stammer, or cry or laugh, or become fierce or passionate, or tender or anything but just himself, as I had always known him. He displayed no more emotion than had he been inviting me to a picnic. This was not as I had pictured a man would tell his love, or as I had read of it, heard of it, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... poverty-stricken mother had laid him there. When he was found he was already a fine little fellow of two or three years of age, very plump and merry, but so backward and dense that he could scarcely stammer a few words, and only seemed able to smile. When one of the vegetable saleswomen found him lying under the big white cabbage she raised such a loud cry of surprise that her neighbours rushed up to see what was the matter, while the youngster, still in petticoats, and wrapped ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... straits shores, but I've never seed un with my own eyes, an' I'm sort o' wantin' t' know how they shapes up alongside o' Twist Tickle. I 'low," says he, "you don't find many harbors in the world like Twist Tickle. Since I been travellin' t' Jimmie Tick's Cove with the mail," he continued, with a stammer and flush, like a man misled from an austere path by the flesh-pots of earth, "I've cotched a sinful hankerin' t' ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... to know what he's at; I could pity him, if it were madness: I never yet knew him to play a tune through, And it gives me more anger than sadness To hear his horn stutter and stammer to utter Its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... did not answer. Something in his throat tightened, and held the words. Then, in a low voice he managed to stammer:— ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... remained there, behind the carriage, my face muffled up in my cloak. I desired the servants to make no mention of my sudden appearance. They soon made a sign to me that she was recovering consciousness, and I heard her voice stammer forth these words, as if in a dream: "Oh, if Raphael were here! I thought it was Raphael!" I hastily returned to my own carriage; the horses started afresh, and a wide distance soon lay between us. In the evening I went to inquire after her at the inn where she had alighted at Sens. ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... political convulsion. Nature has done little for him. His appearance is common; his countenance, stern; his voice, hoarse; and his delivery, embarrassed; so much so that he speaks only by splitting his syllables. A stammering lover! MOLE, it is true, sometimes indulged in a sort of stammer, but it was suited to the moment, and not when he had to express the ardour of love. A lover, such as is represented to us in all French comedies, is a being highly favoured by Nature, and FLEURY shews him only as much neglected by her. A great deal of assurance and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... level of the street, repelled the country-bred lad. Were it not for the desperate urgency of his errand he never would have dared to enter. As it was, the fumes of alcohol and steaming, dirty clothes nearly choked him, and he could scarce stammer the name of "citizen Rateau" when a gruff voice presently demanded ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... pairs of eyes. Miss Taylor reddened; Mrs. Grey looked surprised; Mrs. Vanderpool smiled; but Mr. Cresswell darkened with anger. The couple unclasped shamefacedly, and the young man, lifting his hat, started to stammer an apology; but Cresswell ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... lady, 'the Senorita Teresa Valdevia. The evening air grows chill. Adios, Senorito.' And before Harry could stammer out a word, she had disappeared ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... forget it. Esther, in the highest spirits, told me that we were going to hear an Italian singer whose voice was exquisite, and noticing my confusion she asked what was the matter. I did not know what to say, and began to stammer out something, but at last succeeded in saying that she was a treasure of whom I was not worthy to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... confusion at this, for he did not know whether she was serious or not. He could do nothing but stammer and get red, and think what a ridiculous ass he was making of himself. He might have considered the help he was ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... He attempted to stammer some excuse about Princess Anne, but Lady Strickland only answered by standing pointing to the door and he was forced to retreat in ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... informed him that the gold in this vault amounted to the not altogether insignificant weight of close upon fourteen hundred tons. The sight of such incredible quantities of the precious metals had so paralysing an effect upon the young Englishman that he could scarcely stammer an enquiry as to where it all came from. The custodian of this fabulous wealth replied, with a smile, that the mountains which hemmed the valley about were enormously rich in both gold and silver, and that some hundreds of men had been kept industriously employed in working the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Churchill slowly, "you don't by any chance love some one else? What does that colour mean, Jacqueline? Don't stammer! Speak out!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... started when he saw him, and he began to stammer out, "Oh, dear me! is it you? Pray how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... dumbfounded and could only stammer some reference to the season. In fact, the manner in which her message was being received strengthened her worst suspicions of Walter's sanity. It seemed to her that the entire family was a ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... pause and stammer the old lawyer made it clear: the house and its contents and appurtenances, and seven thousand a year to the widow for life; two thousand a year to Adelaide; five thousand in cash to Arthur and the chance to earn the mill and factory; the ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... have been learning the piano for three years or more, and still can do nothing. You are doubtless right; and, further, they never will learn any thing. You ask, Of what use is it to man or boy to be able to stammer through this or that waltz, or polonaise or mazurka, with stiff arms, weak fingers, a stupid face, and lounging figure? What gain is it to art? You say, Is not time worth gold, and yet we are offered lead? And the poor teachers torment themselves ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... humanity, the herald of all progress; how often hast thou betrayed this high commission! Fain would the tongue in clear, triumphant accents draw example from thy story, to encourage the hearts of those who almost faint and die beneath the old oppressions. But we must stammer and blush when we speak of many things. I take pride here, that I can really say the liberty of the press works well, and that checks and balances are found naturally which suffice to its government. I can say that the minds of our people are alert, and that talent ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... us that we, too, are liable at any moment to be cut down in the midst of our labors. This liability is increased by the amount of labor which necessarily devolves upon us. Now we are only two in number. As for myself I am only beginning to stammer in this difficult language. This, too, in a field where there is labor enough to be done to employ all the men you can send us. You will not think it strange then ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... they paused before the Countess' tent Pierce once more enfolded her in his arms and sheltered her from the boisterous breath of the night. His emotions were in a similar tumult, but as yet he could not voice them, he could merely stammer: ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... intention of showing herself at the hospital, and there spending this last morning, in order, in some measure, to justify her journey to Lourdes. When she perceived Pierre, she began to tremble, and, at first, could only stammer: ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... one proposal; he was a senior with a funny stammer. He went away with his diploma last June, and said he'd never forget. I got his cards to-day. She's a Lafayette girl he had down for the 'Pan' in his senior year. She has golden hair," ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... is not pleasant to contemplate when terror has driven out all self-command; so we will not draw Mr. Fullarton's picture: he could scarcely stammer out words enough to suggest an immediate retreat. It was painful—not ludicrous—to see how justly his own child appreciated the position: the little thing left her father's side instinctively, and clung for protection to Cecil Tresilyan. The latter saw instantly ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... That, has the world here—should he need the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find him. So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled HOTI's business—let it be!— Properly based OUN— {130} Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic 'De', Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... believe only what he thought true, and think no worse of her when he caught her fibbing. Mendacity is a thing so perfectly understood that no one is abashed by detection. In England most men equivocate and nearly all women, but they are ashamed to be discovered; they blush and stammer and hesitate, or fly into a passion; the wiser Spaniard laughs, shrugging his shoulders, and utters a dozen rapid falsehoods to make up for the first. It is always said that a good liar needs an excellent memory, but he wants more qualities than ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... blandest accents imaginable. I can't tell a lie, pa,—you know I can't tell a lie; besides, I had not time to make up one, and I said, "Yes," and then, of all stupid devices that could filter into my soggy brain, I must needs stammer out that I should like a few matches! A pretty thing to bring a dowager duchess up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to stammer that he was not aware—when the visitor slipped past him into the chambers. There, in a goblin way which froze Mr. Testator to the marrow, he examined, first, the writing-table, and said, "Mine"; then, the easy-chair, and said, "Mine"; then, the bookcase, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... trying to prepare a stammering obvious lie. He confronted a tall, thin man about whom—even if his clothes had been totally different—there could be no mistake. He stood awaiting an apology so evidently that Carson—or Bayle—began to stammer himself even before he had time to dismiss from his voice the suggestion of bluster. It would have irritated Coombe immensely if he had known that he—and a certain overcoat—had been once pointed ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... morning Jack put a bold face upon the matter and walked into the Giant's room to thank him for his lodging. The Giant started when he saw him, and began to stammer out: "Oh! dear me; is it you? Pray, how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... few moments later, when Gail answered a knock at the kitchen door, she found their neighbor standing there with the turkey in his arms. Almost too surprised to understand, she accepted his offering, and he was gone before she could stammer out her thanks. ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... you the double parlours. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist. Mrs. Parker's manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... do you hesitate?" retorted the Moor. "Do Englishmen blush and stammer when they tell the truth? Tell me the truth now. Do you know where ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... fatigue and inanition. 3. From wine or of opium. Chilness after meals. Vertigo. Why pleasure is produced by intoxication, and by swinging and rocking children. And why pain is relieved by it. 4. Why drunkards stagger and stammer, and are liable to weep. 5. And become delirious, sleepy, and stupid. 6. Or make pale urine and vomit. 7. Objects are seen double. 8. Attention of the mind diminishes drunkenness. 9. Disordered irritative motions of all the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... sometimes, To move compassion: Sir, there is a table, That doth command all these things, and enjoyns 'em, Be perfect in their crutches, their feign'd plaisters, And their torn pass-ports, with the ways to stammer, And to be dumb, and deaf, and blind, and lame, There, all the halting paces are set ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... appeared to be one of the most robust persons that I had ever seen, and I was surprised to notice that she shot arch little questioning glances at me, as if the admiration even of so insignificant a person were of some interest to her. My father, in his blunt, sailor fashion, tried to stammer out some commonplace condolence, but her eyes swept past his rude, weather-beaten face to ask and reask what effect she had made ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... their ears lark songs of morning from the fields, hermit thrushes in the swamp, bell birds tolling molten notes, in a minor strain a swelling chorus of sparrows, titmice, warblers, vireos, went two strong, healthy young people newly promised for "better or worse." They could only look, stammer, flush, and utter broken exclamations, all about "better." They could not remotely conceive that life might serve them the cruel trick ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... beaten for the first time in his life. He had been struck below the belt by a good-natured giant. The best he could do, as Bacon shuffled calmly out, was to stammer: "Will some one please sing?" And while they sang, he stood in deep thought. Just as the last verse was quivering into silence, the full, deep tones of Radbourn's voice rose above the bustle of feet and clatter ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... trammelled, thus condemned to Flattery's trebles, He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong: For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels, Should rise up in high treason to his brain, He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer through his strain. But out of the long file of sonneteers There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their Prince, shall rank among my peers,[307] And Love shall be his torment; but his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... intensely, have their mental powers confused. This is recognized in such common expressions as "she was covered with confusion." Persons in this condition lose their presence of mind, and utter singularly inappropriate remarks. They are often much distressed, stammer, and make awkward movements or strange grimaces. In certain cases involuntary twitchings of some of the facial muscles may be observed. I have been informed by a young lady, who blushes excessively, that at such times she does not even know what she ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... as it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale face, but before he could stammer a reply, Harry came ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Lizzie. You better attend strictly to your own business or there'll be a new man here next week." It was as if he had blazed away with a shotgun. The young man reeled upon his perch. At last he in a measure regained his composure and managed to stammer: "A—all right, sir." He knew that denials would be futile with the terrible Stimson. He agitatedly began to rattle the rings in the basket, and pretend that he was obliged to count them or inspect them in some way. He, too, was unable to face ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... in his mind were associated only with the printed page. When he suddenly realized that he was using a word for the first time, and probably mispronouncing it, he would become as much confused as if he were trying to pass a lead dollar, would blush and stammer and let some one finish his ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... not a word to say. He had been meditating upon a thousand possible explanations, excuses, apologies, and his tongue would not utter one of them. He accepted his orders meekly, but as he turned to go he managed to stammer out, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... nothing, but bent over my needlework like the good child keeping quiet in the corner. Oh, but they are stupid, these royal people, all except my own Princess and the dear old Queen at Windsor. Neither York nor Lyonesse knew in the least what to say, and the Princess let them stammer on without helping them. ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... command in a husky, throaty stammer, weaker than a whisper, from an undersized tin-hatted youngster planted in the centre of the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot was forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ready ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... prudently kept aloof from the contact of his master's hand; and, as if anticipating an explosion, began to stammer forth his excuses. Theodora's countenance was suddenly overspread with a deadly paleness, and the timid girl wrung her hands in an attitude of despair. Her critical situation, and the duenna's alarm, at first staggered Gomez Arias, but with the start of resolution which immediate danger inspires, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... smiling and patient, talking over her shoulder to a big Englishman behind her. Then, as the slow stream brought her down, she stepped lightly on the wharf, turned to Raymond, and, before he could so much as stammer out a word, flung her arms round his neck and ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... far, low summons, When the silver winds return; Rills that run and streams that stammer, Goldenwing with his loud hammer, Icy brooks that brawl and clamor, Where the Indian willows burn; Let me hearken to the calling, When ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife; While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be— Properly based Oun Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in act to speak, or rather stammer, But sage Antonia cut him short before The anvil of his speech received the hammer, With 'Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more, Or madam dies.'—Alfonso mutter'd, 'D—n her,' But nothing else, the time of words was o'er; He ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... almost pure hexameters, if in lieu of the long a[a-macron]nd, we could put e[e-breve]t, or te [tau epsilon]. And there are only three Saxon words in the two lines. But hexameters consisting of purely English words, especially of Anglo-Saxon words, halt and stammer like a schoolboy's exercise. The attempt of Kingsley in Andromeda is most ingenious ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... tone from a common sailor were, of course, enough to astonish the young man. But there must be more than this, as Adrian surmised, to cause him to blush, wax angry, and stammer like a very school-boy found at fault. Speaking ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... said O'Roon to his friend. "Why do they build hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels? They'll take away my shield and break me. I can think and talk con-con-consec-sec-secutively, but I s-s-stammer with my feet. I've got to go on duty in three hours. The jig is up, Remsen. The jig is up, I ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... repeating that he rejoiced in such a visit. The visitor came in, leaving the door ajar, and after a minute during which, to help her, he charged her with the purpose of telling him that he ought to be ashamed to send her down such rubbish, she recovered herself sufficiently to stammer out that his song was exactly what she had been looking for and that after reading it she had been seized with an extraordinary, irresistible impulse—that of thanking him for it in person and ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... of thought and nature, and bring it half-ashamed, struggling, and deformed into the day—to give words and intelligible symbols to that which was never imagined or expressed before! 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. If he, 'poor, unfledged' in this ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... person (since deceased, and by profession a clerk) suffered from nervousness so excessive that, despite a fair knowledge of music, the fact of putting his hands upon the keys produced a maddening sort of stammer, let alone a notable tendency to strike wrong notes and miss his octaves; peculiarities of which he was so morbidly conscious that it was only an accident which revealed to me, after years of acquaintance, that he ever played the piano at all. Yet I know as a fact that this poor ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... name, very quietly, and it is as though I made a loud avowal! She turns, and it seems that this is the first time I have seen her naked face. "Kiss me," she says; and without speaking we stammer, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... impatient manner, and the sight of twenty people all standing round staring at me, quite upset me, and I could only stammer out a few unintelligible words, feeling that my face was blushing scarlet to the very ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... Snaggs managed to stammer out after a bit, his long face perceptibly longer and his rubicund complexion turned to an ashy grey. He was conscience-stricken and thoroughly frightened at the second-mate thus bringing up again, as ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... I managed to stammer out as we went down to the basement room that they used as a ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... I clasped the document reverently to my breast. Then [I rose up] and walked to and fro in my abode, rejoicing and saying, "How can these things possibly be done to thy servant who is now speaking, whose heart made him to fly into foreign lands [where dwell] peoples who stammer in their speech? Assuredly it is a good and gracious thought [of the King] to deliver me from death [here], for thy Ka (i.e. double) will make my body to end [its ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... laughter, and every now and then shaking all over convulsively. He did not join in the conversation, but he did not miss a word of it. He showed his joy especially when he saw Christophe, involved in some argument and heckled by Spitz, flounder about, stammer, and stutter with anger, until he had found the word he was seeking,—a rock with which to crush his adversary. And his delight knew no bounds when Christophe, swept along by his passions far beyond the capacity of his thought, enunciated monstrous ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Lorry managed to stammer a greeting. He felt as though she were some strange person that looked like Dorothy, but like a new Dorothy of such exquisite attitude and grace and so altogether charming that he could do nothing but wonder how the transformation had come ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... opened the door of her apartment instead of that of my own. The beautiful woman was reading by the light of the lamp and started when she saw me. I was so embarrassed by my mistake that for a moment I could only stammer unintelligible words. My confusion was so evident that she could not doubt for a moment that I had made a mistake. I turned to the door, intent upon relieving her of my presence as quickly as possible, when she said with the most exquisite courtesy: "In order to show you that I do not ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... some strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle. "If a man," said Johnson, "hops on one leg, Foote can hop on one leg." Garrick, on the other hand, could seize those differences of manner and pronunciation, which, though highly characteristic, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... sharp pen, there is much truth, and truth that needed telling, in his contention. "Art," he continues, "that for ages has hewn its own history in marble, and written its own comments on canvas, shall it suddenly stand still, and stammer, and wait for wisdom from the passer-by? For guidance from the hand that holds neither brush nor chisel? Out upon the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... the king, who ordered the children to be brought before him, in order that he himself might be a witness to the truth of what was told him; and accordingly both of them began, in his presence, to stammer out the sounds above mentioned. Nothing now was wanting but to ascertain what nation it was that used this word; and it was found that the Phrygians called bread by this name. From this time they were ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... in a kind of stammer; "an' as to Sally, the nerra one o' me knows any thing about ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to her; but thoughtfully, as she sat gazing out on the dull leaden sky, watching the snowflakes falling through the dreary air. There followed then a long, long pause, in which I had time to recover from the effect her words had produced, and to frame and stammer forth such congratulations as seemed required by the occasion. These she did not answer, or even seem to comprehend, but roused from her revery by the sound of my voice, she crossed the room and seated herself beside me, and took ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Malachi sat smoking over the fire the door opened quietly and the phrenologist entered. He carried a bag with a pumpkin in the bottom of it, and, sitting down on a stool, he let the bag down with a bump on the floor between his feet. Malachi was badly scared, but he managed to stammer out— ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... a mess every one will make! Oh, if I could but stay away, like Harry! There will be Dr. Hoxton being sonorous and prosy, and Mr. Lake will stammer, and that will be nothing to the misery of our own people's work. George will flounder, and look at Flora, and she will sit with her eyes on the ground, and Dr. Spencer will come out of his proper self, and be complimentary to people who deserve it no more!—And Norman! I wish ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... And I have heard a man talk with smooth speech, and it rolled off me as easily as it rolled out of him. Do your best, and leave the rest. If we are in touch with God His fire burns whether the tongue stammer or has good control of ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... the remark that she tho't it WAS rich to talk about the crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when we was in a Tower where so many poor pepl's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder stammer and turn red. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... time that Georgina had ever been called Miss Huntingdon, and knowing he said it to tease her, it embarrassed her to the point of making her stammer, when he asked her most unexpectedly while picking out twenty shining new nickels to stuff into the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... says (Moral. v, 26,29): "Though our lips can only stammer, we yet chant the high things of God." For that which is not made is improperly called perfect. Nevertheless because created things are then called perfect, when from potentiality they are brought into actuality, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... were accompanied by one of her swift, half-frightened smiles; but she didn't wait for an answer. Before Chip could begin to stammer out an explanation that would give his point of view she was passing rapidly up the pathway, bordered with irises and peonies and bleeding-hearts, ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... point-blank question came leaping upon the tortured girl in the stand, Cynthe rose to her feet. She expected to hear the girl stammer and blurt out something that would give them a chance to ask her further questions. But when she saw the girl reel and quiver in pain, when she saw her gasp for breath and self-control, when she saw the hunted agony in her eyes, a great light broke in upon the heart of Cynthe Cardinal. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... astonished that for the moment I could not think what to say, but at last I managed to stammer, as I made a low ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... these words, but I was not prepared to answer him, and in the rush of his indignant accusation my defence was swept down, and I could only stammer out— ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... statement carefully, expecting to see Henshaw turn pale and stammer in terror. Instead, the captain regarded McTee ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... I wanted to find out what hotel was nearest to the lair of our boat, but in that wild moment I could discover nothing more appropriate than "I wish immediately some medicine for seasickness," and (hastily turning over the pages) "I have lost my pet cat." I began mechanically to stammer French and the few words of German which for years have lain peacefully buried in the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... store. A woman, a stranger, came in and asked the price of a shawl. She was told it was $15.00. It was done up for her. She had been hunting through her reticule and now put down the money in gold. The Captain looked at it as if hypnotized, but managed to stammer, "My God woman, I thought you had an order. It is only $5.00 ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... could do the poetry, and I firmly resolved that I would read it through, from beginning to end, in a clear, well-modulated voice, that could be heard by all, including the minister and Belle Marigold. I would not blush, or stammer, or get a frog in my throat. I swore solemnly to myself that I would not. Some folks should see that my bashfulness was wearing off faster than the gold from an oroide watch. Oh, I would show 'em! Some things could be done as well as others. I would ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... not even the symptom of a smile on Cunningham's face. He looked straight into Mahommed Gunga's eyes, and spoke as one man talking calm common sense to another. He raised his hand as the Rajput began to stammer an apology. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... temper (Mrs. Stammer was the jade's name) and my wife's moody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant: hence I was driven a good deal abroad, where, as play was the fashion at every club, tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged to resume my old habit, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with died within a week, and I was left in the house alone. This man, this peculiar fellow, Nat Parker, found me, took charge of me and did not leave me until I was out of danger. Of course, there was no way to reward him—you can merely stammer your gratitude to the man who has saved your life. He told me that the time might come when I could do him a good turn. Well, I met him the other day in New Orleans, and I incidentally spoke of my intention to sell my paper. He said that he would buy it. I told him that ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... provoked, at a behavior so childish and absurd, Douglas could only stammer out something about Lady Juliana having been frightened and fatigued; and, requesting to be shown to their apartment, he supported her almost lifeless to it, while his aunts followed, all three prescribing ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... heroic effort. He began to stammer, checked himself, and at last succeeded in imposing coherence upon his ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... make the movement perfect, or the interval less harsh. Yet, he was great: and though he turned language into ignoble clay, he made from it men and women that live. He is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. Even now, as I am speaking, and speaking not against him but for him, there glides through the room the pageant of his persons. There, creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning from some girl's hot kiss. There, stands dread Saul with the ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... winds will vary, And wise and wary The patient fairy Of water waits; All shrunk and wizen, In iron prison, Till spring re-risen Unbar the gates; Till, as with clamour Of axe and hammer, Chained streams that stammer And struggle in straits Burst bonds that shiver, And thaws deliver The roaring river in ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... it by a shake of the head which gave Philammon courage to stammer out a courteous refusal. The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand, sent him staggering half across ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... from holding out a hand to the adversary of Napoleon, wounded at Saint-Roch. Birotteau, exasperated, tried to say something about the cupidity of the great banking-houses, their harshness, their false philanthropy; but he was seized with so violent a pain that he could scarcely stammer a few words about the Bank of France, from which the Kellers ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... by it! It's a piece of hopeless legal gibberish to me. I stammer out some attempt at an answer, and see Baboo looking at me with a pitying, almost reproachful, glance. "Didn't I," he seems to say, "explain it all to you once at dinner? Do you really mean to say that you've forgotten ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... took in nothing of the president's speech beyond the acceptance of his offer, and, pale with relief, he tried to stammer his thanks and his devotion to his chosen cause. He made no attempt to contradict the president's confident prophecies; he only made the greatest possible haste to the tower-rooms which were to be his home. His eyes filled with thankfulness at his lot as he ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... to rise and place stools near the stove, but whether he was quite drunk or whether some narcotic had been mixed with the brandy, he fell back on his seat, trying to stammer out an excuse. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... House of Burgesses, of which he attended every meeting and was careful to know all about the affairs of the colony. When he first took his seat in the Legislature, he was thanked for his military service to the colony. He rose to reply, but could only blush and stammer. The speaker said, "Sit down, Mr. Washington, your modesty equals ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay
... Poor Hilary looked very uncomfortable. With an apologetic air he began to stammer something about Parish Councils. I was not to be diverted by any such maneuver. It was impossible that he could really wish ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... narrative. I haven't it straight in my own mind yet. Do you know, I wake up at night sometimes with the rather naive idea that I, von Stinnes, who prefer Turkish cigarettes to women, even brunettes ... But I stammer. It is difficult to be amusing, always. I think sometimes at night that I was personally responsible for at least half the casualties of ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... hampered by an occasional stammer and his gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... his eyes in amazement, and began to stammer something about having nothing to get ready with, and a mistake being made, but the Pasha cut him short with another "Go!" so imperative that he was ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... ungracefully, and slop yourself with it, by your awkward manner of holding it; nor should I like to see your coat buttoned, or your shoes buckled awry. But I should be outrageous, if I heard you mutter your words unintelligibly, stammer, in your speech, or hesitate, misplace, and mistake in your narrations; and I should run away from you with greater rapidity, if possible, than I should now run to embrace you, if I found you destitute of all those graces which I have ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... for you," he said, "I should not be here now. Do you suppose it amuses me to investigate the unsavoury details of every society lady's nervous affliction? Do you suppose I'm flattered by such and such a Guardsman's encomiums when I have cured his stammer, or his inability to proceed beyond the letter 'P' when writing ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... he stuttered and blushed and got his grammar badly tangled, but my heart burned as I listened. And I have heard a man talk with smooth speech, and it rolled off me as easily as it rolled out of him. Do your best, and leave the rest. If we are in touch with God His fire burns whether the tongue stammer or has good control ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... in point is the man who becomes nervous while making a speech, starts to stammer, and makes a lamentable failure of what began well enough, because he imagines that persons in the audience ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... O'Keefe gazed stupidly each on each. Incredulous amazement and perplexity tied their tongues. Finally Halloway found his voice to stammer, "What's done happened? ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Burnt Flesh. Just imagine one of our English Judges of the Land undertaking such a Hangman's Office! The poor Wretch made no other complaint than to murmur that the King had directed that he was not to be ill-treated; and when they further questioned him, could only stammer out some Incoherent Balderdash about the Archbishop, the Parliament, and the Billets ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... making every allowance for Whistler's fiery, combative nature, and sharp pen, there is much truth, and truth that needed telling, in his contention. "Art," he continues, "that for ages has hewn its own history in marble, and written its own comments on canvas, shall it suddenly stand still, and stammer, and wait for wisdom from the passer-by? For guidance from the hand that holds neither brush nor chisel? Out ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... I was usually a wide-awake citizen of the land that Lafayette went to save, that I wanted my dinner, and would like to get out. I walked down near enough to the gate to see the policeman, but my courage failed. Before I could stammer out half that explanation to him in his trifling language (which foreigners are mockingly told is the best in the world for conversation), he would either have slipped his hateful rapier through my body, or have raised ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... he, the thrice-requited kid, That such a goddess should address him, Could only blush and paw his lid, And stammer, "Yes'm!" ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... chief like a klieglight; his lips, irresistibly suggesting twin slices of underdone steak, parting into a pleasant smile when his question had concluded. The other two members of the committee seemed about to inquire further when the chief managed to stammer, he was awfully sorry, gentlemen, but he had been out of town and hadnt even heard of the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... on their intimacy with ladies, whose only favor may have been a sharp box on the ear. None are here blamed for besieging a young male with love letters and presents. But a young fellow would be looked upon as having outraged all decency, should he stammer out a faint yes, to the first entreaty of ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... she cried mischievously, before I could stammer anything in reply. "They are building a delightful romance around us. And why not? Why begrudge them the pleasure? No harm can come of ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... OXONIAN (stammer, as on a former occasion, respectfully omitted).—"With this defect, ma'am!—But to the point. Some days ago I happened to fall in with an elderly person, such as is described, with a very pretty female ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... so. The poor fellow wanted to learn to stammer in his Testament, and Letty, like any true-hearted wife, had given him the little assistance she could render. The whipping failed of its intended effect, however. Going one evening, at a late hour, into Letty's cabin, I found George seated by ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... charitable, she had managed to do, and lived to see Kirstie grow to be a decent, religiously minded young woman. Nor did the lass want for good looks in a sober way, nor for wit when it came to reading books; but in speech she was shy beyond reason, and would turn red and stammer if a stranger but addressed her. I think she could never forget that her birth had been on the wrong side of the blanket, and, supposing folks to be pitying her for it, sought to avoid them and ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... ought to have gone. I know my cousin, Miss Winter, is so anxious to help any man out of work, and particularly you; for—" The whole story of Patty flashed into his mind, and made him stop short and stammer, and look anywhere except at Harry. How he could have forgotten it for a moment in that company was a wonder. All his questioning and patronizing powers went out of him and he felt that their positions were changed, and that he was the culprit. It was clear that Harry ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery. I pr'ythee tell me who is it? quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of narrow-mouth'd bottle; either too much at once or none at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... in the least," Drusie said eagerly, when Hal began to stammer out his shamefaced apologies. "I don't want a present from you one bit. I know quite well that boys must have a great deal to do with ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... interruption through the fact that Yakov Boev, a man who possessed both a stammer and a squint, became similarly filled with a desire to tell us something about a fish. Yet from the moment that he began his narrative everyone declined to believe it, and laughed at his broken verbiage as, frequently invoking the Deity, and cursing, and brandishing his awl, and viciously ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... that Miss Walladmor was not the person (as all the country knew) to scan his conduct in this particular (had it even been known to her) with any peculiar severity. He was struck dumb with the belief that at length he was detected: and under that feeling continued to stammer unintelligibly. ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... I read the terms of the will; but he explained that he was a bachelor with hardly any living relation, that he had known my parents in his youth, and that he had always heard of me as a very deserving young man, and was assured that his money would be in worthy hands. Of course, I could only stammer out my thanks. The will was duly finished, signed, and witnessed by my clerk. This is it on the blue paper, and these slips, as I have explained, are the rough draft. Mr. Jonas Oldacre then informed me that there were a number ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Kate, I have stuttered for pleasure and profit ever since I discovered the efficacy of it at school. When I didn't know my lesson one day I put on a stammer, and my bub—bub—bubbing, as the farmer calls it, made the master so uncomfortable that, ever afterwards, at the first sign of it he passed me over. That's why I'm such ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... hours as Raymond waited. He had a peep of her, smiling and patient, talking over her shoulder to a big Englishman behind her. Then, as the slow stream brought her down, she stepped lightly on the wharf, turned to Raymond, and, before he could so much as stammer out a word, flung her arms round ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... guests beside them, who wished to hear them talk familiarly, so as to dispel all restraint, made them stammer and colour. They could never make up their minds to treat one another as sweethearts in ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... craved admission to her—a maiden, young and beautiful, the servitor said; and the Lady Adelaide ordered her to be admitted. Young and beautiful indeed, and so she looked, as, with downcast eyes, the visitor was ushered in—you know her, reader, though the Lady Adelaide did not. She began to stammer out an incoherent explanation; that news had reached her of the retirement of one of the Lady Adelaide's attendants, and of her wish to fill the vacant place. "What is your name?" inquired the countess, already taken, as ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... path. It was a fact that the very gravel for his paths had been imported by the Sofala. Exasperated out of his quiet superciliousness, without looking at anyone right or left, he accosted Massy straightway in so determined a manner that the engineer, taken aback, began to stammer unintelligibly. Nothing could be heard but the words: "Mr. Van Wyk . . . Indeed, Mr. Van Wyk . . . For the future, Mr. Van Wyk"—and by the suffusion of blood Massy's vast bilious face acquired an unnatural orange tint, ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... they had been inspired expressions of actual feelings; and the intellect must indeed have been gigantic that could so beautifully pretend. Ordinary blunderers have to feel a vast amount before they can painfully stammer out a sentence that will describe it; and when they have got it out, how it seems to have just missed the core of the sensation that gave it birth, and what a poor, weak child it is of what was perhaps a mighty feeling! I read Goethe on a special seat, never departed from when ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... understand anything by it! It's a piece of hopeless legal gibberish to me. I stammer out some attempt at an answer, and see Baboo looking at me with a pitying, almost reproachful, glance. "Didn't I," he seems to say, "explain it all to you once at dinner? Do you really mean to say that you've forgotten the way in which I arranged the salt-cellars and the table-knives, and how I turned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... bomb—was already dead. The terrific explosion had sent his soul hard after the puff of white smoke, and in the twinkling of an eye he stood at the bar of the Great Assize. It is to be hoped that he made a good defence there, and did not stammer in ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... had been a beauty, they say, in her youth, There was much fierce fire in her bold black eye. "Am I deceived in you both?" quoth she. "If one spark of her father's spirit lives In this girl here—so, this Leigh, Ralph Leigh, Let us hear what counsel the springald gives." Then I stammer'd, somewhat taken aback— (Simon, you ale-swiller, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... managed to stammer, at last, "I don't know what to say. I hadn't any idea that there was anything in ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn't you! That would be an excellent way of ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... profoundly significant. They know it is nothing in the world but foolishness; and if there is one thing above another that a child hates, it is to be made a fool in public. That's what makes them work their fingers so, and gulp, and stammer, and tremble at the knees. That is what sends them to their seats, after all is over, mad as hornets. This is something that I know about. It happened that, instead of getting funny pieces to recite as ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... pounds. That would make five pounds per family, and seven hundred for the church.' He dipped his pen in the ink, and, as I am a living man, Robert, he wrote me a cheque then and there for two thousand two hundred pounds. I don't know what I said; I felt like a fool; I could not stammer out words with which to thank him. All my troubles have been taken from my shoulders in an instant, and indeed, Robert, I can ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dismissal and settled himself to sleep. When Culver began to stammer thanks for the ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... being a constable who does duty in the daytime. Waggoner suffers from an affection which in a large community might prevent him from holding such a job as the one he does hold. He has an impediment of the speech which at all times causes him to stammer badly. When he is excited it is only by a tremendous mental and physical effort and after repeated endeavours that he can form the words at all. In other regards he is a first-rate officer, ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... morning. She had yielded and she could not renew it. She had spent three miserable hours framing reasonable arguments why last night should be forgotten. But the sight of her lover coming across the meadow had set her heart so leaping that she could only stammer out a few tags ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... the maid for mate, But thou shalt die, thou knight enamour'd; So make thy shrift 'neath the linden straight, The little birds shall hear it stammer'd. ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... therefore be put to death." The plates, as proposed by the soothsayer, were placed before the child Moses, who immediately seized upon the fire, and put it into his mouth, which caused him henceforward to stammer in ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... through all, still trembling to be wrong: For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels, Should rise up in high treason to his brain, He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer through his strain. But out of the long file of sonneteers There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their Prince, shall rank among my peers,[307] And Love shall be his torment; but his grief Shall make an immortality ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... height, his shoulders, and his grace of movement. His blue eyes opened wide at the sight of the young lady in gray hat and ostrich plumes, fashionable driving costume edged with fur, for the spring air was yet cool, and bright silk parasol, for the spring sun was beginning to be warm. With almost a stammer, he said:— ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... General Sigel, "I think I shall want this place to-morrow for a hospital. Madam, your kindness will be reciprocated." He spoke very emphatically, whereat the pretty daughter began to cry, and the mother to stammer apologies, and said she would do the best she could for them, but she really had nothing to cook. The general retired very indignant. Whether or not his threat was carried out I do not know, for the next morning we ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... was such a surprise to Garnett that for the moment he could only stammer out—"You consent then? I may go ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... doubt had many reasons for wishing to see his niece Dogess at Falieri's side, brought the lovely Annunciata to him secretly. Now, when old Falieri saw the angelic maiden, he was quite taken aback by her wonderful beauty, and was scarcely able to stammer out a few unintelligible words as he sued for her hand. Annunciata, no doubt well instructed by Bodoeri beforehand, fell upon her knees before the princely old man, her cheeks flushing crimson. She grasped his hand and pressed it to her lips, softly whispering, "O sir, will you indeed ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... points of the compass, to know them at sight and tell them quickly; for you see it's of great importance to a pilot to know exactly how a ship's head is; and the men at the helm, although good seamen and steering well, are not so ready at answering as a pilot wishes, and very often stammer at it—sometimes make mistakes. Now, you see, when I'm piloting a vessel, if you stand at the binnacle, watch the compass, and answer me quickly how the ship's head is, you'll be of use to me in a very short ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... left in the house alone. This man, this peculiar fellow, Nat Parker, found me, took charge of me and did not leave me until I was out of danger. Of course, there was no way to reward him—you can merely stammer your gratitude to the man who has saved your life. He told me that the time might come when I could do him a good turn. Well, I met him the other day in New Orleans, and I incidentally spoke of my intention ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... Frightened at a thing dressed in a long black coat and a white cravat with a golden-headed cane and a tall hat and a frown; a thing which will stop breathing some fine day and the worms will eat! Shall I tremble when an ecclesiastical Leo utters a roar? Shall I halt and stammer because a top-heavy lad from a theological seminary, hopelessly in love with himself, scowls at ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... love. He did not turn red or white, or yellow or green, nor did he tremble or stammer, or cry or laugh, or become fierce or passionate, or tender or anything but just himself, as I had always known him. He displayed no more emotion than had he been inviting me to a picnic. This was not as I had ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... just as this introduction was over, and a new nervousness attacked Alma. Another tinge of yellowness crept into her skin, her eyes grew wistful, and she began to stammer. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... this announcement that he could only stammer a few words, and Captain Charteris took ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... in a whirl. What should she ask first? She must do it directly, or Mother would be gone. It all seemed confusion, and at last she could only stammer out: ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... were people whose fortune had come; but he managed to stammer: "Are you following ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... very downcast, and ill at ease, and could not dissemble his anguish. He tried to stammer out excuses and get away ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the vocal organs is wanting, with those individuals that stammer, or who have an impediment in their speech. Some parts may be more developed than others, but they generally are but imperfectly under the control of the will, and assume an irregular and rapid movement, while other parts, the motions of which are essential, remain comparatively inactive. ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... faithfully copied his way of speaking. There were the same unfinished sentences, ending in a ps—ps—ps—uttered between the teeth. "What's-his-names" and "What-d'ye-call-'ems" at every turn, a sort of lazy, bored, aristocratic stammer, in which one divined profound contempt for the vulgar art of speech. In the duke's circle everybody strove to copy that accent, those disdainful intonations, in which there was ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... table, took one of the Windsor chairs, and crashed it down beside the sofa, and planted his hulking big body on it, and reached out and captured the thin wrist of his victim, who mustered breath to stammer: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was well received by the audience. Tom was beaten. A potato, vast and nobbly, fell from his palsied hand. He was speechless. Then he began to stammer. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... not easily read writing; she applied to him to interpret his letter. This was a hard task for the poor boy, who, with a tremulous and hesitating voice, saw himself forced to stammer through all that burning phraseology which seemed to congeal under the breath ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... most melancholy images of death and despair. And though the great creator of this mournful labyrinth, this atrocious dilemma, can involve the sad spirit with an art that thrills all the most delicate fibres of the human spirit, he cannot stammer out even the most faltering solution, the smallest word of comfort or hope. He leaves the problem, where he took it up, in ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a point, put a point, you drown me in phrases; your explanations explain nothing. One more word. What in the devil's name is she doing in there?' He had a short way. John began to stammer. ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the light of the lamppost he hurried to his side, and taking his arm in the confidential manner he always assumed when intoxicated, he began talking in a half-foolish, half-rational way, very disgusting to Richard, who tried vainly to shake him off. Harry was not to be baffled, and with a stammer and a hiccough he began: "I say—a—now, old chap, don't be so fast to get rid of a cove. Wife waiting for you, I suppose. Deuced fine woman. Envy you; I do, 'pon honor, and so does somebody else. D'ye know her old beau that she used to ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... made a Bow; that's very well, remember to do so; when you speak, don't speak fast, stammer, or speak in your Throat, but use yourself to pronounce your Words distinctly and clearly. If you pass by any ancient Person, a Magistrate, a Minister, or Doctor, or any Person of Figure, be sure to pull off your Hat, and make your Reverence: Do the same ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears, that I could scarcely stammer I ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... he said, with a slight stammer that somehow lent an additional kindliness to his tone, "what has the day's work been? You first, Herr Graf," he added, turning to the Count. "I suppose that you have ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... not heard anything like it in my life. It set every nerve of me dancing. I suppose Paragot found his interest in me because I was such an impressionable youngster. When, at the abrupt finale, he asked me what I thought of it, I could scarce stammer a word. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... orders now to change him to the chamber above the chapel. If that ye can swear your innocency with a good solid oath and an assured countenance, it is well; the lad will be at peace a little, and I will spare him. If that ye stammer or blench, or anyways boggle at the swearing, he will not believe you; and, by the mass, he shall die. There is for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a profane expressman, and had become quite imbecile under Mr. Wynn's active heartiness and brotherly horse-play before spectators) managed, however, to feebly stammer with a blush something ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... hair she could feel the throbbing of his temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he waked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter, though not incensed stupefaction,—to stammer, "Forgive me! do forgive me! I thought you were ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... agent at Bristol had told George fearful stories of his brother's doings. Gumbo, whom he met at his aunt's door, as soon as the lad recovered from his terror at the sudden reappearance of the master whom he supposed dead, had leisure to stammer out a word or two respecting his young master's whereabouts, and present pitiable condition; and hence Mr. George's sternness of demeanour when he presented himself to the old lady. It seemed to him a matter of course that his brother in difficulty should ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... frequently afterwards, sent advice of this to the king, who ordered the children to be brought before him, in order that he himself might be a witness to the truth of what was told him; and accordingly both of them began, in his presence, to stammer out the sounds above mentioned. Nothing now was wanting but to ascertain what nation it was that used this word; and it was found that the Phrygians called bread by this name. From this time they were allowed the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... and so much appreciated here, by those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for him in Europe. He is felt because he expressed in full tones the thoughts that lie at the heart of our own existence, though we have not found means to stammer them as yet." ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... papers, and though the names had mostly escaped him, he remembered every single face. There was Barlow—big, bony chap who stammered, bringing his words out with a kind of whistling sneeze. Barlow had given him his first thrashing for copying his stammer. There was young Watson, who funked at football and sneaked to a master about a midnight supper. He stole pocket-money, too, and was expelled. Then he caught a glimpse of another fellow with sly face and laughing eyes; the name had vanished, but he was the boy who put jalap in the music-master's ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... she were dreaming. How often had she wished she might learn to ride—more often than ever since Blanche's coming! She could hardly find words to stammer out her thanks, but her kind friends could see that she was surprised ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... she really did amuse herself by telling him the names of the things he touched. He could only stammer, reiterating the syllables, and failing to utter a single word plainly. However, she began to walk him about the room, holding him up and leading him from the bed to the window—quite a long journey. Two or three times he almost fell on the way, at which she laughed. One day he ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... pulpit-propp'd, I flatter; Hermes, god of cheats and chatter, Smile, oh smile on Mr. Smatter, Aid an humble Auctioneer! Wave thy smooth caduceus here, O'er an humble Auctioneer! With its virtues tip my hammer, Model my Grammar, Nor let me stammer. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... wand of office, which for some obscure reason was a bulrush painted white, and Thornton and Webb, who had been sitting behind the table, were put up for election and called upon to speak. Webb developed a stammer, and although he had his speech written on his shirt-cuff, no one could hear what he said. He was, however, received with a lot of applause, so that Thornton might think the election was genuine; Dennison had certainly packed the meeting ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... length she began to speak more clearly as she proceeded with her story, and became excited in its narration. Then she would stop and seem to forget it all. Then she went on, as if she was telling a dream. Then there would be another long pause, and confusion, and she would stammer on in the most wild and incoherent fashion, till the old miner became quite impatient, and thought her as big an imposter as the Indian woman whom she called her mother. He finally gave them each a loaf of bread, and told them ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... words Allecto's wrath blazed out. But amid his utterance a quick shudder overruns his limbs; his eyes are fixed in horror; so thickly hiss the snakes of the Fury, so vast her form expands. Then rolling her fiery eyes, she thrust him back as he would stammer out more, raised two serpents in her hair, and, sounding her whip, resumed with ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... herself at the hospital, and there spending this last morning, in order, in some measure, to justify her journey to Lourdes. When she perceived Pierre, she began to tremble, and, at first, could only stammer: "Oh, Monsieur l'Abbe, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... now in the wrong, was a little frightened at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift descent of Malcolm's heavy riding whip on his shoulders and back made him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from the ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... hands, then swiftly and noiseless crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing, Then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfulls of lingerie and stammer dresses. She moved quietly. but deadly efficiency, and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie had helped her ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the tortured man could not speak. But while his rescuer slashed loose the rawhide ropes that bound him, he began to stammer a ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... countenance, stern; his voice, hoarse; and his delivery, embarrassed; so much so that he speaks only by splitting his syllables. A stammering lover! MOLE, it is true, sometimes indulged in a sort of stammer, but it was suited to the moment, and not when he had to express the ardour of love. A lover, such as is represented to us in all French comedies, is a being highly favoured by Nature, and FLEURY shews him only as much neglected by her. A great deal of assurance and a habit of the stage, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... With a slight stammer but otherwise giving no evidence of the effect made upon him by the passionate intensity with which she had urged this plea, he assured her that his errand was important, but one so quickly told that it would delay ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... him in bewilderment; then, as the captain's meaning dawned upon him, he stepped forward impulsively and, seizing his hand, began to stammer ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... judge, "tell us—" He proceeded no further. Villefort tried to rise, and made strenuous efforts to stammer forth some words. The judge waited a short ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... brains, like a doll of wax!" Then she bent over and murmured smilingly to Zuilika: "I shall make a bigger nincompoop of this big, fair sap-head than Heaven already has done before he leaves here, just for the sake of seeing him stammer ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... it, but she prevented me.—"It is verse," she said, on glancing at the paper; and then unfolding it, but as if to wait my answer before proceeding—"May I take the liberty?—Nay, nay, if you blush and stammer, I must do violence to your modesty, and ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... I began to stammer my contrition for having offended him: but he cut me short with a wave of the hand. "The fact is," he explained, "I was ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... her by her name, very quietly, and it is as though I made a loud avowal! She turns, and it seems that this is the first time I have seen her naked face. "Kiss me," she says; and without speaking we stammer, and murmur, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... teeth, which she seemed always ready to show in a friendly, generous smile, were strong and white and sparkling. Altogether she was such a vision of healthy, unaffected, and smartly gotten-up young womanhood that O'Reilly could only stammer his acknowledgment of the introduction, inwardly berating himself for his awkwardness. He was aware of Alvarado's amusement, and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... morning from the fields, hermit thrushes in the swamp, bell birds tolling molten notes, in a minor strain a swelling chorus of sparrows, titmice, warblers, vireos, went two strong, healthy young people newly promised for "better or worse." They could only look, stammer, flush, and utter broken exclamations, all about "better." They could not remotely conceive that life might serve them the cruel ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... nostrils and cheeks, grimacing with laughter, and every now and then shaking all over convulsively. He did not join in the conversation, but he did not miss a word of it. He showed his joy especially when he saw Christophe, involved in some argument and heckled by Spitz, flounder about, stammer, and stutter with anger, until he had found the word he was seeking,—a rock with which to crush his adversary. And his delight knew no bounds when Christophe, swept along by his passions far beyond the capacity of his thought, enunciated ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... thinking. The child has no natural love of truth, as is experienced by all who have the least acquaintance with early youth. If they are charged with a fault while they can hardly speak, the first words they stammer forth are a falsehood to excuse it. Nor is this all: the temptation of attracting attention, the pleasure of enjoying importance, the desire to escape from an unpleasing task, or accomplish a holiday, will at any time overcome the sentiment ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... ought to have sailed right in, but I sot there, shiverin', an' said:' Oh! because ...' jest like a school-girl. And I could see that the answer made her squirm. She must ha' thought I was the awflest fool. But to save me that's all I could stammer out—'Oh, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... not even the grace to conceal her tears, you went to the gutter, wallowing shamelessly in the slime and mud of the streets, and bringing back the dregs of your orgies, of your sickly remorse, all the pollution of the mire. Remember how I saw you totter and stammer on that morning, when for the second time you lost your throne. What have you not done! Holy Mother of angels! What have you not done! You have traded with the royal seal, you have sold crosses ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... quite discomfited, and was about to stammer out some awkward reply, when the marshal of the household threw open the doors of the banquet-hall, and approaching the king, cried ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of a shawl. She was told it was $15.00. It was done up for her. She had been hunting through her reticule and now put down the money in gold. The Captain looked at it as if hypnotized, but managed to stammer, "My God woman, I thought you had an order. It ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... heart would burst with its palpitations of fear, but she was incapable of flight. Her limbs seemed like leaden weights. Some force working without the zone of her mental control made her stammer: ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... heart struggle conquered, and that she could calmly look upon Wilford Cameron's wife; but the sight of Katy, together with the errand on which she came, had unnerved her, and she wept bitterly in her desolation, until Katy's reappearance startled her from her position on the floor, making her stammer out some excuse about "homesickness and the seeing Katy bringing back ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... appeal, Wharton ran on smilingly: "He promised to shackle you to a table until I could stammer out my halting apologies, and now that I've done so in the presence of press and public won't you forgive me and help me to bury the hatchet in a Welsh rarebit?" He was speaking directly to her with a genuine appeal in his handsome eyes. Now that she saw ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... to me afterwards to remember that my father had thanked these good people 'properly,' as I considered. As for myself, I had only been able to blush and stammer out something that was far from expressing my delight with the lovely nosegay I received. Then the slender lady went back to her gardening. Her sister took up the knitting which she had laid down, the old gentleman ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Yet, he was great: and though he turned language into ignoble clay, he made from it men and women that live. He is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. Even now, as I am speaking, and speaking not against him but for him, there glides through the room the pageant of his persons. There, creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning from some girl's ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... last night. See, I have a pass for all such assemblies, signed by some dolt who cannot even spell the name he assumes—'Pom-de-Tair.' A commissary of police sat yawning at the end of the orchestra, his secretary by his side, while the orators stammer out fragments of would-be thunderbolts. Commissary of police yawns more wearily than before, secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes his penknife and pares his nails. Up rises a wild-haired, weak-limbed silhouette of a man, and affecting ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... matters: your tongue's not so modest It fears to make your cheeks burn—I ken that; And when the question is a woman's virtue, It rattles like a reaper round a wheatfield, And as little cares if it's cutting grain or poppies. So, it's too late to blush and stammer now, And let your teeth trip up your ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... and managed to stammer out that she didn't mind, and ever since then she has been 'Timoroso' to us all. You know Elsie Gayland. She is the same old Elsie. What the Pied Piper was to Hamelin town, she is to this school. We all still flock after her in spite of ourselves, and no matter ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Perkins was about to stammer out a speech, when his uncle, cutting it short, pushed him gently out ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Algernon crimsoned to the eyes, and became so exceedingly confused, that he could with difficulty stammer forth, by way of reply, the query as to the time when the important event was expected ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... came: the memories throng Of days that made the friendship strong— The oar he won, the ties he wore, His love of china, fairy lore, (And flappers); and his honest eyes; His stammer, his absurdities; His marmalade, his bitter beer, And all that made him quaint ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... you've sure grown," he said, in a loud, cheerful voice, "but you're not too grown-up to give your old Dad a good hug, are you?" He pulled Bart roughly into his arms. Bart started to pull away and stammer that the fat man had made a mistake, but the pudgy hand gripped his wrist with ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... prepare a stammering obvious lie. He confronted a tall, thin man about whom—even if his clothes had been totally different—there could be no mistake. He stood awaiting an apology so evidently that Carson—or Bayle—began to stammer himself even before he had time to dismiss from his voice the suggestion of bluster. It would have irritated Coombe immensely if he had known that he—and a certain overcoat—had been once pointed out to the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Mildred flush a beautiful, warm crimson, and stammer something in response. Almost immediately after they were again standing ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... almost uncouth, compared with the immaculate, dandyish pair, Dodge and Bayliss. The latter, with so many amused glances turned their way, could only flush deeply, stammer, ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... soft and strong, had at its heart a tiny stammer which came out now and then with a hesitating, almost childish, charm. As he stood there, leaning on his stick, smiling at them, there did seem a great deal of the child about him, and Brandon, Ponting and Ronder suddenly seemed old, wicked and ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... beyond effects on their dreams. But some absorb especially whispered words in such a way that their power becomes evident after the waking of the sleeper. Much more is this true of children. A suggestion to give up vicious habits, perhaps in the sexual sphere, or to speak fluently and no longer stammer may thus be beneficial. Yet the danger of this method is not small and extensive use of it is certainly not advisable. The more easily it can be carried into every bedchamber and can thus give to every mother and ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... countenance—no, it was mild and placid; but it was changed towards him, and its very serenity was alarming. Whilst she welcomed him to his native country and to his friends, and while she expressed hopes for his future happiness, all hope forsook him, and, in broken sentences, he attempted to stammer out some answer; then, throwing himself into a chair, he exclaimed, "I see all future happiness is lost ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... little later, his eyes reddened with tears, his hair rumpled, his face flushed. He seemed like a man awed by an entirely new experience. He could not speak, he could only stammer brokenly:— ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... helped yourself, and prayed for Its assistance: were you not guarded By it when a sweet voice sung, When a keen wit glowed and argued, When the instrument was silenced, When the tongue was forced to stammer, Until now, when with free will You succumb to the enchantment Of one fair and fatal face, Which hath done to you such damage That 't will work your final ruin, ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... mien, If you can feel the touch of silk and satin Without despising calico and jean; If you can ply a saw and use a hammer, Can do a man's work when the need occurs, Can sing when asked, without excuse or stammer, Can rise ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... the three women fairly cowered beneath Eugene Hautville's eyes, and Margaret Bean began to stammer as if her old tongue were palsied. Then Eugene collected himself, made them one of his courtly bows, turned to Dorothy with another, offered her his arm, and walked away with her out of the lane, before the eyes of ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... afterwards, her husband came up to Andrea and taking his arm with much effusion, began asking particulars about the duel. He was a youngish man, slim, with very thin fair hair and colourless eyes and projecting teeth. He had a slight stammer. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... all that poor, bewildered Hector could stammer: his slowly-moving brain was torn between the duties of his position and his respect for M. le Marquis, and in the struggle the worthy man was enduring throes ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... and we shall witness excellent comedy, or tragedy—I hardly know which love may be. Oh, you are doubly welcome, Captain Ellerey, for the sport you shall give us, and we will ask for a repetition of that confession constantly. The first time you look down before our questioning eyes, and stammer in your answer, we shall know that love has laid siege to the citadel of indifference, and captured it." Ellerey smiled, as he moved aside to make room for others. He would have approached Baron Petrescu had he been able to do so, but he was prevented; first, because ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... one of the company inquired, what is the reason that many men, who are eloquent in the closet, should stammer themselves into confusion and incapacity, when they attempt to speak in public? To this Mr. *** returned the following ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... The ancestress, the forgotten one, tall, bony, ghastly, remained motionless, her eyes, only seeming to have life, her eyes shining clear as spring water in her thin withered face. But on this morning, again a sudden rush of tears had streamed down her cheeks, and she had begun to stammer words without any connection; which seemed to prove that in the midst of her senile exhaustion and the incurable torpor of madness, the slow induration of the brain and the limbs was not yet complete; there still ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... idea—to dig it out of the hidden recesses of thought and nature, and bring it half-ashamed, struggling, and deformed into the day—to give words and intelligible symbols to that which was never imagined or expressed before! 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. If he, 'poor, unfledged' ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... fear of being over-demonstrative. He was easily capable of turning a nice little speech. Apart from the fear of transgressing the canons of negative good form he would have enjoyed turning one. As it was, he assumed a stammer and a drawl, jerking out a few inarticulate phrases of which the lady could distinguish only "so awfully good of you" and "never forget your jolly kindness." This being masculine, soldier-like, and British, he was hurt to notice an ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... he was just then. The truth to be told, he was perfectly well aware why Helen had wished to marry him, and had been all along, without seeing anything in that for which to dislike her; he was quite without an answer to her present question, and could only cough and stammer, and reach for his handkerchief. The girl went on quickly, without waiting very ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... There durst no[218] star stir that standeth in the sky, For I am Lord and leader, so that in land All boweth to my bidding bonnerly about. Who that stirreth with any strife or waiteth me with wrong, I shall mightly make him to stammer and stoop: For I am richest in mine array, I have knights and towers, I have brightest[219] ladies in bowers. Now will I fare on these flowers: Lordings, have ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... I am overwhelmed," I managed to stammer. "Only the most delicate symbolism may dare to express such a theme." I felt that this was very ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Then bow to him, look him in the face, and answer sensibly, not staring about or laughing, but audibly and distinctly, your words in due order, or you'll straggle off, or stutter, or stammer, which is a ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... heaven-sent attribute of every young woman when circumstances compel her to speak to a strange young man—though her tone to the more favored cook was kindly, and even sprightly—though Philip himself was red and inclined to stammer—despite all these hindrances to clear judgment, he felt that she was troubled in spirit. His acquaintance with women was of the slightest, since a youth who is taught his business on the Conway, and means to attach himself to one of the great Trans-Atlantic ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... steely stare. "I leave it to you, Gov'ner," he continued to stammer at length. "S'y you was me and I was ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... later they left her at the mine and Betty mounted Nigger, leading the brown colt by the reins. Meggy had tried to stammer some words of thanks, but the girls would have none of it. They waved to her gayly ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... for Hogarth's magic pow'r! To show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r, And how he star'd and stammer'd, When goavan, as if led wi' branks, An' stumpan on his ploughman shanks, He in ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Lord Vargrave suffered Mr. Douce to stammer out sentence upon sentence, till at length, as he rang for coffee, his lordship stretched himself with the air of a man stretching himself into self-complacency or ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... astounding proposition as calmly as though he were asking the Kentuckian to a lunch of bacon and hardtack, and Crittenden flushed with gratitude and his heart leaped—his going was sure now. Before he could stammer out his thanks, the general was gone. Just then Rivers, who, to his great joy, had got at least that far, sat down by him. He was much depressed. His regiment was going, but two companies would be left behind. His colonel talked about sending him back to Kentucky to bring down some ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... rolled like thunder in the ears of the guests. The drunken became sober, and the sober drunk; the lips of the women turned blue with rage, and could scarcely stammer out a congratulation. The alderman was seized with an apoplectic fit, and his wife was near dying of her husky cough. Fear, in the mean time, obliged the rest to assume a joyous countenance; and they drank, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... mute appeal, Wharton ran on smilingly: "He promised to shackle you to a table until I could stammer out my halting apologies, and now that I've done so in the presence of press and public won't you forgive me and help me to bury the hatchet in a Welsh rarebit?" He was speaking directly to her with a genuine appeal in his handsome eyes. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... songs of morning from the fields, hermit thrushes in the swamp, bell birds tolling molten notes, in a minor strain a swelling chorus of sparrows, titmice, warblers, vireos, went two strong, healthy young people newly promised for "better or worse." They could only look, stammer, flush, and utter broken exclamations, all about "better." They could not remotely conceive that life might serve them the cruel ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... myself decidedly weaker in point of health, and am now confirmed I have had a paralytic touch. I speak and read with embarrassment, and even my handwriting seems to stammer. This ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... quickly. It is not, however, possible that they will fight.... Can we see them from here?" He approached the window, which indeed looked upon the enclosure. The sight which met his eyes caused the excellent man to stammer.... "The miserable men!... It is monstrous.... They are mad.... They have found seconds.... Whom have they taken?... Those two huntsmen!... Ali, my God! My God!".... He could say no more. The doctor had hastened to the window to see what was passing, regardless of the fact that ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... my father seemed in thought; and so, with my arm over my mother's chair, and my hand in hers, I answered my mother's questions, sometimes by a stammer, sometimes by a violent effort at volubility; when at some interrogatory that went tingling right to my heart I turned uneasily, and there were my father's eyes fixed on mine, fixed as they had been when, and none knew why, I pined and languished, and my father said, "He must go to school;" fixed ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there that I had inadvertently fallen asleep, that I was usually a wide-awake citizen of the land that Lafayette went to save, that I wanted my dinner, and would like to get out. I walked down near enough to the gate to see the policeman, but my courage failed. Before I could stammer out half that explanation to him in his trifling language (which foreigners are mockingly told is the best in the world for conversation), he would either have slipped his hateful rapier through my body, or have raised an alarm and called out ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... country-bred lad. Were it not for the desperate urgency of his errand he never would have dared to enter. As it was, the fumes of alcohol and steaming, dirty clothes nearly choked him, and he could scarce stammer the name of "citizen Rateau" when a gruff voice ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... where Jack had laid the billet, and then he went back to his own room, thinking he had broken all his bones. Early in the morning, Jack put a bold face upon the matter, and walked into the giant's room to thank him for his lodgings. The giant started when he saw him, and he began to stammer out, "Oh, dear me! Is it you? Pray, how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see any thing in the dead of the night?" "Nothing worth speaking of," said Jack carelessly; "a rat, I believe, gave me three or four slaps with his tail, and disturbed me a little; but I soon went to sleep again." ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Fl. Probably he doesn't stammer either. I'll try presently. Positively, if he wore spectacles and a wig of your hair, I shouldn't ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... hand in dismissal and settled himself to sleep. When Culver began to stammer thanks for the promised promotion, ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... improper breath management, and numbers of such cases which have been under my care have been perfectly cured by specially designed breathing exercises, adapted to the requirements of each individual case, combined with training of the various muscles employed in articulation. As no two persons stammer alike there can be no universal panacea for the cure of this terrible affliction; it is, therefore, necessary to study the peculiar idiosyncrasies of each case before formulating a plan of treatment; and this makes it impossible to write rules for self-cure ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... free-lance of love, or whether honour bade me forget it. Esther, in the highest spirits, told me that we were going to hear an Italian singer whose voice was exquisite, and noticing my confusion she asked what was the matter. I did not know what to say, and began to stammer out something, but at last succeeded in saying that she was a treasure of whom I was not worthy ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a great satisfaction to me afterwards to remember that my father had thanked these good people 'properly,' as I considered. As for myself, I had only been able to blush and stammer out something that was far from expressing my delight with the lovely nosegay I received. Then the slender lady went back to her gardening. Her sister took up the knitting which she had laid down, the old gentleman nodded his lamp-shade in the direction where he supposed us to be and said, 'Good ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... flying toward the caravan, while we mentally reviewed every accident which possibly could have happened to the boys. Lu met us twenty yards from the trail, trembling with excitement and totally incoherent. He could only point to the south and stammer, "Too many antelope. Over there. ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... good child keeping quiet in the corner. Oh, but they are stupid, these royal people, all except my own Princess and the dear old Queen at Windsor. Neither York nor Lyonesse knew in the least what to say, and the Princess let them stammer on without helping them. I could ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... for no considerations ever consent to go into a room in the dark by himself, being extremely imaginative and nervous; and that on one occasion when he was asked what he expected to befall him, he said with a shudder and a stammer: "To fall over a mangled corpse, squish! ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Prioress, at the head of all her sisters in black dresses, she hardly vouchsafed an inclination of the head in reply to the graceful and courtly welcome with which the princesses, nieces to the great Cardinal, were received. Eleanor, usually in the background, was left in surprise and confusion to stammer out thanks in broad Scotch, seconded by Lady Drummond, who could make herself far more intelligible to these ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... everything," she cried mischievously, before I could stammer anything in reply. "They are building a delightful romance around us. And why not? Why begrudge them the pleasure? No harm can come ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... on my knees before Mm, and say that I didn't deserve new skates, or anything like that this year, because I was a wretched, careless boy, who had done something wicked. But somehow I managed to stammer out that I guessed my old ones were going to be good enough for one more season, though, Jack, they are in bad shape; but then it would have made me feel worse than ever if I'd accepted his offer, after failing him when ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... with his hands, did not frown or clench his fists, but remained impassively calm. His words, however, cut Rrisa like knives. The orderly remained trembling and sweating, with a piteous expression. Finally he managed to stammer: ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... he was perfectly well aware why Helen had wished to marry him, and had been all along, without seeing anything in that for which to dislike her; he was quite without an answer to her present question, and could only cough and stammer, and reach for his handkerchief. The girl went on quickly, without waiting very long for ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... comforts; in his studio, almost as splendid as a palace, the facade of which was reproduced in the illustrated magazines, he had a wife who was convinced of his genius and a daughter who was almost a woman and who made the troop of his intimate pupils stammer with embarrassment. The only evidences of his Bohemian past that remained were his soft felt hats, his long beard, his tangled hair and a certain carelessness in his dress; but when his position as a "national celebrity" ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... all the more beside himself because he saw the Regent smile, and M. le Duc, who looked at me do the same, but more openly, began to speak, or rather to stammer. He did not dare, however, to decide against the release ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... not really matter, I went forward without any delay, asking our interlocutors roughly what they meant and what they were doing here, and telling them, too, that we were going on. I knew that they were sexless eunuchs, who would stammer as I had heard them stammer in the old days when I had seen them trafficking things they had been donated by officials desirous of cultivating their friendship, in the mysterious curio shops beyond the great Ch'ien Men Gate. Nor was I wrong. Stammering, they replied ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... of the nineteenth century; the differences being, as a rule, rather matters of spelling or phrase than of actual vocabulary. It is very well suited both to the poet's needs and to the subject; there being little or nothing of that stammer—as it may be called—which is not uncommon in mediaeval work, as if the writer were trying to find words that he cannot find for a thought which he cannot fully shape even to himself. In short, there is in the particular kind, stage, and degree that accomplishment ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... was this interruption, it served to agitate his mind and bring him down from the realms of imagination to the world of reality. His thoughts began to flow less easily and his tongue occasionally to stammer; the strangeness of his experience came back upon him with redoubled force; the chill influence of vacancy and emptiness oppressed him; his enthusiasm waned; what he was doing began to ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... attack was specially directed against the Church and the clergy. The meeting waxed warm, and seemed likely to come to no good, when Kingsley rose, folded his arms across his chest, threw his head back, and began—with the stammer which always came at first when he was much moved, but which fixed every one's attention at once—"I am a Church of England parson"—a long pause—"and a Chartist;" and then he went on to explain ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... until past midday,—we could see nothing of them. We could not stand up to look about us, because of the pitching of the boat. The two other men who had escaped so far with me were a man named Helmar, a passenger like myself, and a seaman whose name I don't know,—a short sturdy man, with a stammer. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... Creede stared, and in that self-same moment Hardy realized how the low-down strategy which he had perpetrated upon his employer had fallen upon his own head a thousandfold. But before he could stammer his apologies, Kitty Bonnair stood before him—the same Kitty, and smiling as he had often ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... from a common sailor were, of course, enough to astonish the young man. But there must be more than this, as Adrian surmised, to cause him to blush, wax angry, and stammer like a very school-boy found at fault. Speaking ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... eyes, and remained there, behind the carriage, my face muffled up in my cloak. I desired the servants to make no mention of my sudden appearance. They soon made a sign to me that she was recovering consciousness, and I heard her voice stammer forth these words, as if in a dream: "Oh, if Raphael were here! I thought it was Raphael!" I hastily returned to my own carriage; the horses started afresh, and a wide distance soon lay between us. In the evening I went to inquire ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of the afternoon's adventures. Had Theodore Mallery been the hero of a first-class novel he would have remained modestly and obstinately silent about a matter in which he had taken so prominent a part, but being very like a flesh and blood young man, it did not occur to him to hesitate or stammer—in fact he thought he had succeeded in doing a good brave deed, and he was very glad and thankful. Presently they left the library and ...
— Three People • Pansy
... Geoffrey's cabin because we had things to talk over, and it seemed the only place where we could get away from prying eyes. Somehow I stayed on and on, not realizing it was so late . . . and then, and then . . ." She began to stammer; defiance left her . . . "then, that awful knocking . . . those faces staring in! . . . all those brutes of women!" She covered her eyes with her hands and broke down utterly. "My God! ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... don't you?" snarled the man, little beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead. "Or blush and stammer any of the idiotic things which a woman says to the man at the moment of his supreme idiocy. Or flatter yourself with the vanity of it. Are you a good woman or a bad? I don't know. Are you generous or mean? I don't know. Are you loyal and stanch and true—or treacherous ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... me?' she asked, and threw a look round the room, as if searching for someone. I felt I should die if her husband came out—but he didn't. I managed to stammer that the pearls weren't in their case, and so on; and it seemed as if my words turned her to a block of marble! She just stared at me. 'Maybe you think I stole the pearls!' I said right out. She assured ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... holy father, that I have ventured to seek you here. But my lively gratitude would not be longer restrained. It impelled me toward you with the wings of the wind. I must be the first to fall at your feet to stammer out to you my ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Moscow circuit court. The jurymen, left in the court for the night, before lying down to sleep fell into conversation about strong impressions. They were led to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that there ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... yellow copper on the grey walls and red copper on the tiles. In the same way the literature that my soul demands—a sad voluptuousness—is the dying poetry of the last moments of Rome, but before it has breathed at all the rejuvenating approach of the barbarians, or has begun to stammer the infantile Latin of the first ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... spiritual consolation, his intellectual delight, and indeed his daily bread; for out of that tremendous horn-book he taught me to stammer the divine Italian language, and illustrated every lesson, from the simplest rule of its syntax to its exceedingly complex and artificially constructed prosody, out of the pages of that sublime, grotesque, and altogether wonderful poem. My mother has told me that she attributed her incapacity ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... moment later she emerged, safe and unscratched from the confused heap of men and furniture, it was to cut off instantly the stutter and stammer of poor Shafto's apologies, to bid him go instantly for the ship's doctor, and, with face the color of death, to turn quickly to Armstrong. The blow had burst open the half-healed wound, and the blood was ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... the lady, and she said a great many very pretty things to him, which made the gallant little hero blush like a rose in June, and stammer so that he could ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... upon the steps of the club a little later. Bob's head was whirling. He tried to stammer out more thanks and was ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... understood by these words in another part of it. "The Republican party in Connecticut was abundantly strong enough to secure Impartial Suffrage. But it chose, instead, to insult its black-faced brethren, and refused their alliance." Mr. Raymond, in the New York Times, speaks without a stammer on the suffrage question. It declares, "In New York suffrage is now absolutely universal for all citizens except the colored people; and upon them it is only restricted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... words, but I was not prepared to answer him, and in the rush of his indignant accusation my defence was swept down, and I could only stammer out— ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... He had a peep of her, smiling and patient, talking over her shoulder to a big Englishman behind her. Then, as the slow stream brought her down, she stepped lightly on the wharf, turned to Raymond, and, before he could so much as stammer out a word, flung her arms round ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... I must stay here a day or two, until I can—arrange things," I managed to stammer. "Have you a ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... complection, dost thou think though I am caparison'd like a man, I haue a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more, is a South-sea of discouerie. I pre'thee tell me, who is it quickely, and speake apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou might'st powre this conceal'd man out of thy mouth, as Wine comes out of a narrow-mouth'd bottle: either too much at once, or none at all. I pre'thee take the Corke out of thy mouth, that I may ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the air of a man who feels and sees the hidden things. Suddenly the bow rested motionless. A look of fear came into his face. He sprang up. The cowboys were all stealing from the other side of the wagon. They had arrived and dismounted without his hearing them. He sprang to his feet and began to stammer apologies. Long Jim's hand was ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... my speech. It asserted itself especially when I heard any one else stutter, or when the weather was going to change; the men who knew me well said they could always foretell a storm by my inability to talk. From my own experience, however, I knew that when a stammerer heard another man stammer, he imagined that he was being made fun of, and all the fight in him came at once to the surface; and as this young man was about twice my size, I did my best to keep away from him. But in a few moments he came over to where I was ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Jack put a bold face upon the matter, and walked into the giant's room to thank him for his lodging. The giant started when he saw him, and began to stammer out: "Oh! dear me; is it you? Pray how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in the ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... degree; as if it were derived from the Latin sto; for example, stand, stay, that is, to remain, or to prop; staff, stay, that is, to oppose; stop, to stuff, stifle, to stay, that is, to stop; a stay, that is, an obstacle; stick, stut, stutter, stammer, stagger, stickle, stick, stake, a sharp, pale, and any thing deposited at play; stock, stem, sting, to sting, stink, stitch, stud, stuncheon, stub, stubble, to stub up, stump, whence stumble, stalk, to stalk, step, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... Joe was so surprised that he could not speak. His face plainly showed how taken aback he was. Then, after a moment, he managed to stammer: ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... and cry sometimes, To move compassion: Sir, there is a table, That doth command all these things, and enjoyns 'em, Be perfect in their crutches, their feign'd plaisters, And their torn pass-ports, with the ways to stammer, And to be dumb, and deaf, and blind, and lame, There, all the halting paces are ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Rose could stammer that she was going on fourteen Miss Carter broke in to say that she ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... monks who are horrified, as at some prodigy, if they stammer, or repeat even a syllable in the Canon of the Mass,[16] though this may be a natural defect of the tongue, or an accident, and is not a sin. Again, there is no priest who does not confess that he was distracted, or failed to read his Preparatoria, or other old-womanish ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... and consequently they did not go over it to see whether it had been changed or not. He had read three pages and had gone on to the fourth when he lost his place and then he began to tremble and stammer. He then turned it over two or three times, threw the manuscript upon the table, and, as they say in the west, "let himself go." Now the stammering man who had created only silent derision up to that point, suddenly flashed out into an angel of oratory and the awkward arms ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... children. From uniform sounds. 2. Intoxication from common food after fatigue and inanition. 3. From wine or of opium. Chilness after meals. Vertigo. Why pleasure is produced by intoxication, and by swinging and rocking children. And why pain is relieved by it. 4. Why drunkards stagger and stammer, and are liable to weep. 5. And become delirious, sleepy, and stupid. 6. Or make pale urine and vomit. 7. Objects are seen double. 8. Attention of the mind diminishes drunkenness. 9. Disordered irritative motions of all the senses. 10. Diseases ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... if I dared—if I dared!" she heard him stammer, and faced him swiftly, with a movement he might have misread for anger, but for the soul shining ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... breast. Then [I rose up] and walked to and fro in my abode, rejoicing and saying, "How can these things possibly be done to thy servant who is now speaking, whose heart made him to fly into foreign lands [where dwell] peoples who stammer in their speech? Assuredly it is a good and gracious thought [of the King] to deliver me from death [here], for thy Ka (i.e. double) will make my body to end [its existence] in my ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... thee, Renewing so from either spring The songs which both thy countries sing: Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long, Thou should'st forget thy native song, And mar thy mortal melodies With broken stammer of ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... only stammer over the First Reader at her mother's knee, was obliged to confess that she ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... still long enough for the astonished Powell to stammer out an indistinct: "What do you mean? I don't understand." Then, with a low 'Good-night' glided a few steps, and sank through the shadow of the companion into the lamplight below which did not reach higher than the turn ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... and a gurgle seemed to give consent, and, boldly advancing, Van said, with blush and a stammer, ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... tell her of his struggle! Anthony felt far more like kneeling in the dust at her feet. Yet being a boy he could only blush and stammer without ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... in before the indignant delegation, headed by old Reamur himself, and demanded of poor Webb what he meant by sending out such a letter. The youngster was so flustered that he could only stammer a confused denial. He started sniveling. Then Gordon collared him and booted him into the corridor. That should have closed the incident, but a few moments later back comes Webb, blubbering like a whipped schoolboy, and perfectly wild with rage. He was armed with a mop that he'd snatched from ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... seen my start: on the same night I had myself dreamed the same thing; but not a word said I about it now. There was a stammer in my tongue ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... more clearly as she proceeded with her story, and became excited in its narration. Then she would stop and seem to forget it all. Then she went on, as if she was telling a dream. Then there would be another long pause, and confusion, and she would stammer on in the most wild and incoherent fashion, till the old miner became quite impatient, and thought her as big an imposter as the Indian woman whom she called her mother. He finally gave them each a loaf of bread, and told them they could go back to their lodge. This lodge consisted of a few ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... talked, or making sweet-eyes at the chairmen of committees. They appeared, to tell the honest truth, with late reference-books under their arms, and in their heads the faculty for asking the most annoying sort of questions. More than one honest Solon was seen to stammer and turn red under their interrogations, so often stiffened by a date and a little figure ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Judges of the Land undertaking such a Hangman's Office! The poor Wretch made no other complaint than to murmur that the King had directed that he was not to be ill-treated; and when they further questioned him, could only stammer out some Incoherent Balderdash about the Archbishop, the Parliament, and the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... troubled by this urgency of hers. He began to stammer a little. "Of course, the—the fellow helped me a lot. He got me on the staff. He went round with me. He—he took down what I said and later he—he kind of edited my copy before I handed it in. He—he was almighty ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... she, punishing him instantly. "I reckon it does take a decent girl to shock you." And while she stood laughing at him with robust irony, poor Lin began to stammer that he meant no offence. "Why, to be sure you didn't!" said she. "But I ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... raw, embarrassed, genuine young men, who, stopping him on the street, did not seem to know why they stopped him, who, lacking West's verbal felicity, could do nothing but take his hand, hot with the fear that they might be betrayed into expressing any feeling, and stammer out: "Doc, if you want anything—why dammit, Doc—you ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... wert to be the advance-guard of humanity, the herald of all progress; how often hast thou betrayed this high commission! Fain would the tongue in clear, triumphant accents draw example from thy story, to encourage the hearts of those who almost faint and die beneath the old oppressions. But we must stammer and blush when we speak of many things. I take pride here, that I can really say the liberty of the press works well, and that checks and balances are found naturally which suffice to its government. I can say that the minds of our ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... perfect, or the interval less harsh. Yet, he was great: and though he turned language into ignoble clay, he made from it men and women that live. He is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. Even now, as I am speaking, and speaking not against him but for him, there glides through the room the pageant of his persons. There, creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning from some girl's hot kiss. There, stands dread ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... one more effort, painful with unexpressed fulfilment. A flicker of awful yearning took her paling eyes. Life seemed to stammer, pause, then flush as with this last deep impulse to yield a secret she discerned for the first time fully, in the very act of passing out. The face, with its soft loveliness, turned grey in death. Upon the edge of ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... bleed? and must I stammer out, Nay, I blush indeed, fair lord, only to rend My sleeve up to my shoulder, where ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... effect on him: it caused him to whip off his hat as though his hat had been red hot. Except for two tall elegant creatures who stood together at the other end of the boudoir, the chairs and tables had the place to themselves. He was about to stammer an excuse and fly, when one of the gentlewomen turned her eye on him for a moment, and so he sat down. The gentlewomen then resumed their conversation. He glanced cautiously about him. Elm-trees, firmly rooted in a border of Indian matting, grew round all the walls in exotic profusion, and ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... for dreams. More than this. The new heaven is matched by a new earth. Men who see a new heaven make a new earth. In its cloud of steam, in a kind of splendid, silent stammer of praise and love, the new earth lifts itself to the new heaven, lifts up days out of nights to It, digs wells for winds under It, lights darkness with falling water, makes ice out of vapor, and heat ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... animal and where we got her. They insisted that we had stolen her and that she was running back to her owner. They declared that we ought to go to prison until the truth could be discovered. At the very mention of the word "prison" I turned pale and began to stammer. I was breathless from my race and could not utter a word. At this moment a policeman arrived, and, in a few words, the whole affair was explained to him. As it did not seem at all clear, he decided to take possession of the cow and have us locked up until we could prove that it ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... flow of people to the west; but in the month of July an aboriginal shepherd on a station near Bathurst burst in upon his master while seated at dinner, his eyes glistening with excitement. He was only able to stammer out: "Oh, massa, white man find little fellow, me find big fellow". When his master drove him in a buggy through the forest, the shepherd pointed to where a hundredweight of gold was sticking out from a rock. It was so heavy that they ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... like one paralysed now. Her tongue refused to move. For an instant, the catastrophe seemed to her of supernatural agency—it was as if a miracle had happened, as she saw her fiance produce her lover's keepsake. All she could stammer at last was: ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... an enigma as obscure for those who gained it as for him who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; Blucher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington does not understand it at all. Look at the reports: the bulletins are confused; the commentaries are entangled; the latter stammer, the former stutter. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it into three acts; Charras, altho we do not entirely agree with him in all his appreciations, has alone caught with his haughty ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... a surprise to Garnett that for the moment he could only stammer out—"You consent then? I ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... thought, it did not surprise me, and yet I felt sick and giddy. It was some time before I could speak, and then I could only stammer out: ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... day. Occasionally the fever would go down sufficiently to allow him to get something to eat. Then it would be worse than before. In his dire need he wanted to pray, but he was so weak that he could only stammer, "Dear God, help me, or ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... The sight of his blank, unrecognizing gaze brought him back to the consciousness of the utter change in himself. He looked down at his coarse hands and mechanic's dress, and remembered that he was no longer Roland Sefton. His tongue was parched; it was difficult to stammer out ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... have sailed right in, but I sot there, shiverin', an' said:' Oh! because ...' jest like a school-girl. And I could see that the answer made her squirm. She must ha' thought I was the awflest fool. But to save me that's all I could stammer out—'Oh, because ...'" ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... to speak now. She heard him stammer something about the escape of the mice; she heard him asking her pardon. Dazed, she laid her hand in his as he aided her to descend to the floor; nerveless, speechless, she sank into the big chair, ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... tone, the severe look, expressive at once of displeasure and astonishment, were most disconcerting, but Mr. Cornell managed to stammer forth: ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... he remembered, he had raved out his passion for Virginia, and to-day he could barely stammer Betty's name. A great silence; seemed to surround ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... still, silent and nervous. The rude and impetuous eloquence of his speech, broken by many a hesitating stammer, had touched her. There was more thoughtfulness and tenderness in this wild ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... her, with the intention of showing herself at the hospital, and there spending this last morning, in order, in some measure, to justify her journey to Lourdes. When she perceived Pierre, she began to tremble, and, at first, could only stammer: "Oh, Monsieur l'Abbe, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the eyes of the Admiral, and the careless mirth from his voice. When after a while young Jack Drake, unable to bear the silence that fell between them, began some phrase of blundering boyish affection, the sentence trailed off into a stammer. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... fluently enough; but then he began to falter and stammer, and say that for certain reasons he could not marry at all. But if she could be content with anything short of that, he would retire with her into a distant country, and there, where nobody could contradict him, would call her his wife, and treat her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... thought, we were in the grounds and before Crewe's house. Then I noticed lights and a confusion of voices. No one came to meet us. And we got out of the motor and went in through the open door. We found a group of excited servants. An old butler began to stammer to Marion. ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... awkward doggedness which was not going to allow so slight a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... practised himself in love-making till his own glibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the lover's awe—may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and needles after numbness: how much more may that energetic timidity possess a man whose inward history has cherished ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... was a bachelor with hardly any living relation, that he had known my parents in his youth, and that he had always heard of me as a very deserving young man, and was assured that his money would be in worthy hands. Of course, I could only stammer out my thanks. The will was duly finished, signed, and witnessed by my clerk. This is it on the blue paper, and these slips, as I have explained, are the rough draft. Mr. Jonas Oldacre then informed me that there were a number of documents—building leases, title-deeds, mortgages, scrip, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... talker on a thousand and one subjects, a thinker and psychologist. Psychology is his strong point. He argues brilliantly on the subject, yet I need only look at him to upset his thesis, to make him stammer and redden. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... after one of these absences that Jim Spalding, the old timber-jack, told Mrs. Gaynor in his abashed stammer that Mark King had showed up while they were gone. Gloria, on her way to her room, whirled and came back, and extracted the tale in its entirety, pumping it out of the brief, few-worded old Spalding ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... blue eyes opened wide at the sight of the young lady in gray hat and ostrich plumes, fashionable driving costume edged with fur, for the spring air was yet cool, and bright silk parasol, for the spring sun was beginning to be warm. With almost a stammer, he said:— ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... to tell these seedling lawyers, authors, and clergymen they ought to be ashamed of themselves, as their conduct was worse even than that of street Arabs. My words took effect; one or two dropped off in silence, others stepped aside, and one of them even attempted to stammer out an apology. We were near the house of lawyer Van Beek, where Miss Roselaer was going; and as we took leave of each other she warmly pressed my hand, thanking me for my protection and presence of mind, but added that 'such conduct ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... me, but by his wife. He would look every now and then as if he were going to make a remark, and then evidently restrain himself, and remain silent. It was very curious to see this big, handsome, manly young fellow, who ought to have had any amount of success with women, suddenly stammer and grow crimson in the presence of his own wife. Nor was it the consciousness of stupidity; for when you got him alone, Oke, although always slow and timid, had a certain amount of ideas, and very defined ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... they asked us how we got the animal and where we got her. They insisted that we had stolen her and that she was running back to her owner. They declared that we ought to go to prison until the truth could be discovered. At the very mention of the word "prison" I turned pale and began to stammer. I was breathless from my race and could not utter a word. At this moment a policeman arrived, and, in a few words, the whole affair was explained to him. As it did not seem at all clear, he decided to take possession of the cow and have us locked up until we could ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... them facing four pairs of eyes. Miss Taylor reddened; Mrs. Grey looked surprised; Mrs. Vanderpool smiled; but Mr. Cresswell darkened with anger. The couple unclasped shamefacedly, and the young man, lifting his hat, started to stammer an apology; but Cresswell ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... wanted your father's money. Is this story any more reasonable than that?" and Willy would blush, and stammer out,— ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... thus: "It somewhat hurts the feelings to see a minister stand up in his place, and after a very pretty exordium to the budget, take up a bundle of papers from the table, gaze at the incomprehensible calculations before him, stammer out a few confused numbers, and then, with a rueful face, look over his shoulder to V—ns—rt for assistance. How often have I grieved to see unhappy A—d—g—n in this lamentable predicament!" Again, on Thellusson being raised to the peerage ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... lady, and she said a great many very pretty things to him, which made the gallant little hero blush like a rose in June, and stammer so that he could hardly ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... my prospects, I arose early the next morning and walked briskly to Captain Tappken's office. Punctually at ten o'clock I announced myself at the Admiralty and after the usual procedure with the door man, I was received by Herr von Stammer, private secretary of Captain Tappken. A very astute and calculating gentleman is Herr von Stammer. Suave, genial, talkative, he has the plausible and unstudied art of extracting information without committing himself in turn. A marvelous encyclopædia of devious Secret ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... to swell to bursting, and the blood rushed through my veins so that I could hear it and nothing else for a while. I managed at last to stammer forth some words of awkward congratulation, and he left me, singing merrily, after asking permission to bring his bride to see me on the morrow as ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... the schemes that fill thy breast Could but a vent congenial seek, And use the tongue that suits them best, What charming Turkish wouldst thou speak! But as for me, a Frenchless grub, At Congress never born to stammer, Nor learn like thee, my Lord, to snub Fallen Monarchs, out of CHAMBAUD'S grammar— Bless you, you do not, can not, know How far a little French will go; For all one's stock, one need but draw On some half-dozen words like toese— Comme ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... in dismissal and settled himself to sleep. When Culver began to stammer thanks for the promised ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... out his purpose; but together they were unromantic. How could he adjure her to tell him for God's sake whether or not she was in love with any one when he saw she was afraid that something was burning on the stove? He could only stammer out excuses for having come. Inventing on the spot new and incoherent directions for the treatment of Mrs. Fay, he took himself away again, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... swiftly and noiseless crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing, Then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfulls of lingerie and stammer dresses. She moved quietly. but deadly efficiency, and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Newcomb's name should cause such a convulsion in the household, and when that gentleman finally arrived, and the family met him for the first time, it certainly seemed strange that they should all redden and stammer as if they had been "awkward nursery children appearing ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... he saw him, and he began to stammer out, "Oh, dear me! is it you? Pray how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in the dead of ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... face thine origin? Is he not sailing Lost like thyself on an ocean unknown, and is he not guided By the same stars that guide thee? Why shouldst thou hate then thy brother? Hateth he thee, forgive! For 'tis sweet to stammer one letter Of the Eternal's language;—on earth it is called Forgiveness! Knowest thou Him, who forgave, with the crown of thorns round his temples? Earnestly prayed for his foes, for his murderers? Say, dost thou know him? Ah! thou confessest his name, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was the Duc de Mora, he had so faithfully copied his way of speaking. There were the same unfinished sentences, ending in a ps—ps—ps—uttered between the teeth. "What's-his-names" and "What-d'ye-call-'ems" at every turn, a sort of lazy, bored, aristocratic stammer, in which one divined profound contempt for the vulgar art of speech. In the duke's circle everybody strove to copy that accent, those disdainful intonations, in which there was an ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... not pleasant to contemplate when terror has driven out all self-command; so we will not draw Mr. Fullarton's picture: he could scarcely stammer out words enough to suggest an immediate retreat. It was painful—not ludicrous—to see how justly his own child appreciated the position: the little thing left her father's side instinctively, and clung for protection to Cecil Tresilyan. The ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... undertaking such a Hangman's Office! The poor Wretch made no other complaint than to murmur that the King had directed that he was not to be ill-treated; and when they further questioned him, could only stammer out some Incoherent Balderdash about the Archbishop, the Parliament, and the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a good talker on a thousand and one subjects, a thinker and psychologist. Psychology is his strong point. He argues brilliantly on the subject, yet I need only look at him to upset his thesis, to make him stammer and redden. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... as I read the terms of the will; but he explained that he was a bachelor with hardly any living relation, that he had known my parents in his youth, and that he had always heard of me as a very deserving young man, and was assured that his money would be in worthy hands. Of course, I could only stammer out my thanks. The will was duly finished, signed, and witnessed by my clerk. This is it on the blue paper, and these slips, as I have explained, are the rough draft. Mr. Jonas Oldacre then informed me that there were a number ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... really matter, I went forward without any delay, asking our interlocutors roughly what they meant and what they were doing here, and telling them, too, that we were going on. I knew that they were sexless eunuchs, who would stammer as I had heard them stammer in the old days when I had seen them trafficking things they had been donated by officials desirous of cultivating their friendship, in the mysterious curio shops beyond the great Ch'ien Men Gate. Nor was I wrong. Stammering, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... house. Then I noticed lights and a confusion of voices. No one came to meet us. And we got out of the motor and went in through the open door. We found a group of excited servants. An old butler began to stammer to Marion. ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... adage, that "honesty is the best policy." But these are acquired habits of thinking. The child has no natural love of truth, as is experienced by all who have the least acquaintance with early youth. If they are charged with a fault while they can hardly speak, the first words they stammer forth are a falsehood to excuse it. Nor is this all: the temptation of attracting attention, the pleasure of enjoying importance, the desire to escape from an unpleasing task, or accomplish a holiday, will at any time overcome the sentiment of ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... maneuvers. I was transferred to Italy by the French and ... But it's a complicated narrative. I haven't it straight in my own mind yet. Do you know, I wake up at night sometimes with the rather naive idea that I, von Stinnes, who prefer Turkish cigarettes to women, even brunettes ... But I stammer. It is difficult to be amusing, always. I think sometimes at night that I was personally responsible for at least half ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... kind," he said; he was so bewildered by this unexpected mildness that he could not think what to say next. "I very much appreciate your overlooking my not telling you about it before I did it. The—the fact was," he began to stammer; her face was not reassuring; "the fact was, it was all so ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... and despair. And though the great creator of this mournful labyrinth, this atrocious dilemma, can involve the sad spirit with an art that thrills all the most delicate fibres of the human spirit, he cannot stammer out even the most faltering solution, the smallest word of comfort or hope. He leaves the problem, where he took it up, in the mighty hands ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... their dreams. But some absorb especially whispered words in such a way that their power becomes evident after the waking of the sleeper. Much more is this true of children. A suggestion to give up vicious habits, perhaps in the sexual sphere, or to speak fluently and no longer stammer may thus be beneficial. Yet the danger of this method is not small and extensive use of it is certainly not advisable. The more easily it can be carried into every bedchamber and can thus give to every mother and nurse the tools ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... that in his mind were associated only with the printed page. When he suddenly realized that he was using a word for the first time, and probably mispronouncing it, he would become as much confused as if he were trying to pass a lead dollar, would blush and stammer and let some one finish his ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... will bid you good-bye," he managed to stammer, extending an unwilling hand and again ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... that joy I had in him before; O f whom a word I fain would stammer forth, R ather to ease my heart than ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... concerned to see you even drink a cup of coffee ungracefully, and slop yourself with it, by your awkward manner of holding it; nor should I like to see your coat buttoned, or your shoes buckled awry. But I should be outrageous, if I heard you mutter your words unintelligibly, stammer, in your speech, or hesitate, misplace, and mistake in your narrations; and I should run away from you with greater rapidity, if possible, than I should now run to embrace you, if I found you destitute of all those graces which I have set my heart ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Even her very utterance and enunciation often suffered in point of clearness and steadiness, from the agitation of her excessive organic sensibility. At times the self-counteraction and self-baffling of her feelings caused her even to stammer. But the greatest deductions from Miss Wordsworth's attractions, and from the exceeding interest which surrounded her, in right of her character, of her history, and of the relation which she fulfilled towards her brother, were the glancing quickness of ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... discomfited, and was about to stammer out some awkward reply, when the marshal of the household threw open the doors of the banquet-hall, and approaching the king, cried out, "Le roi ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... world here—should he need the next. Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find him. So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be!— Properly based Oun— Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... his seeing her. He turned quickly to accost her and immediately lost so much of his breath that he could only stammer his thanks, and the hope that Juno still enjoyed the best of health. But the deep-brown eyes did not waver after acknowledging his reply, nor did the smile ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... staggered and the long rod in his hand shook like a reed. Then he began to stammer something about the Bishop and the Archdeacon and his new orders and instructions—how the shelter had been taken over by other authorities, and he ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the living-room, Barbara's cheeks were burning with excitement and her eyes shone like stars. When she took the check, which Eloise wrote with an accustomed air, she could scarcely speak, but managed to stammer out, ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... of such a woman was enough to pull any broken man together—to drag a man out of his grave. And he thought this with inward despair, which kept him silent as much almost as his astonishment. At last he managed to stammer out ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... she was with astonishment, Mrs. Peckover managed to stammer a faint answer in the affirmative, and to add that the initials, "M. G.," would be found somewhere on the broken board lying at their feet. She then tried to ask a question or two in her turn; but the words ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... look, expressive at once of displeasure and astonishment, were most disconcerting, but Mr. Cornell managed to stammer forth: ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... that your ideas fly from you when you attempt to express them, that you stammer and flounder about for words which you are unable to find, you may be sure that every honest effort you make, even if you fail in your attempt, will make it all the easier for you to speak well the next time. It is remarkable, if ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... especially when I heard any one else stutter, or when the weather was going to change; the men who knew me well said they could always foretell a storm by my inability to talk. From my own experience, however, I knew that when a stammerer heard another man stammer, he imagined that he was being made fun of, and all the fight in him came at once to the surface; and as this young man was about twice my size, I did my best to keep away from him. But in a few moments he ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... why don't you?" snarled the man, little beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead. "Or blush and stammer any of the idiotic things which a woman says to the man at the moment of his supreme idiocy. Or flatter yourself with the vanity of it. Are you a good woman or a bad? I don't know. Are you generous or mean? I don't know. Are you ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... new significance in a phrase because of its environment. Thus the anecdote of the servant who had been instructed to summon the visiting English nobleman by tapping on his bedroom door and inquiring, "My lord, have you yet risen?" and who could only stammer, "My God! ain't you up yet?" Or the anecdote of the minister who in a sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son told how a young man living dissolutely in a city had been compelled to send to the pawnbroker first his overcoat, next his ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: Tussis attacked him.... So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be!— Properly based Oun— Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... see berg-battling shores, and stammer and halt and stare, With a sudden sense of the frozen void, serene and vast and still; And the aching gleam and the hush of dream, and the track of a great white bear, And the primal lust that surged in you as you sprang to ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... thing he could have done better had he not been haunted by the Englishman's fear of being over-demonstrative. He was easily capable of turning a nice little speech. Apart from the fear of transgressing the canons of negative good form he would have enjoyed turning one. As it was, he assumed a stammer and a drawl, jerking out a few inarticulate phrases of which the lady could distinguish only "so awfully good of you" and "never forget your jolly kindness." This being masculine, soldier-like, and British, he was hurt to notice an amused smile on the Marquise's ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the presence of my wife, mother, mother-in-law, sons, daughters, old footman or parlor-maid, confidential clerk, curate, or what not? I smirk and go through the history, giving my admirable imitations of the characters introduced: I mimic Jones's grin, Hobbs's squint, Brown's stammer, Grady's brogue, Sandy's Scotch accent, to the best of my power: and, the family part of my audience laughs good-humoredly. Perhaps the stranger, for whose amusement the performance is given, is amused ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Blandford, who had been married two years, and was transacting a steady and fairly profitable manufacturing business in the adjacent town, actually believed he was more fitted for adventurous speculation than the grimly erratic man of energetic impulses and pleasures beside him. He managed to stammer hesitatingly: ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... time comes for Veneering to deliver a neat and appropriate stammer to the men of Pocket-Breaches, only Podsnap and Twemlow accompany him by railway to that sequestered spot. The legal gentleman is at the Pocket-Breaches Branch Station, with an open carriage with a printed bill 'Veneering for ever' stuck upon it, as if it were a wall; and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... into their midst, laugh with glee at the scramble that ensued, and finally march off with the wearer of the favor. I saw a neighbor of mine, tall Jack Pride, who lived twelve miles above me, blush and stammer, and bow again and again to a milliner's apprentice of a girl, not five feet high and all eyes, who dropped a curtsy at each bow. When I had passed them fifty yards or more, and looked back, they were still bobbing and bowing. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... am what I am. Ignorant, rough man I was, with the merest flicker of spiritual life; but she cared for my soul, and was so patiently loving that she led me to know God.' Bailey was afflicted with a stammer when he was converted. Of this, he says, 'She talked to me so calm and quiet. "Go slow, now," she'd say, "Count." She would insist upon my giving my testimony, and if she saw I was going to be fairly stuck, she'd shout. "Glory! Hallelujah!" and beam on me with that ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' they won't mind. Ben is crazy to see the rough side of Western life, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... observation of mine, which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a stammering man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It is an excess of delicacy, excess of sensibility to the presence of his fellow-creature, that makes him stammer. Hammond l'Estrange says, "Who ever heard of a stammering man that was a fool?" Really there is something in that.—James is now off to the Isle of Wight; will see Sterling at Ventnor there; see whether such an Isle or France will suit better ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... replied, in a kind of stammer; "an' as to Sally, the nerra one o' me knows any thing about her, since ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Poet's art, Daily I learn by the heart. First, all the leather smooth I hammer, Consonants then, and vowels I stammer. Next must the thread be stiff with wax, Then I must learn it rhymes ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... looked very uncomfortable. With an apologetic air he began to stammer something about Parish Councils. I was not to be diverted by any such maneuver. It was impossible that he could really wish to ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... solitary walk to give Span a run, she saw, with annoyance, James Tapster following her, and to her acute discomfiture he managed to stammer out what was tantamount to an offer of marriage. Though, in a sense, she had certainly tried to attract him, she felt, all at once, miserably ashamed of her success. So much so, indeed, that she pretended at first not to ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... only favor may have been a sharp box on the ear. None are here blamed for besieging a young male with love letters and presents. But a young fellow would be looked upon as having outraged all decency, should he stammer out a faint yes, to the first entreaty of ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... who no doubt had many reasons for wishing to see his niece Dogess at Falieri's side, brought the lovely Annunciata to him secretly. Now, when old Falieri saw the angelic maiden, he was quite taken aback by her wonderful beauty, and was scarcely able to stammer out a few unintelligible words as he sued for her hand. Annunciata, no doubt well instructed by Bodoeri beforehand, fell upon her knees before the princely old man, her cheeks flushing crimson. She grasped his hand and pressed it to her lips, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... weeping by the bed of the princess, and implored her to say what frightful accident had so disfigured her. Princess Amelia was incapable of reply! Her lips were convulsively pressed together; she could only stammer out a few ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... upon the engagement," I managed to reply calmly. But then, as Di suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, the blood sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young ass of a schoolboy. "I'm afraid that I—er—the fact is, I am engaged. A matter of business. I wish I could get out of it, but I can't, and—er—I shall have to run off, or I will be late. Good-bye,—good-bye." Then I mumbled something about hoping to see them ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... prisoner overwhelmed Gwynplaine. He was terrified by a confession that was unintelligible to him, and began in his distress to stammer and protest his innocence. "Have pity on me, my lord. You have before ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... round and stared dumbly at the weak faced one, who looked at a complete loss, but managed to stammer simperingly that it was a ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... God in His infinite goodness has given me a clear insight into the deep mysteries of Charity. If I could but express what I know, you would hear a heavenly music; but alas! I can only stammer like a child, and if God's own words were not my support, I should be tempted to beg leave to hold my peace. When the Divine Master tells me to give to whosoever asks of me, and to let what is mine ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... which, if they do not create merriment, may yield some slight amusement. The pedant's endeavours to make a philosopher of his child are sufficiently ludicrous. He is delighted to find that the infant has the wart of Cicero and the very neck of Alexander, and hopes that he may come to stammer like Demosthenes, 'and in time arrive at many other defects of famous men.' As the boy grows up his father invents for him a geographical suit of clothes, and stamps his gingerbread with the letters of the Greek alphabet, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... want!" He threw down his hat and stick upon the green-baize-covered table, took one of the Windsor chairs, and crashed it down beside the sofa, and planted his hulking big body on it, and reached out and captured the thin wrist of his victim, who mustered breath to stammer: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded justification on ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... from an entire stranger was unlooked for by Wilmot. He knew not what to make of it; it was so different from the cold, money-making men of the North. He tried to stammer out his thanks, when Mr. Edson interrupted him by nudging Mr. Woodburn and saying: "Don't you mind old Middleton. He's been tarin' round after a Yankee teacher these six weeks. I reckon this ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... Lisping (Literal Dysarthria).—Children just beginning to form sentences stammer, not uttering the sounds correctly. They also, as a rule, lisp for a considerable time, so that the words spoken by them are still indistinct and are intelligible only to the persons most intimately associated ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... and tell them quickly; for you see it's of great importance to a pilot to know exactly how a ship's head is; and the men at the helm, although good seamen and steering well, are not so ready at answering as a pilot wishes, and very often stammer at it—sometimes make mistakes. Now, you see, when I'm piloting a vessel, if you stand at the binnacle, watch the compass, and answer me quickly how the ship's head is, you'll be of use to me in a very short time. Go up into my room, and under the bed you will find a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... It wasn't even the loss of a good-for-nothing chorus-girl. It was a loss far more subtle. The recognition of it lamed Robert Stonehouse, knocked the power out of him, as though someone had struck and paralysed a vital nerve centre. He could only stammer futilely: ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... at the lot of a mere commuter, You think that my life is hard, mayhap, But I'm sure than you I am far acuter: I ain't afraid of no cat nor trap." The city rat could but meekly stammer, "Don't use such grammar, My ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... don't understand anything by it! It's a piece of hopeless legal gibberish to me. I stammer out some attempt at an answer, and see Baboo looking at me with a pitying, almost reproachful, glance. "Didn't I," he seems to say, "explain it all to you once at dinner? Do you really mean to say that you've forgotten the way in which I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... with downcast eye, and cold perspiration on his pallid brow, did not understand him; for he continued to stammer incessantly,— ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the morning Jack put a bold face upon the matter and walked into the Giant's room to thank him for his lodging. The Giant started when he saw him, and began to stammer out: "Oh! dear me; is it you? Pray, how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in the ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... no dark centres. Through them, all that she was feeling struggled to find an outlet; but, too deep for words, those feelings would not pass her lips, utterly unused to express emotion. She could only stammer: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... or whether honour bade me forget it. Esther, in the highest spirits, told me that we were going to hear an Italian singer whose voice was exquisite, and noticing my confusion she asked what was the matter. I did not know what to say, and began to stammer out something, but at last succeeded in saying that she was a treasure of whom I was not ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... these words: "It seems they do not decide to separate so quickly. It is not, however, possible that they will fight.... Can we see them from here?" He approached the window, which indeed looked upon the enclosure. The sight which met his eyes caused the excellent man to stammer.... "The miserable men!... It is monstrous.... They are mad.... They have found seconds.... Whom have they taken?... Those two huntsmen!... Ali, my God! My God!".... He could say no more. The doctor had hastened to the window to see what was passing, ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... well aware why Helen had wished to marry him, and had been all along, without seeing anything in that for which to dislike her; he was quite without an answer to her present question, and could only cough and stammer, and reach for his handkerchief. The girl went on quickly, without waiting very long for ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... he spoke, the sound of distant firing fell upon the ears of the party and the unmistakable stammer-hammer ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... that wild moment I could discover nothing more appropriate than "I wish immediately some medicine for seasickness," and (hastily turning over the pages) "I have lost my pet cat." I began mechanically to stammer French and the few words of German which for years have lain peacefully buried in the dustiest ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... have made a Bow; that's very well, remember to do so; when you speak, don't speak fast, stammer, or speak in your Throat, but use yourself to pronounce your Words distinctly and clearly. If you pass by any ancient Person, a Magistrate, a Minister, or Doctor, or any Person of Figure, be sure to pull off your Hat, and make your Reverence: Do the same when you pass by any sacred ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... which must have crossed his face at this announcement was lost upon the constable. But his consternation was evident from the way he thrust out either hand to steady himself against the walls of the narrow passageway, and Mr. Fenton was not at all surprised to hear him stammer out: ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... always, his first thought was to go and thank Constantine Jopp for having saved his life. As soon as he was able he went forth to find his rescuer, and met him suddenly on turning a corner of the street. Before he could stammer out the gratitude that was in his heart, Jopp, eyeing him with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... When they reached the church, and the men, after searching for a time without result, appealed to him to save trouble by pointing out the spot where the pocket-book was concealed, he could only stammer and falter unintelligibly, and finally ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... came in, leaving the door ajar, and after a minute during which, to help her, he charged her with the purpose of telling him that he ought to be ashamed to send her down such rubbish, she recovered herself sufficiently to stammer out that his song was exactly what she had been looking for and that after reading it she had been seized with an extraordinary, irresistible impulse—that of thanking him for it in ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... every nerve of me dancing. I suppose Paragot found his interest in me because I was such an impressionable youngster. When, at the abrupt finale, he asked me what I thought of it, I could scarce stammer a word. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the moon, O'erpower'd by earth, or planetary sway Of Saturn; and the geomancer sees His Greater Fortune up the east ascend, Where gray dawn checkers first the shadowy cone; When 'fore me in my dream a woman's shape There came, with lips that stammer'd, eyes aslant, Distorted feet, hands maim'd, and colour pale. I look'd upon her; and as sunshine cheers Limbs numb'd by nightly cold, e'en thus my look Unloos'd her tongue, next in brief space her form Decrepit rais'd erect, and faded face With love's own hue illum'd. Recov'ring speech ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... expected these words, but I was not prepared to answer him, and in the rush of his indignant accusation my defence was swept down, and I could only stammer out— ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... to take an unprecedented walk alone with Miss Pottinger, to linger under green leaves in unfrequented woods, and at last seemed about to desert him as he stood in a little hollow with her hand in his—their only listener an inquisitive squirrel. Yet this was all the disappointed animal heard him stammer,— ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... brought him back to the consciousness of the utter change in himself. He looked down at his coarse hands and mechanic's dress, and remembered that he was no longer Roland Sefton. His tongue was parched; it was difficult to stammer out a word. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... of pleasantry which he essayed to assume, nor the more dangerous resource of offended dignity, could extricate him from the embarrassment in which he was thrown by my words. He could do nothing but stammer out a few unintelligible phrases; and his confusion was so great and so visible, that the marquis de Chauvelin, his not over sincere friend, came to his assistance. The king, equally surprised ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... which do not fit in with the telepathic theory are those from very young children. When they communicate a short time after death, they reproduce their childish gestures, they repeat the few words they had begun to stammer; they ask by gestures for the toys they liked. All these details are evidently to be found in the minds of the parents. But when these children communicate long years after their death, it is as if they had grown in the other world; they only rarely allude to the impressions ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... dinner to be served. Suddenly, from the other end of the table, a harsh voice issued from the lips of a burly, red-faced man. "Mr. President, if you are a Christian, you'll perhaps be good enough to say grace, and let us get to our dinner, which we want very badly." I managed to stammer forth the formula of my childhood, and thought the worst was over. Not a bit of it. No sooner had the soup been audibly consumed than the hated voice from the foot of the table again assailed me. "Mr. President, I really don't know what you mean ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... course I mean, who should know what he was talking about and should have shown you he did, as foreign critics like to show it) were to say to you: 'He's the one, in this country, whom they consider the most perfect, isn't he?' Is it success to be the occasion of a young Englishman's having to stammer as you would have to stammer at such a moment for old England? No, no; success is to have made people wriggle to another ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... kept aloof from the contact of his master's hand; and, as if anticipating an explosion, began to stammer forth his excuses. Theodora's countenance was suddenly overspread with a deadly paleness, and the timid girl wrung her hands in an attitude of despair. Her critical situation, and the duenna's alarm, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... southern counties at which I have not dropped on some Saturday or other a Caine or a Barclay; to have it restored to me a moment later by a courteous fellow-passenger—courteous, but with a smile of gentle pity in his eye as he glimpsed the author's name. "Thanks very much," I would stammer, blushing guiltily, and perhaps I would babble about a sick friend to whom I was taking them, or that I was running out of paper-weights. But he never believed me. He knew that he would have said something ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... bewildered by his mother's serious manner wished to reply, but he could only stammer out ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... overcome by his unexpected release that he began to stammer out incoherent expressions of gratitude to the judge, such as "Oh, thank you, your Honor! God bless your Honor! Thank you, your Honor! I am an innocent man, your Honor!" until Gottlieb, grasping him by the arm, dragged him away from the rail and pushed him into the street. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... sounds. 2. Intoxication from common food after fatigue and inanition. 3. From wine or of opium. Chilness after meals. Vertigo. Why pleasure is produced by intoxication, and by swinging and rocking children. And why pain is relieved by it. 4. Why drunkards stagger and stammer, and are liable to weep. 5. And become delirious, sleepy, and stupid. 6. Or make pale urine and vomit. 7. Objects are seen double. 8. Attention of the mind diminishes drunkenness. 9. Disordered irritative motions ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... will stammer, and the door reply, The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... rose up] and walked to and fro in my abode, rejoicing and saying, "How can these things possibly be done to thy servant who is now speaking, whose heart made him to fly into foreign lands [where dwell] peoples who stammer in their speech? Assuredly it is a good and gracious thought [of the King] to deliver me from death [here], for thy Ka (i.e. double) will make my body to end [its existence] ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... lips so closely pressed to hers, that through her soft thick hair she could feel the throbbing of his temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he waked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter though not incensed stupefaction—to stammer: ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... searching his face for some trace of doubt on which to hang a little hoping, but it was all bronze and very greatly troubled. Then he saw what I wanted, and began to stammer. "May be the horse was tender, an' that was the reason." But Ump piped in, scattering the little cloud, "That horse ain't lame. He trots square ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... left in the court for the night, before lying down to sleep fell into conversation about strong impressions. They were led to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... been delightful," Lucy contrived to stammer, and then fell to scanning the road, which stretched away for a long half mile ahead ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... vocal organs is wanting, with those individuals that stammer, or who have an impediment in their speech. Some parts may be more developed than others, but they generally are but imperfectly under the control of the will, and assume an irregular and rapid movement, while ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... condemned to Flattery's trebles, He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong: For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels, Should rise up in high treason to his brain, He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer through his strain. But out of the long file of sonneteers There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their Prince, shall rank among my peers,[307] And Love shall be his torment; but his grief Shall make an immortality of tears, And Italy shall hail ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my d——d cowardice made me stammer. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... which they repeated frequently afterwards, sent advice of this to the king, who ordered the children to be brought before him, in order that he himself might be a witness to the truth of what was told him; and accordingly both of them began, in his presence, to stammer out the sounds above mentioned. Nothing now was wanting but to ascertain what nation it was that used this word; and it was found that the Phrygians called bread by this name. From this time they were allowed the honour of antiquity, or rather of priority, which the Egyptians themselves, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... she emerged, safe and unscratched from the confused heap of men and furniture, it was to cut off instantly the stutter and stammer of poor Shafto's apologies, to bid him go instantly for the ship's doctor, and, with face the color of death, to turn quickly to Armstrong. The blow had burst open the half-healed wound, and the blood ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... "'Didn't—didn't'—don't stammer and stutter like that! Confound you! What do you mean by dragging me out of bed in this way? You must have been ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... over us that we, too, are liable at any moment to be cut down in the midst of our labors. This liability is increased by the amount of labor which necessarily devolves upon us. Now we are only two in number. As for myself I am only beginning to stammer in this difficult language. This, too, in a field where there is labor enough to be done to employ all the men you can send us. You will not think it strange ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... offspring, no uplifted thought of justice. The thirst for revenge, personal, violent, utter, was all that prompted this man; but Burrell had no inkling yet of the father's well-shaped plans, nor how far-reaching they were, and could barely stammer: ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... seeing that I would not get him to respond in that way, I began to stammer something about my calling, my love of art, my desire to learn and so forth. . . . He continued to peel his potatoes. Finally, I asked him to give me lessons. He glanced at me and grumbled: 'How old are you, my boy?' I stood ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... should omit to secure the company of a custodian of the peace, or fail to stand on one leg with both hands on the counter, or take the knife in his right hand first, or should leave out the prescribed words, or blink his eye, or stammer, or sneeze, or in any other way fail to observe the regulations of the Act; he would, of course, have no case or remedy. The Adulteration Acts ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... plunging forward upon my face. Before I could recover my equilibrium and turn about, I heard the jingle of a tray of glasses and a cool shower of spray flew about my ears. Then the dazed and bewildered eyes of a timid girl looked full into mine; she courageously paused and essayed to stammer out an apology. Her gaze, though, wandered past me, and one sight of the drawn features of those who had seen it all and now sought in vain to restrain their laughter, was too much for this startled fawn. She turned and fled as the wind, just when their ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you," he said with a soft boyish stammer; "but I am too dazed with happiness ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... no longer stammer words which shame the panorama Seen from all the mountain-passes of this old Aurelian Way, With the shore below us sleeping, and the distant steamer creeping From Marseilles to proud Genova, on to Spezzia's famous bay. So forever, mia ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... a word to say. He had been meditating upon a thousand possible explanations, excuses, apologies, and his tongue would not utter one of them. He accepted his orders meekly, but as he turned to go he managed to stammer out, "Of course—to ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... (faint sound) 405; lisp, drawl, tardiloquence^; nasal tone, nasal accent; twang; falsetto &c (want of voice) 581; broken voice, broken accents, broken sentences. brogue &c 563; slip of the tongue, lapsus linouae [Lat.]. V. stammer, stutter, hesitate, falter, hammer; balbutiate^, balbucinate^, haw, hum and haw, be unable to put two words together. mumble, mutter; maud^, mauder^; whisper &c 405; mince, lisp; jabber, gibber; sputter, splutter; muffle, mump^; drawl, mouth; croak; speak thick, speak through the nose; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ask their husbands questions on matters of love; they flatter and caress them; they allow some part of their body to be uncovered as if by accident; their breasts appear to swell; they show unusual alacrity; they blush; their eyes are bright; and if they experience unusual ardor they stammer, talk beside the mark, and are scarcely mistress of themselves. At the same time their private parts become hot and swell. All these signs should convince a husband, however inattentive he may be, that his wife craves for satisfaction" (Zacchiae Quaestionum Medico-legalium Opus, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... for Whistler's fiery, combative nature, and sharp pen, there is much truth, and truth that needed telling, in his contention. "Art," he continues, "that for ages has hewn its own history in marble, and written its own comments on canvas, shall it suddenly stand still, and stammer, and wait for wisdom from the passer-by? For guidance from the hand that holds neither brush nor chisel? Out upon ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... would show you the double parlours. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist. Mrs. Parker's manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who had neglected ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... citizen of the land that Lafayette went to save, that I wanted my dinner, and would like to get out. I walked down near enough to the gate to see the policeman, but my courage failed. Before I could stammer out half that explanation to him in his trifling language (which foreigners are mockingly told is the best in the world for conversation), he would either have slipped his hateful rapier through my body, or have raised an alarm and called out the guards of the palace to hunt ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in threepenny-bits. Mother's picked up a lot of English ways. What's taken you?" She stared up in wonder at his laughter, until it broke on her that she had unwittingly given him, an Englishman, food for the silly English taunt that the Scotch are mean. "Och, you don't understand," she began to stammer hastily. "I didn't mean ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... (stairs) sxtuparo. Stake paliso, fosto. Stake (wager) veto. Stalactite stalaktito. Stalagmite stalagmito. Stale malfresxa. Stalk (plant) trunketo. Stall (at market, etc.) budo. Stall (for beast) stalo. Stallion cxevalviro. Stamen (bot.) paliseto. Stamin stamino. Stammer balbuti. Stamp (to mark) stampi. Stamp (brand) stampajxo. Stamp, postage posxtmarko. Stamp with foot piedfrapadi. Stamper (marker) stampilo. Stanch (firm) firma, fortika. Stanch (trusty) fidela, fervora. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... it must be sadly stated that of genuine originality there are few traces. To the very masters they pretend to revile they owe everything. In vain one looks for a tradition older than Courbet; a few have attempted to stammer in the suave speech of Corot and the men of Fontainebleau; but 1863, the year of the Salon des Refuses, is really the year of their artistic ancestor's birth. The classicism of Lebrun, David, Ingres, Prudhon; the romanticism of Gericault, Delacroix, Decamps; the tender poetry of those true ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... real and anxious earnestness in his assurance. "It's because I don't see you. If I were face to face with you, I'd stammer and get red and make a regular imbecile of myself. Another reason why I stick down here and decline to yield ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in another moment, perfectly regardless of us, they were clinging to each other, and my mother was walking around them and crying heartily and shamelessly, and enjoying herself immensely. Mary Virginia began to stammer: ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... airs. When one puts on the semblance of anything for a time, it will soon become a portion of our nature. Imitate a stutterer for a while, and you will have to keep diligent watch over yourself not to stammer in earnest. I fell in love, and was on the point of changing into a totally different person; for my passion was sincere and ardent. But new distress. The noble being who soon became my wife, could never give me her heart. ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... cry of supreme abandonment that he raised, while sinking to the floor strengthless, with a great void within him; and all he could do was to press Mathieu's hands and stammer: "Leave me—tell me nothing. You alone were right. I refused the offers of life, and life has ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... spermacetis had gone to. I knew I could do the poetry, and I firmly resolved that I would read it through, from beginning to end, in a clear, well-modulated voice, that could be heard by all, including the minister and Belle Marigold. I would not blush, or stammer, or get a frog in my throat. I swore solemnly to myself that I would not. Some folks should see that my bashfulness was wearing off faster than the gold from an oroide watch. Oh, I would show 'em! Some things could be done as ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... Maud Mackenzie frankly hadn't any chin, Her hands were rough, her feet she turned invariably in; Her general form was German, By which I mean that you Her waist could not determine To within a foot or two: And not only did she stammer, But she used the kind of grammar That is called, for sake ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... 'the Senorita Teresa Valdevia. The evening air grows chill. Adios, Senorito.' And before Harry could stammer out a word, she had ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... hesitated, as well he might. Nature had not endowed him with any great amount of natural courage, and the sight of his old neighbour's rifle-barrel made him feel positively sick. He hesitated and began to stammer excuses. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... had been to see her every night For thirteen days, and had a sneaking notion To pop the question, thinking all was right, And once or twice had make an awkward motion To take her hand, and stammer'd, cough'd, and stutter'd, But, somehow, nothing ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... experience in love. He did not turn red or white, or yellow or green, nor did he tremble or stammer, or cry or laugh, or become fierce or passionate, or tender or anything but just himself, as I had always known him. He displayed no more emotion than had he been inviting me to a picnic. This was not as I had pictured a man would tell his ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... me to recognize him. I was very anxious to do so in view of the trouble the officer had taken to come away out on the picket line, in the middle of the night, to see me, but I just couldn't, and began to stammer a sort of apology about the darkness of the night hindering a prompt recognition, when the "unknown" gave his head a slant to one side, and, in his never forgettable voice, spoke thus to Keeley: "I told you he wouldn't know me." "I know you now," said I; "I'd recognize that ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... appearance of the most powerful personage in the Nile Province in the building entrusted to his care, so utterly took away his breath—of which he at all times was but "scant"—that he was unable even to stammer out a suitable greeting. Titianus gave him a little time, and then, after expressing his regret at the sad plight of the washing, now strewn upon the ground, and mentioning to the steward the name and position of his friend Pontius, he briefly explained to him that the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... one of those cowardly girls huddles away behind you, Esmeralda, and leaves you to stammer, "Y-yes, sir, but you do s-scold a ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... by a shake of the head which gave Philammon courage to stammer out a courteous refusal. The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand, sent him staggering half across the court: ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... was filled with such great and unexpected joy that he became almost delirious. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to say a thousand things, and instead he could only stammer out a few confused and broken words. At last he succeeded in uttering a cry of joy, and, opening his arms, he threw them around the little old man's neck, and ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... to Lamb by accusing him of excess in drinking. The truth is, that a small quantity of any strong liquid (wine, &c.) disturbed his speech, which at best was but an eloquent stammer. The distresses of his early life made him ready to resort to any remedy which brought forgetfulness; and he himself, frail in body and excitable, was very speedily affected. During all my intimacy with him, I never knew him drink immoderately; except once, when, ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... managed at last to stammer out; "for I can honestly say I never heard even a suggestion of Mr. Elmsdale's design; indeed, I did not know he had ever thought of building upon ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... seconds were like hours as Raymond waited. He had a peep of her, smiling and patient, talking over her shoulder to a big Englishman behind her. Then, as the slow stream brought her down, she stepped lightly on the wharf, turned to Raymond, and, before he could so much as stammer out a word, flung her arms round his neck ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... the far, low summons, When the silver winds return; Rills that run and streams that stammer, Goldenwing with his loud hammer, Icy brooks that brawl and clamor, Where the Indian willows burn; Let me hearken to the calling, When the silver ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... Eliot. She could do one thing neither of them could do: she could coolly and sensibly describe a man. I am not sure that the old great lady who could only smatter Italian was not more vigorous than the new great lady who can only stammer American; nor am I certain that the bygone duchesses who were scarcely successful when they painted Melrose Abbey, were so much more weak-minded than the modern duchesses who paint only their own faces, and are bad at that. But that is ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... man who has practised himself in love-making till his own glibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the lover's awe—may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and needles after numbness: how much more may that energetic timidity possess a man whose inward history ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... onset, but merry-eyed when the other was grim, and bubbling with a laughter that made men forgive even his butcheries. Of Cona'n Mael mac Morna his brother, gruff as a badger, bearded like a boar, bald as a crow, and with a tongue that could manage an insult where another man would not find even a stammer. His boast was that when he saw an open door he went into it, and when he saw a closed door he went into it. When he saw a peaceful man he insulted him, and when he met a man who was not peaceful he insulted him. There was Garra Duv mac Morna, and savage Art Og, who cared ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... wrath blazed out. But amid his utterance a quick shudder overruns his limbs; his eyes are fixed in horror; so thickly hiss the snakes of the Fury, so vast her form expands. Then rolling her fiery eyes, she thrust him back as he would stammer out more, raised two serpents in her hair, and, sounding her whip, resumed with ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... felt in a whirl. What should she ask first? She must do it directly, or Mother would be gone. It all seemed confusion, and at last she could only stammer out: ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... stood at the horses' heads. Wherever she was going, I had an idea he was as surprised about it as I was, and that he had been expostulating with her about her expedition. But, if he had, he shut up as I appeared. I could only stammer as I stared at Paulette, "You—you're ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... by the audience. Tom was beaten. A potato, vast and nobbly, fell from his palsied hand. He was speechless. Then he began to stammer. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... still bady dazed, but he saw enough to enable him to stammer, "Yes." And Comrade Baskerville—that is, Comrade Mrs. Gerrity—gave him her ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... to hope one is better company than Maria! But come, before we fall under the dominion of the Queen of the West Wing, I have a secret for you.' Then, after a longer stammer than usual, 'How should ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Haw-Haw. He managed to stammer: "Ain't you going to get Barry? Ain't you goin' to bust him ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... ran his fingers through the bushy curls referred to. The man usually so eloquent and ready of speech, was checkmated. He could only stammer something about exceptions to rules, ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Lillian's words was but a trembling stammer. The prospect of facing the girl the thread of whose sinister personality had so marred the fabric of my marital happiness terrified me. Her message to me, posted in San Francisco, where Dicky was, flaunted its insolent triumph again before ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... with plain-spoken, straightforward, strong-minded men, felt the dreary absurdity of the position. He could only stammer a ridiculous excuse about the clause, having been accidentally left out by a copying secretary. To represent so important an omission as a clerical error was almost as great an absurdity as the original device; but it was necessary for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... puzzle to know what he's at; I could pity him, if it were madness: I never yet knew him to play a tune through, And it gives me more anger than sadness To hear his horn stutter and stammer to utter Its various ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... him for the little he might have done. He was so imbued with the idea of his helplessness, that he could only stammer a few broken sentences she seemed ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... mind than otherwise, I begged my Nachbarin to lend me a coin, which I slipped without a word into the creature's hand. To the surprise of both of us, she made no sign of acceptance or thanks. Ten or fifteen minutes later she rose, and coming near us she began to stammer out her thanks and to tell us how poor she was—that she could not work, and that for a month she had been coming to the park, hoping that where there were so many rich people some would kindly give her a trifle; but that in all that time but one person had done so—a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... a constable who does duty in the daytime. Waggoner suffers from an affection which in a large community might prevent him from holding such a job as the one he does hold. He has an impediment of the speech which at all times causes him to stammer badly. When he is excited it is only by a tremendous mental and physical effort and after repeated endeavours that he can form the words at all. In other regards he is a first-rate officer, sober, trustworthy ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... really am ashamed of myself," he began with a stammer, holding out the plate. "But Archelaus has gone to bed, and—and this ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... hardly knew whether to stammer out apologies, gratitude, or regrets, and was intensely relieved when the head girl cut her short kindly but firmly, and sent her away. She lost no time in seeking ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... really in no condition to do anything. The moment the supper was ready, the Devil got up from his corner as usual, and approached the table. Then Y tried to speak; but his teeth were so on edge that instead of saying,—"Tam ni pou tam ni b," he could only stammer out:- ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... questions, and then, turning to the old gentleman, said, "Dear uncle, may I be generous at your expense?" taking off the coat that she was wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above him. As he tried to open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude to the beautiful Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly on his senses that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled with rays, and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... a place was always reserved for him at her table. "And I recommend you to come often," the old lady said, "for Grandjean is an excellent cook, and to be with Laura and me will do your manners good. It is easy to see that you are always thinking about yourself. Don't blush and stammer—almost all young men are always thinking about themselves. My sons and grandsons always were until I cured them. Come here, and let us teach you to behave properly; you will not have to carve, that is done at the side-table. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... very sulky all that first morning. He was quite eight years old; Mr. Evans therefore was much surprised at his being a very poor reader. Indeed he could not in any way stammer out the first chapter in the Bible, and Mr. Evans was obliged to put him into the spelling-book at the first page. He called him up between each Latin lesson he gave, but found that each time he called him, he read rather worse than the time before. The simple ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... Mr. Darley now appealed to Sydney, who managed to stammer out: "I certainly see a strong ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... three women fairly cowered beneath Eugene Hautville's eyes, and Margaret Bean began to stammer as if her old tongue were palsied. Then Eugene collected himself, made them one of his courtly bows, turned to Dorothy with another, offered her his arm, and walked away with her out of the lane, before the eyes of ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife; While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be— Properly based Oun Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... her bold black eye. "Am I deceived in you both?" quoth she. "If one spark of her father's spirit lives In this girl here—so, this Leigh, Ralph Leigh, Let us hear what counsel the springald gives." Then I stammer'd, somewhat taken aback— (Simon, you ale-swiller, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... was great: and though he turned language into ignoble clay, he made from it men and women that live. He is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. Even now, as I am speaking, and speaking not against him but for him, there glides through the room the pageant of his persons. There, creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning from some girl's hot kiss. There, stands ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... consolation, his intellectual delight, and indeed his daily bread; for out of that tremendous horn-book he taught me to stammer the divine Italian language, and illustrated every lesson, from the simplest rule of its syntax to its exceedingly complex and artificially constructed prosody, out of the pages of that sublime, grotesque, and altogether wonderful poem. My mother has told me that she attributed her incapacity ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... roar, but suddenly, in the midst of a spiral movement, I noticed a change in the sound. A gurgle—a choking stammer. A spray of petrol dashed across ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the hand and inquire after my health in so hearty, so honest a fashion that I cannot bear to look him in the face. And as he beams on me and throws his arm over my shoulder, I can only blush and shift from one foot to the other and stammer out some excuse for hurrying away. Passers-by stop and admire the man's affection and concern for one who is evidently some poor devil of a relation from the country. One Sunday he waylaid me on Riverside Drive and introduced me to his wife as one of his dearest friends. I mumbled something ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... the new plan was to be. When the managing editor asked him how he would like to go to the Philippines, Archie could scarcely reply, so delighted was he with the brilliant prospect before him. He managed to stammer out a few words, though, in spite of his surprise. "I always thought war correspondents were selected from the most experienced men in journalism," he said, but Mr. Van Bunting only laughed. "That's what we have already done, my boy," ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... scholar,—and he at once offered him the post he had in view,—that of private secretary at a salary of 200 pounds per annum. The astonished Neville could not at first believe in his good fortune, and began to stammer forth his gratitude with trembling lips and moistening eyes,—but Errington cut him short by declaring the whole thing settled, and desiring him to enter on his duties at once. He was forthwith installed in ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Ethel. "What a mess every one will make! Oh, if I could but stay away, like Harry! There will be Dr. Hoxton being sonorous and prosy, and Mr. Lake will stammer, and that will be nothing to the misery of our own people's work. George will flounder, and look at Flora, and she will sit with her eyes on the ground, and Dr. Spencer will come out of his proper self, and be complimentary to people who deserve it no ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... heart seemed to swell to bursting, and the blood rushed through my veins so that I could hear it and nothing else for a while. I managed at last to stammer forth some words of awkward congratulation, and he left me, singing merrily, after asking permission to bring his bride to see me on the morrow as ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... a fact profoundly significant. They know it is nothing in the world but foolishness; and if there is one thing above another that a child hates, it is to be made a fool in public. That's what makes them work their fingers so, and gulp, and stammer, and tremble at the knees. That is what sends them to their seats, after all is over, mad as hornets. This is something that I know about. It happened that, instead of getting funny pieces to recite as I wanted to, discerning ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... children," he said, with a slight stammer that somehow lent an additional kindliness to his tone, "what has the day's work been? You first, Herr Graf," he added, turning to the Count. "I suppose that you have made a thousand ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... She is like a maniac. She has lost you; she cannot explain to—to Mademoiselle's father. Mon dieu, when he met her unexpectedly in the hall, he shouts, 'where is my daughter?' And poor Madame she has but to shiver and stammer and—run away! Oui! She dash out into the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... satisfaction to me afterwards to remember that my father had thanked these good people 'properly,' as I considered. As for myself, I had only been able to blush and stammer out something that was far from expressing my delight with the lovely nosegay I received. Then the slender lady went back to her gardening. Her sister took up the knitting which she had laid down, the old gentleman nodded his lamp-shade in the direction where he supposed us ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... pick of gentility; Nothing can phase you, you've such a facility; Nobody ever yet found your utility— There is the charm of you, Barney McGee; Under conditions that others would stammer in, Still unperturbed as a cat or a Cameron, Polished as somebody in the Decameron, Putting the glamour on price or Pawnee. In your meanderin', Love and philanderin', Calm as a mandarin Sipping his tea! Under the art of you, Parcel and part ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... outcropping of new significance in a phrase because of its environment. Thus the anecdote of the servant who had been instructed to summon the visiting English nobleman by tapping on his bedroom door and inquiring, "My lord, have you yet risen?" and who could only stammer, "My God! ain't you up yet?" Or the anecdote of the minister who in a sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son told how a young man living dissolutely in a city had been compelled to send to the pawnbroker first his overcoat, next ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... with each day. Occasionally the fever would go down sufficiently to allow him to get something to eat. Then it would be worse than before. In his dire need he wanted to pray, but he was so weak that he could only stammer, "Dear God, help me, ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... vanquishment, come, O Desire, Desire! Breathe in this harp of my soul the audible angel of love! Make of my heart an Israfel burning above, A lute for the music of God, that lips, which are mortal, but stammer! Smite every rapturous wire With golden delirium, rebellion and silvery clamor, Crying—"Awake! awake! Too long hast thou slumbered! too far from the regions of glamour, With its mountains of magic, its fountains of Faery, the spar-sprung, Hast ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... appreciated here, by those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for him in Europe. He is felt because he expressed in full tones the thoughts that lie at the heart of our own existence, though we have not found means to stammer them ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... begun to stammer in the last sentence, suddenly self-conscious again. She told him where her chair was on deck, and next minute, without another word, he was half-way along the alley-way, leaving the tea-things where they were. Then he turned back and spoke ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... church.' He dipped his pen in the ink, and, as I am a living man, Robert, he wrote me a cheque then and there for two thousand two hundred pounds. I don't know what I said; I felt like a fool; I could not stammer out words with which to thank him. All my troubles have been taken from my shoulders in an instant, and indeed, Robert, I ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one of these absences that Jim Spalding, the old timber-jack, told Mrs. Gaynor in his abashed stammer that Mark King had showed up while they were gone. Gloria, on her way to her room, whirled and came back, and extracted the tale in its entirety, pumping it out of the brief, few-worded old Spalding in jerky details. King had appeared late yesterday afternoon, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... theme, one of the company inquired, what is the reason that many men, who are eloquent in the closet, should stammer themselves into confusion and incapacity, when they attempt to speak in public? To this Mr. *** returned the following ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... in nothing of the president's speech beyond the acceptance of his offer, and, pale with relief, he tried to stammer his thanks and his devotion to his chosen cause. He made no attempt to contradict the president's confident prophecies; he only made the greatest possible haste to the tower-rooms which were to be his home. His eyes ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... of all progress; how often hast thou betrayed this high commission! Fain would the tongue in clear, triumphant accents draw example from thy story, to encourage the hearts of those who almost faint and die beneath the old oppressions. But we must stammer and blush when we speak of many things. I take pride here, that I can really say the liberty of the press works well, and that checks and balances are found naturally which suffice to its government. I can say that the minds ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... words: "It seems they do not decide to separate so quickly. It is not, however, possible that they will fight.... Can we see them from here?" He approached the window, which indeed looked upon the enclosure. The sight which met his eyes caused the excellent man to stammer.... "The miserable men!.... It is monstrous.... They are mad.... They have found seconds.... Whom have they taken?.... Those two huntsmen!.... Ali, my God! My God!".... He could say no more. The doctor had hastened to the window to see what was passing, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... when he attempted to give the orders which he had conned until he supposed he had them "dead-letter perfect." he felt his usually-unfailing assurance shrivel up under the gaze of hundreds of mercilessly critical eyes. He managed to stammer out: ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... magic pow'r! To show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r, And how he star'd and stammer'd, When goavan, as if led wi' branks, An' stumpan on his ploughman shanks, He in the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... or tooth, or bleeding gum, Tell-tale shells, and shells that whisper Come, Shells that stammer, blush, and yet are ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... she carried on her shoulder. The shock of the collision was great, but not so great as the shock to poor Matty at so suddenly coming upon Mr. Learning when she only expected to find Miss Folly. She dropped her burden with an exclamation of surprise, and then tried to stammer forth an apology, but knew not how to begin. Mr. Learning stood straight before her, more erect and stately than ever, sternly looking down through his steel spectacles at the confused and blushing girl. Miss Folly, however, was quite at her ease, and hastily pushing ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... and remained there, behind the carriage, my face muffled up in my cloak. I desired the servants to make no mention of my sudden appearance. They soon made a sign to me that she was recovering consciousness, and I heard her voice stammer forth these words, as if in a dream: "Oh, if Raphael were here! I thought it was Raphael!" I hastily returned to my own carriage; the horses started afresh, and a wide distance soon lay between us. In the ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... toleration. Nothing matters so very greatly. And yet everything—each of us, as we try to make our difficult meanings clear, the meanings of our hidden souls, and each of these meanings themselves as we stammer them forth to one ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... rise and bow to her. She comes closer, and bursts out into a loud, almost childlike laughter. I stammer, as only a little dilettante or great big donkey can ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... up into a deep bow, but before he had time to stammer out some apologetic self-introduction, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... abruptly, and remained still long enough for the astonished Powell to stammer out an indistinct: "What do you mean? I don't understand." Then, with a low 'Good-night' glided a few steps, and sank through the shadow of the companion into the lamplight below which did not reach higher than the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... tried to stammer her apologies, while Carrie sought to soothe the enraged Frenchman by saying, that "Miss Gordon was merely complimenting ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... bought in London. I wanted to find out what hotel was nearest to the lair of our boat, but in that wild moment I could discover nothing more appropriate than "I wish immediately some medicine for seasickness," and (hastily turning over the pages) "I have lost my pet cat." I began mechanically to stammer French and the few words of German which for years have lain peacefully buried in the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... slowly, "you don't by any chance love some one else? What does that colour mean, Jacqueline? Don't stammer! ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... as obscure for those who gained it as for him who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; Blucher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington does not understand it at all. Look at the reports: the bulletins are confused; the commentaries are entangled; the latter stammer, the former stutter. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it into three acts; Charras, altho we do not entirely agree with him in all his appreciations, has alone caught with his haughty eye the characteristic ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... corrected herself with a stammer and a blush—"Colonel Boyce? Oh no. Indeed, he is old enough to ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... club, which took place in a private dining room at the "Clarry" (the Clarendon Hotel) in February, Forbes was called upon to respond to the toast "The Real Kathleen." His voice, tremulous with emotion and absinthe frappe, nearly failed him; but he managed to stammer a few phrases which, thought at the time to be extemporaneous, called forth loud applause; but it was found later that he had jotted them down on the tablecloth during the soup and fish courses. "Fellow Scorpers," he said, "I mean you chaps, look here, I'm not much at this dispatch-box ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... by the bed of the princess, and implored her to say what frightful accident had so disfigured her. Princess Amelia was incapable of reply! Her lips were convulsively pressed together; she could only stammer out ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... The key will stammer, and the door reply, The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... gods and men—that man! Is there any use for me to stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains that I am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for anything; and it's high time ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... a drawn-out command in a husky, throaty stammer, weaker than a whisper, from an undersized tin-hatted youngster planted in the centre of the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot was forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ready ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... nobody would notice her, with the intention of showing herself at the hospital, and there spending this last morning, in order, in some measure, to justify her journey to Lourdes. When she perceived Pierre, she began to tremble, and, at first, could only stammer: "Oh, Monsieur l'Abbe, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... eyes, only seeming to have life, her eyes shining clear as spring water in her thin withered face. But on this morning, again a sudden rush of tears had streamed down her cheeks, and she had begun to stammer words without any connection; which seemed to prove that in the midst of her senile exhaustion and the incurable torpor of madness, the slow induration of the brain and the limbs was not yet complete; there still were memories stored away, gleams of intelligence still ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... hesitate?" retorted the Moor. "Do Englishmen blush and stammer when they tell the truth? Tell me the truth now. Do you know ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... entered the door, and of how his face shone when she talked to him. After all, she told herself, there was something thrilling in having hands that had captured a machine-gun laboriously threading tiny beads for her, in having a soldier who had been decorated for courage stammer and blush ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... the juncture had occurred so quickly, and it might be that time was as valuable as she said, and—well, it was hard for me, a lad, to refuse her anything when she looked at me with appeal in her eyes. I did manage to stammer, "But I do not know Paris. I could not find my way, I am afraid, and it is ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... in a stiff white dress with a sash, and Jen tied two big white fly-away bows on my hair that kept rasping my neck and tickling my ears in a most exasperating way. Then an old lady whom I detest tried to make me talk before everybody, and all I could do was to turn as red as a beet and stammer: "Yes, ma'am," "no, ma'am." It made Mother furious, because it is so old-fashioned to say "ma'am." Our old nurse taught me to say it when I was small, and though it has been pretty well governessed out of me since then, it's sure to pop ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... you like—in the language they had to learn. Not short pieces, or 'elegant extracts;' but, good, long tales of thrilling adventure and well worked-up plots, whose interest, and the desire to know what was coming next, would make them read on and stammer out the sense, until they reached the denouement. And, if it should be objected that German and French novels are not exactly what you would place before young children for study, I would retort, that, the majority of the works of our best authors are now translated into ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... high as he in recognising the envelope, sat like one paralysed now. Her tongue refused to move. For an instant, the catastrophe seemed to her of supernatural agency—it was as if a miracle had happened, as she saw her fiance produce her lover's keepsake. All she could stammer at last was: ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... of thinking. The child has no natural love of truth, as is experienced by all who have the least acquaintance with early youth. If they are charged with a fault while they can hardly speak, the first words they stammer forth are a falsehood to excuse it. Nor is this all: the temptation of attracting attention, the pleasure of enjoying importance, the desire to escape from an unpleasing task, or accomplish a holiday, will at any time overcome the sentiment ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... able to guess why, and that the man's unintelligible confession was closing round him like the clasp of an iron collar. He fancied himself side by side with him in the posts of the same pillory. Gwynplaine lost his footing in his terror, and protested. He began to stammer incoherent words in the deep distress of an innocent man, and quivering, terrified, lost, uttered the first random outcries that rose to his mind, and words ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... nibble a morsel and drink a mouthful; they tell one another the history of their martyrs; their sorrow becomes vehement; their libations increase; their eyes, swimming with tears, are fixed on one another; they stammer with inebriety and desolation. Gradually their hands touch; their lips meet; their veils are torn away, and they embrace one another upon the tombs in the midst of the cups ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... so as to make them uncomfortable is manifestly unfit for society. Now an optional courtesy should be the unfailing custom of such a woman, we will say, one who has the power of giving pain by a slight, who can wound amour propre in the shy, can make a d,butante stammer and blush, can annoy a shy youth by a sneer. How many a girl has had her society life ruined by the cruelty of a society leader! how many a young man has had his blood frozen by a contemptuous smile at his awkwardness! How much of ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... and the tone from a common sailor were, of course, enough to astonish the young man. But there must be more than this, as Adrian surmised, to cause him to blush, wax angry, and stammer like a very school-boy found at ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... before he rots! Frightened at a thing dressed in a long black coat and a white cravat with a golden-headed cane and a tall hat and a frown; a thing which will stop breathing some fine day and the worms will eat! Shall I tremble when an ecclesiastical Leo utters a roar? Shall I halt and stammer because a top-heavy lad from a theological seminary, hopelessly in love with himself, scowls ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... or two afterwards, her husband came up to Andrea and taking his arm with much effusion, began asking particulars about the duel. He was a youngish man, slim, with very thin fair hair and colourless eyes and projecting teeth. He had a slight stammer. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... describe the terrible wrath of the knight when he heard the Princess thus slandered. His indignation and fury knew no bounds. He began to stammer and stutter, inarticulate with rage, until Sancho was scared out of his wits, afraid of being cut open by his raving master's sword. He was just about to turn his back on his master and disappear till the storm ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the mere mention of his friend, Chester Newcomb's name should cause such a convulsion in the household, and when that gentleman finally arrived, and the family met him for the first time, it certainly seemed strange that they should all redden and stammer as if they had been "awkward nursery ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... of the paymaster's recent experiences and bravery so effectively that the poor little man became rosy with confusion, and when at the conclusion of the narrative his health was pledged with a round of cheers, he could only stammer ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this .. world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener! Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... to his friend. "Why do they build hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels? They'll take away my shield and break me. I can think and talk con-con-consec-sec-secutively, but I s-s-stammer with my feet. I've got to go on duty in three hours. The jig is up, Remsen. The jig is up, I ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... fortunate." The old soldier turned in his saddle and, with a grace surprising in one of his rough appearance, removed his hat and swept Alaire a bow the unmistakable meaning of which caused her to start and to stammer something unintelligible. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... trap to make certain, and had caught her betrayer red-handed; and being in the habit, when she made up a game of cards by herself, of playing her own and her adversary's hands at once, she would first stammer out Francoise's awkward apologies, and then reply to them with such a fiery indignation that any of us who happened to intrude upon her at one of these moments would find her bathed in perspiration, her eyes blazing, her false hair pushed ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... watching a new picture, Mr. Bopp inspected every feature of the countenance so near his own; and, as his admiration "grew by what it fed on," he fell into a chronic state of stammer and blush; for the frank eyes were very kind, the smooth cheeks reflected a pretty shade of his own crimson, and the smiling lips seemed constantly suggesting, with mute eloquence, that they were ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... fallen asleep, that I was usually a wide-awake citizen of the land that Lafayette went to save, that I wanted my dinner, and would like to get out. I walked down near enough to the gate to see the policeman, but my courage failed. Before I could stammer out half that explanation to him in his trifling language (which foreigners are mockingly told is the best in the world for conversation), he would either have slipped his hateful rapier through my body, or have raised an alarm and called out the guards ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... arm in the confidential manner he always assumed when intoxicated, he began talking in a half-foolish, half-rational way, very disgusting to Richard, who tried vainly to shake him off. Harry was not to be baffled, and with a stammer and a hiccough he began: "I say—a—now, old chap, don't be so fast to get rid of a cove. Wife waiting for you, I suppose. Deuced fine woman. Envy you; I do, 'pon honor, and so does somebody else. D'ye know her old beau that she used to ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... slight a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... stutter; it wasn't a laugh, for I haven't laughed in years. All my laughing since 1889 has been a strictly intellectual process; but I did have an awful pain because I could not digest his statement with a bouncing laugh. All I could do was to stammer and splutter like a bass viol tuning up, while I sozzled around in my chair trying to break in with something that would count. Why should a man of my temperament take a hand in love, war or diplomacy? As a theoretical manipulator of fathers-in-law, as a text-book ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... complied with her request. He had humiliated himself to no purpose. Mortified pride, mingled with rejected passion, formed a compound of deadly hate, which raged with fury against the late object of his desire. He commanded himself sufficiently to stammer out his regrets, and promised not again to introduce the subject; and lifting up the offered hand respectfully to his lips, he quitted her presence to meditate ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... His appearance is common; his countenance, stern; his voice, hoarse; and his delivery, embarrassed; so much so that he speaks only by splitting his syllables. A stammering lover! MOLE, it is true, sometimes indulged in a sort of stammer, but it was suited to the moment, and not when he had to express the ardour of love. A lover, such as is represented to us in all French comedies, is a being highly favoured by Nature, and FLEURY ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... The woman tried to stammer out something, but did not make herself understood. At this, Pinky, into whose eyes flashed a fierce light, caught her by the wrists in a grip ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... next room.—My presence of mind was all gone again when I came to be introduced to the emperor, and he must certainly have perceived by my looks that I was not a little confused. I was just going to begin the harangue which I had studied with such pains, and to stammer out something or other about the high and unexpected felicity of being presented to the most powerful, the most celebrated, and the most sincerely beloved monarch in the world, when he relieved me at once from my dilemma. He addressed me in French, speaking very quick, but distinctly, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... shapes up alongside o' Twist Tickle. I 'low," says he, "you don't find many harbors in the world like Twist Tickle. Since I been travellin' t' Jimmie Tick's Cove with the mail," he continued, with a stammer and flush, like a man misled from an austere path by the flesh-pots of earth, "I've cotched a sinful hankerin' t' ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... wriggle, and strain, and stammer, and we do not recognize the root of the trouble and shun it, and learn to yield and quietly relax our nerves and muscles, of course the strain becomes worse. Then, rather than suffer from it any longer, we keep away from people, ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... tears passed, "I have no more words. I had, however, thought well as to what you would say. Now I tremble and shiver and break down at the decisive moment, I feel conscious of something supreme enveloping us, and I stammer. Oh! I shall fall upon the pavement if you do not take pity on me, pity on yourself. Do not condemn us both. If you only knew how much I love you! What a heart is mine! Oh! what desertion of all virtue! What desperate abandonment ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... was not long before we were joined by two or three good-looking, well-dressed young women. My friend talked to them in French and bought drinks for the whole party. I tried to recall my high-school French, but the effort availed me little. I could stammer out a few phrases, but, very naturally, could not understand a word that was said to me. We stayed at the cafe a couple of hours, then went back to the hotel. The next day we spent several hours in the shops and at the tailor's. I had no clothes ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... for opinions which you do not understand yourselves; cease to slander each other for dreams and conjectures which are altogether contradictory; speak to us of intelligible and truly useful things; and no longer tell us of the impenetrable ways of a God, about which you do nothing but stammer and contradict yourselves. ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... door opened quietly and the phrenologist entered. He carried a bag with a pumpkin in the bottom of it, and, sitting down on a stool, he let the bag down with a bump on the floor between his feet. Malachi was badly scared, but he managed to stammer out— ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the governor heartily. "From what I have seen of Mr. Stewart, I should conclude that nothing could be better;" and when I tried to stammer my thanks, he waved his hand to me kindly and rang for wine. "Let us drink," he said, as he filled the glasses, "to the success of our arms and the establishment of his ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... a behavior so childish and absurd, Douglas could only stammer out something about Lady Juliana having been frightened and fatigued; and, requesting to be shown to their apartment, he supported her almost lifeless to it, while his aunts followed, all three prescribing different remedies ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... work to do this watch—as you know," interrupted the parson. He said the words so solemnly and sternly they sounded like a judgment; aye, and they nipped the rising courage of the mate. He could only mumble, and stammer out, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... expression is that of the sure and serene master. There are here no echoes of Raff, or Wagner, or Brahms, men that have each influenced mightily the musical thought of to-day. There is the voice of one composer: a virile, tender voice that does not stammer, does not break, does not wax hysterical: the voice of a composer that not only must pour out that which has accumulated within him, but knows all the resources of musical oratory—in a ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... (persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been tried in vain) I could not but wonder what would be their next expedient. My eyes besides were still troubled, and my knees loose under me, with the distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the same form of words: "I put my life and credit in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but she had evidently received a very severe nervous shock. When at last Burt was permitted to see her, she gave him her hand with such a look of gratitude, and something more, which she could not then disguise, that his heart began to beat strangely fast. He was so confused that he could only stammer some incoherent words of congratulation; but he half-consciously gave her hand a pressure that left the most delicious pain the young girl had ever known. He was deeply excited, for he had taken a tremendous risk in springing upon a creature that can strike its crooked fangs ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... there's nothing very much at present, but there will be, I expect, before it's over; divorce suits are beastly, you know. I wanted to tell you, because—because—you ought to know—if—" and he began to stammer, gazing at her troubled eyes, "if—if you're going to be a darling and love me, Holly. I love you—ever so; and I want to be engaged." He had done it in a manner so inadequate that he could have punched ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for breath, they could hardly stammer out the cause of their alarm, but managed to explain that a "terrible man" had suddenly come upon them and chased them. Yet neither Blanka nor Anna went on to say of whom this strange figure ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... it, Dora?" she asked, kindly. Dora, who could only stammer an embarrassed reply, held out the letter. Then she stood with toes turned in, and both hands fumbling nervously with her belt ribbon, while Betty ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that much justice; but it was with such an air of incredulity that my words fell with less and less continuity and finally lost themselves in a confused stammer as I reached the point where I pulled the cushions from the couch ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... and self-conscious, Maurice could only stammer that Mrs. Wilson flattered him if she supposed that Miss Morison would tolerate any love-making on ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... than she had hoped for. An unfamiliar bashfulness made her look away from the gray eyes and stammer in ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... ideas fly from you when you attempt to express them, that you stammer and flounder about for words which you are unable to find, you may be sure that every honest effort you make, even if you fail in your attempt, will make it all the easier for you to speak well the next time. It is remarkable, if one keeps on trying, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... clinching her hands, then swiftly and noiseless crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing, Then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfulls of lingerie and stammer dresses. She moved quietly. but deadly efficiency, and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... his memory, and deliver his sermon, and performs all four operations at the same time, a task clearly impossible, but more so when we remember the usual embarrassments that beset a young preacher—the nervous agitation, the want of self-control, the desire to succeed. It ends generally in a stammer and then a break, greeted by the congregation with a sigh of relief or perhaps ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... prayers with pikes and cannon,—anxious at once that his troops should trust in God and keep their powder dry,—with a mind deep indeed, but distracted by internal conflicts, and prolific only in enormous, half-shaped ideas, which stammer into expression at once obscure and ominous, the language a strange compound of the slang of the camp and the mystic phrases of inspired prophets and apostles,—we still feel throughout, that, whatever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... you manage, though almost bursting with the effort, to stammer out—"What do you mean by telling tales of me to all the fellows?" He looks perplexed, as if at a loss for your meaning. "Tell tales of you?" says he. "I don't know ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... I wanted to get cool," answered Kat with a stammer, and her eyes going hurriedly from one room to ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
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