"Babble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clever," said Noma with admiration, "but in it I see a flaw. The woman will say that she had the drug from you, or, at the least, will babble of her ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... Claes, claise, clothes. Claith, cloth. Claithing, clothing. Clankie, a severe knock. Clap, the clapper of a mill. Clark, a clerk. Clark, clerkly, scholarly. Clarkit, clerked, wrote. Clarty, dirty. Clash, an idle tale; gossip. Clash, to tattle. Clatter, noise, tattle, talk, disputation, babble. Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle. Claught, clutched, seized. Claughtin, clutching, grasping. Claut, a clutch, a handful. Claut, to scrape. Claver, clover. Clavers, gossip, nonsense. Claw, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... confusion and babble of tongues were too great for anything to be heard, but Cuthbert, as soon as order was somewhat restored, stated what had happened, and the earl was moved to fury at the news of the outrage which had been perpetrated by the Baron of Wortham ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... need of faith And patience to follow the clue. Often, at first, what the dear one saith Is babble, or jest, or untrue. (Lying spirits perplex us sore Till our loves—and our lives—are well known ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... There was a babble of voices and of laughter, and I could make out little they were saying during the early part of the dinner, though I was so impolite as to attempt to do so. Miss Lawrence was praising the scenic beauties of Woodvale and its environs, ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... sister refused to be persuaded, and Vic's voice died away to a whisper, as he continued to babble to himself of the wonders he had ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... clergy glow with admiration. "Da mihi uxorem," he commences. "Get me a wife, Frederick, after my own heart, such as you know I should like—neat, young, fairly educated, modest, patient; one with whom I may joke and play, and yet be serious; to whom I may babble and talk, mixing hearty fun and kisses together; one whose presence will lighten my anxiety and soften the tumult of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... appetite for food, my labours upon Guicciardini—the toil of a month of nights—was as the work of an ant in the dust. Beside her interest in his gossip of the schools, the coffee-house, the street corner, my exposition of the Sonnets of Petrarca was as the babble of school children at play in the Pra; beside her attentions to his clumsy caresses, her tenderness to me hour after hour was but the benevolence of a kindly woman to a lad left on her hands. Oh, bitter tonic discovery! How bitter ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... thought it over afterward the hero of his sudden adoration had not uttered one syllable about jails, criminals, robberies, or crimes of any sort. In fact he had talked really very little. What he had done had been to smile, nod, and let the other fellow babble. It had, to be sure, been a delightful experience to find yourself a lion, and everything you did of interest to your listener; but you did not learn much about the business of being a detective, reflected Walter, ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... vent to a low, gurgling sound, and made up his mind to babble a few words about the caverns; but his throat was dry, and his ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... sell no fakes or trashes. Lovers of books are welcome here, No clerks will babble ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... made her own. She did not live with her people: she had rooms of her own and she was a black-and-white artist. But she was often at the Hibbaults. Peter probably knew her accustomed days. She used to speak of her faiths. It was like one note of gold in the discordant babble. Men came and listened to her and she never knew it was not for her words but for her magnetic wonderful unknown self that they came. She might, and probably did, impress men who were dreamers or fanatics already, but those to whom all her beliefs ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... and they are to meddle with none but the Prince's subjects:—You shall also make no noise in the streets; for, for the watch to babble and talk, is most tolerable and not to ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... loping easily along the ditch, with sharp eyes for possible obstructions. As McHale had said, it was running not half full, and seemed to be falling. The strong, deep, gurgling note of a full head of water was gone. Instead was a mere babble. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... energy, love of country, all, in brief, which constitutes or sustains the grand life of the soul here subsists, while throughout the peninsula foreign dominion, clerical oppression and voluptuous or academical inertia reduces man to the system of the antechamber, the subtleties of dilettantism and the babble ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... that in some way her father might be dragged into the affair. It had been a cowardly attitude, and she was glad that she had shaken it off. As her brain, under the spur of the sudden excitement, resumed its function, her thoughts flitted to the agent's babble during the time she had been sending the telegram to her father. She talked rapidly, her voice ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... fie, for shame, no more, Give this ignorant babble o'er, Nor with little female pride Things above your sense deride. Why this foolish under-rating Of my first attempts at Latin? Know you not each thing we prize Does from small beginnings rise? 'Twas the same thing with ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... aged perhaps four and six, who had been ladling the messy contents of specially deep plates on to their bibs, dropped their spoons and began to babble about grea'-granny, and one of them insisted several times that he must ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... continual, distracting babble one sonorous voice rose insistently. Laughter and applause broke in upon it occasionally. There was a din in that corner of the lobby that attracted many of the ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... over stony ways In little sharps and trebles; I bubble into eddying bays; I babble on the pebbles. With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow. And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... drunken jargon through the fields, Your bobolinkish gabble, Your fine anacreontic glee, Your tipsy reveller's babble! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... holidays have come! No longer the hum, babble and shouts of children are heard in and around those huge buildings, ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... he could almost hear the rustle of the dry undergrowth, parched by the past fortnight of exceptionally hot weather; but, above all, rose the eternal babble of the rapids. High in air, a vulture wheeled its untiring spirals. At sight of it he frowned. It reminded him of the Pauillac, now wrecked far beyond the horizon, where the Horde had trapped him. He shuddered, for the memories of the past week were ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... legs, he wishes to ride on the necks and shoulders of all flesh. The small enchanter nothing can withstand, no seniority of age, no gravity of character; uncles, aunts, grandsires, grandams, fall an easy prey: he conforms to nobody, all conform to him; all caper and make mouths, and babble, and chirrup to him. On the strongest shoulders he rides, and pulls the hair ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... my friend was in the melancholy condition of those in whom the principle of animal life has unfortunately survived that of mental intelligence. He gazed a moment at me, but then seemed insensible of my presence, and went on—he, once the most courteous and well-bred—to babble unintelligible but violent reproaches against his niece and servant, because he himself had dropped a teacup in attempting to place it on a table at his elbow. His eyes caught a momentary fire from his irritation; but he ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... Nature's—night and noon He sits upon the great white throne, And listens for the creature's praise. What babble we of days and days? The Dayspring he, whose ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of God!" answered the boy, and turning within Arden's clasp, began to babble of London streets and the Triple Tun. The claw-like hands had dragged themselves from Nevil's hold, and the spirit could be no longer caught by the voice of authority, but ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... babble about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it without Pandora's continually stumbling over it and making Epimetheus stumble over ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... evil tidings? No more for this man was the comfort of restful sleep or the joys of home and friendship and affection. Now the touch of his wife's hand, the sympathetic look in her eyes and all her babble about the coming marriage were torture to him. He could not endure it. Worst of all, he was in a way where there is no turning. He must go on. He had begun to know that he was suspected. The conduct of the ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... charm of childhood on my spirit throughout my ramble with little Annie. Say not that it has been a waste of precious moments, an idle matter, a babble of childish talk and a reverie of childish imaginations about topics unworthy of a grown man's notice. Has it been merely this? Not so—not so. They are not truly wise who would affirm it. As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men, so is our moral nature revived ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tried over and over again to lead the conversation into a pleasant channel, but all to no purpose. The inmates of the "Prenoms" had to be taught to converse properly before they could do so. Mrs. Soher began to babble in her ordinary way. Her daughter supported her foolish statements. Adele made no remark. Her aunt noticed this, and after a most scornful remark about Mrs. B.'s character, she said to her niece: ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... meseemed I loved him well. So we fared for a while and were fain, till he set down my feet on the grass, And kissed me and stood up himself, and away through the wood did he pass. And then came back the she-wolf and with her I played and was fain. Lo the first thing I remember: wilt thou have me babble again?" ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... are greening overhead, And flowers adorn each mossy bed; The waters babble as they run— One thing is lacking, only one: If Mary were but here to-day, I would believe your ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... their babble. The Honourable George was shown up a bit later, having done to himself quite all I thought he might in the matter of dress. In spite of serious discrepancies in his attire, however, I saw that Mrs. Effie meant to lionize him tremendously. With vast ceremony he was ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... of the winter wren is something that must be heard to be appreciated; words can no more describe it than they can paint the sky at evening, or translate the babble ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... a place they called the grove. The farmhouse was painted in light yellow and white. It was built on a grassy slope, and at the foot of a gentle hill a pretty pond lay, and out from this flowed a brook. If one kept quite still he could hear the soft babble of the little stream even from the piazza. Nearer by was a large elm-tree, so wide-spreading that the pair of Baltimore orioles who hung their swaying nest on one limb scarcely had a bowing acquaintance with the ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... such a babble of exclamations that hardly a word of what was said could be understood. And in the midst of this the cadets gave a rousing cheer for Clearwater Hall and everybody connected ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... hands, seize their secrets, compromise them completely, in such a way that retreat becomes impossible for them, so as to make use of them in bringing about disturbances in the State." (Sec. 19.) "The fifth category is composed of doctrinaires, conspirators, revolutionists, and of those who babble at meetings and on paper. We must urge these on and draw them incessantly into practical and perilous manifestations, which will result in making the majority of them disappear, while making some ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... a sight of a certain picture or a certain statue in the Louvre or Luxembourg, for a concert, a theatre, a right-down good argument on some intellectual point, or for the books I want to read and never shall. Yet, all in all, I am never sorry for long. This children's babble and laughter, these simple, commonplace, wonderful affections, are a hundred times worth everything ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... The babble continued, but diminished gradually in volume. Through the trees, as I waited, I caught a glimpse of the sea. I wished I was out on the Cob, where beyond these voices there was peace. My head was beginning to ache, and I felt faint for want ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... of sorts, I'm afraid, Mr. Falfani. Sad that. Too many emotions, want of sleep, perhaps. You would do too much last night." He still kept up his hateful babble, and Jules maddened me by his sniggering enjoyment of ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodeling the world with words, and making card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with unbelieving ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... type, was only thirty-two years old, but his life since the age of twenty-one had been passed in captivity either in Russian prisons or as an exile in Siberia. Abramovitch and his wife were shortly to be released, and it was pathetic to hear them babble like children about their approaching freedom, and of how they would revel in the sight of Warsaw, and enjoy its restaurants and theatres, and even a ride in the electric cars! I visited them next day in their dark and miserable home, which, however, was scrupulously ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... reader might apply that description to Browne's poetry; he might urge that the breezes which blew down these leafy alleys and over those trim parterres were not more grateful than the fragrance exhaled from the 'Pastorals'; that the brooks and birds babble and twitter in the printed page not less blithely than in that western Paradise. What so pleasant as to read of May-games, true-love knots, and shepherds piping in the shade? of pixies and fairy-circles? of rustic bridals and junketings? of angling, hunting the squirrel, nut-gathering? Of such subjects ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... is not for thee to down on thy knees, and say over a many Scripture words only; for that thou mayest do, and yet do nothing but babble. But if thou from a sense of thy baseness canst groan out thy heart's desire before the Lord, He will hear thee, and grant thy desire; for He can tell what is the meaning of the groanings ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a rule of the diplomatic game never to reveal, even to an ally, what you know; tomorrow the ally may be the enemy. Harleston might yield the letter to superior force or to trickery, but he would never babble of it. ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... horn, and the deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds opened loud and wild, far in the ringing woods, and it was like the music of a hundred chiming bells. There was a tremor of the bow, and I heard a flute play, and a harp, and a golden-mouthed cornet; I heard the mirthful babble of happy voices, and peals of laughter ringing in the swelling tide of pleasure. Then I saw a vision of snowy arms, voluptuous forms, and light fantastic slippered feet, all whirling and floating in the mazes of the misty dance. The flying fingers now tripped upon ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... It's full of wit, and full of fashion, And full of taste, and full of passion; It tells some very curious histories, Elucidates some charming mysteries, And mingles sketches of society With precepts of the soundest piety. Thus I babble to the host Who adore the "Morning Post;" If they care for what I say. They are April ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... my advice. Avoid The places where thou seest much drapery, Colours, and gold, and plumes, and heraldries, And such new-fanglements. But, above all, Take care how evil chance or youthful wandering Bring thee upon the house of Idle Babble." "What place is that?" said I; and he resumed;— "Enchantresses dwell there, who make one see Things as they are not, ay and hear them too. That which shall seem pure diamond and fine gold Is glass and brass; and coffers that look silver, Heavy with ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... were, they stood mute, replying to questions only with shrugged shoulders and lifted eyebrows; but when we made them realize that we were Americans they changed. All were ready enough to talk then; they crowded about us, gesticulating and interrupting one another. From the babble we gathered that the German skirmishers, coming in the strength of one company, had found an English cavalry squad in the town. The English had swapped a few volleys with them, then had fallen back toward the river in good order and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... who was driving stopped, and Nana slid down from the straw, right into Lucia's waiting arms. She was so glad to see her, that she could only babble foolishly. All during her long journey, and her stay in strange villages, she had thought of nothing but Lucia in the hands of the enemy, and she was nearly crazy with relief and joy to ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... height of his great soberness and the dignity of possessing the oracles and the ordinances, do other than contemn the enthusiasms and excitements of ignorant repentance? How could such as he recognize in the babble of babes the slightest indication of the revealing of truths hid from the wise and prudent; especially since their rejoicing also was that of babes, hence carnal, and accompanied by all the weaknesses and some of the vices ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the wealth from the toiler reft. Lo, once it lay in the water, hid deep adown it lay, Till the gods were grieved and lacking, and men saw it and the day: Let it lie in the water once more, let the gods be rich and in peace! But I at least in the world from the words and the babble shall cease." ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... be a kinship between the voices of the marsh dwellers. Most of them seem to have a muddy, aquatic note. The boom of the frog sounds like some great stone dropped into the water; the little marsh wren's song is the "babble and tinkle of water running out of ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... O land, if a marvel it seemeth that men ever sought Thy wastes for a field and a garden fulfilled of all wonder and doubt, And feasted amidst of the winter when the fight of the year had been fought, Whose plunder all gathered together was little to babble about; Cry aloud from thy wastes, O thou land, "Not for this nor for that was I wrought Amid waning of realms and of riches and death of things worshipped and sure, I abide here the spouse of a God, and I made ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... leave behind you your love, my heart, and miss peace through all your days? And is the path you followed lost and forgotten, making your return hopeless? I go roaming listening to brooks' babble, to the rustle of leaves. And it seems to me that I shall find the way, that reaches the land of lost love beyond the ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... sold and paid for; but neither buyer nor seller defined the nature of the bargain. On the whole, it was as well that Mr. Gibson spent so much of his time from home. He sometimes thought so himself when he heard his wife's plaintive fret or pretty babble over totally indifferent things, and perceived of how flimsy a nature were all her fine sentiments. Still, he did not allow himself to repine over the step he had taken; he wilfully shut his eyes and waxed up his ears to many small things that ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... onward defiantly. The journey is, however, one that might justly inspire timidity. Above our heads, and on each side, frowned immense rocks, threatening at every instant to fall upon us; while the dash and babble of a stream whose course we followed, increasing in volume as we progressed, came to our ears like the 'sound of many waters.' We crossed this stream a hundred times, at least, in our journey. Sometimes it murmured and fretted in a chasm ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and the manner of men and beasts that dwelt therein. Are its fruits good for food, or does the land we have explored bring forth only poisonous reptiles and the deadly upas? Is it a land in which the very principles of art and of human nature are turned upside down? Its language the babble ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... more desirous are than men[102], Which having got, they have no power to hold. In these times had Echo's first fathers liv'd, No woman, but a man, she had been feign'd (Though women yet will want no news to prate); For men (mean men), the scum and dross of all, Will talk and babble of they know not what, Upbraid, deprave, and taunt they care not whom. Surmises pass for sound approved truths; Familiarity and conference, That were the sinews of societies, Are now for underminings only ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... ... gabble-gabble!' My window glimpses larch and heather. I hardly hear the tuneful babble, Not knowing nor much caring whether The text is praise or exhortation, Prayer ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... finding me grouchy and that you are going to answer me: "What difference does all that make?" But everything makes a difference, and we are dying of humbug, of ignorance, of self-confidence, of scorn of grandeur, of love of banality, and imbecile babble. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... pure water, faithful servant or monachal abstinence, wisest of wise men, how would thy sides ache with laughter, how wouldst thou chuckle, if thou couldst come again for a little while to Chinon, and read the idiotic mouthings, and the maniacal babble of the fools who have interpreted, commentated, torn, disgraced, misunderstood, betrayed, defiled, adulterated and meddled with thy peerless book. As many dogs as Panurge found busy with his lady's robe at church, so many two-legged academic puppies have busied themselves ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... Don't echo that babble. You came to these arms often enough when they were fresh from ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... line of his life—the cabin, the dead woman, the baby face nestling at his throat, the girl coming to him with her trials and triumphs. His heart swelled so that he could not have spoken, but deep in his throat he muttered a dumb prayer. And how he suffered that day, hearing her babble mixed with moanings every time the door ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... of the past, the babble of his lovely babies jars upon him, and, still half-dreaming, he brings ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... the evening the hickory fire in the hall was pouring a sheet of flame up the chimney, the house was in a drench of gas- light from the ground floor up, the guests were arriving, and there was a babble of hearty greetings, with not a voice in it that was not old and familiar and affectionate; and when the curtain went up we looked out from the stage upon none but faces that were dear to us, none but faces that were lit up with ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... babble of voices Simon suddenly heard a man cry out sharply. The pain in the man's voice cut into Simon's heart like a knife. Simon scanned the crowd, but in the darkness could not see him. No one moved to ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... A babble of volunteering cries burst out, but Dane's voice cut through the others. "Look here," the sentence tumbled from his lips. "I'm an extra here. It doesn't matter whether I live or die—I have no special knowledge. I cannot even father a family, since ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... was a curious babble or chatter, almost as if the sound-proof door—if there was such a thing—of a parrot cage had been suddenly opened. It came from somewhere at the rear of the house and was, apparently, produced by a number of feminine voices all speaking very ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... imitative worship, delighting in the unconscious fashion in which the sonorous phrases of convention rolled off from her son's baby lips. And then, one day, Scott's memory failed him in his invocation. There came a familiar phrase or two, and then a babble of meaningless syllables, ending in a long-drawn and relieved Amen. An instant later, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... jaded and forlorn, Welters and wanders wearily—wretchedly—on; Yet in and out among the ribs Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles Of some dead lake-built city, fall of skulls, Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, Lingers to babble, to a broken tune (Once, O the unvoiced music of my heart!) So melancholy a soliloquy It sounds as it might tell The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, The terror of Time and Change and Death, That wastes this floating, ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... exclaimed Nevill. "I don't think De Mora can have got home yet from the palace. I saw him having supper. Suppose I dart back, flutter gracefully round him, babble 'tile talk' a bit—he's a tile expert after my own heart—then casually ask what Arabs he's got staying with him. If Maieddine's in his house it can't be a secret—incidentally I may find out where the fellow comes from and where ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the true poet. Its teachings drop in tears, and the heart receives them kneeling, and is in no hurry to babble to the world all their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... poor is a strange mixture of good and evil, of real benevolence with an interference that saps all sense of self-respect, of real sympathy and womanly feeling with a good deal of womanly meddling, curiosity, and babble. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... the random activity that goes with euphoria. The child derives satisfaction not so much from the muscular activity of vocalization as from the sounds that he produces, so that deaf children, who begin to babble much like other children, lag behind them as the months go by, from not deriving this auditory satisfaction from the vocal activity. Though whistling, blowing a horn, shaking a rattle and beating a drum are not native responses, it is clear that the child naturally ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... lengthwise. Crowds—mostly of women—were surging, bustling, and pacing up and down. Gaslights glared from butchers' stalls, illuminating the lumps of flesh to splotches of orange and vermilion, like the wild colouring of Turner's later pictures, whilst the purl and babble of tongues of every pitch and mood was to this human wild-wood what the ripple of a brook is to the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... graceful little Picture; and certainly, to Prussian men, not without weight of meaning. Nor perhaps to Picture-Collectors and Cognoscenti generally, of whatever country,—if they could forget, for a moment, the correggiosity of Correggio, and the learned babble of the Sale-room and varnishing Auctioneer; and think, "Why it is, probably, that Pictures exist in this world, and to what end the divine art of Painting was bestowed, by the earnest gods, upon poor mankind?" ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... to the front edges, where they drain into gold-plated copper-gutters on plated wrought-iron brackets, with one side flashed up over the blocks, which raise the slabs from the beam-tops, to clear the joint gutters.... But now I babble again of that base servitude, which I would forget, but cannot: for every measurement, bolt, ring, is in my brain, like a burden: but it is past, it is ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... her handwriting," exclaimed Evelyn, and then there ensued such a babble of wonder and delight and excited speculation as to its contents that Lucile was finally obliged to shout, "If you will only sit down, girls. I'll see what's inside, and please stop making such an unearthly noise—we'll have ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... man who had made England practically the mistress of the world, the man who gained for us Canada and India, the man whom the King of Prussia regarded as our strongest and noblest, could spend his time in writing pretty babble about a couple of youngsters in order to delight their mother. If he had gone to London, the people would have taken the horses out of his carriage, and dragged him to his destination. He was far more powerful than the king, and ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... upon me, and then recommenced the gesticulation and babble of the two. At length she appeared satisfied with the understanding at which they arrived. I was growing uneasy at their prolonged volubility, when Monsieur Pilot pirouetted up ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... what a boy you are! Had I been any other woman—but let it go. You are as translucent as a woodland brook, and—at times you babble like one, confident that your music pleases everyone who hears it.... I pray you let me judge whether the errant lady be what a poet's soul would have her.... I am not speaking with any unkind thought or doubt.... But woman must judge woman. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... your father,' said I, meaning the Father of Lies. 'Never you mind,' said he, and gave me a cunning wink, and hiccuped, and leaning up against the door, with his other eye against the door-post, began to babble of how he had been prying in my room, and how he had gone to the police that morning, and how they had taken down everything he had to say—''siffiwas a ge'm,' said he. Then I suddenly realised I was in a hole. Either I should ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... to push open the door, fearing to draw attention to myself; and when I did succeed in lifting the latch and making a small crack, I was so astonished by the sudden lull in the general babble, that I drew hastily back and was for descending the ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... at the beginning of no articulate sounds; then they learn these and syllables; after this also words of one syllable; then they speak short words of more than one syllable and sentences, but frequently babble forth words they have heard without understanding ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... instead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their influence, to stop the licence of translatours, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... me! what old women's babble! Know that I can no longer bear to hear even the name of suits. Ha! ha! ha! this is what pleases me, "Down with the urns!" Won't you begone? Down with the dicasts! away with them, away with them! (To the flute-girl.) ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble, And try her yet more strongly.—Come, no more! This is mere moral babble, and direct Against the canon laws of our foundation. I must not suffer this; yet 'tis but the lees And settlings ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... mounts the chariot and gathers the reins in her hands of steel; and beyond the writhing hearts whose blood dyes her rushing wheels sees only the goal. Some wise anatomists of that frail yet invincible sphinx—woman's nature, babble of one weighty fact, one conquering law,—that only the mother-joy, the mother-love, fully unseals the slumbering sweetness and latent tenderness of her being; for me, maternity opened the sluices of a sea of hate and gall. Had I ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Joseph's had arisen before, all waited to hear Jesus, but his thoughts having seemingly wandered far, they all fell to argument and advised Joseph in so many different ways that he did not know to whom to accede so contradictory were all their notions of fairness; and, the babble becoming louder, it waked Jesus out of his mood, and catching Joseph's eyes, he asked him if he whom our Father sent to establish his Kingdom on earth would not have to give his life to men for doing it. A question that Joseph could not answer; and while he sought for the Master's meaning ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... Courts of Justice (Chancery and King's Bench) were held here, and as the hall was also lined with shops, and the babble and walking to and fro were incessant, it is not wonderful that justice was sometimes left undone. It would be difficult—nay, impossible—to tell in detail all the strange historic scenes enacted in Westminster Hall in the limited space ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... bright morning, there were sounds of gay chatter, and many a clear, good-natured laugh. Marietta Volkmar had come for a little gossip with her old friend, and as usual during such visits, the laughter and the babble knew no end. Toni sat in the window-seat, and near her stood Willibald, who, by his mother's special orders, was to play the role ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... lived again at Bourne, and tried to bring forgetfulness by drink—and drink brought boastfulness; for that he had no more the spirit left to do great deeds, he must needs babble of the great deeds which he had done, and hurl insult and defiance at his Norman neighbours. And in the space of three years he had become as intolerable to those same neighbours as they were intolerable to him, and he was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... write to the Deercourt girl, I notice that you generally fill three or four sheets. Can't you let an old woman babble on paper once in a ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles; I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... usual aimless babble that every low-caste native must raise on every occasion. It died down, and Kim lay out behind the little knot of Mahbub's followers, almost under the wheels of a horse-truck, a borrowed blanket for covering. Now a bed among brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night, between ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... "Do not babble so," said another of the workmen. "Some Mongol rode by and you jumped to the conclusion that he ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... my heart is cold, Because of a silent tongue! The lute of faultless mould In silence oft hath hung. The fountain soonest spent Doth babble down the steep; But the stream that ever went Is ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... to the city, and each night, homeless, slept out in the open, under the trees of Olivet, and the blue. Now, He rudely shocks them by clearing the temple areas of the market-place rabble and babble, and now He is healing the lame and maimed in the temple itself, amid the reverent praise of the multitude, the songs of the children, and the scowling, muttered protests of the chief priests. Calmly, ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... flavouring her discourse with copious extracts from the Badminton books on shooting, and adding here and there imaginative reminiscences of her own exploits in dealing death. In the hunting-field she will lose her groom, and babble sport to the Master, with whom she further ingratiates herself by rating and lashing one of his favourite hounds, or by heading the fox whenever he attempts to break away. She then crosses him at an awkward fence, and considers herself ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... all this, those inside could not help but hear the pleading cries of the doomed wretches, the tramp of heavy feet, the hushed babble of voices, and at last the terrible shout of, "Heave 'o! up they go!" which signaled the commencement of the ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... letter of New York gossip published in the New York Star, called "Bab's Babble." Edward had read it, and saw the possibility of syndicating this item as a woman's letter from New York. He instinctively realized that women all over the country would read it. He sought out the author, made arrangements ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok |
