"Incoherently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "This, madam, incoherently indeed, yet with sincerity, I have now done: my sufferings and my conflicts I do not mention, for I dare not! O were I to paint to you the bitter struggles of a mind all at war with itself,—Duty, spirit, and fortitude, combating love, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... back and stood glowering upon him in silence, the speech he had wished to utter withered upon his lips, blighted by a panic terror, and he stood mumbling incoherently ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... happy, is the dearest, the sole aspiration of my heart!" Steadfast stared and staggered, then suddenly exclaiming gutturally, "Amen!" reeled from the stage, quickly followed by Henry Moreland, amid the derision and hisses of the spectators. "Treat you cruelly!" said Steadfast, incoherently in the wings. "Nothing of the sort. You quite confounded me with your correctness. You told me you didn't know your words, and I'll be hanged if you were not 'letter perfect.' It went off capitally, my dear boy, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... into a bower of trees, overhanging it so densely that the pass appeared like a rabbit's burrow, and presently reached a side entrance to the park. The clouds rose more rapidly than the farmer had anticipated: the sheep moved in a trail, and complained incoherently. Livid grey shades, like those of the modern French painters, made a mystery of the remote and dark parts of the vista, and seemed to insist upon a suspension of breath. Before she was half-way across the park ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out of my head. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... forward on his knees, an arm overturning the bottle of beer; and, his sleeve dabbled in it, he pressed his head against the cold edge of the table, praying wordlessly for faith, incoherently ravished by the marvel of salvation, the knowledge of ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... their fulness. One woman, driven mad with fear and despair, deliberately hung herself from the roof of the saloon. A man, taking out his penknife, dug it into his wrist and worked it about as long as he had strength, dying where he fell. Another, incoherently calling on the wife and child he had left in Germany, rushed about with a bottle in his hand frantically shouting for paper and pencil. Somebody gave him both, and, scribbling a note, he corked it down in a bottle and threw it overboard, following it himself ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... themselves and their time as habitual letter-writers. It is curious to note the deterioration in the artistic quality of the letters as the period of their production approaches our own, when people dash off their correspondence rapidly and incoherently, instead of bestowing upon it the artifice and care which distinguished the epistolarians of an elder date, whose letters, fastidiously written, faithfully read, and jealously kept and shown about in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... say? Driven thus into a corner, I could only protest, rather incoherently, that I loved Polly, and that, in other circumstances, I should long since have asked her to ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... and gaze at you I shall go mad with despair," he exclaimed incoherently. "Oh, I shall go mad! For I do love you, and you talk to me as if I were a child! Helen, I must get this out of my heart in some way, ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... where a knot of the performers were assembled, talking of the horrible accident. I pushed my way shiveringly through them, and tried to rush into the building, but was checked by a burly porter. I explained incoherently in my rusty German. I came for news of Madame Papadopoulos. I was her Verlobter I declared, with a gush of inspiration. Whether he believed that I was her affianced I know not, but he bade me wait, and disappeared with my card. I became at once the object of the curiosity of the loungers. I heard ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... forgive a LITTLE lie, what would he do with a WHOPPER like this?" Then with sudden decision, she rushed toward the 'phone. "Let me talk to Jimmy," she said, and the next moment she was chattering so rapidly and incoherently over the 'phone that Aggie despaired of hearing one word that she said, and retired to the next room to think out a ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... Old Walt chuckle behind me, talking incoherently to himself, and then he said, "You are wondering why I live in such ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... went on hurridly, and almost incoherently as we see another sign, over the road - oh! how vollubly he did ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... in fact till noon and something after, her sleep had been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how or why, and she had awakened already ennuye, with a mind incoherently oppressed, without relish for the promise of the day—in a mood altogether as drear as the daylight that waited upon her ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... withered, in which case, though the swelling was there, it did not develop the least suppuration. With others who survived the tongue did not remain unaffected, and they lived on either lisping or speaking incoherently and ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... incoherently, yet his suffering, and irreparable misfortune would seem to have roused something new and latent within him of which in his careless years of selfish enjoyment he had ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... pardon!" he exclaimed, almost incoherently. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I wouldn't do anything you'd think ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... engaged to play here the whole summer." The head waiter fumbled with the knife and fork at the place opposite, and blushed. "But you'll hear her to-night yourself," he ended incoherently, and hurried away, to show another guest to ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... when we shall pass through the purifying flame of a great conflagration; then a new earth and a new heaven shall open up to us; through union we shall attain our final freedom. I know I am saying all this badly, incoherently—I cannot say clearly what I feel—but let us, please, ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... felt the cold water sweeping by him and knew it was no dream. The reality stunned him, and he became incapable of thinking; he only moaned and called out, incoherently, ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... enable the men to pursue their journey with some degree of spirit. Still, it was evident that their energies had been overtaxed, for when they neared the ship next day, Tom Singleton, who had been on the lookout, and advanced to meet them, found that they were almost in a state of stupor, and talked incoherently; sometimes giving utterance to sentiments of the most absurd nature, with expressions of the ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... were frightful; those who were completely under the influence of the opium talked incoherently, their features were flushed, their eyes had an unnatural brilliancy, and the general expression of their countenances was horribly wild. The effect is usually produced in two hours, and lasts four or five; the dose varies from three grains to a drachm. I saw one old ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... cursed the false position in which he found himself. He was usually a ready-witted man, but now he found himself stammering almost incoherently. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... woman, helpless and trembling, stood before him,—a woman that cried out that she had "killed him," that she was "wicked, wicked!" and that, even saying so, staggered, and fell beside her late burden. And all that Mr. McClosky could do was to feebly rub his beard, and say to himself vaguely and incoherently, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... that Sam could never recover without medicine and a doctor. They ministered to him as well as they could, but they could do nothing to check the fever, which was now constant and very high. Sam knew hardly anything, and rarely ever spoke at all except to talk incoherently in fits of delirium. ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... Mary Standish, could understand how his mind and nerves were fighting to recover themselves. His senses were swimming back one by one to a vital point from which they had been swept by an unexpected sea, gripping rather incoherently at unimportant realities as they assembled themselves. In the edge of the tundra beyond the cottonwoods he noticed three saddle-deer grazing at the ends of ropes which were fastened to cotton-tufted nigger-heads. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... on the table, and gloated on them with greedy eyes. They looked so inviting, that he said to himself they would be safer in his custody than in that of a delirious person, who was even now raving incoherently before him, and could not see what he was doing. He therefore proceeded to transfer them to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... alacrity towards the palace, pressing with convulsive firmness the valuable pledge on which all her hopes depended. Upon her arrival at the entrance, the guards, struck with the wildness of her manner, and sympathising with her misfortunes, expeditiously opened a passage, as she exclaimed almost incoherently, that she must ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... is well for you to speak of burnings!" Madame von Marwitz sobbed, aware that Karen's wrath was quelled. "I am scorched by all of you! by all of you!" she repeated incoherently. "All the burdens fall upon me and, in reward, I am spurned and spat upon by ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... vague wish, no doubt, to "make up"; to punish herself, while touching him. But the recollection of him, bending over the picture, tortured her, gripped her at the heart for many a day afterwards. She let it be seen no more. Yet that week she wrote more fully, more incoherently, more piteously to Marcella than ever before. She talked, not without bitterness and injustice, of her bringing up, asked what she should read, spread out her puzzles with the poor, or with her household—half angrily, as though she were accusing someone. For the first time, as it were, she ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whimsical reaction rather incoherently by saying that those nice old words were so much more fun than the others, and in spite of remonstrance she clung to her fancy with so lightly laughing an obstinacy that neither she nor anyone suspected it of being a surface indication of a ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... daughter on this subject?" Mr. Hargrove asked, gravely, after the young fellow had rather incoherently made known his errand. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Mr. Mellowes, Daddy...." Something in her voice made Micky's eyes smart. It was hard luck that for the second time he was forced to humiliate her. He stammered out incoherently that he hoped they would forgive him, but he was in such a deuce of a hurry.... He went ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... the little room in order and made the bed, blinded by tears, her steps uncertain: muttering incoherently of her child, whimpering broken snatches of lullaby songs. When there was no more work left for her hands to do, she staggered to the bureau, and from the lower drawer took a great, flaunting doll, which ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... son to his heart, with a cry of joy and a sudden rush of tears. He babbled incoherently, and gasped for breath. Dick supported the faltering steps to the chair by the desk. Then, he closed the window silently, and flinging his cap upon the table, slowly divested himself ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... understood was that his wandering mind was running on what had been the life of his life, Italy. In the early dawn of the 6th, he imagined that he was making a ministerial statement from his place in the Chamber of Deputies; his voice sounded clear and distinct, but ideas, names, words, were incoherently mixed together. At four o'clock he became silent, and very soon life ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... mind quite clearly that the man who was at that moment talking to Mademoiselle Therese, was the solicitor himself. Before she could move from her place, the son had cast himself down on his knees, and was begging her incoherently to spare him and his father—not to inform against them. The thought of going to prison, he said, would kill him, as it had his mother, as it nearly had his sister; and if she would spare them, he would take his father ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... over, very faintly—'Send for him—send for him.' So then I wrote my note to you and sent it off. Since then the doctor and my sister have succeeded in carrying her upstairs—and the doctor gives leave for you to see her. He is coming back again presently. During her sleep, she talked incoherently once or twice about a lake and a boat—and once she said—'Oh, do stop that music!' and moved her head about as though it hurt her. Since then I have heard some gossip from the village about a strange lady ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... moment she beat frantically upon the door, calling to him incoherently. She thought he did not hear her, for he did not turn his head. Then she stopped, frightened at what she had done. Suppose the doctor were to overhear her? Everything would be lost. There was but one chance for Richard now, she felt, and that lay ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... others that bring rain, and others that give winds. When any one is sick, the Buhuitihu is brought, who must be dieted exactly in the same manner with the sick man. That is both snuff up a certain powder named cobaba by the nose, which intoxicates them and makes them speak incoherently, which they say is talking with the cemis, who tell them the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... talk incoherently, and attempted to rise from the bed, but his efforts were unavailing—he was too weak; but he raved of Patience Heatherstone, and he called himself Edward Beverley more than once, and he talked of his ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... mobs are mobs with muskets in their hands; and also with death hanging over their heads, for death is the penalty of disobedience and they have disobeyed. And now if all mobs are properly frenzies, and work frenetically with mad fits of hot and of cold, fierce rage alternating so incoherently with panic terror, consider what your military mob will be, with such a conflict of duties and penalties, whirled between remorse and fury, and, for the hot fit, loaded fire-arms in its hand! To the soldier himself, revolt is frightful, and oftenest perhaps pitiable; and yet so dangerous, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... that to search further was useless, he ran to thank the stranger who had served him. Extravagantly, but with real feeling, he wrung both of Roddy's hands. In the native fashion he embraced him, shook him by the shoulders, patted him affectionately on the back. Eloquently but incoherently in Spanish, French and English he poured forth his thanks. He hailed Roddy as his preserver, his bon amigo, his brav camarad. In expressing their gratitude his friends were equally voluble and generous. They praised, they applauded, they admired; in swift, graceful gestures ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... Mumbling incoherently, he slowly raised himself and glared owlishly around, caught sight of the picture in Leyden's hand, ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... great deal of the housework. She was not "real bright," and had some queer ways. Her immediate relatives were dead; and the Odells had taken her from a feeling of pity, and a fear lest at last she would be sent to the poor-house. She had an odd way of talking incoherently to herself, and nodding her head at almost everything; yet she was good-tempered and always ready to do as she was told. But the worst was her lack of memory; you had to tell her the same things everyday,—"get her started in the ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... days, and to spirits that had already lost their balance the suspense was fatal. The aged father wandered about the house in a purposeless manner, sometimes standing gazing along the road through the Venetian blinds, sometimes talking incoherently; and when at last the intelligence arrived that Mrs. Havelock was out of danger, though his joy and thankfulness were ecstatic, the effects of these three days were irremediable; he was hardly ever seen to smile again, could take no part in the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... tightly over her slim white arm. In his throat his heart was pumping. He spoke incoherently, like a man. "God," he said, "you—you take my breath away. You make my brain whirl. Why didn't you come out of your garden a ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... into the refectory, madam. That was the nearest to the gate, where it happened. It happened just outside the south gate, madam. They took off a leaf of the gate, and laid him on it and brought him in," answered the trembling little novice, rather incoherently. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... "No," and the monosyllable exasperated her out of all prudence, and all at once she found herself speaking incoherently the things which she had thought. And once she had begun, she could not stop. She stood, as it were, outside of herself, and saw that her speech was madness; yet ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... of agony, Bruce saw the paper, and struck his forehead with his hand. The sudden blow of shameful detection with all its train of consequences utterly unmanned him, and falling on his knees, he cried incoherently— ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... these men have been at the rum, because Bum, the head man, has been too done up to do anything but lie in his blanket and feed. Kefalla is laying down the law with great detail and unction. Cook who has been very low in his mind all day, is now weirdly cheerful, and sings incoherently. The other boys, who want to go to sleep, threaten to "burst him" if he "no finish." It's no good—cook carols on, and soon succumbing to the irresistible charm of music, the other men have to join in the choruses. The performance ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... effort. When dinner was over he went to his room, and when his mother, who had gone again and again to listen at his door, finally decided to enter his chamber, she found him lying upon the bed, muttering incoherently. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... Fraulein—"Sie konnen ihre paar Groschen haben!—Ihre paar Groschen! Ihre paar Groschen!" and then the two voices shrieked incoherently together until Fraulein's door slammed to and Anna's voice, shouting and swearing, died ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... reins," he complained dispiritedly. "I could uh cleaned the blamed shack up so it would look like folks was living here—and I woulda, if I didn't have to set all day and toggle up the places in my clothes"—Billy muttered incoherently over a knot in his thread. "I've been plumb puzzled, all winter, to know whether it's man or cattle I'm supposed to chappyrone. If it's man, this coat has sure got the marks uh the trade, all right." He drew the ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... the forearm exposed. The hypodermic needle pricked the flesh. There was no sound of any step; but the cretonne hanging wavered almost imperceptibly, as though some one, or perhaps but a current of air from the passage without, had swayed it slightly. Jimmie Dale was mumbling incoherently to himself now; his lips, like his fingers, working in nervous twitches. A few seconds passed—a half minute. Still mumbling, Jimmie Dale, with a caress like that of a miser for his gold, was fondling the shining little instrument in his hand—and then ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... a guilty, beating heart that Justine Delande abandoned her fair, young charge to the morning ministrations of a bevy of dark-skinned servants. However, the sturdy Genevese waiting-maid who had accompanied them to India was at hand, when the spinster incoherently murmured her all too voluble excuses for an early morning visit to the European shops on the Chandnee Chouk, and then fled away as if fearful of her own shadow. She was duly thankful that no one had observed her entrance to the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... imagination. On one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and constantly interrupted her story to say: "No, I can't! I'm not telling it right; no, you don't understand," though he encouraged her by saying that he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... had so far roused the pale young man from his lethargy that he laid his dirty pink paper on his knees. I kept hold of Carlotta's wrists. She began to moan incoherently. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... earthward leaf by red leaf slips, The sad trees rustle in chill misery, A soft strange inner sound of pain-crazed lips, That move and murmur incoherently; As if all leaves, that yet have breath, were sighing, With pale hushed throats, for death is at the door, So many low soft masses for the dying Sweet leaves ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... good luck to ye all —and this day three years I'll have a hot supper smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away! God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men, murmured old Bildad, almost incoherently. I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye —a pleasant sun is all he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... one and then another began to mutter incoherently before sinking into a heavy sleep, the mate, who was the most vigorous man present, having the hardest fight of all, and when he did cease babbling as he lay there in the darkness there was a coldness of hand and weakness of pulse that ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... tried to shake him awake so that he could have his breakfast and the morning paper, but Johnny swore incoherently and turned over with his face to ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... queen it would be impossible to describe. She fell at first into a swoon, and when at length her senses returned, she was so completely overwhelmed with disappointment, vexation, and rage, and talked so wildly and incoherently, that her friends almost feared that she would lose her reason. Her son, the young prince, who was now nearly nineteen years of age, did all in his power to soothe and calm her, and at length so far succeeded as to induce her to consider ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the room which, if she hadn't been a doctor, might have been her "chamber," and perhaps was, even with the dissecting, Miss Birdseye didn't know! She explained her young friends to each other, a trifle incoherently, perhaps, and then went to ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... seated in the library, where for two hours they had remained undisturbed, Emerson talking rapidly, almost incoherently, as if this were a sort of confessional, the girl hanging eagerly upon his every word, following his narrative with breathless interest. The story had been substantially the same as that which, once before, he had related to Cherry Malotte; but ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... know; I fear so. I warned her; I told her it would come. But she would do it," cried the doctor incoherently, as he tried to feel her pulse with one hand while he tore at the fastenings of her dress with the other. He set Paul at work chafing the hands of the unconscious woman, while Miss Ludington sprinkled her face and chest ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... mother, sadly. "Lucy was a sensible girl, and until this thing happened she was as bright and cheerful as the day is long. But she is very sensitive—she inherited that from me, I think—and Tom's action drove her distracted. At first she raved and rambled incoherently, and Will and I feared brain fever would set in. Then she disappeared in the night, without leaving a word or message for us, which was unlike her—and we've never heard a word of her since. The—the river has a strange fascination ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... his native one, rapidly, violently, half incoherently. "Ah, yes! It had come to this. It seems he was not a vacquero, a companion of the padrone on lands that had been his own before the Americanos robbed him of it, but a servant, a lackey of muchachas, an attendant on children ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... Parker Adderson, of the Federal army, philosopher and wit, kneeling in the moonlight and begging incoherently for his life, was shot to death by twenty men. As the volley rang out upon the keen air of the midnight, General Clavering, lying white and still in the red glow of the camp-fire, opened his big blue eyes, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... chief affair in life just now, to keep her two eyes wide open; hence she saw, too, the look which Helen had flashed at the cattleman. And while she observed all of this she was speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, as though her one concern lay in the tragic error she had made. Had she been less than a very clever woman who had long lived, and lived well, by her wits, she must have found the situation too much for her. But no one of her hearers, ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... benumbed from being so long in it. Still, as the sun rose, all hands began to complain of thirst. Something must be done, however. I asked Pember what he would advise, as he, being the highest in rank among us, would have to take the command; but his drinking habits had unnerved him, and he answered, incoherently, "We must swim, I suppose, if we cannot get the wreck under way." Esse and I then turned to Mr Noalles. He had occasionally uttered a deep groan, as if in pain. I found that he was severely hurt, partly from the fire, and also from the blows he had received. ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... clutching desperately to the saddle-horn. The fever was gaining on him and the delirium worse. He talked incessantly, sometimes incoherently. From one subject to another he went, but always he came back to Dave Roush and his brother. He dared them to stand up and fight. He called on them to stop running, to wait for him. Then he trailed off into ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... fought ferociously with an old friend and neighbour who had remarked that the priests had the best of it and were now going to eat the priest-eater. He came home dishevelled and bleeding, and happening to catch sight of his children (they were kept generally out of the way), cursed and swore incoherently, banging the table. Susan wept. Madame Levaille sat serenely unmoved. She assured her daughter that "It will pass;" and taking up her thick umbrella, departed in haste to see after a schooner she was going to load ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... rooms, of precious mahogany, of portraits of women dead, of coloured china glimmering through glass doors and delicate silver reflected on bared tables, the thing was one of those impressions of a particular period that it takes two centuries to produce. "Fancy," the young man incoherently exclaimed, "his caring to leave anything so loveable as all this to come up and live ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... associations that love a joke invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... make them repeat the Lord's prayer and creed. It was affirmed that no witch could do so correctly. If she missed a word, or even pronounced one incoherently, which in her trepidation it was most probable she would, she was accounted guilty. It was thought that witches could not weep more than three tears, and those only from the left eye. Thus the conscious innocence of many persons, which gave them fortitude to bear unmerited ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... at home—a casa, as he loved to call it—need not be dwelt upon. Bitter-sweet it was, yet his courage made it more sweet than bitter. Bellaroba was tearful, clung to him, kissed and murmured incoherently because of sobbing. He loved her more than ever for that, but as became a prudent husband, thought to ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... my chair. He walked up and down the room, talking to himself incoherently in his own language. After several turns backwards and forwards, he suddenly came up to me, and laid his little hands with a strange tenderness and ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... incoherently some little time; then for a time he lay silent, and apparently sinking away toward death. Presently his fingers began to pick busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his end was at hand with the first suggestion of the death-rattle in his throat he started ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sudden appearance seemed to root Bruce to the spot. All but the discolored places on his face turned white. He held his breath a moment, then expelled it hard. His effort to recover from the shock was painfully obvious. He stammered incoherently. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... me aeons of strange, buzzing noises and peculiar lights, I at last made out the objects around me as those of a hospital. Men with serious faces were watching me. I have since been told that I babbled incoherently about "saving the little fellow" and other equally incomprehensible murmurings. From them I learned that the train the other way was washed out, a tangled mass of wreckage just like my car, both terminus stations wrecked utterly, and no one found ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... I will say that she discovered how tenaciously a young man's arms may cling when he thinks he is embracing merely his mother; but she freed herself and ran to Eddie, fairly pulled him off his horse, and talked very fast and incoherently to him and Jerry, asking question after question without waiting for a reply to any of them. All this, I suppose, in the hope that they would not hear, or, hearing, would not understand what that terrible, wonderful little woman was ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... have a room prepared," Miss de Lisle said; "and then I'll get you, Mr. Harry, to help me bundle them up and carry them over. We mustn't leave them in this place a minute longer than we can help. That lovely fat Michael!" murmured Miss de Lisle incoherently. She hurried away. ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... deplored the fact that Gethryn's "cellar" was no longer open to the public. Since the day when Rex returned from Julien's, tired and cross, to find a row of empty bottles on the floor and Clifford on the sofa conversing incoherently with himself, and had his questions interrupted by a maudlin squawk from the parrot — also tipsy — since that day Gethryn had carried the key. He now produced a wine glass and a dusty bottle, filled the one from the other and emptied it three times in rapid succession. Then he took the glass ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... feelings which chilled the better impulses of her nature and accentuated, with acid and fire, every elementary instinct. Animal powers and spiritual tendencies alike were concentrated into one absorbing passion which reasoned only in delirium, incoherently, without issue. She was wretched in Orange's company because every moment so spent showed her that his heart was fixed far indeed from her. But the wretchedness suffered that way was stifled in the torments she endured ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... words than any in the tribe. And her talk was a terrible thing to hear. Sometimes she screamed and moaned incoherently, and sometimes the shape of her guttural cries was the mere phantom of thoughts. But she conveyed to Eudena, nevertheless, much of the things that were yet to come, of the Lion and of the torment he would do her. "And Ugh-lomi! ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... of the morning Holt found himself entering the village at a point opposite to that at which he had left it. He soon arrived at the house of his brother, who hardly knew him. He was wild-eyed, haggard, and gray as a rat. Almost incoherently, he ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... description of the bit of statuary entitled "The Winged Victory," when I was startled by a wild yell in my ear. Cousin Egbert had leaped to his feet and now danced in the middle of the pavement, waving his stick and hat high in the air and shouting incoherently. At once we attracted the most undesirable attention from the loungers about us, the waiters and the passers-by in the street, many of whom stopped at once to survey my charge with the liveliest interest. It was then I saw that he had merely wished to attract the attention of some ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... remember his return to the farmhouse, or incoherently trying to explain to his wife the scene he had witnessed. A stiff jolt of elderberry wine drove off the jitters and reasoning returned. His wife sat patiently, eyeing him oddly, as Zack muttered over and over ...
— The Shining Cow • Alex James
... whole story, incoherently, and often only half expressing her sentiments, and passing over what Marian knew already. It seemed that she had been pleased with Mr. Faulkner's agreeableness, flattered by his attention, and entered upon the same sort of intercourse with him as with any other pleasant acquaintance. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... vanished from sight. The youth remained musing on his fortunate adventure till the dews of night began to fall, when his parents, fearful of some injury, sent attendants to conduct him to their palace, but he refused to go; and talked, as it appeared to them, so incoherently concerning his beloved, that they thought him distracted; seized him roughly, and forced him homewards. His father and mother were alarmed: it was in vain that they courted him to partake of refreshment; he was sullen and gloomy, and at length abruptly retired to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... while, defiantly and incoherently, and at length she turned in dumb rebuke, which ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... furrows of his forehead. In a moment he got to his feet and went to where Ernestine sat, his hat in his hand, kind words of greeting upon his lips for a lonely woman. She grew suddenly sullen; in a moment the sullen mood melted in a burst of tears, and she was talking with him incoherently. ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... with much difficulty, we brought him to himself. Upon reviving he spoke incoherently for some time. At length we bled him and put him to bed. The next morning he was quite recovered, so far as regarded his mere bodily health. Of his mind I say nothing, of course. I avoided him during the rest of the passage, by advice of the Captain, who seemed to coincide ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... he said incoherently, beginning to feel better. It was only Gibson who was cross, he reflected; Mrs. Sterling herself was as nice as she ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... excitement of his hopes and fears steeled him against the stupefying action of the liquor, he was rendered by it incapable of calm reflection. In certain nervous conditions our mere physical powers are proof against the action of alcohol, and though ten times more drunk than the toper, who, incoherently stammering, reels into the gutter, we can walk erect and talk with fluency. Indeed, in this artificial exaltation of the sensibilities, men often display a brilliant wit, and an acuteness of comprehension, calculated ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... creditable than mine were when I was your age, I am afraid. I consider you a most promising young officer, and am going to take you under my wing, because I believe you will do me credit. Nay, boy, I want no thanks,"—as I broke in somewhat incoherently in an attempt to express my gratitude—"at least, not in the form of words," he continued; "words are often spoken under the influence of a strong momentary impulse, and forgotten almost immediately afterward. But if you should desire to show that you are grateful ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... being much busied in preparations for her journey, had sent Annis to the sports with the Lady of Terreforte, and was ready to receive the poor, drenched, exhausted being, who almost stumbled into her motherly arms, weeping bitterly, and incoherently moaning something about her sisters, ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did he stand before her; but it was long enough for him to see her shrink a little, the gladness in her eyes giving way to uncertainty and a fugitive hope. Suddenly he began to pace the room again, and to talk incoherently. With the flow of words he gradually grew calmer, and, with something of his natural dignity, spoke ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... there but once, the title having deceived me) in the basement-story of the State House was crowded during the discussion, and every time Nelly Kirkpatrick came up, her face was a shade deeper red. Mr. Gorham's nods and winks were of no avail—speak she would, and speak she did, not so very incoherently, after all, but very abusively. To be sure, you would never have guessed it, if you had read the quiet and dignified report in the papers on her ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... - I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid; yet I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible you must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Egerton's last epistle, and Walter was debating in his own mind whether he ought not to speak of it in his next letter to their mother, when one night he was wakened by a sudden blow from Arthur's hand, and started up to find him rolling and tossing, throwing his arms about, and muttering incoherently in the delirium ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... was afraid it couldn't be true, and there was—Mollie!" faltered Sylvia incoherently, hardly knowing what she was saying, conscious of nothing but an overwhelming sense of content and well-being, as the strong arm supported her tired back, and the big, tender finger wiped away ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... due form. The captain of an old-time Chinaman could have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne babbled incoherently. She nearly threw herself into Manuel's arms when she understood that he ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... that there can be little doubt, if we attend for a moment to the action of mind; it is in perpetual activity. I used to doubt of it, but reflection has taught me better. It acts also so very independent of body—in dreams, for instance;—incoherently and 'madly', I grant you, but still it is mind, and much more mind than when we are awake. Now that this should not act 'separately', as well as jointly, who can pronounce? The stoics, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, call the present ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... broke the silence. It was the littlest girl turning over in her sleep, murmuring incoherently ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Ruth mumbled incoherently. After a time she raised herself on her arms and crouched beside Hilda, who put her arms around her and held her close, as she would have ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... went to the stable, there she was quite alone, half asleep, and yet, on her home journeys going more freely than on her way out, as if longing to be back and lonely in her stable! 'I would treat her well,' he thought incoherently. 'I would be very careful.' And all that capacity for home life of which a mocking Fate seemed for ever to have deprived him swelled suddenly in Soames, so that he dreamed dreams opposite South Kensington Station. In the King's Road a man ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... nondescript man-about-Bisty's, answered incoherently and turned back to the brilliant blonde whom he was endeavoring to ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... visitors looked on curiously and made useless suggestions. Haviland and Zotique, driving past to make sure of Misericorde, heard a commotion and turned their horses in. Benoit threw himself on his knees to Chamilly, violently begging his forgiveness, and incoherently confessing the evil work of himself and Spoon, whereat Zotique attacked him ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... said, in French, almost incoherently, so great was her agitation—"Madam, I am a poor serf belonging to a Polish family who have lately arrived in Florence. I have escaped from them; protect, shelter me. They say ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... excited way the colonel incoherently told of the burglary. He ordered the men to gather up the scattered plunder. Then he turned his ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... settle in English rather broken. Presently one of his companions getting up paid his reckoning and departed, the other remained, a stout young fellow dressed something like a stone-mason, which indeed I soon discovered that he was—he was far advanced towards a state of intoxication and talked very incoherently about the war, saying that he hoped it would soon terminate, for that if it continued he was afraid he might stand a chance of being shot, as he was a private in the Denbighshire Militia. I told him that it was the duty of every gentleman in the militia to be willing at all times to lay down his ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... pleasure of hearing Mrs. Frere sing, which she did very charmingly, and so as quite to justify her great society musical reputation. After our dinner at the F——s' we went to Mrs. W——'s evening party, where I sat alone, heard somebody sing a song, was introduced to a man, spoke incoherently to several people, got up, was much jostled in a crowd of human beings, and came home—and that's society. We are asked to a great supper at Chesterfield House, after a second representation which is to be given of "Hernani." My mother ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... little amusement at Walford's expense before according to him the pardon which he knew his shipmates expected of him. When, therefore, Walford staggered up to the side of the berth, and began eagerly and incoherently to stammer forth the most abject apologies and the wildest prayers for forgiveness, Rudd simply growled forth an oath and impatiently flung himself over in the berth with his back to the petitioner. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... you drop from? I must have been sound asleep in the hammock. Everybody else has gone to Newport. Did you ring?" she incoherently enquired. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... minutes he began to mutter incoherently, and Lady Royland leaned back to reach a feather-fan from a side-table, and then softly wafted the air to and fro till the words began to grow more broken, and at last ceased, as the boy uttered a low, weary sigh, his breath grew more regular, and he sank into the deep heavy sleep ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... able to walk but Isabel became the object of their immediate concern. She lay in the boat muttering incoherently. Archie gathered her up in his arms and bore her to the hospital tent ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... sir—I know. But he took it out of my Bible—out of the book of God." She was presently helped into the wagon and sent away murmuring incoherently. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... his youth. . . . Trading was very good. But was the change that would make them happy effected yet? The white man should be despoiled with a strong hand! . . . He grew excited, spoke very loud, and his further discourse, delivered with his hand on the hilt of his sword, dealt incoherently with the honourable topics of throat-cutting, fire-raising, and with the far-famed valour ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the child, motherly instinct toward uttering comforting assurance and wifely loyalty to her husband's safety, the poor woman, stammering incoherently, ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... hatchet, and with a bellow of rage rushed at the horse. I caught him by the coat and put on a fourteen-stone drag, while the horse dealer (who was as white as a cheese) ran off with his horse into the street. Cullingworth broke away from my grip, and cursing incoherently, his face slobbered with blood, and his hatchet waving over his head, he rushed out of the yard—the most diabolical looking ruffian you can imagine. However, luckily for the dealer, he had got a good start, and Cullingworth was persuaded to come back and wash his face. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... a most afflicting derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes it difficult for me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a degree not easily understood, of recasting what may seem insufficiently, or even incoherently, expressed.—Believe ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Link incoherently, "I saved you from dying from a bust leg and hunger the night I fust met you, Chummie. An' tonight you squared the bill by saving me from drownin'. But I'm still a whole lot in your debt, friend. I owe you for all the cash in my pocket an'—an' for a pint of the Stuff that Killed Father—an'—an' ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... and I would not serve the king who succeeded him. But ere I left France I saw Marie de Meudon, it might be, I thought, for the last time. At the sight of her my old passion returned, and I dared to utter it. I know not how incoherently the tale was told; I can but remember the bursting feeling of my bosom, as she placed her hand in mine, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... there in the silence watching and waiting, she saw Fenwick and his companion emerge from the dining-room and cross the hall in the direction of the billiard room. Blossett was still talking lightly and incoherently; he leant on the arm of his host, and obviously the support was necessary. Vera had never before seen a drunken man under the same roof as herself, and her soul revolted at the sight. How much longer was this going on, she ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... began to drowse, still murmuring incoherently, 'Man, I tell you... for the soul of Julina... Ave Maria...', and rocked ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... say not a word of their discovery on their heads, he ordered Snofru and his companions to make a litter of cloaks and lances, to throw away Glaucon's tell-tale Spartan armour, and bear him speedily to Artazostra's tents. The stricken man was groaning feebly, moving his limbs, muttering incoherently. The sight of Xerxes driving in person to inspect the battle-field made Mardonius hasten the litter away, while he remained ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... garments clung about her, and her wet hair was streaked across her face, but she seemed able to stand. The hunt had swept on through shoaler water, but there was a cheer from the stragglers across the river. Evelyn clutched her sister, half laughing, half sobbing, and incoherently upbraided her. Mabel shook herself free, and her first remark ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss |
