"Mumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... helping of salad. "All right. I'll talk, but you'll have to excuse me if I mumble a little. I intend to go right on eating. I've been looking forward to this ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... speak like this?" exclaimed the youth, almost frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his cheeks, his neck, his ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... it and gloat over it for hours, to fill my senses with its perfect beauty. At length I plucked it. I never regretted the waiting; the fruit tasted only the sweeter. . . . You are like that peach, Madame. By the Cross, over which these Jesuits mumble, but you are worth ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... prompter, and who was he? was in the box ready to tell them the next line if any of them faltered. The prompter, surely he was destiny, fate, the irresistible course of events, with which no man can struggle, any more than the actor can struggle with or alter the lines that are set down for him. He may mumble them, he may act dispiritedly and tamely, but he has undertaken a certain part; he has ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... while dangling the censers, they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns, nor psalms, nor masses; but mumble a certain gibberish, as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... member of the capitalist class, when he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always failed;" and "What if we do divide up? in ten years there would be rich ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... the old lady who sat huddled in an armchair, her hands crooked over a cane, a ruffled cap above her silvery hair. He manfully voiced his request for the child's hand in marriage. The old lady seemed to mumble an assent. The happy lover looked about for his fiance when, to his stupefaction, the old lady arose briskly from her chair, threw off cap, silvery wig, gown of black, and stood revealed as the child herself, smiling roguishly up at him from beneath the sunbonnet. With a glad cry he ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... with good provisions of several sorts, which, in time of harvest, he was carrying into the field for his master and the reapers to dine upon. On the way he met with a fine large thistle, and being very hungry, began to mumble it; which while he was doing, he entered into this reflection:—"How many greedy epicures would think themselves happy, amidst such a variety of delicate viands as I now carry! But to me this bitter, prickly thistle is more ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... obligation to the constituent units, which begins, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends, "All those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall be heard." However, you would have thought it was of no import here. Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink to a mumble. A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition to these there were present a court clerk—small, pale, candle-waxy, with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored hair ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... day a peasant woman called out to me in the street. I went into her house. Her stove smoked and she asked me to give her a charm to cure it. First of all I made her give me a good bit of bacon, and then I began to mumble a few words in Romany. 'You're a fool,' I said, 'you were born a fool, and you'll die a fool!' When I had got near the door I said to her, in good German, 'The most certain way of keeping your stove from smoking is not to light any fire in it!' and then I took ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... shivering dog on the floor, and Peg put a piece of meat under his nose. In her excitement, Jinnie rushed away to Lafe. Peg's mumble followed her even through the ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... quiet fun for a rainy day is Jack-stones. Although not played much nowadays it is very interesting and is to indoors what "mumble-the-peg" is to outdoors. It is played usually with small pieces of iron with six little feet: but it can also be played with small pebbles all of a size. All kinds of exercises can be used, many of which you can invent yourself but a few of the ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... until they reached the New North Road, when he ran ahead and had the door open for the doctor when he came. He heard the two meet outside the bed-room, and caught scraps of their conversation. "Sorry to knock you up—nasty case—decent people." Then it sank into a mumble and the ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ironed very badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed her with a flow of English. When Lucia would but shake her head they used the same flow, only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia would mumble to herself for several minutes over her ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, Miss Cross would ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... "Then mumble thy charm o'er the embers warm," That baron proud replied; "No boon from my hand shalt thou receive, Nor foaming ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... he goes on to give a truly appreciative and affectionate sketch of young Arthur Mynors; and then he quotes the sentence about the Master of the Beagles, and on this he comments thus: "The aged Barbarian will, upon this, admiringly mumble to us his story how the battle of Waterloo was won in the playing-fields of Eton. Alas! disasters have been prepared in those playing-fields as well as victories; disasters due to inadequate mental training—to ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly— Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... woman seized the note, and began to mumble blessings on Hamilton, which he cut short: "Give me the name of your street and the house where you live, that I may find you easily," he said, and noted down the directions she gave him. Then he turned to the girl and put ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... naval affairs." droned the clerk, mechanically. "House Bill No. 1,109 is amended to read as follows—" And his voice sank to an unintelligible mumble, for every Senator present he well knew was aware that the amendment named Altacoola ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... and severed the bands that bruised and held her white wrists. Even then she could not speak, though she smiled a little, faintly and forlornly and gratefully. She struggled to say one word, but it resolved itself into a cacophonous and inarticulate mumble, half-infantile, half-imbecile. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... some small job that needed attention. The stillness of the peaceful afternoon seemed to have fallen upon the vessel; the men conversed together intermittently in subdued tones, that barely reached aft in the form of a low mumble; and the only sounds heard were the occasional soft rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, with an accompanying patter of reef-points, the jar of the rudder upon its pintles, the jerk of the wheel chains, and the soft, scarcely audible seething of ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of Commons is that the Speaker cannot leave the chair until a motion for the adjournment of the House has been carried. This is always proposed by the senior Government Whip. The motion is usually carried in dumb show, and with that mumble in which business is carried through in the House when there is no opposition. But it is one of the ancient and time-honoured privileges of the House of Commons to raise almost any question on the motion for the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... back, until he was sure they were in camp. Then as cautiously he crawled up the bank. Through the scrub with his uninjured eye he could make out the figures around the yellow of the fire which had gone down considerably. Now what would they do? He could hear the mumble of the corporal's voice. Would they be sufficiently sobered to be ready for the chase in the morning? Birnier did not think so with that case of brandy there; the corporal would not, at all events. There was a scream of pain and the chatter of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... bread and sweetmeats, and if ever so well-disposed, compliance with the request was impossible. None of the rest, however, not even his sister, could keep their countenances, for the eye of the speaker had pointed and sharpened his words; and William, very red in the face, was understood to mumble, as soon as mumbling was possible, that "he wouldn't laugh unless he had a mind to," and a threat to "do ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... official reports of the Lords' debates a speech begins thus: "Lord —— (who was indistinctly heard)." The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... is light and life and flight, Upon the sandy bottom, agate strewn. The fishers mumble, waiting till the night Urge on the clouds, and cover up ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... from under the Devolution's stern. Pyecroft held something in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our Mister Moorshed!" ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... The sweet night air to enter in; There, with a thumb to keep her place She'd read, with stern and wrinkled face, Her mild eyes gliding very slow Across the letters to and fro, While wagged the guttering candle flame In the wind that through the window came. And sometimes in the silence she Would mumble a sentence audibly, Or shake her head as if to say, "You silly souls, to act this way!" And never a sound from night I'd hear, Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; Or her old shuffling thumb should turn Another page; and rapt and stern, Through ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... to hear so many words from that rigid shadow. Its monotonous mumble was fascinating, its sudden loquacity was shocking. And in the profound stillness that reigned outside it was as if there had been no one left in the world with her but the phantom of that old adventurer. He was heard again: "What I could tell you would ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... jolly, fat friars, Sitting round the great, roaring fires, Roaring louder than they, With their strong wines, And their concubines, And never a bell, With its swagger and swell, Calling you up with a start of affright In the dead of night, To send you grumbling down dark stairs, To mumble your prayers; But the cheery crow Of cocks in the yard below, After daybreak, an hour or so, And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds, These are the sounds That, instead of bells, salute the ear. And then all day Up and away Through the forest, hunting the deer! Ah, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... wherever he turned his head! Faces strained and tense as they waited. That terrible tensity got under his skin after a while; it crept in upon him until his spine crawled a little, as if from cold. It was quiet, too; oddly quiet in spite of the dull mumble that rose from ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... in jingle, tingle, tinkle, mingle, sprinkle, twinkle, there is implied a frequency, or iteration of small acts. And the same frequency of acts, but less subtile by reason of the clearer vowel a, is indicated in jangle, tangle, spangle, mangle, wrangle, brangle, dangle; as also in mumble, grumble, jumble. But at the same time the close u implies something obscure or obtunded; and a congeries of consonants mbl, denotes a confused kind of rolling or tumbling, as in ramble, scamble, scramble, wamble, amble; but in these ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... voice and manner of speaking, too, should likewise be attended to. Some will mumble over their words, so as not to be intelligible, and others will speak so fast as not to be understood, and in doing this, will sputter and spit in your face; some will bawl as if they were speaking ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... and abhorred. Yea, but, said Grangousier, they pray to God for us. Nothing less, answered Gargantua. True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells they trouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them. Right, said the monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said. They mumble out great store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they say many paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or apprehending the meaning of what it is they say, which truly I call mocking of God, and not prayers. But so help ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... paused, coughed, and completed what he had to say in a sort of mumble, but his meaning was wholly clear. He would not accept the offer of Pauline in marriage, even though she was the sister of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... upper body, Carmena began to dash water into the purple face. The blotched skin gradually lightened to its natural red. The pale eyes lost their fishy glaze. They stared dazedly up into the deeply concerned face of Carmena. She flung the last cupful of water from the bowl. Slade roused enough to mumble virulent curses. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... word brought her feet to a halt. MacQueen padded across till he faced her. "Don't make any mistake, girl. You're mine. I don't care how. If it suits you to have a priest mumble words over us, good enough. But I'm the man you've got to get ready ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Confucius cried, "Alas! there is no one that knows me," and a disciple asked what was meant, he replied, "I do not murmur against God. I do not mumble against man. My studies lie low, and my penetration lies high. But there ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... in a voice and manner as mechanical as that of the judge, would mumble his oft repeated story, giving the exact minute of his observations, the actions of the woman in accosting different pedestrians and in ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... quite another thing. He drew inspiration from the very wind and spray. He communed with his tiller, I believe, and marshalled his figures with its help. To hear him talk was to feel a current of clarifying air blustering into a close club-room, where men bandy ineffectual platitudes, and mumble old shibboleths, and go away ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... aristocratic-looking old fellow with a large nose and a very haughty look. He is a very important chief, but knew no English, and we carried on our conversation through the medium of Masirewa. He spoke in a kind of mumble, with a very thick voice. Once when he had been mumbling worse than usual there was a kind of restrained titter from someone in the crowd at the back. The "Buli" heard it, and slowly turning his head he transfixed the ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... died away in a low mumble as the men passed on. Gregory emerged from his cover and looked after the two fishermen. Then he noticed the girl had finished her calculations ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... be tempted to put his threat into execution, Nick managed to swallow his pride, and mumble that he guessed he must be out of condition just then, a fact so evident that Thad had to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... was, standing in the library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentences in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech,—but better where other talking is going on. Thus,—"We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies,—"I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... say," he cried in accents shrill with irritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... in a mumble that he didn't want any cats, and went out, closing the door softly after him, as he had been taught. However, he was entirely sure, in the depths of his subjugated masculine mind, that his wife and her sister had no legal ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is the sorcery with which you bind him! No longer a man at all, but some aborted thing... a relic! An eunuch! They mumble their incantations over you... the spell is done, and you sink back, cowed and whimpering! You are a machine, a domestic utensil! Never again are you to love and to dare to create No, there are other things ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... spy, as well as the spy-courier," MacLeod said. "The information he transmitted was picked up piecemeal from different indiscreet lab-workers and students attached to our team. Of course, we are investigating, mumble-mumble. Naturally, no one will admit, mumble-mumble. No stone will be left ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... heir of a kingdom. It is of Canton flannel, a plain, homely thing, in one piece, buttoning ignominiously down the back, and having no apertures for the august hands and feet to come through. In vain the little king-to-be may mumble the Canton flannel with his mouth. He cannot bite his royal nails; and, hush! in the next crib a princess asleep. Why that cruel, tight cap down over her ears? It's because she will double them forward and lie on them, so that if something ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... got his head! Sa-ay, where's—" He trailed off into a mumble, speaking always from the viewpoint of a flyer. Johnny, listening while he led the way down a blind trail to the bottom, caught a word now and then and decided that Bland Halliday must surely be what he claimed to be, or he would choose different terms for ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... to his room than he began to mumble that you were to blame for his condition," cut in the lawyer. "He connected you in no favorable way with some woman in Australia. This man Phillips was involved, too, from what I could gather. I was questioning ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... The maid started to mumble an explanation, burst into tears and fled in alarm, never again to emerge from the back regions. My father commanded me to the bell again, but as I rose Thompson entered. He was even then a stately and dignified person, and it was with a measured tread and slow that he advanced ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... read in our holy books, it shall come to pass through the power of the idol, that these two pieces of reed shall fight together, and whose part shall get the better, to that king shall the victory be given." The astrologers began to mumble their prayers and incantations, while the multitude stood around to observe the result; and after some time, the two pieces of reed seemed spontaneously to fight together, and the portion inscribed with the name of Zingis got the mastery over ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... waiting—waiting some word from the bulky shadow which stood with folded arms close against a square of gray, while over their heads a wretched old man paced back and forth, wringing his hands, pausing at every turn to peer out into the night and to mumble the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... and your Father, children, is a very wise cricket. I dare say Greenie has had a hard time, but then, lazy worms often do. Now let us sing a little song about these flowers we've been hopping about in; it's pleasanter. Chirp, don't sing too loud, Chirk, not too fast, and Chee, don't mumble your words:" ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... to you in a loud voice and in a tongue which you do not understand. Appear to listen intently to what I say, and occasionally mumble something as though replying in the same language—our escape may hinge upon the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... walking rapidly, would try through pure physical fatigue to force his mind to give up the remembrance of the persistent, complaining voice. At times he would give way to fits of anger and strew impotent oaths along the silent street, or, in another mood, would mumble and talk to himself, praying for strength and courage to keep his own head during the ordeal through which he thought they were passing together. And when he returned from such a walk and from such a struggle with himself it often occurred ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... instantly—instantly!—know the difference between "Platoon right," for instance, and "Right by squads," even though the commands may not have been given for an hour. And one must know it whether corporal or not, for half the time the corporals do not yet know it themselves, and either mumble their commands or are silent, so that they are no help. And even if a fellow knows what to do, but lags in the doing of it, then he is likely to put the whole line out. Further, freight trains rumble by at the bottom of the drill field, the wind whistles in your ears, other officers near at ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... cried, "there is not a moment to be lost. At any minute they may enter our room and find it empty! You are ready? Then, not too softly, or it may rouse suspicion! And mumble something at the door." ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... the situation that I presented to my cat—for I had got into the habit of talking to him quite as much as he talked to me—while we sat at supper together on the last evening that we were to pass on board of the Ville de Saint Remy; and while he did not make much of a reply to me he did mumble some sort of a purring answer that I took to mean he was willing, if I were, to make ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... past speaking, so I tried to make 'im understand, but 'e only mumbled in reply. W'en I was about to go 'e seemed to mumble very 'ard, so I put down my ear to listen, and 'e w'ispered quite distinct tho' very low—'All right, my 'eartie. I'm too cute for 'em by a long way; go aboard an' say nothin'.' So I came away, and I've scarce been five minutes aboard before you ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... this delay was produced by doubt, which the poets truly declare to be the father of delay. It was a doubt which arose in the mind of one of the Brahmins, who, when a doubt arose in his mind, would mumble it over and over, but never masticate, swallow, or digest it; and thus was the preservation of the royal line endangered. For years had the aspirants for regal dignity, and more than regal beauty, hovered round the court, each with his mandolin on his ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hour followed, and Anthony, who had now begun to feel the effect of his drubbing more keenly, renewed his clamor, with the result that a half-dozen policemen appeared, causing Allan to retreat to a corner and mumble prayers. From their demeanor it looked as though they were really bent upon mischief, but Kirk soon saw that an official had come in answer to his call. He felt less reassured when he perceived that the person in uniform who ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... so little merriment among us; that all fellow travellers were for the time upon the level, and that it was always his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember," says he, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my Lord Mumble and the Duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all ready to burst with laughter. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... him mumble this to himself in German: "Kepler perceived a little, he saw dimly; Newton comprehended the easy half; but Anderwelt, Anderwelt of ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... understand each other. What pleasure did she find in listening to his bad French? and in her native Hungarian he could not even say, "I love." Why had she not come to him, Gregorio Livadas, who could talk to her well and would not mumble like an idiot and look red and uncomfortable! Then he saw she was drinking champagne, and he sighed. Ah, yes, these English were rich, and women only cared for money; they were unable to give up their luxuries for the sake of ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... was dim and crowded with feminines, and I could only hear flutters and rustlings, together with a subdued mumble at the remoter end—which I ascertained to be the ceremony. Then followed the long stop and awkward pause, accompanied on the organ, and at length all the company stood on seats and the tiptoe of expectation, as the bridal procession moved slowly down the central passage ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... am. Any woman will break her neck to see two people, for whom she does not care a hair-pin, stand up, one in white and the other in black, and mumble a few words that she knows by heart, and then take position at the end of a room and have "society" paraded up to them by solemn little corporals with white favors, and then file off to the rear for rations ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... . . ! particularly while dangling the censers they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... songs and we played marbles, mumble peg, and town ball. In de winter we would set around de fire and listen to our Mammy and Pappy tell ghost tales and witch tales. I don't guess dey was sho' nuff so, but we all ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... and the eyes gleamed strangely as though the man were laboring under a strong, repressed excitement. Newman wore an air of triumph, as though he had just accomplished a difficult victory. My tongue had suddenly become very thick, but I managed to mumble a query. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... and you and the surface be everlastingly damned!" said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown watched ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... he rapidly grows worse; a few hours of agony in his solitude, and all is over. Tidings of the event are carried to the nearest factory, and then to another and another. Two or three of his former acquaintances ride over to his bungalow, knock up a rude coffin, mumble a few sentences about "the resurrection and the life," "our dear brother here departed," and "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," bury him out of sight, and set up a decent stone over his grave. His place is filled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... to lift her face and mumble an explanation. "I was asleep, and I heard my name called, and I looked up. There was a white shadow on the door. I seized my pillow and threw it with all my might, and there was a loud crash and a roar, and then began ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... for her admonition, and observed, 'But she was good,' only, however, in a mumble, that the other two thought it inexpedient to notice, though it made both hearts ache for her, even Alice's—with an additional pang of self-reproach that she herself was not good enough to help her ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of her visit to the Law Courts. At her first visit she had come to the conclusion that the Judges were either made of wood or were impersonated by large animals resembling man who had been trained to move with extreme dignity, mumble and nod their heads. To test her theory she had liberated a handkerchief of bluebottles at the critical moment of a trial, but was unable to judge whether the creatures gave signs of humanity for the buzzing of the flies ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... Edna Lyall, or the bedroom imaginings of Miss Olive Schreiner. The villagers of Chenecote gaped open-mouthed at his green carnation and crimped hair; and the exhortation as delivered in a presto mumble by Mr. Smith was received with general apathy, as the opera of "Faust" is received on an off ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... extravaganza Mr. Prokofieff wrote unfolds itself with rapidity. Theater habitues eavesdropping on the rehearsal mumble in the half-dark that there was never anything like this seen on earth or in heaven. Mr. Anisfeld's scenery explodes like a succession of medieval skyrockets. A phantasmagoria of sound, color and action crowds the startled proscenium. For there is no question but ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... new and harsh! The Indian and the Chinaman And Mexican were fain to learn What had subdued the Saxon clan. Why did they mumble, brood, and stare When the court-players curtsied fair And ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, tap of her hand beat through ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... November 4 the storm abated, and land loomed up on the horizon, dim at first, but taking shape as the vessel approached it and showing a well-defined, rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom. A cask of brandy was opened, {25} and tears gave place to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear that he recognized this headland, that he had known they were following the right course ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and proceeded to roll ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... sphere of society to ask Lords, Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of his hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull as—well, we will not particularise. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but you see this solemn old toothless patrician ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... closed and the light was cut off. Tom and Astro rose and quietly made their way toward the door. They stopped, leaned against the door, and tried to hear what was going on inside, but were unable to distinguish more than a vague mumble of voices, because of their masks and the thickness of the door. Suddenly, however, they were conscious of footsteps approaching ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... through it, beyond which rose other green hills yet more beautiful than the eastern ones. I asked the lad the name of the place, but I could not catch what he said, for his answer was merely an indistinct mumble, and before I could question him again he left me, without a word of salutation, and trudged ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... box, lavender, and lentisk. On the way it passes the Abbaye de Mont Majeur, a ruin of gigantic size, embracing all periods of architecture; where nothing seems to flourish now but henbane and the wild cucumber, or to breathe but a mumble-toothed and terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast Italian buildings of Palladian splendour looking more forlorn in their decay than the older and austerer mediaeval towers, which rise up proud and patient and defiantly erect beneath the curse of time. When at length ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... See where the sun sets Ere he sets, ere old age Seizeth me in the morass, Ere my toothless jaws mumble, And my useless limbs totter; While drunk with his farewell beam Hurl me,—a fiery sea Foaming still in mine eye,— Hurl me, while dazzled and reeling, Down to the gloomy portal ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... sompin kind o' hearty-like about the atmosphere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here. Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and the buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin', and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days Is a picture that no painter has the colorin' to mock, When the frost is ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... to mumble painful guilty the dormitory the tie the chin he got off with a good fright without appearing to do so, he was looking at them ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... to ALMERIC]. Don't mumble your words, Almeric. I never understand people when they mumble ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... the way of visible temptation. What fretted her so, what was wearing her down to the point of fatigue, was the patent imbecility of her reluctance. There would have been some sense of it if Cutty had proposed a real marriage. All she had to do was mumble a few words, sign her name to a document, live out West for a few months, and be in comfortable circumstances all the rest of her life. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... the coming grave, purchasing a drug for our poltroonery at the expense of our sanity. We uphold our wayward steps with the promises and the commandments for crutches, but on either side of us trudge the shadow Death and the bacchanal Sex, and we mumble prayers against the one, while we scourge ourselves for leering at the other. On one only of these can Browning be said to have spoken with novel force—the relations of sex, which he has treated with ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... superstitious dog!" exclaimed Landor one day. "I was once walking with him in a garden," (I forget in what part of England,) "laughing and joking, when Moore remarked the approach of some dignitary of the Catholic Church. He immediately began to mumble something, ran forward, and on his knees implored a blessing from the priest, crossing himself with reverential air. Ah, what it is to have faith! Landor, Landor, you are incorrigible! Don't you think so, Giallo?" asked the master of his dog. "I never heard Moore sing, much to my regret. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... doorways worn-eyed women and men gossiped in voices scarce above a whisper; and brown children fondled each other, laughing noiselessly, or lay asleep on rugs which would be costly elsewhere. In the bazaars nothing was selling, and no man did anything but mumble or eat, save the few scholars who, cross-legged on their mats, read and laboured towards Nirvana. Priests in their yellow robes and with bare shoulders went ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you are, Killeny Boy, high-strung but reasonable," he continued to mumble as Kwaque helped to roll ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... appeared very harmless, had by the side of the brook piled a great number of stones; he would wade into the river for them, followed by a cur dog, whom he would frequently call his Jacky, and even his Nancy; and then mumble to himself, 'Thou wilt not leave me. We will dwell with the owl in the ivy.' A number of owls had taken shelter in it. The stones he waded for he carried to the mouth of the hole, and only left just room enough to go in. Some of the neighbors at last recollected ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... have planted finger and foot on the ledges of that solid precipice and climbed to the invisible summit. Hilderman was muttering to himself beneath his breath, but I was too dazed, my brain was too numbed to make any sense out of the confused mumble of words which came from him. Dennis held my arm in a vice-like grip that stopped the circulation, and almost made me cry out with ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... him perhaps crawl out again. Him sometime do that. But no. Mister snake he go sleep in tent which is reserve for his superior. I say nothing, for I do not wish to alarm the young ladies. That is why I hold the dog Mumble so tight, for he small eye see snake too, an' fool dog wish to go fight him. Rattlesnake soon eat Mumble up—eh? But never mind; there is no worry. I am Wampus, an' I am here. You go to bed now, an' ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... to him, but I was suffering too much to do more than mumble. I don't know how long we'd been there. I suppose he'd only stopped to rest, for before long he hoisted me over his shoulder again and away we went. Quite a while after that we struck that little valley where the hut stands. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... passage and passed the sitting-room door without looking in; I sat down in a rocking chair that had been placed near the stair-way, sat there and listened to a girl's laugh and the low mumble of a man's voice. "Let us go out where it's cooler," I heard Guinea say, and I got up with my ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... for kisses, some for Few, Others deep sup, their Thirstings to renew, And mumble into Maunderings, but I, In Kissing, scorn the ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... calls you?" she said. "'Tis but a mumble, his little tongue is not nimble enough for clearness, but he says it his pretty best. 'Tis Mother Anne, he says—'tis ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was that, with many a queer thought in my head, I sat in the kitchen rocker, listening to the mumble of their voices and waiting up to see if they should want me for anything. And so it was, too, that at last I found myself nodding with sleep, and started to go ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... tak' his bone down first and hide it awa'. The Sabbath in a kirkyard is a dull day for a wee dog, so he aye gets a catechism of a bone to mumble over." ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... at the scene in silent horror; they heard not Chouteau's appeals for assistance; were powerless to raise a hand. And Pache, in a sudden outburst of piety and pity, dropped on his knees, joined his hands, and began to mumble the prayers that are repeated at the bedside ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... than the obliger? Then let me tell thee, Belford, it is impossible so far to hurt the morals of this lady, as thou and thy brother varlets have hurt others of the sex, who now are casting about the town firebrands and double death. Take ye that thistle to mumble upon. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... we were obliged to summon with an effort what he had been. He was suspicious and fault-finding with Scipio and the other servants, though they were never so busy for his wants. Mrs. Willis's dainties were often untouched, and he would frequently sit for hours between slumber and waking, or mumble to himself as I read the prints. But about the time of the equinoctial a great gale came out of the south so strongly that the water rose in the river over the boat landing; and the roof was torn from one of the curing-sheds. The next morning dawned clear, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... could know how much he was worth. She had often seen him signing checks by the dozen, groaning over every one. When they were gone, they were out of his mind; and all he troubled about was to ask for the total at the bank, and mumble with satisfaction over the fine, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... river bank, but the boat was floating in midstream and the Wizard was obliged to mumble some magic words to draw it to the bank, so the Scarecrow could get the oil-can. Then back they flew to the tin man, and while the Scarecrow carefully oiled each joint the little Wizard moved the joints gently ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... because if he doesn't, the next morning half the twelve-year-old kids in the country will be rushing wild-eyed into school to slip the teacher the real inside about the discovery of America. By the time he gets that done, he'll be able to mumble a couple of generalities about vast and incalculable effects, and then it'll be time to tell the public about Widgets, the really safe cigarettes, all filter and absolutely free ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper
... Which no more it wasn't for that poor old dame to trudge it, Tick, tack, tick, tack, on such a devil's dance: Crumbs, it took me quite aback to see her stop so humble, Casting up into my face a sort of shiny glance, Bless you, bless you, that was what I thought I heard her mumble; Lord, a prayer for poor old Bill, a rummy sort of chance! Crumbs, that shiny glance Kinder made me king of all the sky from here ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... bushes at the side of the road their pulses throbbed in great excitement as they observed that the peddler addressed some one inside the car. His tone was low so they did not catch the words, but they heard a mumble ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... and the rumble Of wheels is abroad in the streets, Still I tumble and mumble and grumble At the fleas in my ears and—the sheets; Mumble and grumble and tumble Till the buzz of the bees is no more; In a jumble I mumble and drumble ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... boys are again in the way of becoming good Catholics. In another side chapel the confessional box bears a large white card on which is printed in bold letters, "M. le Cure." He is on duty at the present time, for, from behind the curtained lattices, the stranger hears a soft mumble of words, and he is constrained to move silently towards the patch of blazing whiteness that betokens the free air and sunshine without. The cheerful clatter of the traffic on the cobbles is typical of all the towns of Normandy, as ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... up and brushed the dirt off his knees. "If there's anything that stirs my temper, it's this mumble-grumble, whiffle-and-hint business. Out and open, that's my style." He was reflecting testily on the peculiar reticence of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... method of dealing with these lunatics was as simple as it was irritating. Bonds and confinement in a darkened room were the specifics; and the monotony of this treatment was relieved by occasional visits from the sage who had charge of the case, to mumble a prayer or mutter an exorcism. Another popular but unpleasant cure was ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... and whirled about. There was a new sound in the air, a low mumble, a vague murmur. Men's voices. Outside, coming nearer swiftly, were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was too soon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, and returned. A deep, heavy bass voice ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... she said dejectedly. "It makes me yawn. John says I mumble." She looked at me sharply, distrustfully. "You are very kind, but—it's too much! Why ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... been shot nearly in two on the 22nd of July. I tried to be cheerful, and said, "Hello, Galbreath, old fellow, I thought you were in heaven long before this." He laughed a sort of dry, cracking laugh, and asked me to hand him a drink of water. I handed it to him. He then began to mumble and tell me something in a rambling and incoherent way, but all I could catch was for me to write to his family, who were living near Mt. Pleasant. I asked him if he was badly wounded. He only pulled ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... of the town or at home when mother was away, in the barn while milking—at every opportunity I went through my selection with most impassioned voice and lofty gestures, sustained by the legends of Webster and Demosthenes, resolved upon a blazing victory. I did everything but mumble a smooth pebble—realizing that most of the boys in my section were going through precisely the same struggle. Each of us knew exactly how the others felt, and yet I cannot say that we displayed acute sympathy one with another; on the contrary, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... something about young people having to make mistakes, but his mumble was pleasant, and then he crossed to her side, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... indeed!' Mrs. Moncrieff was heard to mumble. 'Where,' she said to a nattily dressed waiter, ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... dressed in fashion now gone by, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly: Mere puppets they who come and go At the bidding of a huge formless Thing That shifts the scenery to and fro, Ruling the World from flat and wing— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... readin' o' cusses, and damnin', and hell fire, and the like; and I canna stomach it. What for shall they go and say as all the poor old wimmin i' tha parish is gone to the deil 'cause they picks up a stick or tew i' hedge, or likes to mumble a charm or tew o'er their churnin'? Them old wimmin be rare an' good i' ither things. When I broke my ankle three years agone, old Dame Stuckley kem o'er, i' tha hail and the snaw, a matter of five mile and more, and she turned o' eighty; and she nursed me, and tidied the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I hear him telling infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve warships under sail, with their carronades, three ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... guessed Mark's intention, for raising her stick she forbade him to move, and before he had time to mumble an apology and flee she was ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... made me a peish namaz (a leader of the prayers) at their religious meetings in the mosque. I found that the profound taciturnity which I had adopted was the best help towards the establishment of a high reputation for wisdom; and that, by the help of my beads, which I kept constantly counting, a mumble of my lips, and occasional groans and pious exclamations, the road to the highest ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... of E Company was lying dead near his company, and scores of other brave men had gone to their last reckoning. Hanigan, Hogan's bunkie, was badly wounded, and out of his head. Every once in a while he would mumble, "Never you mind, fellers, we will be all right yet, just stand 'em off a little while longer and Denny will be here with the 11th Cavalry. He said he'd do it and by God! he ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... there was some exchange of words between the lawyers on the other side of the rail, now with the judge, now with one another; and now it was the clerk of the court who was speaking; and I couldn't repress the absurd feeling of surprise that they should turn their backs and mumble so, since it appeared irresistibly to me that we were an audience, and the thing was ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... almost a mumble, and the black horse started down the trail. He watched her, with a sinking, hungry heart. Just as the crag was almost abreast of her mount, she turned and called back: "Oh, I forgot to say that I shall probably come here almost ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... horse to the stable, and, though he answered something, the words were no more than a surly mumble. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... him to kneel upon his knees, while he mumbled something which he pretended to read out of the book that he held in his hand. Then he gave him a good blow on the neck, and after that another sound thwack over the shoulders with his own sword, always as he did so continuing to mumble and murmur as though he were reading something out of his book. This being done, he commanded one of the damsels to gird on his sword, which she did with much grace and cleverness. And it was with difficulty that they all kept from laughing during ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... grin, At breakfast, on the sly, And mock the wobble of his chin And eyebrows belt so high And kind: "How did you rest, last night?" We'd mumble and let on Our voices trimbled, and our sight Was dim, ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... myself a husband by anticipation! I am become as pretty a modest, well-behaved, sober, sentimental gentleman, as any you shall see on a summer's day! I get phrases by rote, and repeat them too! I say 'God bless you, madam,' when the cat sneezes: and mumble amen to grace ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... looked at John for a moment, and then tried to mumble something, that the boys could not understand. After a few attempts he fairly shrieked out: "How ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... sight; but soon, with increased ferocity, sprang at the knight, screaming and clenching her hands. But he cried out, "Hold! or I will cleave thee in twain, even as thy cat." And in truth she stopped stone-still, but soon began to spit and murmur. Whereupon he cried out again, "Ay, spit and mumble; but know that my good friend, of whom I told thee, stands without, and if but a finger of mine aches, now or in future, he hath sworn ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Daddy Jack had taken no interest in Uncle Remus's story of the horses' tails, and yet, as soon as the little boy and Aunt Tempy were through laughing at a somewhat familiar climax, the old African began to twist and fidget in his chair, and mumble to himself in a lingo which might have been understood on the Guinea coast, but which sounded out of place in Uncle Remus's Middle Georgia cabin. Presently, however, his uneasiness took tangible shape. He turned around ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris |
