"Murmur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... road, through ruts and over rocks and stumps of trees, must have been beyond description, but not once during all that long night did I hear a groan or complaint from him. Once he asked for water, and as Orme and I stooped over him I heard him murmur as though to himself, "Who would have thought it?" and again, "Who would have thought it?" Then he drank the water mechanically and lay ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the valley of Chamouni, on the right hand, where it first begins to rise among the pines, there descends a small stream from the foot of the granite peak known to the guides as the Aiguille Charmoz. It is concealed from the traveller by a thicket of alder, and its murmur is hardly heard, for it is one of the weakest streams of the valley. But it is a constant stream, fed by a permanent, though small, glacier; and continuing to flow even to the close of summer, when more copious torrents, depending only ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... their winter wanderings; the leaves hung motionless on the tall trees, and nature seemed resting from her ceaseless labors, and listening to the soft music of the little stream which sung a cheerful song as it rambled on over the roots and fallen branches that blocked its way. Soon a distant murmur arose, and we had not proceeded far before as many sounds as were heard at Babel made a strange concert about our ears. The lowing of the ox, the neighing of the horse, and the deep braying of another animal, mingled with a thousand human voices, came through the woods. ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... softer science - laughing Love his pinions dips, Hush'd to hear fantastic whispers murmur'd from a pedant's lips. Oh, believe it, throbbing pulses flutter under folds of starch, And the Dons are human-hearted if the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... proceeded through the crowd, but now an indistinct murmur followed him, and the shouting grew louder as his ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... on him to bring him back to life! He smiled for a moment on finding himself in his room, but could scarcely even murmur a few words, so great was his weakness. Gideon Spilett examined his wounds. He feared to find them reopened, having been imperfectly healed. There was nothing of the sort. From whence, then, came this prostration? Why was Herbert so much worse? ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... brain. Suddenly he felt the dory strike a heavy object ahead. Thrown half from his seat by the impact he dropped an oar, regained it on the instant and pushed the skiff away from the launch as hands reached out to grasp it. Then he heard the low murmur of voices from the motor-boat. As he headed close in to the rocks he felt the stern of ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... left, through a small outward hall, towards the great parlour, which the family usually occupied as a sitting apartment; and his alarm became still greater, when, on a nearer approach, he heard proceeding from thence the murmur of several voices. He threw the door of the apartment wide; and the sight which was thus displayed, warranted all the evil ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... east of the Reservation, he caught a new sound—the flowing, riverlike, murmur of something vast on ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... he came to those solemn words in which the husband promises fidelity to the wife so long as they both shall live, the nurse, who was watching near the poor father, saw him bury his face in his pillow, and heard him murmur the words, "God be merciful to me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... the Concord meadows steals thus unobserved through the town, without a murmur or a pulse-beat, its general course from southwest to northeast, and its length about fifty miles; a huge volume of matter, ceaselessly rolling through the plains and valleys of the substantial earth with the moccasoned tread of an Indian warrior, making haste from the ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... the manners of M. de Lambert to me formidable and oppressive. It showed in his tall, erect figure, his deep tone, his silvered hair and mustache. There was a merry word between the kisses of one daughter; between those of the other only tears and a broken murmur. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... armour, and the bright colours of scarf and tunic - it was just like a splendid coloured picture. The trumpets were sounding, and when the trumpets stopped for breath the children could hear the cling-clang of armour and the murmur of voices. ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... Grampians, cloud-robed and crested! Like your mists in the sunbeam ye melt in my sight; Your peaks are the king-eagle's thrones—where have rested The snow-falls of ages—eternally white. Ah! never again shall the falls of your fountains Their wild murmur'd music awake on mine ear; No more the lake's lustre, that mirrors your mountains, I'll pore on with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... a nation's law. The voice of the nation must go along with it. It must be the expression of their own feeling, and then they will have it obeyed. But if it is only the law of a government, a law which is against the whole spirit of the people, there is first the murmur of a nation's disapprobation, and then there is transgression, and then, if the law be vindicated with a high hand, the next step is the bursting that law asunder in national revolution. And so it is with God's ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... fact that I was not afraid of anything tangible, either in the present or future, but of something unexplainable and peculiar, which, if it lay in the skies, certainly made them look dark indeed; and if it hid in the forest, caused its faintest murmur to seem like the utterance of a great dread, as awful as ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... of one year to that of two years, would be almost enough. But there are other things that the mother can do as the mental development of the baby increases with each month of life. She should encourage him to babble and gurgle and murmur, as much as possible, to laugh and crow and make all the various baby noises that will train and develop his voice. Encourage noisy, romping, rollicking games as he gets older, that make him shout and call, for they are the natural and ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... stones. He could hear Jim's whistle as he moved about the yard; some one at the back door was talking to Mary in a hushed, eager undertone; over on her porch Dolly was singing happily, sinking her voice to a mere murmur now and then at a low remonstrance from within the house. It all made a sort of accompaniment to Gertrude's ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Monday afternoon 'Lina, taking advantage of Hugh's absence, came over for her dress, finding much fault, and requiring some of the work to be done twice ere it suited her. Without a murmur Adah obeyed, but when the last stitch was taken and the party dress was gone, her overtaxed frame gave way, and Sam himself helped her to her bed, where she lay moaning, with the blinding pain in her head, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... birds, the squirrels, the very tree-toads,—those polished bits of malachite,—must be happy and fond in their storeyed palace. What a poem might be written about them! but they would not raise their voices above that indefinite murmur, and the straining ears of her soul heard ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... mullioned window, quenching the redness of fire and candles, spreading, dim and ghostly, over the white dress and bowed head of the woman, over the narrow bed and the form of the maimed and dying man. The freshness of the morning air, laden with the soothing murmur of the fir forest swaying in the breath of a mild westerly breeze, laden too with the moist fragrance of the moorland, of dewy grass, of withered bracken and fallen leaves, flowed in also, cleansing the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... half-breed seated upon his rock beside the trail. Motionless as the rock itself the man sat humped over with his arms entwining his knees. A sombre figure, and one that fitted intrinsically into the scene—the dark shapes of the three horses that snipped grass beside the trail, the soft murmur of the waters of the creek as they purled over the stones, the black wall of the coulee, with the mountains rising beyond—all bespoke the wild that since childhood she had pictured, but never before had seen. Under any other circumstances the setting would have appealed, would ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... contiguous gardens a very small boy was wheeling a doll's perambulator; on the other side, where the fine, warm gravel reminded Pocket of the carroty kind at home, a man was mowing an equally trim lawn. Pocket listened to the murmur of the machine, and watched the green spray playing over the revolving knives, and savoured the curiously countrified smell of cut grass; the combined effect was a still stronger reminiscence of his father's garden, where his own old pony pulled the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... the little kitchen downstairs. The voices in Susy's sickroom ceased to murmur; presently Mrs. Collins stole softly upstairs. She returned in a few minutes accompanied by Marjorie. There were tears in the poor ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... been, to the last degree, humiliating and vexatious. To her they only afforded new opportunities for the display of her most shining virtues,—fortitude and charity. No instance of their sordidness or tyranny ever stole a murmur from her. For what they had given, existence and a virtuous education, she said they were entitled to gratitude. What they withheld was their own, in the use of which they were not accountable to her. She was not ashamed to owe her subsistence to her own industry, and was only ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the most enduring somethings of the world's literature; and the last lightness of heart may go with the purest truth of soul and the most precious virtue of intelligence. All expressions carry the perpetual savors of their origin; and as brooks that dance and frolic with the sunbeams and murmur to the birds, light-hearted forever, will yet bear sands of gold, if they flow from auriferous hills, so any bubble and purl of laughter, proceeding from a wise and wealthy soul, will bear a noble significance. In point of fact, some of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... speaking quietly, amid a deathlike silence. For over five minutes he spoke; once he was interrupted by a cheer, instantly stifled, and once by a murmur of dissent from several spectators on the balcony that called forth instant rebuke from the ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Esquimaux. De Mersch emphatically declared that those mistaken people were mistaken, declared it with official finality. The Esquimaux were not unhappy. I paid attention to my dinner, and let the discourse on the affairs of the Hyperborean Protectorate lapse into an unheeded murmur. I tried to be the simple ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... him to send us and put in our minds at this time such medicines as may so comfort and strengthen us in his grace against the sickness and sorrows of tribulation, that our deadly enemy the devil may never have the power, by his poisoned dart of murmur, grudge, and impatience, to turn our short sickness of worldly tribulation into the endless ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the murmur of her voice, and his heart was soothed by it. He went into his wife's bed-room, and bent gently over her as she slept. The fever was still hot upon her cheek, and she murmured in her unrest as Chester took her hand ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... white sprinkling of wood anemones lay spread like a patch of linen bleaching in the sun. From a valley a lark cut a swift diagonal upward with a coloratura burst of song. A stream slipped its ice and took up its murmur where it had left off. A truant squelched his toes in the warm mud and let it ooze luxuriantly over and ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... moment of death-like stillness in the hall, and then General Lee was on his feet, his hand was extended across the footlights, and was quickly met by the preacher's warm grasp. At first there was a murmur, half surprise, half-doubtfulness, by the audience. Then there was a hesitating clapping of hands, and before Mr. Beecher had loosed the hand of Robert E. Lee's nephew,—now Governor of Virginia—there were cheers such as were never before ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... discussion with Mr. Goodwood, but it might be feared that the rest was simply the enjoyment she found in the exercise of her power. She sat down in the same chair again and took up her book, but without going through the form of opening the volume. She leaned back, with that low, soft, aspiring murmur with which she often uttered her response to accidents of which the brighter side was not superficially obvious, and yielded to the satisfaction of having refused two ardent suitors in a fortnight. That love of liberty of which she had given Caspar Goodwood ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... shock of surprise and alarm, the affliction was endured without a murmur. It was a hard trial and we all knew it, but it was borne with courage and equanimity as all trials and hardships were borne by this high-souled company, imbued with the true ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... he will not be denied; for he loves you too well, to wish even to be happy alone.' The crowd fixed their eyes upon HAMET, for whom their affection was now strongly moved, with looks of much greater intelligence and sensibility; a confused murmur, like the fall of the pebbles upon the beach when the surge retires from the shore, expressed their gratitude to HAMET, and their apprehensions ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... o'er the heaving billow, Evening gilds the ocean's swell, While with thee, on grassy pillow, Solitude! I love to dwell. Lonely to the sea-breeze blowing, Oft I chant my love-lorn strain, To the streamlet sweetly flowing, Murmur oft a lover's pain. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the vale this water steers, How merrily it goes: 'T will murmur on a thousand years, And flow as now ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... a great surprise. The starling, which has been taught to murmur Evelyn's name, to-day shrieked out, 'Eva! Eva!' My first impulse was to wring its neck, my next to take it from its cage and hide it in my bosom. But I did neither. I am still ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... of a martyr;—she has faced danger and death in various shapes;—she has undergone toil and privation, from which men of the strongest frame would have shrunk;—she has spent the day in darkness, and the night in vigil, and has never breathed a murmur of weakness or complaint. In a word, Mr. Osbaldistone," he concluded, "she is a worthy offering to that God, to whom" (crossing himself) "I shall dedicate her, as all that is left dear or ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... at him behind his back, with condescending pity!... Now he walks along more hurriedly than ever, as if he has at last made up his mind just where he is going, and his emotion leads him unconsciously to murmur with irony, as if he is speaking to somebody who is at his heels and whom ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sentence he had dropped his voice to a murmur, and put his hand in at the half-open casement. With stormy eyes she pulled the stay-bar quickly, and, in doing so, caught his arm between the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... sweet winds murmur in its heart A music soft and low, As they would bring their secrets still To ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... bed without a murmur only to receive a resounding clout which set my head throbbing once more ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... behold! it was light. It was a little cooler, for the sea-breeze had set in. The cool air from the surface of the water was rushing inland to supply the place of the heated atmosphere rising towards the sun. With the breeze came the increased murmur of the distant surf. The dull continuous sound seemed to live amidst the summits of the trees far above the low-built house. It rose and fell with a long-drawn, rhythmic swing. Already the sounds of life were mingling ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... towards the crowd of faces below. When he reached her he seized her arm from behind and began to raise at once and push her down the stair. He, too, was an enthusiast in his way. Some of the faces below grew red with anger, and their eyes flamed at the doctor. A loud murmur arose, and several began to force their way up to rescue her, as they would one of their own from the police. But Hester, the moment she saw who it was that had laid hold of her, rose and began to descend the stair, closely followed by the doctor. It was not easy; and the annoyance of a ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... all assemble again tomorrow," said Henri; "we have only to have the bells rung at seven o'clock, or six, or five, or when you will, and you will find that every man will be ready for another day's work, and that without a murmur." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... though they wished to behold his face; there was something inexpressibly striking in his immobility amid all this movement, and something mysteriously touching in the prayer which was heard so gently and so uniformly murmured amid that confused murmur of whispered conversation. The funeral service was performed on the 1st of February. Many of our greatest nobles, and many of the foreign ministers, were in the church. We carried the coffin with our own hands to the vault, where it was to remain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... A murmur of applause went through the party, and Oliver Proudfute exclaimed, "That is what I have been saying for this half hour, and not one of ye would listen to me. 'Let us go to our provost,' said I. 'He is a gentleman himself, and ought to come between ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... stunned him for a few minutes; but now he jumped to his feet, not waiting for the command from Walker, and strode up close to Billy. There was a vengeful leer on his bloody face and his eyes blazed almost white, but his voice was so low that Conway and Walker could only hear the murmur of it. His words were ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... the stream on each side thinned, the rumbling thunder of pounding feet grew less, and the tail of the flock passed, leaving behind it a sudden, deathly silence. In the distance a faint murmur was heard, and Larkin found later that this was made by the two or three hundred which escaped death ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... that we must depart to try and reach our own homes. They entreated that one of our number would remain with them. It was resolved that one should remain to guide them aright. We drew lots. He on whom the lot fell, without a murmur, with his wife and family, joyfully remained—though he well knew that he could never hope again to see the land of his birth, and many dear to him there. But I am making my story longer than ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... is begun. What a murmur of multitudinous tongues, like the whispering leaves of a wind-stirred oak, as the scholars con over their various tasks! Buzz! buzz! buzz! Amid just such a murmur has Master Cheever spent above sixty years; and long habit has made it as pleasant ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of emphasis, and a glance over her shoulder at the old woman and the young one behind her, she was about to retire. But she paused as the murmur in the crowd grew ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... I heard him murmur something but I wasn't able to distinguish what he said. I went straight to the village and told the constable and ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... the sandalwooder followed the American across the wide courtyard to some native houses. Stopping in front of one, from which the low murmur of women's voices, broken now and then by a wailing cry, proceeded, he desired Ross to look in through the doorway. A small fire of coconut shells was burning in the centre of the room, and by its light Ross saw several women ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... confidence and esteem of his master: the greatness of his services, the splendour of his merit and his birth, and the fortune he had abandoned in adhering to the fate of his prince, rendered him worthy of it nor durst the courtiers even murmur at seeing him grand steward of the household, first lord of the bed-chamber, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He exactly resembled the Marshal de Grammont, in the turn of his wit and the nobleness of his manners: and like him was the honour of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... walking down toward the water. She slipped easily between the briers, holding her skirt close. From a spring, not a hundred yards up the hillside, a brook came tumbling to the river, picking its way under and over the stones and the fallen trees, and trickling over the bank with a low murmur. The maid stopped by a pool, and kneeling on a flat rock, dipped ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... a whiff of real peat smoke somewhere in the air, and Ralph Peden, before he returned to his book, was aware of the murmur of voices. He moved away from the humble-bee's dwelling and established himself on a quieter slope under a bush of broom. A whin-chat said "check, check" above him, and flirted a brilliant tail; but Ralph Peden was not afraid of whin-chats. Here he settled himself ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art at once able to exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... said this, he rose from his seat, and glanced westward over the plain. Already the hoarse murmur of the inundation was making itself heard in the direction ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... which the clowns of the stage bear to those of every-day life is perfectly extraordinary. Some people talk with a sigh of the decline of pantomime, and murmur in low and dismal tones the name of Grimaldi. We mean no disparagement to the worthy and excellent old man when we say that this is downright nonsense. Clowns that beat Grimaldi all to nothing turn up every day, and nobody patronizes them—more's ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... again highly entertained, and, having fallen into respectful convulsions of laughter, subsides into a deferential murmur, importing that surely any gentleman would deem it a pleasure and an honour to have his neck broken, in return for such a ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... their silence daunted me; by-and-by I felt (I could hardly be said to hear) that this silence was intense, and held a sound of its own, a murmur as of millions of flies and minute winged things— or perhaps it came from the vegetation itself, and the sap pushing leaf against leaf and ceaselessly ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... slept? What was that sound of pattering feet? And that rise and fall, like the murmur of breakers on pebbles? He put out a languid hand to reach his watch from the chair whereon it was his habit to place it, and touched some smooth hard surface like glass. This was so unexpected that it startled him extremely. Quite suddenly he rolled over, stared for a moment, and struggled ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... Thomas Basin, who said, "Into such misery and servitude is fallen the realm of France, heretofore so noble and free, that all the inhabitants are openly declared by the generals of finance and their clerks taxable at the will of the king, without anybody's daring to murmur or even ask for mercy." There is at every juncture, and in all ages of the world, a certain amount, though varying very much, of good order, justice, and security, without which men cannot get on; and when they lack it, either through the fault of those who govern ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... man, and not long after gave him as his policeman, the dog. And the obedience, friendship and devotion of the dog to his master has been unending. The dog discusses no questions of right or wrong, his only duty is to obey. This he does without a murmur. He is the greatest testimony to man's civilisation, the first and the greatest element of human progress. Through his co-operation man was elevated from the savage to the state of the civilised. He made the herd possible. Without him there could have been no herd, no assured subsistence ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... a great honor for him," cried many voices. No one guessed the name of the speaker who was so fortunately at hand to defend the honor of the master of ceremonies. A general murmur of applause was heard, and even the public crier stood still and listened to the eloquent unknown speaker, and forgot for a while to hurry off to the next street-corner and ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... a moment after the report of the gun had died away upon the air, there was an unbroken silence; but, as the dense smoke arose from the surface of the water, there was, at first, a low murmur breaking from the lips of the men,—that murmur grew louder and stronger, till it swelled to a joyous, deafening shout. The old gunner sprang to his feet, and gazed off on the water, and the first thing that met ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... Kennedy had been, and hinted that a true woman was not above kitchen work. The consequence of this was that Matty, who really wished to please him, became in time a very drudge, doing things which she once thought she could not do, and then without a murmur ministering to her exacting husband when he came home from visiting a patient, and declared himself "tired to death." Very still he sat while her weary little feet ran for the cool drink—the daily ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... prepared to die. But the tears of his wife and his family conquered his resolution, and the city was surrendered. The emperor took from his captive the electoral dignity, and extorted from him the most cruel concessions as the ransom for his life. Without a murmur he surrendered wealth, power and rank, but neither entreaties nor menaces could induce him in a single point to abjure ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... bosoms under the white kerchiefs, for no complaint did one hear from these hard-working, happy women. The same brave spirit seems to possess them now as that which carried them heroically to their fate in the Revolution, when hundreds of mothers and children were shot at Nantes and died without a murmur. ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... continuing. An incessant rippling filled the darkness, a floating murmur of water that falls and water that runs, water that drops and water ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... Canty awoke the next morning, the air was heavy with a thunderous murmur: all the distances were charged with it. It was music to him; for it meant that the English world was out in its strength to give loyal welcome to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... universally complied with. A profound tranquillity prevailed throughout the kingdom; and the prince's administration was submitted to, as if he had succeeded in the most regular manner to the vacant throne. The fleet received his orders: the army, without murmur or opposition, allowed him to new model them: and the city supplied him with a loan of two hundred ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... applaud her. When she spoke, her visitor turned towards her with the most tender of smiles. In whatsoever way the Contessa was occupied, she never failed when she heard Lucy's voice to turn round upon her, to bestow this smile, to murmur a word of affectionate approval. When they were near enough to each other, she would take her hand and press it with affectionate emotion. The other members of the household, except Sir Tom, she scarcely noticed ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... appearance of gentlemen; and in some cases there has been perhaps but the single crime for which they suffered expatriation and disgrace. Such as these, as a rule, conduct themselves with propriety from the moment of being sentenced; never murmur at their work or discipline, be it ever so hard; and probably after a single year of hardship are favorably reported, and permitted to seek or make homes for themselves. Many of them own bank shares and real estate, and some become immensely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... where the light is dimly reflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of how little consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable of filling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest to me. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famous nostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should not listen to them, and if they became insistent I should send them on ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which wear out the past. You need not murmur, though you are sorry.' MURISON. 'But St Paul says, "I have learnt, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content." 'JOHNSON. 'Sir, that relates to riches and poverty; for we see St Paul, when he had a thorn in the flesh, prayed earnestly to have it removed; ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... usual well-wrapped girl and pipe-smoking young man were carrying on the usual flirtation. Martie saw the train nearly every day, but never without a thrill. She said to herself, "New York!" as a pilgrim might murmur ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... Valley. The sun was near its setting as we pushed down the mountain slopes towards the river. We found it a small stream flowing swiftly over a shingly bed to the westward, and encamped within hearing of its murmur, well pleased to have ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... real music-lovers always act under such circumstances—some put their heads on one side and wall up their eyes in a kind of dying-calf attitude and listen so hard you can hear them listening, and some bend over toward their nearest neighbors and murmur their rapture. It is all right for them to murmur, but if you so much as scrooge your feet, or utter a low, despairing moan or anything, they all turn and glare at you reproachfully and go "Sh!" like a collection of steam-heating fixtures. Depend ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... disappeared through the double doors that led to the drawing-room, which doors were parted for him by a manikin whose clothes seemed to be held together by new sixpences. During the brief instant of opening, a vivacious murmur of conversation escaped like gas from the drawing-room into ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... I belong to this here Circle," said Mrs. Berry, "but anyway I guess I belong to the Square." A murmur of approval showed that they appreciated this view, referring as it did to that rectangular neighborhood surrounding Jonas's twenty acres. "I guess I belong to the Square. And I have just been thinking that as long as Mr. Brown has been living alone around that house ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... hands. I could not speak. A little address, full of poetry, that I had been thinking over in my mind, melted into chaos. I could only murmur something about birthdays and long lives. Then some new people crowded me away, and I felt myself alone long enough to take a look at the rooms. They were gorgeous with pictures and flowers; radiant with gas, ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... fixing the rudder in a direct position, stretched myself at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon, everything was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat as its keel cut through the waves; the murmur lulled me, and in a short time I slept soundly. I do not know how long I remained in this situation, but when I awoke I found that the sun had already mounted considerably. The wind was high, and the waves continually ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... settle to my midday nap for thinking of the tinker-mother; and as to Mrs. Hedgehog, she almost annoyed me by her anxiety to see Christian. However, curiosity is the foible of her sex, and I accompanied her daily to the encampment without a murmur. ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... I was converted, the moon was shining brightly. We was all at a revival meeting out from Blythewood, then called Dako, S. C. First, we heard a low murmur or rolling sound like distant thunder, immediately followed by the swaying of the church and a cracking sound from the joists and rafters of the building. The women folks set up a screaming. The men folks set up a hollering: ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... voices Chant the sweet refrain, Echo o'er the mountain, Linger on the plain, Thunder in the ocean, Whisper in the shell, Murmur in the ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... sextant. Simultaneously again the speed indicator followed the backward trail. Incredibly swift the gale dwindled, until it barely fanned their cheeks. The roar of the great engine subsided, until once more it was a gentle murmur. The vivid green and the dull yellow of summer took their respective places; and like a live thing, beaten and cowed, the big car drew up at the very edge of the grove, left the yellow road-ribbon, rustled ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... Works for the town, and a secret committee was appointed to arrange the preliminaries. Alderman Sweater then suggested that a suitable honorarium be voted to Mr Wireman for his services. This was greeted with a murmur of approval from most of the members, and Mr Didlum rose with the intention of proposing a resolution to that effect when he was interrupted by Alderman Grinder, who said he couldn't see no sense in giving the man a thing like that. 'Why ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... his clinched fist down upon the back of the Chair in front of him with a smart tap and looked proudly at the admiring faces of his fellow-members. Mr. O'Fake was eminent for his attainments as a speaker, and well he knew it. A murmur of applause broke out as he stopped, but he stilled it with a majestic wave of ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... the rocks, I turned for shelter into a cavernous passage of the overhanging cliff, where I could still watch the coming storm upon the sea. A murmur of voices presently attracted my attention. I then observed that the passage ended in a kind of open grotto, where I could dimly discern the little figures of several children, who, separated from their nurses in the sudden onset of the storm, had taken refuge ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... duty and Aunt Jane, and immured myself in her stateroom, where I passed an enlivening evening listening to her moans. She showed a faint returning spark of life when I mentioned Cuthbert Vane, and raised her head to murmur that he was Honorable and she understood though not the heir still likely to inherit and ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... rose and gave the servants a few foddahs—the saint takes no notice of this part of the proceeding—but he asked me to send him twice my hand full of rice for his dinner, an honour so great that there was a murmur of congratulation through the whole assembly. I asked Omar how a man could be a saint who neglected all the duties of a Muslim, and I found that he fully believed that Sheykh Seleem could be in two places at ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... sign of any. They were very high up, the morning was clear, the sun was gilding the vapours which rose from the rifts and valleys, and the sea glittered gloriously. Far below they obtained glimpses of the reef with its fringe of foam; but not a murmur of the beating waves reached them, while overhead, partially hidden in clouds, the crater of the volcano showed some of its craggy slopes, and the forest beneath seemed to be ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... over her husband's heart, and inspires the reverence which children ought to feel. Do we derogate from the greatness of women when we seek to kindle the brightness of that moral beauty which outshines all the triumphs of mere intellectual forces? Should women murmur because they cannot be superior in everything, when it is conceded that they are superior in the best thing? Nor let her clutch what she can neither retain nor enjoy. In the primeval Paradise there was one tree the fruit of which our mother Eve was forbidden to touch or to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... murmur of assent from many throats; and Joel looked from man to man. "Most of you, at least," he said. "Is there any man ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... prostration which the influence over hers of a mind like Balderstone's was sure to produce, holding Osborne's hand in hers, and "smiling a sweet recognition at the lover to whose virtues she had so long been blind." Osborne would murmur, "At last!" and the book would close with a "first kiss," followed closely by six or eight pages of advertisements of other publications of Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick. I mention the latter to show how thoroughly realistic Harley ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... know whether I had been sleeping or musing, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious. It ceased, but my heart beat anxiously; my inward tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then my chamber-door was touched as if fingers swept the panels groping a way along the dark ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... carried to the ambulances before the prone form of Lieutenant Burroughs was found by the searchers. The lieutenant lay on his back not far from the telephone and directly under the glare of a huge arc-light. His eyes were open and he was conscious, but when he tried to speak, only a murmur came from his lips. There was a rattle in his chest and faint coughs tried in vain to force their way out between ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... served; holding boat-spades, pike-heads, harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulence did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Manchester, not a soul appeared in his behalf; one would have imagined that all the Jacobites of England had been annihilated. The Welch took no step to excite an insurrection in his favour; the French made no attempt towards an invasion; his court was divided into factions; the highland chiefs began to murmur, and their clans to be unruly; he saw himself with a handful of men hemmed in between two considerable armies, in the middle of winter, and in a country disaffected to his cause. He knew he could not proceed to the metropolis without hazarding a battle, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... executioner say to the victim he was torturing—Be composed. But surely, when I tell you that that picture is the likeness of my youngest child, now no more, you will not take it from us. To lose that, would break his mother's heart. Take all the rest, and I will not murmur. But in the name of humanity spare me the ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... warriors, fearing a surprise from their enemies, armed themselves and rushed from the castle to attack the intruders. They, too, could hear a gentle murmur in the valley below, and towards it they charged, uttering terrible threats, striking right and left with their swords at the unseen foe. But, apart from a few shadowy forms that quickly faded away into the undergrowth, ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... "It is the 'Viator,' and I have just seen it." A sort of audible murmur of relief ran through the company at this burning question having been answered at last. "And it is only by a special grace of Providence," Pateley went on, "assisted by my high principles, that that machine is not in my pocket at ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... and sheet lightning began to light up the dilapidated house, and the blooming, over-grown garden more and more frequently. It began to thunder in the distance, and a black cloud spread over one-third of the sky. The nightingales and the other birds were silent. Above the murmur of the water from the mill came the cackling of geese, and then in the village and in the foreman's yard the first cocks began to crow earlier than usual, as they do on warm, thundery nights. There is a saying that if the cocks crow early the ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... secured, the yards trimmed, and the brig began to move out of the roadstead. The sea woke up under the push of the sharp cutwater, and whispered softly to the gliding craft in that tender and rippling murmur in which it speaks sometimes to those it nurses and loves. Lingard stood by the taff-rail listening, with a pleased smile till the Flash began to draw close to the only other ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... mean, sir," said the doctor. "There are limits to pain beyond which further treatment simply doesn't register. Also, I'm a little suspicious about this man's heart. It has a murmur, and questioning puts a terrific strain on it. You wouldn't want him to die on your ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... was audible in bursts. Clem and her mother, however, it neither summoned to prepare for church, nor lulled into a mood of restful reverie. The two were sitting very close together before the fire, and holding intimate converse; their voices kept a low murmur, as if; though the door was shut, they felt it necessary to use every precaution against being overheard. Three years have come and gone since we saw these persons. On the elder time has made little ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... was not till his prime was past, and a touch of gout crippled his once active limbs—points to a picture of Rose, the gardener (well named), presenting Charles II. with a pine-apple. Some may murmur a doubt whether pine-apples were cultivated in cold Britain so long since. But Horace enforces the fact; 'the likeness of the king,' quoth he, 'is too marked, and his features are too well known to doubt the fact;' and then he tells 'how he had received ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... besides thine have asked that question, querulously or entreatingly, many a time; but whether they asked it in vexation and rebellion of spirit, or humbly besought Heaven to answer, to neither murmur nor prayer did Heaven vouchsafe a response. Is it because we are so small, or, being small, are so inquisitive, that the Great Oracle of the blue remains so dumb when ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... of things will be seen in the diligence of our endeavors. That which we highliest value, we shall think no pains too great to obtain. Do not those men then make light of Christ and salvation that think all too much that they do for them; that murmur at his service, and think it too grievous for them to endure? that ask of his service as Judas of the ointment, What need this waste? Cannot men be saved without so much ado? This is more ado than needs. For the world they will labor all the day, and all their ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Spain, Portugal and their South American dependencies. For centuries, such a system of police was established by the Holy Inquisitors, that these countries resembled a vast whispering gallery, where the slightest murmur of discontent could be heard and punished. Such has been the effect of superstition and the terror of the Holy Office, upon the mind, as completely to break the pride of the Castillian noble, and make him the unresisting victim of every ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... in the thick darkness and stillness, looking toward the red blur in the distance, and trying to make out the meaning of a far-away murmur that rose and fell fitfully on the night. Sometimes it swelled up and for a moment seemed less remote; but when we were hopefully expecting it to betray its cause and nature, it dulled and sank again, carrying its mystery with it. We started down the hill in its direction, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that solemn moment he heard the murmur of a crowd in the gallery, a confused sound of voices, of stifled laughter and light footfalls, and the rustling of silks—the sounds of a band of revelers struggling for gravity. The door opened, and in came the Prince and Don Juan's friends, ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac |
