"Mutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... replaced by 'lehrbote', with other words like these, consecrated by longest use, and to find native substitutes in their room; or they understood so little what words deserved to be called foreign, or how to draw the line between them and native, that they would fain have gotten rid of 'vater', 'mutter', 'wein', 'fenster', 'meister', 'kelch'{127}; the first three of which belong to the German language by just as good a right as they do to the Latin and the Greek; while the other three have been naturalized so long that to propose to expel them now was as if, having passed an alien ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... one of the hovering boats, and put off in it. Eph watched the boat for a few moments before he turned to Captain Jack to mutter: ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... others paid their yearly subscriptions to The Wand every time they got their government allotment. "Your subscription is already paid," I would explain, but they would shake their heads and mutter. This was their newspaper, too, the thing that had signs and their own names printed on a machine. They had the right to trade beadwork or another dollar for it any time ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... lower their heads almost as low as the table and mutter together before every move, but they muttered so low that you could not hear ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... air seems as if an earthquake were at hand. I fancy that Africa sends us something of a tempest. Petrea is weeping like the cataract of Trollhaetten; and there go the people in twos-and-twos and weep, and set themselves in corners and whisper and mutter, and kiss one another, from my God-fearing parents down to my silly little sisters! The King and Queen, they go and seat themselves just has it happens, on living or dead things; they had nearly seated themselves on me as I sate unoffensively ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the wrapped figure of the mummy I was fully prepared to see her scream and faint, but on the contrary, to my complete amazement, she merely bowed her head and dropped quietly upon her knees. Then, after a pause of more than a minute, she raised her eyes to the roof and her lips began to mutter as in prayer. Her right hand, meanwhile, which had been fumbling for some time at her throat suddenly came away, and before the gaze of all of us she held it out, palm upwards, over the grey and ancient figure outstretched below. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... steamer has just arrived which will take this letter, so I can only say good-bye, my dearest Mutter, and God bless you. I continue very fairly well. The epidemic here is all but over; but my medical fame has spread so, that the poor souls come twenty miles (from Koos) for physic. The constant ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... and mutter, to push and surge. Jane felt herself lifted and swung to her feet on the seat where she had been sitting, and the Irishman's big body was spread like a shield before her. His hands were clamped upon the thin shoulders ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... down without more ado—sat down on the bare floor, dulled with fatigue, fairly beaten with exhaustion. I mechanically mutter, a couple of times, "Gone home—gone home!" then I keep perfectly quiet. There was not a tear in my eyes; I had not a thought, not a feeling of any kind. I sat and stared, with wide-open eyes, at the letters, without coming to any ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... clod I was! I used to hear you cough night after night, and I would mutter, 'Poor Madge!' and go to sleep. To think that you might have suffered as this girl is suffering! I never realized it before, yet I thought I did. I can't tell you how my whole nature rebels at it all, and pious talk about resignation in the presence ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... reverberating mutter of distant thunder came as an echo, and a swifter breeze lifted the flowers again, and brought a whispered greeting from the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... dangerous an endowment. Ellen, being persuaded by her maid, craved a specimen of this wonderful art. The hag, a smoke-dried, dirty-looking beldame, with a patch over one eye, and an idiotic expression of face, began to mutter and make an odd noise at the sight of the sick lady. She took a piece of chalk from her handkerchief, and began her work of divination. First she drew a circle on the floor, as a boundary or frame, and within it she put many uncouth and crabbed signs; but their meaning was perfectly unintelligible. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... visibly played almost incessant sheet lightning, broken with ripping zigzag flames. A hush had fallen close at hand, for now even the frightened breeze of evening had fled. Now and then, at first doubtful, then unmistakable and continuous, came the mutter and rumble and at length the steady ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... vaulting overhead. Terror was in him, for his blasphemy would bring death to Darion. But the vision of Dura-ki was in him too, giving strength to tortured muscles. The bolts came away with a metallic screech, piercing against the mutter of ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown
... he comes bothering around me, by hokey!" Bill would mutter darkly. "I've stood a hull lot from Ford; I like 'im, when he's himself. But I've stood about as much as a man can be expected to stand. And he better look out! That's all I got to say—he better look out!" Bill himself, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... get out of the way in time, damn them!" I heard Keston mutter. True, but not all the prolats had moved fast enough at the warning shout. Cowering under the saving key-boards, shrinking from the metallic arms not quite long enough to reach them, I could count only a score. The others—but what use to describe ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... far,— Prick'd to it by foolish honesty and love,— I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately; And, being troubled with a raging tooth, I could not sleep. There are a kind of men so loose of soul, That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs: One of this kind is Cassio: In sleep I heard him say, "Sweet Desdemona, Let us be wary, let us hide our loves"; And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand, Cry, "O sweet creature!" and then kiss me hard, As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots, That grew upon ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... of crockery in the scullery, and the cheerful little explosion when the gas-ring was ignited, and the low mutter of conversation that ensued between Helen and Georgiana—these phenomena were music to the artist in him. He extracted the concertina from its case and began to play "The Dead March in Saul." Not because his sentiments had a foundation ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... breath and turned his ear toward the south. The far-off murmur was a mutter now, defined and positive, and, as the two friends listened, grew into a drumming roll, and all at once above it came a shrill, high sound like the buzzing of a ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... able to comprehend how he butted him through that big stone. Explain the matter to him ever so scientifically, demonstrate it on the clearest principles of mechanical philosophy, still Pompey would shake his head, and as he walked away, would mutter to himself, 'de debbil helps dat ram, sure. Dere's no use in dis nigger's tryin' to come round him. He's a witch, dat ram ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... the verdict of Carlyle upon one of his earlier studies, and "concluded not completed," conscience is certainly apt to mutter at the close of so necessarily inadequate a summary as this. Much of this inadequacy, it may fairly be confessed, is individual, yet a certain amount is also inherent in the very nature of the task itself. In no respect does this inadequacy press ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... his way, and once more began to mutter to himself: 'Ah, if I could but shudder! Ah, if I could but shudder!' A waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked: 'Who are you?' 'I don't know,' answered the youth. Then the waggoner ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... litters of the great folk disappeared in the windings of the neighboring streets. The group in the portico scattered. The sexton was locking up the doors, when two women were perceived, who had stopped to cross themselves and mutter a prayer, and who were now going on ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... nothing in this lower world, however, is complete, Trespolo had strange moments amid this life of delights; from time to time his happiness was disturbed by panics that greatly diverted his master; he would mutter incoherent words, stifle violent sighs, and lose his appetite. The root of the matter was that the poor fellow was afraid of going to hell. The matter was very simple: he was afraid of everything; and, besides, it had often been preached to him that the Devil never allowed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... as a precaution against possible recognition, and lock his door and retire to a certain niche in a certain pile of rocks, where he would be out of sight and yet be close enough to hear the telephone, and would chew gum furiously and mutter savage things under his breath. Much as he hungered for companionship he had a perverse dread of meeting those exclamatory sightseers. It seemed to Jack that they cheapened the beauty ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... her face like a wall, and looked steadily over his head at her course. There is no satisfaction in flinging words against a wall. Sam's angry voice dwindled to a mutter, ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... believe it of this day and generation," I heard him mutter as I presented him to Polly, who answered that she was "pleased to make his acquaintance," in a voice in which terror belied ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... about his waist to steady him; they turned into a dark room they were passing—but scarcely had they taken two steps before suddenly a door swung open, and a man entered, carrying a lantern. "Who's there?" he called sharply. And Jurgis started to mutter some reply; but at the same instant the man raised his light, which flashed in his face, so that it was possible to recognize him. Jurgis stood stricken dumb, and his heart gave a leap like a mad thing. The man ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... and damn, rather than tell me that; I say again, where is she? Mutter not; Sir, speak you ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... her. She covered him by saying: 'If he has to be encountered, he kills none but the cripple,' wherewith the dead pause ensuing from a dose of outlandish speech in good company was bridged, though the youth heard Westlake mutter unpleasantly: 'Jehoiachim,' and had to endure a stare of Dacier's, who did not conceal his want of comprehension of the place he occupied ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... get himself into the spirit of the words, but his efforts in such direction met with less than moderate success. "The dog does wait," he would mutter. "He's there all the time. Besides, he isn't a dog: he's a wolf. What did Thackeray know about wolves!" And so George Henry brooded, and was, in consequence, not quite as fit for the fray as he had been ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... was an Old Person of Prague, Who was suddenly seized with the plague, But they gave him some butter, which caused him to mutter, And cured that Old ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... another direction directly, for, apparently about twenty yards away, he heard some one sneeze, and then mutter ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... addresses herself, a custom which she learned at the Court of Maria Theresa. The Princesses of the House of Bourbon had long ceased to take the trouble of speaking in such cases. Madame Addlaide blamed the Queen for not doing as they did, assuring her that it was quite sufficient to mutter a few words that might sound like an answer, while the addressers, occupied with what they had themselves been saying, would always take it for granted that a proper answer had been returned. The ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... thousand lights; clack and mutter of innumerable voices, laughter, footsteps; hiss and rumble of passing trains taking gamblers back to Nice or Mentone; fevered wailing from the violins of four fiddlers with dark-white skins outside the cafe; and above, around, beyond, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Sir! let alone—you fright me!' Said the daughter of the Jew: 'Dearest! how these eyes delight me! Let me love thee, darling, do!' 'Vat is dish?' the bailiff mutter'd, Rushing in with fury wild; 'Ish your muffins so vell butter'd Dat ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... contributed to it. However, we thought there was no harm in having our joke, when he could not be hurt by it. I proposed that he should be brought on to speak a Prologue upon the occasion; and I began to mutter fragments of what it might be: as, that when now grown old, he was obliged to cry, 'Poor Tom's a-cold[705];'—that he owned he had been driven from the stage by a Churchill, but that this was no disgrace, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... soon it's just got to be; only I hope he won't upset us all," Mark heard the tall scout mutter to himself, nor did he need a further hint to know what was passing through Lil Artha's mind; Landy was not going to evade his share of the arduous ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... cedars. They nod their heads together when the North Wind comes, and nod again and agree, and furtively grow still again, and say no more awhile. The North Wind is to them like a nice problem among wise old men; they nod their heads over it, and mutter about it all together. They know much, those cedars, they have been there so long. Their grandsires knew Lebanon, and the grandsires of these were the servants of the King of Tyre and came to Solomon's court. And amidst these black-haired ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... who indulged in sprees, was observed in his Sunday clothes throwing five bushels of corn on the ear into the pen where he kept half a dozen hogs, and he was heard to mutter: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... staring at the dark. I found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and painlessly struck her out of being. Since the night of my return from Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the darkness of God. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... Disclosing I had chance of rest—of dying! E'en Surtur, he whose hostile fingers planted The tree, the black tree, by the feeble starlight; Who nurs'd its infant root with blood fresh taken From slaughter'd babes, and drew a circle round it, And mutter'd magic words, and gave it power To shoot the bane of Nastroud in my bosom, Was not so cruel as thyself, O Nanna! What! cruel? No, by Odin! Pity drove him To rear up remedy benign and grateful For the dire wound with which thou torment'st me. Ah, maid! thou mak'st me look to death with longing And ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... said to him, "I am sore afflicted at your departure, for I am much afraid the big-belly and the blinkard will put me to death in your absence." By the former he meant Requelme the treasurer, who was very fat, and by the latter Almagro, who had lost an eye, whom he had observed frequently to mutter against him, for certain reasons, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... so surprised he could only get as red as the little box, and mutter, "Thanky, boys!" as he fumbled to open it. But when he saw what was inside, his face lighted up, and he seized the long desired treasure, saying so enthusiastically that every one was satisfied, though is language was anything ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... found her as she turned in at the bottom of the Rue Darnetal. "We must hurry," she said as the thunder began to mutter in the distance. Hardly had she spoken when a flash of lightning almost blinded us. This was followed almost immediately by a great crash of thunder that seemed to shake the very ground under our feet. Then came a sound of confused shouts as ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... offices will be crowded to-morrow morning," MacIlwaine, chief of detectives, paused long enough from storing away useful information to lean and mutter in Colonel Stilton's ear. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... He mutter'd 'My noble life!' with a frown, 'With noble lives I have little to do; My dear, put those frivolous notions down, I am but a man, and a weak one too. My life has been full of confounded things, I am only a man, like other men; But we hear a flutter of angel-wings, And our demons forsake us, there ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... conceited sixteen-year-old when her mother died, so spoiled and so self-centred that old Lady Frothingham had been heard more than once to mutter that the young lady could get down from her high horse and make herself useful, or she could march. But that was six years ago. And now—this! Magsie had evidently decided to make herself useful, but she had managed to make herself ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... o'er our union was mutter'd, To rivet the fetters of husband and wife; By our lips, by our hearts, were our vows alone utter'd, To perform them, in full, would ask more ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... thought of strawberries, which I shall never taste; Plums, cherries, ditto, ditto, which these maurauders waste— Who never will catch worms and flies, as smaller "warblers" do, But want precisely those nice things which grow for me and you! I muse on all their robberies, and mutter this fierce strain: Confound these odious "Robins," that ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... quick as I could go, when I caught sight of two bright eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking it was a wild cat, or some such animal, I redoubled my haste, when suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to mutter, and then to send up a succession of ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... autobiography in fiction in the tone of a doctor who has found arsenic in the stomach at a post-mortem inquiry. The truth is that whenever a scene in a novel is really convincing, a certain type of critical and uncreative mind will infallibly mutter in accents of pain, "Autobiography!" When I was discussing this topic the other day a novelist not inferior to Mr. Wells suddenly exclaimed: "I say! Supposing we did write autobiography!"... Yes, if we did, what a celestial ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... fleeting joys of this world are as dross to us. The missionary has a modulator, and he trains the young men and women in the sol-fa so that they may sing Sankey's hymns in all the parts." I was dreadfully floored by this answer, and could only mutter mechanically, "Dross," "Missionary,'" "Modulator," in a vain effort to seize the situation. Conversion I understood and approved of, but where, in the wee island of Eigg, were the vain, fleeting joys? ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... at about this time that Copernicus Droop finally awakened. He lay perfectly still for a minute or two, wondering where he was and what had happened. Then he began to mutter to himself. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... edges of ice came up from the land-wash below the fish-house and drying-stages. He saw the spars of his little schooner etched black against the slate-gray of the eastern sky. He stood at the edge of the broken slope, looking and listening. Presently he heard a mutter of voices and saw two dark figures ascending ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... "I have no time for to earn the pennies to-day. I have for to pick up the coal for mine Mutter. It makes the hands to be dirty"—looking at his blackened fingers—"but it saves ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... Church had power to enact the Veto. The conjurer started backwards like a man who receives a mortal wound: the two little figures uttered a thin scrannel shriek apiece, and then slunk out of existence. 'Avoid ye,' exclaimed the conjurer, 'Avoid ye! Conjuro te, conjuro te!' He then went on to mutter, as if by way of exorcism, in low and very rapid tones, 'I have no anxiety to refute the charge of inconsistency, which some have endeavoured to fasten on me, from detached portions of what I have written or spoken, during several years, on what may be termed Church politics. In matters not ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... hands weighed, measured, and trafficked with as so much coin! where is all this going on? Do you suppose it was only going on in the time of David, and that nobody but Jews ever murder the poor? If so, it would surely be wiser not to mutter and mumble for our daily lessons what does not concern us; but if there be any chance that it may concern us, and if this description, in the Psalms, of human guilt is at all generally applicable, as the descriptions in the ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... to the tree-tops, long before our coming had been suspected by the watchful little mother sheldrake, or even by the deer feeding close at hand among the lily pads. Then Simmo, who could never surprise one of the great birds however silently he paddled, would mutter something which sounded like Quoskh K'sobeqh, Quoskh the Keen Eyed. At other times, when we noticed him spearing frogs with his long bill, Simmo, who could not endure the sight of a frog's leg on my fry pan, would speak ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... out of his bed, and cried out and said, 'I would to God, it would please him to take me out of this wretched world; and I would I had died with the good men that have suffered death heretofore, for they were quickly out of their pain.'" * Then, half wandering, he began to mutter to himself aloud the thoughts which had been working in him in his struggles; and quoting St. Bernard's words about the pope, he exclaimed, "Tu quis es. Primatu Abel, gubernatione Noah, auctoritate Moses, judicatu Samuel potestate Petrus, unctione ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... rein to their steeds; and a ride of nearly 40 miles brought them to the city about sundown. Rumour magnified their numbers; while the fatalism that used to nerve the Moslem in his great days now predisposed him to bow the knee and mutter Kismet at the advent of the seemingly predestined masters of Egypt. To this small, wearied, but lordly band Cairo surrendered, and Arabi himself handed over his sword. On the following day the infantry came up and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Bohea, Brougham was quaffing his 'usual potation' (For you know his indignant ne-gation, When accused once of jollifi-cation), Down went saucer and cup, Which Le Marchant picked up, Not to hear his lord mutter 'd—n-ation.' ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... please to convey to my cousin a suit, which I find it hard to bring my ruder tongue to utter with sufficient submission. The usurers, whose claims have eaten like a canker into my means, now menace me with a dungeon—a threat which they dared not mutter, far less attempt to execute, were it not that they see me an outcast, unprotected by the natural head of my family, and regard me rather as they would some unfriended vagrant, than as a descendant of the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... close in the little attic, and she heard the low mutter of the rising storm in the west. She forgot her troubles a little, listening to the far-off ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... den hoechsten Ideen der Zeit getragen und suchte die Erziehung an diese Ideen anzuknuepfen. So lange die Mutter nicht nach den Gesetzen der Natur ihr Kind erzieht und bildet und dafuer nicht ihr Leben einsetst, so lange—davon geht er aus—sind alle Reformen der Schule auf Sand gebaut. Trotsdem verlegt er einen Theil der muetterlichen Aufgabe in den Kindergarten, in welchem er die Kinder ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... no money, and wishing that she had said Walter Franklin had not paid her rent, crept off, a lugubrious figure, across the bridge. Franklin watched her till she was out of sight, then took off his hat, exposing a high, baldish head. His face was dark, and he began to mutter to himself. Finally, ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... pleased at their Allies' success as one would have naturally expected. The reason was soon forthcoming. Following his usual plan of getting as much information as possible out of the French, he heard the old man, who seemed unaccountably shy and diffident, mutter casually— ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... found five very excited and incoherent persons in the group that had assembled at the foot of the stairs. Professors Jenks and Scotch would not say much of anything, only mutter and glare daggers at each other, while Professor Gunn was too furious and too confused to tell anything straight. Barney and Hans declared over and over that they had been bitten by "centipedes," and showed the wounds. The ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... the streets the mother hailed a cab and put Ivan into it. She whispered, "Now be silent," and carefully wrapped his face up in the handkerchief. He raised his hand to his face, but was no longer able to free his mouth. His hand fell feebly on his knees; nevertheless he continued to mutter through the bandages: ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... on his face, six paces off, Lay moaning, and the old familiar name He mutter'd through the grass, seem'd like a scoff Of some lost soul remembering ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... midst of his feastings upon life. The ecstasy he felt seemed suddenly to turn itself inward and demand of him new destinations. On such days he had fallen into the habit of going upon swift walks through the less crowded streets of the city. During his walking he would mutter, "What can I do? What? Nothing. Not a thing." As if secret voices ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... What rage the brave Abencerrages blinds? If of your courage you new proofs would show, Without much travel you may find a foe. Those foes are neither so remote nor few, That you should need each other to pursue. Lean times and foreign wars should minds unite; When poor, men mutter, but they seldom fight. O holy Alha! that I live to see Thy Granadines assist their enemy! You fight the christians' battles; every life You lavish thus, in this intestine strife, Does from our weak foundations take one prop, Which helped to ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... true, and thou knowest it better than I, for when, later on, he came to give thee a drink and wet thy forehead and lips, thou didst give him back his kiss right tenderly, and mutter something ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... we go into a corner and mutter a silent remark)—it came in on the train Monday, and was taken to the barn. It is the confoundedest looking dog that a white man ever set eyes on. It is about the color of putty, and about seven feet long, though it is only six months old. ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... At the last point from which one can see the city of Cuzco, all true Indians, whether on their way out of the valley or into it, pause, turn toward the east, facing the city, remove their hats and mutter a prayer. I believe that the words they use now are those of the "Ave Maria," or some other familiar orison of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the custom undoubtedly goes far back of the advent of the first Spanish missionaries. It is probably a relic of the ancient ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... the money and preceded Manuel into the town, chuckling inwardly at his cleverness in outwitting this keen conspirator. But he would have been less elated with his success if he had heard the Cuban mutter, as he turned into the porch of ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... bitter. He continued to mutter sullenly to himself—a way he had—until we had disposed of the luggage and I was laying out his afternoon and evening wear in one of the small detached houses to which we had been assigned. Nor did he sink his grievance on the arrival of the Mixer a few moments later. He now addressed her as "Ma" ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... in the 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 their Condor ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... with plenty of animal courage; and there was no wickedness under the sun that he had not practised in his time. He was also one of the very few among the prisoners who insulted the venerable chaplain when he could, though all the notice the good man took of it was to mutter ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... first listening for his call, and then softly looking in, to see whether he could still be sleeping. The door opened and shut by a spring, so that the old man did not hear the little girl as she entered, though his sleep was not sound. As Euphrosyne saw how restless he was, and heard him mutter, she thought she would rouse him: but she stayed her hand, as she remembered that he might have slept ill, and might still settle for another quiet doze, if left undisturbed. With a gentle hand she ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... And close coinstantaneous crash Humbled the soul, and the rain all round Resilient dimm'd the whistling ground, Nor flagg'd in force from first to last, Till, sudden as it came, 'twas past, Leaving a trouble in the copse Of brawling birds and tinkling drops. Change beyond hope! Far thunder faint Mutter'd its vast and vain complaint, And gaps and fractures, fringed with light, Show'd the sweet skies, with squadrons bright Of cloudlets, glittering calm and fair Through gulfs of calm and glittering air. With this adventure, we return'd. The roads the ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... as the wretch prepared With humble blandishment to stroke his beard, Like lightning swift the wrathful falchion flew, Divides the neck, and cuts the nerves in two; One instant snatch'd his trembling soul to hell, The head, yet speaking, mutter'd as it fell. The furry helmet from his brow they tear, The wolf's grey hide, the unbended bow and spear; These great Ulysses lifting to the skies, To ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the woods at their right began to thresh about, with a surprised rustling, and a low mutter, as of smothered warning, ran over the shoulder ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... mutter into his hands. "I'm crazy! I'm drunk! I'm stark mad! But, oh, Lois, if you knew what I've been through ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... the volcano itself, it could not be doubted that it was completely extinct. No smoke escaped from its sides; not a flame could be seen in the dark hollows; not a roar, not a mutter, no trembling even issued from this black well, which perhaps reached far into the bowels of the earth. The atmosphere inside the crater was filled with no sulphurous vapor. It was more than the sleep of a volcano; it was its complete extinction. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... and of the king, I heard him mutter: a pimp, I warrant him, for I am sure he is an old courtier. Now, to put off t'other remnant of my merchandize.—Stir up, sirrah! ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... laughed. But the Judge, whose mind was on the argument, continued to mutter defiantly until his eye fell ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... friend," answered the inquisitor: and I heard him mutter, "either there is such a person as the Virgin Mary, or you ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... invariably a sporting, game-looking lot. Mr. Sidney Castle has for many years shown wire-hair Fox-terriers of more than average merit; and thoroughly understands the variety, indeed, perhaps as well as anybody. Messrs. Bartle, Brumby Mutter, G. Welch, and S. Wilson, are all old fanciers who have great experience, have ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... "Th' Ramblin' Kid don't stay at the Quarter Circle KT by the grace of Old Heck, but by the choice of th' Ramblin' Kid! Anyhow, he's too good with horses—" His voice trailed away to a low mutter as they turned in among the willows and cottonwood trees along the bank ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... him mutter (Billali had a habit of muttering to himself), "he is ugly—ugly as the other is beautiful—a very Baboon, it was a good name. But I like the man. Strange now, at my age, that I should like a man. What says the proverb—'Mistrust all men, and slay him whom thou mistrustest overmuch; and as for ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... rear'd to victory in that detested war, When the Tricolor went down before our flag at Trafalgar, The column that hath taught our sons to mutter Nelson's name, I'd level straightway with the dust, and with it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... significance, both religious and historic. In the cathedrals of the continent of Europe—and I have visited every one of note except those of Spain—I cared little for what Browning's bishop calls "the blessed mutter of the mass," but the chanting of the Psalter always attracted me. Many were the hours during which I sat at vespers in abbeys and cathedrals, listening to the Latin psalms until they became almost as familiar to me as the English Psalter. On the other hand, I was at times greatly repelled ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... broken and badly bruised, and he bled from a contusion upon the forehead. This wound upon his head seemed also to have affected his brain; at any rate, he was unable to speak coherently or to do more than mutter something about "shipwreck" and "steamer Trondhjem," and to ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... clustering ivy thy hair inwreathes; When thy voice shall be soft as the day's last sigh. And hope like a shadow shall over thee lie; Thou wilt call on my name; and from far o'er the sea, Fierce thunders and lightnings shall mutter of me. ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... said the last words he seemed to see London rise up before him in the night, with shadowy domes and towers and chimneys; he seemed to hear through the exquisite silence of night upon the sea the mutter of ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Emily Warren would banish this thought, for it seemed as if my very soul were already wedded to her. "The thought of another is impossible," I would mutter. "She ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Master mutter to hisself dat he couldn't clar me in his own mind till somebody else was cotched, and proved guilty; and nobody has been cotched, and I'se berry wretched, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... jumps! Who'd have thought it of Quatermain?" I heard Stephen mutter in the intervals of ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... fashions. Janie bore the delay more philosophically, observing that she could not have turned the heel of her stocking so correctly while thinking of Nilo and his poor mother. Archie remained silent, only when Aunt Cattie sat down and resumed her narrative, he was heard to mutter to himself that ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... And bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances, and the public show? What tho' no weeping Loves thy ashes grace, Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face? What tho' no sacred earth allow thee room, Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb? Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, There the first roses of the year shall blow; While angels with their silver wings o'ershade The ground now sacred by thy reliques made. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... no friend in the place. It would have been fatally dangerous to mutter anything before such an assemblage. He was by this time an utterly broken and disgraced old man; wishful, of all things, to get away and hide himself and his miseries from the public gaze; probably with his senses deadened and stupefied ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... possibility before. Now Miss Pomeroy was angry with her and she had made a miserable beginning of the delightful boarding school life she had dreamed so much about. Two hot tears gathered in her eyes again, but just at that minute she heard Chrystobel mutter between her teeth so the principal could not ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... struggle not a penny the worse, although it must be admitted that her rigging had been stretched to such an extent that when at length it was relieved of the strain by the cessation of the gale, it hung loosely in bights that caused the worthy boatswain to shake his head and mutter to himself. ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... that the pecuniary interests of the owners of the material means of life should rule unabated in all those matters of public policy that touch on the material fortunes of the community at large. Barring a slight and intermittent mutter of discontent, this arrangement has also the cordial approval of popular sentiment in these modern democratic nations. One need only recall the paramount importance which is popularly attached to the maintenance and extension of the nation's trade—for the use of the investors—or the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... when the Andover "heretic" Reads the rhymes I dared not utter, I fancy Josiah is scowling, And his bronze lips seem to mutter: ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... Brian leaning over the parapet at the end of the pier, looking at the glittering waters beneath, which kept rising and falling in a dreamy rhythm, that soothed and charmed the ear. "Poor girl! poor girl!" the detective heard him mutter as he came up. "If she only ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... pointing, "there are the mounds wherein they live. They are trolls;" and with that he began to mutter I know not what heathen spells ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... feller," he was heard to mutter, as they heard the wildcat emit a mocking, tantalizing cry at some little distance away. "You see if ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... Jerry undertook to mutter something more, when his father jumped up, and, taking him by the collar, led him to the cellar-door, and told him to go down and stay until he was sent for. Then, shutting the door, and turning the button, he resumed his seat at the table, and the family finished ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... Why, in Saint Rochus They made him stand, and wait his doom; And, as if he were condemned to the tomb, Began to mutter their hocus pocus. First, the Mass for the Dead they chaunted. Then three times laid upon his head A shovelful of church-yard clay, Saying to him, as he stood undaunted, "This is a sign that thou art dead, So in thy heart be penitent!" And forth from the chapel door he went Into ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... mutter, struggling desperately to reason it out. "A prairie dog," he said. "Speaking to me. One million years. Evolution. The scientists say that people grew up from fishes in the sea. Prairie dogs ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... of Cardot and Camusot, Oscar made an effort to throw off his sleep; but he could only mutter a few words which were not understood, and then he fell back upon ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... as the enemy's fire had evidently ceased or slackened, I gave the order to cease firing. But it was very difficult at first to make them desist: the taste of gunpowder was too intoxicating. One of them was heard to mutter, indignantly, "Why de Cunnel order Cease firing, when de Secesh blazin' away at de rate ob ten dollar a day?" Every incidental occurrence seemed somehow to engrave itself upon my perceptions, without interrupting the main course of thought. Thus I know, that, in one of ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... me!" he murmured, as he stooped to drink. On rising, he continued to mutter to himself, "If only a tithe of my ordinary strength were left, or if I had one good meal and a short rest, I could be there ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... Gentile care for truth? They want you to worship one dead man, and you prefer to worship another dead man. What's the odds to you? Can't you mutter your Latin, and play with your beads, before both, and have ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... he let Jack go off without offering him even a syllable of thanks, the bystanders smiled, and somebody might have been heard to mutter, "Peakslow all over! ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... and more the little Emma as she grew into a beautiful girl. He neglected The Warren so that the property looked quite desolate and ruined, and at length superstitious people in the neighborhood came to mutter that it was haunted by the ghost of Rudge, the steward, whose body had ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... his head, and the horses are driven by a girl,' she heard them mutter. 'We will kill the knight, and take his damsel and his ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... promised love is a mockery and an insult: his soul rebelled at being made a passive party to such a bargain; and he began himself to play the retaliatory part which a wronged nature naturally suggests to itself. Like Leta, he learned to hold out the limpid hand in careless greeting, or to mutter meaningless and cold compliments, and, in any communication with her, to assume all the appearances of indifferent acquaintanceship. At first, indeed, it was with an aching heart struggling in his breast, and an agony of wounded spirit tempting him to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... those two brats," I heard him mutter, glancing savagely at Sylvie and Bruno, who were courteously listening to the Gardener's song, "there would be ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll |
