"Babble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the thicket. A regiment might have beaten the wood pretty thoroughly, and yet have failed to find it. The gorse was so thick in all the outer part of the clump that dogs would leave its depths un-searched. Yet, lying there in the shelter one could hear the splashing babble of the brook only fifty yards away, and the singing of a girl at the mill a little ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... gloom, The River, jaded and forlorn, Welters and wanders wearily—wretchedly—on; Yet in and out among the ribs Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles Of some dead lake-built city, fall of skulls, Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, Lingers to babble, to a broken tune (Once, O the unvoiced music of my heart!) So melancholy a soliloquy It sounds as it might tell The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, The terror of Time and Change and Death, That wastes ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... candidly and honestly not long ago that she was too comfortable to be interested in other people, and I have admired her for her truthfulness; she had diagnosed her own case accurately, and she did not babble of woman's sphere being her own home—she frankly admitted that she was selfish, and her comfort had caused it. I believe God intended us all to be happy and comfortable, clothed, fed, and housed, and there is no sin in comfort, unless ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... room," and gave herself up to the pleasant tyranny of the small potentates, who swarmed over her as she sat on the floor, tugging at her hair, exploring her eyes, covering her with moist kisses, and keeping up a babble of little voices more delightful to her than the discourse of the flattered mammas who benignly surveyed her admiration and ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... by London on the operative class. Ten guineas per night—five hundred for the season—is the price exacted for a first-rate opera-box; and as the exclusives usually arrive at the close of the opera, or, if earlier, keep up a perpetual babble during its performance, they clearly come for the dancing.—"On voit l'opera, et l'on ecoute le ballet," used to be said of the Academie de Musique. But it might be asserted now, with fully as much truth, of the Queen's Theatre, where the evolutions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... loquaciousness; talkativeness &c adj.; garrulity; multiloquence^, much speaking. jaw; gabble; jabber, chatter; prate, prattle, cackle, clack; twaddle, twattle, rattle; caquet^, caquetterie [Fr.]; blabber, bavardage^, bibble-babble^, gibble-gabble^; small talk &c (converse) 588. fluency, flippancy, volubility, flowing, tongue; flow of words; flux de bouche [Fr.], flux de mots [Fr.]; copia verborum [Lat.], cacoethes loquendi [Lat.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... they sounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadence that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his blessing, good, sedate old man, who swung the rope so gently to the time of his meditations. I could have blessed the priest or the heritors, or whoever may be concerned with such affairs in France, who had left these sweet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... A murmurous babble of life buzzed about the hamlet, pierced through by the shrill undertones of the wrangling children, most of whom had paused in their play to scan the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... man's experiences or that man's books, will wisdom go surety for his unchanged convictions? As particular food begets particular dreams, so particular experiences or books particular feelings or beliefs. I will hear nothing of that fine babble about development and its laws; there is no development in opinion and feeling but the developments of time and tide. You may deem all this talk idle, Frank; but conscience bids me show you how fundamental the reasons for treating you as ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... blaze of light as was the governor's mansion house that night I never saw, and I heard the music of violins, and hautboys, and viola da gambas coming from within, and a silvery babble of women's tongues, with a deeper undertone of men's, and the tread of dancing feet, and the stamping of horses outside, with the whoas of the negro boys in attendance, and through the broad gleam of the moonlight ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... came through. One morning I was just getting out of bed, "this gibberish, this jargon" as the enemy likes to call it, began to come. The Lord said, "Let it babble!" I let. The babble increased, and by night I was up to my neck. I let. I still let. That's all. Someone else does the work, and it ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... trail vines, and hang clothes to dry on them? No enemies approach the great mouldering gates: only at morn and even the cows come lowing past them, the village maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the ever-voluble stream that flows under the old walls. The schoolboys, with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the gymnasium, and return thence at their stated time. There is one coffee-house in the town, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with what fearful flame love will fill the chasms under ground, circling and seething in the fiery darkness. Theophil loves you, but some day your home will suddenly be rent from cope to base, unless his poor heart may speak, yea, babble itself, just ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... vehemence, that I wanted no charm, nor did I fear mortal weapon or mortal foe, for in God was my trust, and He was able to hold me scathless, or to take me when He would. And then, John, a fancy seized me, a foolish fancy of romance perhaps, but still I mind not thy knowing, so thou 'lt not babble of it to others. I asked the old man could he put what I had just said into the same tongue with that heathen charm, and so shape it that I could have it carved upon my blade above the sun and moon and stars, which those Persian idolaters worship and had graved there almost as idols. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... their seats, and there was a great babble of voices. As in a dream, Jessie saw them all file slowly out of the room, each one casting that backward look of horror upon her as they went. The door closed slowly after Miss Duncan; then she was alone with the detective and Mrs Varrick, ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... the protecting glass awning into the lobby itself. The favoured playgoers minced daintily through the slush to their waiting cars, then taxis came into the procession of waiting vehicles, there was a banging of cab doors, a babble of orders to the scurrying attendants, until something like order was evolved from ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... stories which he said had been spread abroad about him. I smiled, saying, I admitted it was not true that his veins had been opened. This observation completed the irritation of the monk, who began to babble in a sort of fury. I diverted myself with it at first in silence; then I said to him, that the King, shortly after arriving in Spain; had had the curiosity to open the coffin of Don Carlos, and that I knew from a man who was present ('twas Louville), that his head ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... The babble of their talk sprang up afresh, and ever the jubilant shout would rise anew from hundreds of clear ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... Idiots.—Children have command at the beginning of no articulate sounds; then they learn these and syllables; after this also words of one syllable; then they speak short words of more than one syllable and sentences, but frequently babble forth words they have heard without ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... amusing study—in moderation, and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your philosopher is a complete novice in the life comme il faut.... I like very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Guicciardini—the toil of a month of nights—was as the work of an ant in the dust. Beside her interest in his gossip of the schools, the coffee-house, the street corner, my exposition of the Sonnets of Petrarca was as the babble of school children at play in the Pra; beside her attentions to his clumsy caresses, her tenderness to me hour after hour was but the benevolence of a kindly woman to a lad left on her hands. Oh, bitter tonic discovery! How bitter it was I leave my reader to determine. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... Babble of speech, cries, sounded muffled to Ross, made a mounting clamor on the deck. Had the raiders' ship been boarded? Was it now under attack? He strove to hear and think through the pain in his head, ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... "impertinence and folly were felony by the statute, there would be no warrant of unexceptionable evidence to hang such an eternal babbler." "Anan, babbler!" cried Tom, reddening with passion, and starting up; "I'd have you to know, sir, that I can bite as well as babble; and that, if I am so minded, I can run upon the foot after my game without being in fault, as the saying is; and, which is more, I can shake an old fox by ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... feasting. To those who come skilled in its language, it can discourse sweetly of all things, and drive away all thoughts that annoy and cares that vex the soul. To those who touch it, not knowing how to draw forth its speech, it will babble strange nonsense, and rave with uncertain moanings. But thy knowledge is born with thee, and so my lyre is thine. Wherefore now let us feed the herds together, and with our care they shall thrive and multiply. There is no more ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... incomprehensible to the man of realities, as the highest man is, and largely above his level, will be a great unreality and falsehood to an unintellectual man. The profoundest doctrines of Christianity and Philosophy would be mere jargon and babble to a Potawatomie Indian. The popular explanations of the symbols of Masonry are fitting for the multitude that have swarmed into the Temples,—being fully up to the level of their capacity. Catholicism was a vital truth in its earliest ages, but it became ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... with living where there is so much infernal babble, and meddling with other people's business. If I sneeze, the people think there's been an earthquake; and when I whistle, they call ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... will succeed where my plain speech has failed." And to the tall Sagamore he said: "My brother, this is Ensign Loskiel, of Colonel Morgan's command—my comrade and good friend. What this man's lips tell you has first been taught them by his heart. Squirrels chatter, brooks babble, and the tongues of the Iroquois are split. But this is a man, Sagamore, such as are few among men. For he lies not even to women." And though his countenance was very grave, I saw his eyes laughing ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... minister, whose last breath was spent in scolding his nurse, dies with a magnificent apothegm on his lips, manufactured by a reporter. Addison gets up a tableau and utters an admirable sentiment,—or somebody makes the posthumous dying epigram for him. The incoherent babble of green fields is translated into the language of stately sentiment. One would think, all that dying men had to do was to say the prettiest thing they could,—to make their rhetorical point,—and then bow themselves politely out ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... talking, to their partners, across the table, even to Aunt Ellen. The exhilarating sound of voices rose to a hum, then a concerted babble broken by laughter. It grew animated, it grew sparkling, it grew brilliant. Chrystie, with parted lips and glistening eyes, became as artlessly amusing as she was in the bosom of her family. She was delightful, her frank enjoyment a charming ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... firing on our part; and now, while he was ranging up on our port quarter, and so close that one might almost have hove a biscuit on board, all was confusion with him; the hands being busy taking in their canvas in a slipshod, lubberly way that would have disgraced a collier; while the babble of tongues must have been deafening, judging from what ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... idyllic," I continued, sweetly; "I shall write of the ineffable glory of first love. I shall babble of green fields and the keen odours of spring and the shamefaced countenances of lovers, met after last night's kissing. It will be the story of love that stirs blindly in the hearts of maids and youths, and does not know that it is love,—the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... benefit of memory. That by this means I am not so talkative, for the magazine of the memory is ever better furnished with matter than that of the invention. Had mine been faithful to me, I had ere this deafened all my friends with my babble, the subjects themselves arousing and stirring up the little faculty I have of handling and employing them, heating and distending my discourse, which were a pity: as I have observed in several of my intimate friends, who, as their memories supply them with an entire and full view ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... are bold indeed: we are not talked to thus: Yet will we say for children, would they grew Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well: But children die; and let me tell you, girl, Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die; They with the sun and moon renew their light For ever, blessing those that look on them. Children—that men may pluck them from our hearts, Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves— O—children—there is nothing upon earth More miserable ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... condition, exerted her divine power, and changed him into a grasshopper, which is, as it were, all voice, and whose monotonous, ceaseless chirpings may not inaptly be compared to the meaningless babble of ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... curious babble or chatter, almost as if the sound-proof door—if there was such a thing—of a parrot cage had been suddenly opened. It came from somewhere at the rear of the house and was, apparently, produced by a number of feminine voices all speaking ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... it before, as I did from her babble! The letters have told us the same thing, but they were like the histories of other times. Camps, prisoners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden gains, social upheavals,—it is the old, hideous story of war come true of our day ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... "Don't babble like a fool!" Kennon said with disgust. "How could I land a spacer here without being spotted? You sound like a two-credit novel. And even if I did—would it be a can like this?" Kennon played the torch over the blue-black durilium ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... Lady Ogram's talk to-day had more of the characteristics of old age than ordinarily, as though, in her great satisfaction, the mind relaxed and the tongue inclined to babble. Though May was absent less than a quarter of an hour, the old lady ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... silence grew into a whisper, from a whisper into a babble of suppressed talk, and finally somebody laughed. Bones stood up, for ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... the speaking. She ate not a bite, but who was to observe it? for Keawe cleared the dish. Kokua saw and heard him, like some strange thing in a dream; there were times when she forgot or doubted, and put her hands to her brow; to know herself doomed and hear her husband babble, seemed so monstrous. ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ground: others talk of the grandeur of Rome; you make me realize its grandeur: others prate of their love for Rome: you, saying little, make me tingle with a subtly communicated sense of how you love Rome: others babble of how life away from Rome is not life, but merely existence; of how any dwelling out of Rome is exile, of how they long for Rome; you, by some sorcery, make me not only feel how you long for Rome, but have awakened in me a longing for Rome. I have never been out ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... rising clear and strong above the babble of Mammon, asked, in the closing chapters ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Are its fruits good for food, or does the land we have explored bring forth only poisonous reptiles and the deadly upas? Is it a land in which the very principles of art and of human nature are turned upside down? Its language the babble of Bander-log? ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... under which politics appears to one type of boy. The other type, hears in some quarter or other a babble about income-tax and little navies and big loans; and either dismisses the whole thing as "absolute rot," which can have no possible meaning for him, or imbibes the ideas and prejudices of the people whose talk he is listening to, without in ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... encourage him to babble—[turning] 'twas he that insisted on confiding to me what ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... for these! But Giotto, you, Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it— Oh, never! it shall not be counted true— That a certain precious little tablet Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover, Was buried so long in oblivion's womb And, left for another than I to discover, Turns up at last! ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... be round At dress rehearsals, or behind the scenes, To hear the row the actor-manager Had with the author or the leading lady, Then to recount the story at the Garrick, Where, lingering lovingly on kippered lies, They babble over chestnuts and their punch And stale round-table jests ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... our highest joy. It gives legitimate scope to the instinct of loyalty, submission, and imitation, and of subjection to authority. It reduces to insignificance men's judgment, and all their loud voices to a babble of nothings. 'With me it is a very small matter to be judged of man's judgment.' It brings the soul into direct communion with God, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... heart. She lived to see you give her crown away; She died to see you fondle a menial: These blows you dealt now, but what elder wounds Received them to such purpose suddenly? What had you caused her to remember most? What things would she be like to babble over In the wild helpless hour when fitful life No more can choose what thoughts it shall encourage In the tost mind? She has suffered you twice over, Your animal thoughts and hungry powers, this day, Until I knew ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... cried. "Du Kleiner! And she was down on her knees, and somehow her figure had melted into delicious mother-curves, with Bennie's head just fitting into that most gracious one between her shoulder and breast. She cooed to him in a babble of French and German and English, calling him her lee-tel Oscar. Bennie seemed miraculously to understand. Perhaps he was becoming accustomed to having strange ladies snatch him to ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... we find, with a diminishing aridity, the hillsides covered with richer crops, and the valleys decked out with a more luxuriant and warmly coloured vegetation. Shechem lies in an actual amphitheatre of verdure, which is irrigated by countless unfailing streams; rushing brooks babble on every side, and the vapour given off by them morning and evening covers the entire landscape with a luminous haze, where the outline of each object becomes blurred, and quivers in a manner to which we are accustomed in our Western lands.* ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... of the world that respected him so much; the whole world to him—for to us the limits of the universe are strictly defined by those we know. There is nothing for us outside the babble of praise and blame on familiar lips, and beyond our last acquaintance there lies only a vast chaos; a chaos of laughter and tears which concerns us not; laughter and tears unpleasant, wicked, morbid, contemptible—because heard imperfectly by ears rebellious to strange sounds. To ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... neighbour here,(885) I will consider them as written to myself, and subtract so much from your bill. Nay, I will accept a line from Lady Ailesbury now and then in part of payment. I shall continue to write as the wind sets in my pen; and do own my babble ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... on the other side of the table, but he did not observe her particularly, for her head was bent over a letter which she was reading. He looked about him. The room was full of men and young women, all eating or waiting to eat, and from a corner of the room came a babble of conversation carried on by a group of young clerks, and while John looked at them, a waitress came to ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... trace of her, there arose once more a painful apprehension in his mind. He hurried half-dressed to the nursery to ask for news of the child, but was met by the nurse with the most cheerful countenance, with little Tom holding by her skirts, in high spirits, and fun of babble and glee. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... that knows thy love, O Purest, There is a temple peaceful evermore. And all the babble of life's angry voices Dies hushed in stillness ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... of falling in with the troopers of Horn, rendered it expedient for us to return to Namur with only half the object of his highness accomplished. But the babble of the old chaplain had acquainted us with nearly all we wanted to know,— namely, the number and disposal of the Statists, and the position taken up by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Godfredo called him, but he found delays And causes why he should his cabin keep, At length perforce he comes, but naught he says, Or talks like those that babble in their sleep. His shamefacedness to Godfrey plain bewrays His flight, so does his sighs and sadness deep: Whereat amazed, "What chance is this ?" quoth he. "These witchcrafts strange or nature's ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... looking down from the height of his great soberness and the dignity of possessing the oracles and the ordinances, do other than contemn the enthusiasms and excitements of ignorant repentance? How could such as he recognize in the babble of babes the slightest indication of the revealing of truths hid from the wise and prudent; especially since their rejoicing also was that of babes, hence carnal, and accompanied by all the weaknesses and some of the vices which it had required the utmost energy of the prince of ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... her own way she would still have married Ada to Yorke Clayton. When Ada told her that she had got over her foolish love, it was the mere babble of unselfishness. Feel a passion for such a man as Yorke Clayton, look into the depth of his blue eyes, and fancy for herself a partnership with the spirit hidden away within, and then get over it! Edith was guilty here of the folly ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... flowerlike mouth Not sweet with all the south; As though the dust shrined in Certaldo stirred And spake, as o'er it shone That bright Pentameron, And his own vines again and chestnuts heard Boccaccio: nor swift Elsa's chime Mixed not her golden babble ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... involuntary sweetness comes flooding in upon our confrontation of human destinies. Hardy is the last of that great line. If we long for sweetness—as we do long for it, and with how poignant a pain!—we must seek it out, like men who rush dusty and irritable from the babble and fever of the town. The rhythm of the earth never enters into their gait; they are like spies among the birds and flowers, like collectors of antique furniture in the haunts of peace. The Georgians snatch at nature; they are never part of it. And there is some element of this desperation in Mr ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... shall see no more; All that has been is mine inviolate, Lock'd in the secret book of memory. And though I change, my valley knows no change. And when I look on London's teeming streets, On grim grey houses, and on leaden skies, When speech seems but the babble of a crowd, And music fails me, and my lamp of life Burns low, and Art, my mistress, turns from me, — Then do I pass beyond the Gate of Dreams Into my kingdom, walking unconstrained By ways familiar under Southern skies; Nor unaccompanied; the dear dumb things I lov'd once, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... more bustle than ever; a great running hither and thither, a rapping of hammers and a babble of voices sounded everywhere through the place, for the folk were building great arches across the streets, beneath which the King was to pass, and were draping these arches with silken banners and streamers of many colors. Great ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... the hint of roomy court-yard and green garden to be caught behind their gateways; here were creameries that conjured the country to the eager senses, and laundries that exhaled a very aroma of work in the hot steam that poured through their windows and in the babble of voices that arose from the women who stood side by side, iron in hand, bending over the long, spotless ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... wife—starting again, he calls it—while he earns a salary and we live in a poky house and I do the cooking. I'd think it awfully funny if it was happening to any of my friends—but this is terrible! Well, goat-tending tells, doesn't it? And after all we have done for him—to babble on about honesty and earning and all those socialistic ideas. He is a dangerous man, papa; really. I ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... as he turned, a brown figure darted toward him from the end of the wing. A voice known long ago was calling to him—a voice that penetrated high and clear above the babble of the beaters. "Muztagh!" it was ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... gabble-gabble!" My window frames forest and heather. I hardly hear the tuneful babble, Not knowing nor much caring whether The text is praise or exhortation, ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... an amanuensis," said Thorny, dropping book and pencil one day, after a brief interval of silence, broken only by the whisper of the young leaves overhead and the soft babble of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... The deafening babble and frantic gesticulations were perfectly explicable to Probyn, and he apprehended no danger. The head man of the village had not yet appeared, and until he came this wild license of behaviour would ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... convulsed with laughter by his sallies of wit, delivered between bursts of noisy music. He seemed to have become altogether a better fellow; more frank, communicative, and submissive. He eagerly embraced every opportunity to babble about his past, and over and over again did he recount the adventures of the roving life he had led while in the employ of M. Simpson, the showman. He had, of course, traveled a great deal; and he remembered everything ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... to him he could almost hear the rustle of the dry undergrowth, parched by the past fortnight of exceptionally hot weather; but, above all, rose the eternal babble of the rapids. High in air, a vulture wheeled its untiring spirals. At sight of it he frowned. It reminded him of the Pauillac, now wrecked far beyond the horizon, where the Horde had trapped him. He shuddered, for the memories ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the meadow at her feet were glassy pools, kept from sinking away by a substratum of frost, and among these migratory robins and high-holders were feeding. The brook beyond was running full from the melting of the snow in the mountains, and its hoarse murmur was the bass in the musical babble and tinkle of smaller rills hastening toward it on either side. Thus in all directions the scene was lighted up with the glint and sparkle of water. The rays of the sun idealized even the muddy road, of which a glimpse was caught, for the pasty clay glistened ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... pleasant afternoon musing over these papers. Their variety is endless, and the dispositions of mind displayed by these librarians are wide as the poles asunder. Some of them babble like babies, others are evidently austere scholars; some are gravely bent on the best methods of classifying catalogues, economizing space, and sorting borrowers' cards; others, scorning such mechanical details, bid us regard libraries, and consequently librarians, as the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... gazing mechanically on the ripples, and had allowed his mind to be hushed into complete vacuity by the delicate babble of the water over the pebbles, when suddenly a flash of colour seemed to grow upon his consciousness, and he saw a man and woman walking together down the very path that led to the cave where he had been dreaming. He ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... write to the Deercourt girl, I notice that you generally fill three or four sheets. Can't you let an old woman babble on paper once in a way? She ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... Hegio aside) Hegio, this fellow was looked upon as a raving maniac in Elis, so don't you let him fill your ears with his babble. Why, at home he chased his father and mother about with a spear, and every once in a while he has an attack of the disease that people spit on.[D] So get out ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart of the old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations on the smooth surface of a pool. Continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintance and events ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upon their courtly patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodeling the world with words, and making card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... faithfully lived up to from the age 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 ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... the year '92—the year of leanness—the scene a spot between Sukhum and Otchenchiri, on the river Kodor, a spot so near to the sea that amid the joyous babble of a sparkling rivulet the ocean's ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... his teeth; therefore as he grew up, he grew like a honey-comb. He dy'd worth the Lord knows what, all ready money. But to the matter; I have eaten a dog's tongue and dare speak truth: He had a foul mouth, was all babble; a very make-bate, not a man. His brother was a brave fellow, a friend to his friends, of an open hand, and kept a full table: He did not order his affairs so well at first as he might have done; but the first vintage made him ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... see. What a curious sensation! To caress the figures of my madness! Then there is no longer any sanity in me. For my fingers are aware of hair. Ah, dear child, Mallare is completely mad since at last his senses betray him. But they betray him sweetly. For though I babble to myself you have no existence, though I smile at the thought of caressing a phantom, my senses derive a mysterious pleasure from this contact with nothingness. Curious ... curious ... come closer, Rita. Now smile at me. Yes, your lips move. You are an automaton ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... Babble of comment and argument! It was a picked fight—anybody could see that. Why should Lapierre come north in the Flagg interests? Lapierre had never worked in a Flagg crew. It was begun so suddenly and was ended so soon! A minute's flash of drama against the background of the night, into which they ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... below kept up a constant babble of, "Three men to be set aboard Thames... three men to be set . ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... grown-ups for this once. She rattled along to me about the club dances at home, and how they was going to have better music this year, and how the assembly hall had been done over in a perfectly dandy colour scheme by the committee she was on, and a lot of girlish babble that took up much room but ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... been the charm of childhood on my spirit throughout my ramble with little Annie. Say not that it has been a waste of precious moments, an idle matter, a babble of childish talk and a reverie of childish imaginations about topics unworthy of a grown man's notice. Has it been merely this? Not so—not so. They are not truly wise who would affirm it. As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men, so is our moral nature revived ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The babble continued, but diminished gradually in volume. Through the trees, as I waited, I caught a glimpse of the sea. I wished I was out on the Cob, where beyond these voices there was peace. My head was beginning to ache, and I felt faint for ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... complaining of lutes. Indeed, wherever Monna Vittoria went she seemed to carry with her an atmosphere of subtle seclusion, of a cloistered lusciousness, of dim, green, guarded gardens, where the sighs of love's novices are stifled by the drip of stealthy fountains and the babble of fantastic birds. I suppose it was no more than my fancy, or a trick of my memory confusing later things with earlier, that makes me now, as I write, seem to recall what seemed like a smile on the face of the pagan ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... unconscious fashion in which the sonorous phrases of convention rolled off from her son's baby lips. And then, one day, Scott's memory failed him in his invocation. There came a familiar phrase or two, and then a babble of meaningless syllables, ending in a long-drawn and relieved Amen. An instant later, Scott lifted up ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... who were quite without their accouterments have disappeared underground. The others sit as though paralyzed. Even the pipes go out, and nothing is heard but the babble of talk exchanged by the officers ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... doubt, gentlemen, that I want to amuse you. You are mistaken in that, too. I am by no means such a mirthful person as you imagine, or as you may imagine; however, irritated by all this babble (and I feel that you are irritated) you think fit to ask me who I am—then my answer is, I am a collegiate assessor. I was in the service that I might have something to eat (and solely for that reason), and ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... wide bottom-lands wave and sing in such seemly grace, so decked with yellow flowers, with odd sweet william and the small wild rose. And nowhere now on earth, I know, is there any stream to murmur so sweetly and so comfortably, to say such words to any dreaming boy, to babble of a work well done, of conscience clear and of a success and happiness to come. All that was in the river. If I listen very hard, and imagine very high and very deep, I can almost pretend to hear them now, those ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... at four o'clock in the morning and continued drinking. He would get free. Gradually the tension in him began to relax. He began to feel happy. His riveted silence was unfastened, he began to talk and babble. He was happy and at one with all the world, he was united with all flesh in a hot blood-relationship. So, after three days of incessant brandy-drinking, he had burned out the youth from his blood, he had achieved this kindled state of oneness with all the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... have sung Much song of matters vain, And a heaven-sweetened tongue Turned to unprofiting strain Of vacant things, which though Even so they be, and throughly so, It is no boot at all for thee to know, But babble ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... joined the group. He stood near Ferguson, mingling his voice with the others. For a little time the talk flowed easily and much laughter rose. Then suddenly above the good natured babble came a harsh word. Instantly the other voices ceased, and the men of the group centered their glances upon the range boss, for the harsh word had come from him. He had been talking to a man named Tucson and it was to the latter that he had ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William the Silent only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most undiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day: on the morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have those mute workmen within thee swept away, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... trivial flattery, his foully pimpled face within a foot of hers, and she shrinking before him, very white and mute and frightened. Her father looked on with darkling brows, and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip and look less lazy, whilst in the courtly background there was a respectful murmuring babble, supplying a sycophantic chorus to the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... with the heart of a troubled man, still it may bear on for us to better times the tokens of our reverence for the Life of Man upon the Earth. For we indeed freed from the bondage of foolish habit and dulling luxury might at last have eyes wherewith to see: and should have to babble to one another many things of our joy in the life around us: the faces of people in the streets bearing the tokens of mirth and sorrow and hope, and all the tale of their lives: the scraps of nature the busiest of us would come across; birds and beasts and the little ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... "Babble on with this Norseman. I am tired," replied Jomar, and leaving the fire, he rolled himself in a bear-skin, lay down on the floor, and in ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... murmur of voices and a great tramping of feet. A caravan had come in. A violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out on the other side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking together, and in the midst of the uproar the lamentable voice of the chief agent was heard 'giving it up' tearfully for the twentieth time that day.... He rose slowly. 'What a frightful row,' he said. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... he is one who would seem to have suffered some great wrong, the continued thought of which has unhinged his mind; his heart seems broken—dead. I have, sitting beside his delirious couch, heard him babble a terrible indictment against some man; I have also heard him pray, and his prayers have been all ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... babble of excited voices gave her an excuse to gasp, and stammer out a conventional ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... now what this plant of grace intimated precisely to his colleagues, but the general impression was at the time that the captain's message had not been conveyed verbatim. Soon the babble of tongues charged the air and gave an impression of Bedlam. The captain had resolved upon a course of action which was strenuous. He had given certain orders to the chief engineer, and was standing on the lower bridge ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Evans, P.O., was imparting confidences in heavy whispers. Pat' Keohane had grown intensely Irish and desirous of political argument, whilst Clissold sat with a constant expansive smile and punctuated the babble of conversation with an occasional 'Whoop' of delight or disjointed witticism. Other bright-eyed individuals merely reached the capacity to enjoy that which under ordinary circumstances might have passed without ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... youth ran tingling and throbbing in every vein; Chirrup of robin and blue-bird in the white-blossomed apple and pear; Carpets of green on the meadows spangled with dandelions; Lowing of kine in the valleys, bleating of lambs on the hills; Babble of brooks and the prattle of fountains that flashed in the sun; Glad, merry voices, ripples of laughter, snatches of music and song, And blue-eyed girls in the gardens that blushed like the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... respects as well, these addresses adjure you, thinkers, scholars, and authors who are still worthy of this name! Your laments over the general shallowness, thoughtlessness, and superficiality, over self-conceit and inexhaustible babble, over the contempt for seriousness and profundity in all classes, may be true, even as they actually are. Yet what class is it, pray, that has educated all these classes, that has transformed everything pertaining to science into a jest for them, and that ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... sounded the hunter's horn, and the deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds opened loud and wild, far in the ringing woods, and it was like the music of a hundred chiming bells. There was a tremor of the bow, and I heard a flute play, and a harp, and a golden-mouthed cornet; I heard the mirthful babble of happy voices, and peals of laughter ringing in the swelling tide of pleasure. Then I saw a vision of snowy arms, voluptuous forms, and light fantastic slippered feet, all whirling and floating in the mazes of the misty dance. The flying fingers now tripped ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... brothers. At the Montespan chateau, I admit, he would have learned to ride an unbroken horse, as well as to shoot hares, partridges, and big game; he would also have learned to talk loud, to use bad language, to babble about his pedigree, while ignorant of its history or its crest; in fine, he would have learned to despise his mother, and probably to hate her. Educated under my eyes, almost on the King's lap, he soon ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... message to the Archon proposing that the people of the country should send to him and his one-half of their yearly wealth for ever, "or," so the message proceeded, "take the consequences." Upon the Archon communicating this to the people there arose at once an infinity of babble, some saying one thing and some another, some proposing to pay neighbouring savages to come in and fight the invaders, others saying it would be cheaper to compromise with a large sum, but the most part agreeing that the wisest thing would ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... have much to consider, much to discuss in these uncertain days," she said, confidently. "And we cannot babble matters of import to ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... across the Flat at the head of an army. Metal weapons hung at the sides of his men, crudely fashioned bludgeons and jagged-edged swords, all quickly forged in the workshops of the Region of Mines. The babble of mind voices swelled around him, fear and anger and boredom, dull resentment, and other emotions Rynason could not identify. They were marching on the City of ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... maidens, in ornaments and good vestments, in sacrifices, in clouds charged with rain, in full-blown lotuses, and in those stars that bespangle the autumnal firmament. I reside in elephants, in the cow pen, in good seats, and in lakes adorned with full-blown lotuses. I live also in such rivers as babble sweetly in their course, melodious with the music of cranes, having banks adorned with rows of diverse trees, and restored to by Brahmanas and ascetics and others crowned with success. I always reside in those rivers also that have deep and large volumes of rolling waters rendered ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... affairs, with an unpleasant charge hanging over him, he had judged it the part of prudence to be off instantly, had written a fervid letter to his father at Inverauld, and put himself in the coach for Crossmichael. Any port in a storm! He was manfully turning his back on the Parliament House and its gay babble, on porter and oysters, the racecourse and the ring; and manfully prepared, until these clouds should have blown by, to share a living grave with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... In the babble of voices Simon suddenly heard a man cry out sharply. The pain in the man's voice cut into Simon's heart like a knife. Simon scanned the crowd, but in the darkness could not see him. No one moved to let ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... weakness; or the smoke Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness, Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, 40 Horribly massacred, ascend to Heaven In honour of His name; or, last and worst, Earth groans beneath religion's iron age, And priests dare babble of a God of peace, Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, 45 Murdering the while, uprooting every germ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, Making ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... lay in the back room, for they moved very softly around the head of the stairs, but once in front they let their tongues run loose again. I, who cared nothing for their babble when it contained no information, walked slowly about the room and ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... great physicist, unable to share amusement, wrote: "It is sad to see a municipality giving credence to the babble of the vulgar in a protocol, and to see authentic testimonies to an occurrence ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... knave than fool, and the trapper who was wily enough to ensnare him had achieved something notable. Augustus, when he realized that his fate was sealed, and his night's lodging settled, wisely made the best of things, and listened, with a languorous air of complete comprehension, to the incoherent babble concerning pigs and heroes, moles and bonfires, which served Harold for a self-sung lullaby. Yet it may be doubted whether Augustus was one of those rare ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... when John Willows' voice rose loudly above the babble of the little crowd, giving orders; and, as the boys rushed up with their friend, an iron bar was heard to rattle, two doors were flung back, and the grinding and crushing sound of wheels over gravel followed, as the little engine was run out ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... there was a sound as if his companion had given his mouth a pat, for from pretty close at hand there was the low babble ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... muttered the hermit; "but what do I care for the world's babble? Yes, she was of the highest and grandest type. Then," he continued, "then I thought the world could never contain another equal to her. So I forsook it and repaired to this mountain fastness to spend the ...
— Options • O. Henry
... Studies,—which, I still doubt rather, ought to have gone in AUTO DA FE along with the others. AUTO DA FE I called it; Act of FAITH, not Spanish-Inquisitional, but essentially Celestial many times, if you reflect well on the poisonous consequences, on the sinfulness and deadly criminality, of Human Babble,—as nobody does nowadays! I label the different Pieces, and try to make legible;—hasty readers have the privilege of skipping, if they like. The first Two are of preliminary or prefatory nature,—perhaps still more skippable than those that will ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was beginning to ramble and babble incoherently, her memories of her own and the experiences of others all confused in her mind. When she had about finished a story about how one of the slave women, "bust de skull" of the head of her marster,'" 'cause ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... looked up. They had emerged suddenly from the uncertain twilight of a stone-flanked corridor into a harsh blue-white flood of electricity. A confused babble of noises fell upon his ears. He put out his hand instinctively and clutched the arm of the man at ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... a melon they had seen there, and said they would bet he never had enough money to buy that one. Maybe he could buy a medium-sized one, but not that. All of them kept a repellent manner for any passing boy who might be selfishly moved to join them. The spendthrift let them babble, preserving a rather grim silence. The whale of a melon was indeed a noble growth, and its price was thirty-five cents. The announcement of this caused a solemn hush to fall upon the sycophants; a hush broken by the cool, masterful tones ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... among the men of Yugna, looking on. It rose to a protesting babble, to a shout of denial. The bearded old ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... deeply engrossed; the spectators had fallen silent, with bright eyes fixed upon the mounting stakes. When the tension broke Norvin saw that Caesar had lost again, and smiled at the excited conversation which ensued. There was a babble of laughter, of curses, of expostulation, shafts of badinage flew at the Sicilian merchant. In the midst of it he raised a huge, hairy fist and brought it down, smiting the table until the coins, the cards, and the glasses leaped. His face was distorted; ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... a low, gurgling sound, and made up his mind to babble a few words about the caverns; but his throat was dry, and his tongue refused ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... graciously upon me, and then recommenced the gesticulation and babble of the two. At length she appeared satisfied with the understanding at which they arrived. I was growing uneasy at their prolonged volubility, when Monsieur Pilot pirouetted up ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... winter wren is something that must be heard to be appreciated; words can no more describe it than they can paint the sky at evening, or translate the babble of the mountain brook. ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... preserves the custom of Normandy, and of Rollo the Dane, in Jersey, so that the sound of it "makes the workman drop his tools, the woman her knitting, the militiaman his musket, the fisherman his net, the schoolmaster his birch, and the ecrivain his babble, to await the judgment ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... stopped and looked around him. Suddenly above the musical babble of the brook and the rustle of the leaves by the breeze came a repetition of the sound. He crouched close by the trunk of a tree and strained his ears. All was quiet for some moments. Then he heard the patter, ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... the indulgences themselves, if understood in the right sense, that he wishes to be attacked, but the loose babble of those who sold them. Blessed, he says, be he who protests against this, but cursed be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic indulgences. He finds it difficult, however, to praise these to the people, and at the same time to teach them the true repentance of the heart. ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... from below. A roar of laughter and the babble of male voices was mixed with the rumble of wheels and the pistol-like crack ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... "Babble, your honour! Every word of it is worth a pint of guineas; and this is the pith of it. Far down West Indies way, some twenty-five, maybe, or thirty years ago, there was a plate ship wrecked upon a reef. I got it from a Spaniard, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said nothing. Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou comest into the world—whither I purpose sending thee forthwith—thou shalt not lack the wherewithal to talk. Talk. Why, thou shalt babble like a mill-stream, if thou wilt. Thou hast brains ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... overhead, And flowers adorn each mossy bed; The waters babble as they run— One thing is lacking, only one: If Mary were but here to-day, I would believe your charming ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... of the darkened deck was broken with a confusion of sounds. A babble of voices; a woman passenger's scream; shuffling of feet; and above it all, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... around me a babble of exclamations and conjectures. Murmurs of interest rose even from our captive band. Then came Slinker's voice, loud ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... all her moods find a ready response in his sensitive soul. The joy of the sunshine, the melancholy of the sky shut down by huge cloud, the grandeur of the thunder, the quiver of the lightning, the glow of the dawn, the babble of the brook, and even the waving of the grass-blade,—all these he reproduces with the fidelity of one who reveres Nature. Turgenef has thus at least one element of the highest religiousness,—reverence towards the powers of Nature superior ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... the evening of Bertin's little—er—fracas, Vaucher had passed by the impasse in which Bertin lived. He had heard the scream of the man with the knife in him and paused. It was a dark night, and in the impasse there was but one lamp which stood near Bertin's door. There was a babble of many voices after that scream—shouts of fury, the whining of the would-be assassin, and so on; he was about to pass on, when Bertin's door opened and a woman slipped out and stood listening on the pavement. Her attitude was that of one ready to flee, terrified but uncertain. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the front room came a babble of talk, two voices flowing together in a stream, pauseless, inseparable; so fast the stream flowed, there seemed no time for breathing. But now, as the conspirators listened, dish-cloth in hand and joy in their hearts, the voices ceased for a moment, and then, with one consent, ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... matter to you whether she has a soul or not," says the voice, "provided she can babble pleasantly at dinner and play ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... and tell me now at once, for I who am old grow weary and would sleep. Then if it can be given I will give it; and if I cannot give it, I will get me back to my own house and show my face no more at Ulundi, who do not desire to listen again to fools who babble like contending waters round a stone and yet never stir the stone because they run two ways ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... exaggerating the extravagance and luxury in which she lived, descending to such childish tittle-tattle as that she lit her fires with bank-notes, that the number of her guests was so great and so distinguished that, for lack of seats, the marshals of France had to sit upon the floor; gossip and babble that were to cost her dearer than she thought, though she laughed it all away with a shrug of her pretty shoulders at the time. It was concerning one of her six-o'clock suppers that a slander was started which was to be a serious menace to her ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar and held her in my arms... Silent after the first babble was over. And after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed... It was tremendously still there, the sun high and the shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still—in ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... one evening, I noted the babble of bobolinks, too far off to hear well, and the next day I set out down another path which passed through the meadow, to cultivate the acquaintance of the birds. It was a warm summer morning, near the middle of June, and when I reached the spot not a bobolink was in sight; but I sought a convenient ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... mother's lame knee, and too much else to relate here. Senorita Diane was exceedingly loquacious: her little tongue wove in and out of the new idiom with surprising facility, forever wagging in a low, sweet babble of nothings. Adelle, as has been sufficiently indicated, absorbed passively the small and the large facts of life. Diane was like a twittering bird on a tiny twig that shook with the vehemence of her expression. She reacted instinctively to every ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... shared Audrey's doubts as to whether poetry was a true and honest thing. It was not till Gordon won the Cup Steeplechase for Major Baker in 1868 that he became really popular, and probably there were many who felt that to steer Babbler to the winning- post was a finer achievement than 'to babble o'er ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... worshiped under various names. As Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had the honor to be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous account of the Deluge; as Babel he had a tower partly erected to his glory on the Plain of Shinar. From Babel comes our English word "babble." Under whatever name worshiped, Baal is the Sun-god. As Beelzebub he is the god of flies, which are begotten of the sun's rays on the stagnant water. In Physicia Baal is still worshiped as Bolus, and as Belly he is ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am ashamed to say that selfishness took me by the soul, and that my heart turned as heavy as lead within me. I stammered out some few halting words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head drooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring information as to the composition and action of innumerable quack nostrums, ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... awakened by the sound of low voices outside my tent. Jetta's voice, and De Boer's, and, mingled with them, the babble of the still hilarious bandits in the center of the cave. But there were only a few left now; most of them had fallen into heavy slumber. I had been asleep for several hours. I figured. The daylight shadows outside the cave ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... a hideous orgy of massacre and outrage. A rumour of these horrors reached England, and public indignation spontaneously awoke. Disraeli, with a strange frankness of cynical brutality, sneered at the rumour as "Coffee-house babble," and made odious jokes about the Oriental way of executing malefactors. But Christian England was not to be pacified with these Asiatic pleasantries, and in the autumn of 1876 the country rose in passionate indignation against what were known as "the Bulgarian ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... not always faithful to regimen; that, in his old days at least, he loved strong soups, hot spicy meats;—finding, I suppose, a kind of stimulant in them, as others do in wine; a sudden renewal of strength, which might be very tempting to him. There has been a great deal of unwise babble on this subject, which I find no reason to believe, except as just said: In the fall of this year, as usual, perhaps rather later than usual,—not till November 8th (for what reason so delaying, Marwitz told us already),—he withdrew from Sans-Souci, his Summer-Cottage; shut himself up ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of a plan," exclaimed Nevill. "I don't think De Mora can have got home yet from the palace. I saw him having supper. Suppose I dart back, flutter gracefully round him, babble 'tile talk' a bit—he's a tile expert after my own heart—then casually ask what Arabs he's got staying with him. If Maieddine's in his house it can't be a secret—incidentally I may find out where the fellow comes from ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and certainly, to Prussian men, not without weight of meaning. Nor perhaps to Picture-Collectors and Cognoscenti generally, of whatever country,—if they could forget, for a moment, the correggiosity of Correggio, and the learned babble of the Sale-room and varnishing Auctioneer; and think, "Why it is, probably, that Pictures exist in this world, and to what end the divine art of Painting was bestowed, by the earnest gods, upon poor mankind?" I could advise it, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... babble of black spume . . . Faith, an eyeball in the sand . . . Mother, a nail through a broken hand— A kissing fume— And out of her breast the bloody bubbling milk-red breath ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... "I'll gossip about them some time when not so tired. I'll indicate them by numerals. Why should I babble their names in connection with what they called so sacred? I wonder how many like sacred affairs had occurred before. If I tell you the story of the wooing of Number One, Two, Three, and so on, that will answer just as well, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... only one voice uttering those weird, triumphant sounds. Then other vocal organs took up that trilling wail, and those short, sharp chuckles of eagerness. Other questioning, wondering notes mixed with the cadence. Lacking qualities identifiable as human, the disturbance was still like the babble of a group of workmen who ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... that night, Jerome went up to his room, and sat down at his window. His curtain was pulled high. He looked out into the darkness and tried to think, but directly a door slammed, and a shrill babble of feminine tongues began in the room below. Belinda ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... might apply that description to Browne's poetry; he might urge that the breezes which blew down these leafy alleys and over those trim parterres were not more grateful than the fragrance exhaled from the 'Pastorals'; that the brooks and birds babble and twitter in the printed page not less blithely than in that western Paradise. What so pleasant as to read of May-games, true-love knots, and shepherds piping in the shade? of pixies and fairy-circles? of rustic ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... son, take my advice. Avoid The places where thou seest much drapery, Colours, and gold, and plumes, and heraldries, And such new-fanglements. But, above all, Take care how evil chance or youthful wandering Bring thee upon the house of Idle Babble." "What place is that?" said I; and he resumed;— "Enchantresses dwell there, who make one see Things as they are not, ay and hear them too. That which shall seem pure diamond and fine gold Is glass and brass; and coffers that look silver, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... fellow has become accustomed to his new food (whether he likes it or not) or begins to babble a word or two, he is given a name that usually recalls the place where he was born, some particular event of the moment or the way he may have of making use of a word often, ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... upside down, and thrown the neighbourhood into confusion; and do you come to me then with airs of assumed modesty—do you sit down like a sage and criticise my explanation of the readings, and whatever idle babble you say has come into my head? Have you come full of envy, and dejected because nothing is sent you from home; and while the discussion is going on, do you sit brooding on nothing but how your father or your brother are disposed towards you:—"What are they saying about me there? at this moment ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... voluptuous coloring; it had not become so banal as any of the French Louis'. And so Arabella had been instructed to drum into her head the names of the geniuses of that time, and their works, and she could now babble sweetly all about Giorgione, Paolo Veronese and Titian's later works without making a single mistake. And while the pictures bored her unspeakably, she took a deep pleasure in her own cleverness about them, and delighted in tracing the influence Paolo Veronese must have ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn |
