"Mumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you speak like this?" exclaimed the youth, almost frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his cheeks, his neck, his head and ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... man, as I am, to have one, He'll let it so dear that he shall be undone. And he seeks to get parsons' livings into his hand, And puts in some odd dunce that to his payment will stand: So, if the parsonage be worth forty or fifty pound a year, He will give one twenty nobles to mumble service ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... he flew out at the boatmen and the summer visitors who listen to their tales. Without moving a muscle of his face he emitted a powerful "Rot," from somewhere out of the depths of his chest, and went on in his hoarse, fragmentary mumble. "Stare at the silly rocks—nod their silly heads [the visitors, I presume]. What do they think a man is—blown-out paper bag or what?—go off pop like that when he's hit—Damn silly yarn—Hint indeed! . . ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... creature, indeed!' Mrs. Moncrieff was heard to mumble. 'Where,' she said to a nattily dressed waiter, 'will you put ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... arm with such force that the pail fell to the ground and the berries were spilled, "you ain't gwine for ter sell me to nobody? Say you ain't, an' fo' de Lawd I'll never touch nothin', nor lie, nor sass ole Miss, nor make faces and mumble like she does. I'll be a fust cut nigger, an' say my prars ebery night. I'se done got a new one down ter ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... boy us played marbles, mumble peg, an' all sich games. The little white an' black boys played together, an' ev'ry time 'Ole Miss' whipped her boys she whipped me too, but nobody 'cept my Mistess ever teched me ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... the constituent units, which begins, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends, "All those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall be heard." However, you would have thought it was of no import here. Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink to a mumble. A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition to these there were present a court clerk—small, pale, candle-waxy, with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored hair and beard, who looked for all the world like an Americanized ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... wrinkled face. Her mild eyes gliding very slow Across the letters to and fro, While wagged the guttering candle flame In the wind that through the window came. And sometimes in the silence she Would mumble a sentence audibly, Or shake her head as if to say, 'You silly souls, to act this way!' And never a sound from night I'd hear, Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; Or her old shuffling thumb should turn Another page; and rapt and stern, Through her ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... a peasant woman called out to me in the street. I went into her house. Her stove smoked and she asked me to give her a charm to cure it. First of all I made her give me a good bit of bacon, and then I began to mumble a few words in Romany. 'You're a fool,' I said, 'you were born a fool, and you'll die a fool!' When I had got near the door I said to her, in good German, 'The most certain way of keeping your stove from smoking is not to light any fire in it!' ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... sir, a number are here prisoners: My cousin Morton, whom I came to visit. But he (good man) is at his morrow mass; But I, that neither care to say nor sing, Come to seek that preaching hate and prayer, And while they mumble up their orisons, We'll play a game at ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... moralities, Sir Preacher, from your desk you mumble? Why rail against the great and wise, And tire ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man, who appeared very harmless, had by the side of the brook piled a great number of stones; he would wade into the river for them, followed by a cur dog, whom he would frequently call his Jacky, and even his Nancy; and then mumble to himself, 'Thou wilt not leave me. We will dwell with the owl in the ivy.' A number of owls had taken shelter in it. The stones he waded for he carried to the mouth of the hole, and only left just ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... clawed the keys with a dreadful mechanical motion. There were stacks of music-sheets on counters, and shelves, and dangling from overhead wires. The girl at the piano never ceased playing. She played mostly by request. A prospective purchaser would mumble something in the ear of one of the clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, "'Hicky Bloo!' Miss Ryan." And Miss Ryan would oblige. She made a hideous rattle and crash and clatter of sound compared to which an Indian tom-tom would have seemed as dulcet ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... noisy stairs rapidly; the door creaked. Then voices began again outside the house, an indistinct mumble, rising to one sharp height in ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... the surface be everlastingly damned!" said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown watched his receding ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... father, but he couldn't recognize you, because you were standing with your back to the door.' This was so, to be sure, but nevertheless the feeling of doing something on the sly, something wrong, affected me painfully. I managed to mumble a few words of parting, and went out. I should even have left the song behind had not the old man run into the street after me and pressed it into ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... minutes the mine was silent as a grave. Only the faint drip, drip, drip of water from the warm spring and the almost inaudible tremble-mumble of the throbbing earth disturbed ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... every opportunity I went through my selection with most impassioned voice and lofty gestures, sustained by the legends of Webster and Demosthenes, resolved upon a blazing victory. I did everything but mumble a smooth pebble—realizing that most of the boys in my section were going through precisely the same struggle. Each of us knew exactly how the others felt, and yet I cannot say that we displayed acute sympathy one with another; on the contrary, those in the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... peish namaz (a leader of the prayers) at their religious meetings in the mosque. I found that the profound taciturnity which I had adopted was the best help towards the establishment of a high reputation for wisdom; and that, by the help of my beads, which I kept constantly counting, a mumble of my lips, and occasional groans and pious exclamations, the road to the highest consideration was ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... over her body, sat by me and fanned me. The "Buli" was an aristocratic-looking old fellow with a large nose and a very haughty look. He is a very important chief, but knew no English, and we carried on our conversation through the medium of Masirewa. He spoke in a kind of mumble, with a very thick voice. Once when he had been mumbling worse than usual there was a kind of restrained titter from someone in the crowd at the back. The "Buli" heard it, and slowly turning his head he transfixed the crowd ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... to mumble an explanation, burst into tears and fled in alarm, never again to emerge from the back regions. My father commanded me to the bell again, but as I rose Thompson entered. He was even then a stately and dignified person, and it was with a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... does the immortal warning emblazoned on the fair brow of that beautiful college; only, in the Kursaal the warning struck the ear, not the eye. They provided French clocks with a singularly clear metallic striking tick; their blows upon the life of Time rang sharp above the chant, the mumble, and the jingle. These clocks seemed to cry aloud, and say of the hours, whose waste they recorded, "Pereunt - et - impu-tantur, pere - unt ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Will you haue me, or your Pearle againe? Ber. Neither of either, I remit both twaine. I see the tricke on't: Heere was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas Comedie. Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight Zanie, Some mumble-newes, some trencher-knight, som Dick That smiles his cheeke in yeares, and knowes the trick To make my Lady laugh, when she's dispos'd; Told our intents before: which once disclos'd, The Ladies did change Fauours; and then we Following the signes, woo'd but ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... voice and manner as mechanical as that of the judge, would mumble his oft repeated story, giving the exact minute of his observations, the actions of the woman in accosting different pedestrians and in her final ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... course I am. Any woman will break her neck to see two people, for whom she does not care a hair-pin, stand up, one in white and the other in black, and mumble a few words that she knows by heart, and then take position at the end of a room and have "society" paraded up to them by solemn little corporals with white favors, and then file off to the rear for rations of Perigord pie ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... to speak, but could not. Her words were turned into a mumble. A cloth was over her mouth and face, fastened tightly, strong arms lifted her and carried her forwards. She could not see, she could not struggle. The noise of the fighting grew rapidly less. She was being swiftly carried away from it, now along a passage, now down two or three flights of stairs. ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... coughed, and completed what he had to say in a sort of mumble, but his meaning was wholly clear. He would not accept the offer of Pauline in marriage, even though she was the sister ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I hear him telling infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve warships under ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... good, quiet fun for a rainy day is Jack-stones. Although not played much nowadays it is very interesting and is to indoors what "mumble-the-peg" is to outdoors. It is played usually with small pieces of iron with six little feet: but it can also be played with small pebbles all of a size. All kinds of exercises can be used, many of which you can invent yourself but a few of the commonest are given below. 1. The five ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... receiving line and Arethusa was so utterly bewildered long before she had ever reached the end of it, by this way she was shoved, so to speak, from person to person, without ever really finding out who half of them were, for it would seem as if there had been a conspiracy to mumble the names spoken to Arethusa, that she could almost have fled the Party. "The Advice to Young Ladies" had said nothing of such a proceeding as being part of the Routine of Parties, nor had Elinor made any mention of it. Arethusa was totally unprepared. And it was, as an experience, well calculated ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... enforcing obedience, lest it should trench on the liberties of free white men. The service was to the last degree unpopular. "If we talk of obliging men to serve their country," wrote London Carter, "we are sure to hear a fellow mumble over the words 'liberty' and 'property' a thousand times."[335] The people, too, were in mortal fear of a slave insurrection, and therefore dared not go far from home.[336] Meanwhile a panic reigned along the border. Captain Waggoner, passing a gap in the Blue Ridge, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... too full for utterance; he could scarcely mumble good-night to the coach. He ran up-stairs three steps to the jump, and when he reached his room he did a war dance and ended by standing on his head. When he had gotten rid of his exuberance he sat down at once to write to his brother Hal about ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... mixed! violence of 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 Psalms of human sorrow ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... mumble and I stooped low but he relaxed suddenly and seemed to shrink. I felt his heart but it was still. I tried his eyes and they were sightless. Patsy sent up a heartrending wail and crawled over behind his master's gun and knapsack, so I knew my ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... priest, who mumble worship in your quire— Old monk and nun, ye scorn the world's desire, Yet in your frosty cells ye feel the fire! The fire of Heaven is not the ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... very quickly. At last Zourine glanced at the clock, put down his cue, and told me I had lost a hundred roubles.[13] This disconcerted me very much; my money was in the hands of Saveliitch. I was beginning to mumble excuses, ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... know why my boy's associations with Delorac's Island were especially wild in their character, for nothing more like outlawry than the game of mumble-the-peg ever occurred there. Perhaps it was because the boys had to get to it by water that it seemed beyond the bounds of civilization. They might have reached it by the bridge, but the temper of the boys on the western shore was uncertain; they would have had to ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... which is the cardinal element in human life. After all, in spite of the pretentious impostors who trade upon the claim, literature, contemporary literature, is the breath of civilized life, and those who sincerely think and write the salt of the social body. To mumble over the past, to live on the classics, however splendid, is senility. The New Republic, therefore, will sustain its authors. In the past the author lived within the limits of his patron's susceptibility, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... thanksgiving for victory, a very large part of the clergy will find themselves so closely allied with militarism when the war is over, so confused in their appreciation of what it has done for us, that they will continue to mumble only general principles and halting counsels. In any case, in the cities and large towns of this kingdom, where are found the effective controllers of our destiny, the majority do not any longer sit at the feet of the clergy. Precise statistical ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... was on Easter Day in the morning—and do you sit down at the wheel and spin. See, you put your foot on the treadle so, to turn the wheel, and you twist the flax with your fingers so. Don't you get up, but just turn the wheel and grumble and mumble to yourself." ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Scouts...." He tried to identify himself to this strange Confederate, but the words that got out were a thick mumble. Then, somehow he was on the ground and the man was holding a canteen to his mouth, dribbling blessed liquid over that choking ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... Gargantua. True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells they trouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them. Right, said the monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said. They mumble out great store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they say many paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or apprehending the meaning of what it is they say, which truly I call mocking of God, and not prayers. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... 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 ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... of the steel bar upon the shutter increased in volume. Martin heard a mumble of voices, and a stamping of feet on the pavement. Then a door closed and the sounds ceased. Martin knew that several men had entered the saloon. The danger seemed ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... mumble so. I hear my man, Adolph. I trained him.... You ought to have an ear-trumpet. You're getting very ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... away. And then, Doctor, I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind." She watched them retreat to the bunk-house together, Swan's big form towering above the doctor's slighter figure. Swan was talking earnestly, the mumble of his voice reaching Lorraine without the enunciation of any particular word to give a clue to what he was saying. But it struck her that his voice did not sound quite natural; not so ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... Juliet" with all my heart. Oh, light, life, truth, and lovely poetry! I sat on the cold stage, that I might hear them even mumble over their parts as they do. My father seemed to me very weak, and not by any means fit for his work to-night. After dinner went over my part again, and went to the theater at half past five. My new dress was very handsome, though rather burly, in spite of which Dall said ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Mumble, mumble,—"the Lady Jane sank back on her couch"—resumed Eyebright, speaking rather thickly by reason of the bread and butter. "She was very pale, and one tear ran ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... majority remained mute. Another day, with a tremendous incursion of Teutons, who always seem to travel in hordes, only German gutturals held the table, and we who had no facility with them muttered meek French or sullen English to our neighbors. The next day French would be the rule, and Teuton must mumble in it and Anglo-Saxon stammer or hold its peace. Curiously enough, although we were in Italy, Italian was rarely, almost never, spoken among us, our only use of it being in orders to the servants. Our landlady was English, with an Italian husband, but they both held only upper ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... for Lucy to talk to!" Lucia was diseased-looking and unkempt-looking and she ironed very badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed her with a flow of English. When Lucia would but shake her head they used the same flow, only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia would mumble to herself for several minutes over her ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... appeared to be talking earnestly, only a mumble of voices reached Dick's ears when the men were no more than thirty feet away. Then they stepped into the road, where they halted hardly more than a dozen feet ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... his understanding and went away, but an hour passed and he did not return. Then another hour followed, and Anthony, who had now begun to feel the effect of his drubbing more keenly, renewed his clamor, with the result that a half-dozen policemen appeared, causing Allan to retreat to a corner and mumble prayers. From their demeanor it looked as though they were really bent upon mischief, but Kirk soon saw that an official had come in answer to his call. He felt less reassured when he perceived that the person in uniform who now stepped forward ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the committee on naval affairs." droned the clerk, mechanically. "House Bill No. 1,109 is amended to read as follows—" And his voice sank to an unintelligible mumble, for every Senator present he well knew was aware that the amendment named Altacoola as ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... hair? 50 Why, if you were a lady, it were fair The world should know—but, as I am afraid, The Quarterly would bait you if betrayed; And if, as it will be sport to see them stumble Over all sorts of scandals. hear them mumble 55 Their litany of curses—some guess right, And others swear you're a Hermaphrodite; Like that sweet marble monster of both sexes, Which looks so sweet and gentle that it vexes The very soul that the soul is gone 60 Which lifted from her limbs ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... answer the bell in person. There was a low mumble of voices. Then the landlady appeared in the parlor doorway, the footman ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... eyelash. I pondered that it was just my luck that the first gentleman I had addressed was deaf and dumb. As I crossed the threshold, I caught an indignant mumble: "Talkative chap, that; he ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... because if he doesn't, the next morning half the twelve-year-old kids in the country will be rushing wild-eyed into school to slip the teacher the real inside about the discovery of America. By the time he gets that done, he'll be able to mumble a couple of generalities about vast and incalculable effects, and then it'll be time to tell the public about Widgets, the really safe cigarettes, all filter and absolutely free ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper
... when the gate clicked. Edwards had been effective that time. Oliphant was trying to say something, but the hot August day had been too much for him—it all ended in a mumble. Then she pulled in the blinds, settled the pillows nervously, and left ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... neighborhood and the house itself were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several times to signify ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... purple face. The blotched skin gradually lightened to its natural red. The pale eyes lost their fishy glaze. They stared dazedly up into the deeply concerned face of Carmena. She flung the last cupful of water from the bowl. Slade roused enough to mumble virulent curses. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... is not of age; and we keep the secret even from her father. In this village you will mumble over the bans without one of your congregation ever taking heed of the name. I shall stay here a month for the purpose. She is in London, on a visit to a relation in the city. The bans on her side will be published with equal privacy ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... upon his mission, Adrian had been treated with the consideration which he felt to be his due. Even his stepfather had taken the opportunity to mumble some words of regret for what had happened, and to express a hope that nothing more would be said about the matter, while his mother was sympathetic and Elsa most charming and attentive. Now, as he knew well, all this would be changed. Foy, the exuberant, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... 68 to mumble painful guilty the dormitory the tie the chin he got off with a good fright without appearing to do so, he was looking ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... looking after them and busying himself upon some small job that needed attention. The stillness of the peaceful afternoon seemed to have fallen upon the vessel; the men conversed together intermittently in subdued tones, that barely reached aft in the form of a low mumble; and the only sounds heard were the occasional soft rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, with an accompanying patter of reef-points, the jar of the rudder upon its pintles, the jerk of the wheel chains, and the soft, scarcely audible seething of the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... She put her hand to her mouth to suppress an exclamation. Pinto was talking, but his voice was a mumble. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... calls you?" she said. "'Tis but a mumble, his little tongue is not nimble enough for clearness, but he says it his pretty best. 'Tis Mother ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... waiting—waiting some word from the bulky shadow which stood with folded arms close against a square of gray, while over their heads a wretched old man paced back and forth, wringing his hands, pausing at every turn to peer out into the night and to mumble the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... not a moment to be lost. At any minute they may enter our room and find it empty! You are ready? Then, not too softly, or it may rouse suspicion! And mumble something ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... but the unwonted light in his eyes died out instantly. As a Jacobus on his native heath, what a mere skipper chose to say could not touch him, outcast as he was. As a ship-chandler he could stand anything. All I caught of his mumble was a vague—"quite correct," than which nothing could have been more egregiously false at bottom—to my view, at least. But I remembered—I had never forgotten—that I must see the girl. I did not mean to go. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... to my cat—for I had got into the habit of talking to him quite as much as he talked to me—while we sat at supper together on the last evening that we were to pass on board of the Ville de Saint Remy; and while he did not make much of a reply to me he did mumble some sort of a purring answer that I took to mean he was willing, if I were, ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... they jerk!" said the friendly Susan, and the young man agreed fervently, in a bashful mumble, "It's fierce, all right," and returned to his book. Susan, when she got down at her corner, gave him a little nod and smile, and he lifted his hat, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... See where the sun sets Ere he sets, ere old age Seizeth me in the morass, Ere my toothless jaws mumble, And my useless limbs totter; While drunk with his farewell beam Hurl me,—a fiery sea Foaming still in mine eye,— Hurl me, while dazzled and reeling, Down to the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... him he could hear Earle poking the fire. He could hear the low mumble of his voice, the soft treble of Marian's. They avoided him now as if he were a plague. He did not try to make it out. His master was providence. He could not question the decrees of providence, but he would circumvent them if he could. Once he had broken a collar. He began to plunge, ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... loss of a tooth to that of a mistress there's no pang that is not bearable. The apprehension is much more cruel than the certainty; and we make up our mind to the misfortune when 'tis irremediable, part with the tormentor, and mumble our crust on t'other side of the jaws. I think Colonel Esmond was relieved when a ducal coach-and-six came and whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a moment he waited. Was it for surrender? Once he started to speak, but was cut short by the other. For all of his weakness there was spirit to the young man. He even laughed. The Rhamda drew out a watch. He held up two fingers. I heard Hobart mumble. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... jailer," grunted Wampus, without moving. "Him want to steal; Mumble he make bark noise; for me, I steal ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... for her admonition, and observed, 'But she was good,' only, however, in a mumble, that the other two thought it inexpedient to notice, though it made both hearts ache for her, even Alice's—with an additional pang of self-reproach that she herself was not good enough to help ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... under any title whatsoever, until the publication of that of the French Academy, or until twenty years have expired since the proclamation of the present decree." This cut the ground from under the feet of all rivals, and the Academy could meet twice a week as before and mumble its definitions with serene assurance. From this false security it was roused by the incident ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... too fly. You've got only to pass a remark on his sail-cloth coat to make him shut up. All the town knows it. But he's got you to listen to his crazy talk whenever he chooses. Don't I hear you two at it, jabber, jabber, mumble, mumble——— ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... his savoir faire. His wonderful smile had turned into something sickly, his bland speech of thanks into a mumble. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... brushed the dirt off his knees. "If there's anything that stirs my temper, it's this mumble-grumble, whiffle-and-hint business. Out and open, that's my style." He was reflecting testily on the peculiar ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... there is no one that knows me," and a disciple asked what was meant, he replied, "I do not murmur against God. I do not mumble against man. My studies lie low, and my penetration lies high. But there ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... eighty-four he was obliged to have assistance (which was long before he wanted it in his own opinion) he used to be wheeled in a chair to his School: and even in the delirium of his last sickness insisted on giving his daughters a Greek author, over which they would mumble and mutter to persuade him that he was ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... land of streams." In school-days and in town he acknowledged the sway of those mysterious and irresistible forces which produce tops at one season, and marbles at another, and kites at another, and bind all boyish hearts to play mumble-the-peg at the due time more certainly than the stars are bound to their orbits. But when vacation came, with its annual exodus from the city, there was only one sign in the zodiac, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... four hundred years old, and some of your masses are younger, as that of St. Thomas a Becket, the traitor, wherein you pray, That you may be saved by the blood of St. Thomas. And as for your Latin service, what are we of the laity the better for it? I think if any one were to hear your priests mumble up their service, although he well understood Latin, yet he would understand very few words of it, the priests so champ them and chew them, and post so fast, that they neither understand what they say, nor they ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... of nature. The remembrance of those childish reproaches haunts me yet oftentimes in my dreams. My school-days come again, and the horror I used to feel, when in some silent corner, retired from the notice of my unfeeling playfellows, I have sat to mumble the solitary slice of gingerbread allotted me by the bounty of considerate friends, and have ached at heart because I could not spare a portion of it, as I saw other boys do, to some favorite boy; for if I know my own heart, I was never selfish,—never possessed a luxury which ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... seemed to be heard. On November 4 the storm abated, and land loomed up on the horizon, dim at first, but taking shape as the vessel approached it and showing a well-defined, rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom. A cask of brandy was opened, {25} and tears gave place to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear that he recognized this headland, that he had known they were ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... he pretended to read out of the book that he held in his hand. Then he gave him a good blow on the neck, and after that another sound thwack over the shoulders with his own sword, always as he did so continuing to mumble and murmur as though he were reading something out of his book. This being done, he commanded one of the damsels to gird on his sword, which she did with much grace and cleverness. And it was with difficulty that they all ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... with many a queer thought in my head, I sat in the kitchen rocker, listening to the mumble of their voices and waiting up to see if they should want me for anything. And so it was, too, that at last I found myself nodding with sleep, and started to ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... looking at the scene in silent horror; they heard not Chouteau's appeals for assistance; were powerless to raise a hand. And Pache, in a sudden outburst of piety and pity, dropped on his knees, joined his hands, and began to mumble the prayers that are repeated at the bedside of ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... to the disk, at first in a very rapid mumble and then, as there was no frightening response, with less speed and more confidence. There were symbol lines on the vista-plate in accordance, and some of them made sense! Ross ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... when he barks down the lonnin—haven't you seen her then—her breast heaving, the fingers of that hand of hers twitching, and the mumble of her poor lost voice, as though she'd say, 'Come, Rotha, my lass, be quick with the supper—he's here, my lass, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... DERBY brought down his contribution nicely written out on quarter sheets. Whilst ASHBOURNE declaiming, DERBY seized opportunity to read his speech over to himself. This all very well if he had strictly carried out intention, but, when he grew so interested in it as to mumble passages in an audible voice, situation grew embarrassing. At last KIMBERLEY, who sat near, gently nudged him. "One at a time, my dear DERBY," he whispered. "We know you're accustomed to dual action. DARBY and JOAN, you know; but won't ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... with the deepest interest.) I knock off quite a number of these while I'm abroad like this. Send 'em in letters to relatives at home—gives them a notion of the place. They are—ar—kind enough to value them. (CULCHARD makes a complimentary mumble.) Yes, I'm a very rapid sketcher. Put me with regular artists, and give us half an hour, and I—ar—venture to say I should be on terms with them. Make it three hours, and—well, I daresay ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... lentisk. On the way it passes the Abbaye de Mont Majeur, a ruin of gigantic size, embracing all periods of architecture; where nothing seems to flourish now but henbane and the wild cucumber, or to breathe but a mumble-toothed and terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast Italian buildings of Palladian splendour looking more forlorn in their decay than the older and austerer mediaeval towers, which rise up proud and patient and defiantly erect ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... kindo' hearty-like about the atmosphere, When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here— Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetisin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur that no painter has the colorin' to mock— When the frost is on the punkin and the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... light and life and flight, Upon the sandy bottom, agate strewn. The fishers mumble, waiting till the night Urge on the clouds, and ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... white anger that glowed in Sally's countenance abashed her. The shrill tones trailed off into a mumble. She looked uneasily aside. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... end Of a long table in the centre of the room, busily engaged in cleaning their accoutrements, glanced up casually at his entrance; then, each vouchsafing him a preoccupied salutory mumble, they bent to their furbishing with the brisk concentration peculiar to "Service men" the world over. As an accompaniment to their labours, in desultory fashion, they kept alive the embers of a facetious wrangling ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... exclaimed, "you have come to this—you dare not speak, you dare not utter the name of 'Bonaparte' aloud; you barely mumble a few words in a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where, from all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements, from all the very stones, ought to be ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... in the library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentence in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech—but better where other talking is going on. Thus: "We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies: "I am very gligloglum, that is, that you ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the official reports of the Lords' debates a speech begins thus: "Lord —— (who was indistinctly heard)." The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... did, and whatever his motives may have been it was jolly decent of him . . . and . . ." here Grantly lowered his voice to the faintest mumble, "he never said a word of reproof or exhortation . . . I tell you he behaved like a gentleman. What's ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... of the rail, now with the judge, now with one another; and now it was the clerk of the court who was speaking; and I couldn't repress the absurd feeling of surprise that they should turn their backs and mumble so, since it appeared irresistibly to me that we were an audience, and the thing was being ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain |
