"Mumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shivering dog on the floor, and Peg put a piece of meat under his nose. In her excitement, Jinnie rushed away to Lafe. Peg's mumble followed her even through ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... chauffeur was the spy, as well as the spy-courier," MacLeod said. "The information he transmitted was picked up piecemeal from different indiscreet lab-workers and students attached to our team. Of course, we are investigating, mumble-mumble. Naturally, no one will admit, mumble-mumble. No stone will be left unturned, ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... you and the surface be everlastingly damned!" said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... along, the wiring party's going out"— And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out," Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud, They toil with stealthy haste and anger in ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... Jarvis was shot through the arm, Captain Belknap of E Company was lying dead near his company, and scores of other brave men had gone to their last reckoning. Hanigan, Hogan's bunkie, was badly wounded, and out of his head. Every once in a while he would mumble, "Never you mind, fellers, we will be all right yet, just stand 'em off a little while longer and Denny will be here with the 11th Cavalry. He said he'd do it and by God! he ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... grumbling at their lack of employment, and killing the time with drinking and foolish games and gross talk. There was an old chaplain in the house, a lazy and gluttonous priest, who knew enough of his trade to mumble his mass, and no more; women there were none, except an old waiting-woman, a silent faithful soul, who loved the boy and petted him, and mourned in secret over his miserable upbringing, but who, having no store of words to tell her thoughts, could only be dumbly kind to him, and careful ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fall, and began to mumble again. Lingard turned his ear towards him instinctively, caught something that sounded like "Very well"—then some more mumbling—then ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... of either; I remit both twain. I see the trick on't: here was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas comedy. Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany, Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick, That smiles his cheek in years, and knows the trick To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd, Told our intents before; which once disclos'd, The ladies did change favours, and then we, Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she. Now, to our perjury to ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... 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 ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... glanced at his master, who nodded, whereupon Manning lifted a finger to his forehead with a low mumble, and backed cautiously ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... hearty-like about the atmosphere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here. Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and the buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin', and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days Is a picture that no painter has the colorin' to mock, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... he wept over me and called me his dear nephew, made it his special desire that he might not hear the name of Montfort; and the Prince, though overruling him in all that pertains to matters of state, is most dutiful in all lesser matters. I hoped at least to be called Fitz Simon, but some mumble of the King turned it into Fowen, and so it has continued. I believe no one at court is really ignorant of my lineage; but among the people, Montfort is still a trumpet-call, and the ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who was shivering with cold, and understood little of this dark talk, began to mumble his ritual, skipping those parts of it which he could not remember. So another grain was planted in the cornfields of death and immortality, though when and where it should grow and what it should bear he neither knew nor cared, who wished ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... 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. ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... so, what was wearing her down to the point of fatigue, was the patent imbecility of her reluctance. There would have been some sense of it if Cutty had proposed a real marriage. All she had to do was mumble a few words, sign her name to a document, live out West for a few months, and be in comfortable circumstances all the rest of her ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... do no more than mumble a: "Well, if you like to wait!" and point out the room. She followed Madeleine over the threshold, drying her ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... would mumble something in the ear of one of the clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, "Hicky Boola, Miss Ryan!" And Miss Ryan would oblige. She made a hideous rattle and crash and ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... was gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... 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 with his piercing gaze ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... well Began to snarl and grumble, That he should be so taken in With nuts he scarce could mumble. "Dear me," he said, "how they are burnt," And at poor pussy looking, "I cannot think how I could bear Such ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... great, roaring fires, Roaring louder than they, With their strong wines, And their concubines, And never a bell, With its swagger and swell, Calling you up with a start of affright In the dead of night, To send you grumbling down dark stairs, To mumble your prayers; But the cheery crow Of cocks in the yard below, After daybreak, an hour or so, And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds, These are the sounds That, instead of bells, salute the ear. And then all day Up and away Through the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... never expected to hear so many words from that rigid shadow. Its monotonous mumble was fascinating, its sudden loquacity was shocking. And in the profound stillness that reigned outside it was as if there had been no one left in the world with her but the phantom of that old adventurer. He was heard again: "What I could ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... 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 at ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... gipsies to me, "that there is no credit in taking them in. The other day a peasant woman called out to me in the street. I went into her house. Her stove smoked and she asked me to give her a charm to cure it. First of all I made her give me a good bit of bacon, and then I began to mumble a few words in Romany. 'You're a fool,' I said, 'you were born a fool, and you'll die a fool!' When I had got near the door I said to her, in good German, 'The most certain way of keeping your stove from smoking is not to light any ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... 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 ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... 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 ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... had his projection of the self that we are so apt to make an object of invidious allusion stayed out. What it all really most comes to, you feel again, is that none of his impulses prospered in solitude, or, for that matter, were so much as permitted to mumble their least scrap there; he was predestined and condemned to sociability, which no league of neglect could have deprived him of even had it speculatively tried: whereby what was it but his own image that he most saw reflected in other faces? It would still have been there, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... his savoir faire. His wonderful smile had turned into something sickly, his bland speech of thanks into a mumble. He turned ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rapidly grows worse; a few hours of agony in his solitude, and all is over. Tidings of the event are carried to the nearest factory, and then to another and another. Two or three of his former acquaintances ride over to his bungalow, knock up a rude coffin, mumble a few sentences about "the resurrection and the life," "our dear brother here departed," and "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," bury him out of sight, and set up a decent stone over his grave. His place is filled again in a few weeks or months, and his successor, regardless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... scoutmasters and chaplains and services of 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
... suddenly cornered, turned first red, then white, and tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to be put ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... At breakfast, on the sly, And mock the wobble of his chin And eyebrows belt so high And kind: "How did you rest, last night?" We'd mumble and let on Our voices trimbled, and our sight Was dim, ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... enemies. You profaned the church, that Bulgarian church where I took my first communion. You have despoiled the archives and burned our libraries; you ordered closed our national school where I learned to mumble the alphabet ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... the ragged tenants of the house, mostly women and children; from far off were heard the rhythmic cries of the mother. The old man stood for a moment as if chilled from the roots of his hair to the tips of his fingers. Then the neighbors heard his sepulchral mumble: "I'll have to borrow somewheres, beg some one," as he retreated down the stairs. He brought a physician; and when the grandson asked for money to go for the medicine, Zelig snatched the prescription ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with rosemary, box, lavender, and lentisk. On the way it passes the Abbaye de Mont Majeur, a ruin of gigantic size, embracing all periods of architecture; where nothing seems to flourish now but henbane and the wild cucumber, or to breathe but a mumble-toothed and terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast Italian buildings of Palladian splendour looking more forlorn in their decay than the older and austerer mediaeval towers, which rise up proud and patient and defiantly erect beneath the curse ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... mumble, and the black horse started down the trail. He watched her, with a sinking, hungry heart. Just as the crag was almost abreast of her mount, she turned and called back: "Oh, I forgot to say that I shall probably ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... ourselves, old Carty, won't we?" Rex heard his cousin's charge mumble cheerfully as they started off, with a visible lengthening of his gloom at the thought ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... side, and had quickly gagged him. This had the further effect of awakening the unfortunate lad; and he struggled to loosen his bonds, but they were too strongly tied. He endeavored to answer Jack, but only a meaningless mumble resulted, for the ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... he did, for I could hear the low mumble of his voice and occasionally catch a scriptural phrase, but neither my aunt nor myself participated in this mockery of family prayers. She said she had too much to do, and she could not spare me from the cheese tub and the churn. She scolded her husband for his contributions ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... our remarks grow rarer. Then Mame begins again to mumble; once again she yields to emotion under the harsh flame of the lamp, and once again her eyes grow dim in her complicated Japanese mask that is crowned with cotton-wool, and something ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... children toil like bond slaves through life, that the children of these nobles may be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day?" The multitude were bewildered by the glare of royalty. But here and there a sullen fish-woman, leading her ragged, half-starved children, would mumble and mutter, and curse the "Austrian," as the beautiful queen swept by in her gorgeous equipage. These discontents and portentous murmurs were spreading rapidly, when neither king, queen, nor courtiers dreamed of ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... something about young people having to make mistakes, but his mumble was pleasant, and then he crossed to her ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... dread of the coming grave, purchasing a drug for our poltroonery at the expense of our sanity. We uphold our wayward steps with the promises and the commandments for crutches, but on either side of us trudge the shadow Death and the bacchanal Sex, and we mumble prayers against the one, while we scourge ourselves for leering at the other. On one only of these can Browning be said to have spoken with novel force—the relations of sex, which he has treated with a subtlety and freedom, and often with a beauty, unapproached ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... 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 once a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... till something seemed to dawn upon him; 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. I meant to stay in the house till I ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always failed;" and "What if we do divide up? in ten years there would be rich ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... unassertive voice; in dark doorways worn-eyed women and men gossiped in voices scarce above a whisper; and brown children fondled each other, laughing noiselessly, or lay asleep on rugs which would be costly elsewhere. In the bazaars nothing was selling, and no man did anything but mumble or eat, save the few scholars who, cross-legged on their mats, read and laboured towards Nirvana. Priests in their yellow robes and with bare shoulders went by, oblivious ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and in such contrasted tones to the mumble in which the miser had heretofore been speaking that for the moment Roy was too ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... images of saints and martyrs, and so would make their credulous proselytes believe, that if they pay their devotion to St. Christopher in the morning, they shall be guarded and secured the day following from all dangers and misfortunes: if soldiers, when they first take arms, shall come and mumble over such a set prayer before the picture of St. Barbara, they shall return safe from all engagements: or if any pray to Erasmus on such particular holidays, with the ceremony of wax candles, and other fopperies, he shall in a short time be rewarded with a plentiful increase ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... "He tried to 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
... Captain Whalley, without relaxing the set severity of his features, moved his lips to ask in a quick mumble— ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... Euchre Club and everybody was criticizing you for having solid gold prizes when they were at your house. They said it was vulgar ostentation. I didn't say anything for the longest time, but finally when they all said your money had gone to your head, hadn't it, I admit I did mumble, 'It seems so.' But it is only what everybody else says all the time, and I assure you I didn't really mean it. Of course nobody can behave just the same after they are a millionaire as they did before. But I am ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... obdurate iron, and severed the bands that bruised and held her white wrists. Even then she could not speak, though she smiled a little, faintly and forlornly and gratefully. She struggled to say one word, but it resolved itself into a cacophonous and inarticulate mumble, half-infantile, half-imbecile. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... "Romeo and 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
... English hearts a very strong belief in freedom, and a very weak belief in right reason, we are soon silenced when a man pleads the prime right to do as he likes, because this is the prime right for ourselves too; and even if we attempt now and then to mumble something about reason, yet we have ourselves thought so little about this and so much about liberty, that we are in conscience forced, when our brother Philistine with whom we are meddling turns boldly round upon us and asks: Have you any light?—to shake our heads ruefully, and to let ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... 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
... 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; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... no farm-houses, all the people being gathered in villages. Are they thus collected by that dogma of their religion, which makes them believe, that to keep the Creator in good humor with his own works, they must mumble a mass every day? Certain it is, that they are less happy and less virtuous in villages, than they would be insulated with their families on the grounds they cultivate. The people are illy clothed. Perhaps they have put on their worst clothes at this moment, as it is raining. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... you know," replied the gentleman with a forced laugh; but before he could mumble any thing more, the party turned round one of the corners of the passage, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... Jedediah was close at hand—he continued, "But may be daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. Let's try him with a lie—'twon't hurt, noway: let's tell him we've been playin' mumble-peg." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... but eat the man we sent ... out oars, let's away from here though it cost our lives ..." The frightened mumble was ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... to be cheerful, and said, "Hello, Galbreath, old fellow, I thought you were in heaven long before this." He laughed a sort of dry, cracking laugh, and asked me to hand him a drink of water. I handed it to him. He then began to mumble and tell me something in a rambling and incoherent way, but all I could catch was for me to write to his family, who were living near Mt. Pleasant. I asked him if he was badly wounded. He only pulled down the blanket, that was all. I get sick when I think of it. The lower part of his body was hanging ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... the same fearless simplicity into her love. Caponsacchi falters and recoils in his adorations of her, with the compunction of the voluptuary turned ascetic; he hardly dares to call his passion by a name which the vulgar will mumble and misinterpret: she, utterly unconscious of such peril, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... boy was past speech-making now. He managed to mumble a few words of thanks, got to the ground somehow and mingled with the crowd as quickly ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... 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
... a husband. All this delay was produced by doubt, which the poets truly declare to be the father of delay. It was a doubt which arose in the mind of one of the Brahmins, who, when a doubt arose in his mind, would mumble it over and over, but never masticate, swallow, or digest it; and thus was the preservation of the royal line endangered. For years had the aspirants for regal dignity, and more than regal beauty, hovered round the court, each with his mandolin ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... modelled themselves on Talleyrand. By their very candour and openness some British diplomatists have gained an advantage over rivals who confound timidity with reserve, and have won a peculiar position of trust at foreign courts. In dealing with de Giers, Morier at any rate found no need to mumble or swallow his words. He was sure of himself and of his honourable intentions. On one occasion, after reading to that minister the exact words of the dispatch which he was sending to London, he stated his policy to him categorically. 'I always went', he said, 'upon the principle, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... and manner of speaking, too, should likewise be attended to. Some will mumble over their words, so as not to be intelligible, and others will speak so fast as not to be understood, and in doing this, will sputter and spit in your face; some will bawl as if they were speaking to the deaf: others will speak so low as scarcely to ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly; Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... world outside is snow-covered and swept with bitter winds, and the earth is gripped solid in the frost, you are very warm and comfortable. Changes of temperature do not reach you, and you sit and croon to yourself and mumble your paws, and all sorts of thoughts and tangled scraps of dreams go swimming through your head until, before you know it, you have forgotten everything and ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... mother was away, in the barn while milking—at every opportunity I went through my selection with most impassioned voice and lofty gestures, sustained by the legends of Webster and Demosthenes, resolved upon a blazing victory. I did everything but mumble a smooth pebble—realizing that most of the boys in my section were going through precisely the same struggle. Each of us knew exactly how the others felt, and yet I cannot say that we displayed acute sympathy one with ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... out no words. Suddenly the low, even mumble was broken. Some one cried out "There's got to be a divvy soon. There's no use letting Morse hold that whole seventy-five thousand any longer. I'm going to get what's coming to ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... 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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to sit facing the engine because of the draught, not to look out of the window in case she got a cinder in her eye, not to read in case she strained her eyes, not to rub her fingers on the pane, not to cross her knees because it was unladylike, not to shout, not to mumble, not to say "What?" not to yawn without putting her finger over her mouth, etcetera, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... anxiously, but all that John could do was to mumble incoherently and point towards the interior of ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... purgatory for them, he could bring him to heaven. And so we must conclude he died 1733, Dec. 23d, and went down to Tophet with a lie in his right hand, and so remains in spite of all the priest could mutter or mumble over him, as the author of his Elegy in his master's name ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... hire for a trifle the first impudent pedant whom they come across, and who only wants to be talked of, whether for good or ill. The dead, they say, is none the wiser if an ape stands in a black dress in the pulpit, and beginning with a hoarse, whimpering mumble, passes little by little into a loud howling. Even the sermons preached at great Papal ceremonies are no longer profitable, as they used to be. Monks of all orders have again got them into their hands, and preach as if they were speaking to the mob. Only a few years ago a sermon ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the thoughts, of the white people better than of her own. Being quick to imitate, she spoke in the correcter language of those whom she knew best, rather than the soft, ungrammatical dialect of the plantation slave or the grunt and mumble of the isolated African. Realizing that service was to be her lot, she elected to render that service where and to whom she herself ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... game of mumble-te-peg that me and Mr. Martin played, he did not come to our house for two weeks. Mr. Travers said perhaps the earth he had to gnaw while he was drawing the peg had struck to his insides and made him sick, but I knew it couldn't be that. I've drawn pegs that were drove ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the first act the young girl Zoe appears by some great rocks in the desert, and sits down exhausted, to rest. Presently arrive a pauper couple stricken with age and infirmities; and they begin to mumble and pray to the Spirit of Life, who is said to inhabit that spot. The Spirit of Life appears; also Death—uninvited. They are (supposably) invisible. Death, tall, black-robed, corpse-faced, stands motionless and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... general attitude towards the forthcoming exhibition was merely one of politeness. As the first case was opened, however, his manner completely changed. Without taking the slightest further notice of his hostess, he adjusted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and commenced to mumble eagerly to himself. Mrs. Rheinholdt, who did not understand a word, strolled around the apartment, yawned, and finally interrupted a little stream of eulogies, not a word of which she understood, concerning a green beetle ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... course it must be looked after right 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 Swedish, ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... dumb in him for the moment from lack of co-ordination. The two or three things he might have said seemed to strangle each other in the attempt to get right of way. In response to Guion's confidences he could only mumble something incoherent and pass on to the drawing-room door. It was a wide opening, hung with portieres, through which he could see Olivia Guion standing by the crackling wood fire, a foot on the low fender. One hand rested ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... folks" church on Sundays. They were seated in the rear of the church. The white minister would arise and exhort the slaves to 'mind your masters, you owe them your respect.' An old Christian slave who perceived things differently could sometimes be heard to mumble, "Yeah, wese jest as good as deys is only deys white and we's black, huh." She dare not let the whites hear this. At times meetin's were held in a slave cabin where some "inspired" slave ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... in a low mumble as the men passed on. Gregory emerged from his cover and looked after the two fishermen. Then he noticed the girl had finished her calculations and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... part, nor help saying to ourselves, as we turned to leave the scene, "This man is not sincere in this: he is a humbug." And when, some years later, we saw him present himself before a large audience in a state not far removed from intoxication, and mumble incoherence for ten minutes, and when, in the course of the evening, we saw him make a great show of approval whenever the clergy were complimented, the impression was renewed that the man had expended his sincerity, and that nothing was real to him any more except wine and ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... years!" he said to himself over and over again, laughing stupidly. "Then I am two hundred and thirty-three years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely they haven't reversed the tendency of our time and gone back to the rule of the oldest. My claims are indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a great age! Ha ha!" He was surprised at first to hear himself laughing, and then laughed again deliberately and louder. Then he realised that he was behaving foolishly. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... conviction that I was different in essence from the other orphans. This was not mere conceit, I think, because it emanated rather from pride in my father than from any exalted opinion of myself. But, whatever the rights of it, no suitable remark came to me. Indeed, beyond an incoherent mumble over the hand-shaking, I might have been a mute for all the part I had so far taken in this interview. And just then I caught a glimpse of Sister Agatha emerging from behind the wood-stack at the end of the vegetable garden, and that gave me ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... asked Joseph Beaker. His face was lop-sided, like his figure, and his speech came in a hollow mumble which was difficult to follow. Joseph was content to pass as the harmless lunatic of the parish, but there was a shrewdly humorous twinkle in his eye which damaged his pretensions with the more discerning ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... dressed in fashion now gone by, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly: Mere puppets they who come and go At the bidding of a huge formless Thing That shifts the scenery to and fro, Ruling the World from flat and wing— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... 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 bowls. What say'st ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... he paused, coughed, and completed what he had to say in a sort of mumble, but his meaning was wholly clear. He would not accept the offer of Pauline in marriage, even though she was the sister ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... closed and the light was cut off. Tom and Astro rose and quietly made their way toward the door. They stopped, leaned against the door, and tried to hear what was going on inside, but were unable to distinguish more than a vague mumble of voices, because of their masks and the thickness of the door. Suddenly, however, they were conscious of footsteps approaching ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... said dejectedly. "It makes me yawn. John says I mumble." She looked at me sharply, distrustfully. "You are very kind, but—it's too much! Why ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... answer the bell in person. There was a low mumble of voices. Then the landlady appeared in the parlor doorway, the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... right, old mumble-peg. Don't you get carried away by the fire of old Rome. That's your motto. Here are the tools; a perfect picter of the sublime and beautiful; and all I hope is, that our friend and pitcher, the ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... my robe. So long as stand these walls I cannot leave them. Yet will I go: behold you, that stand by, A mother by her own son thrust away, Cast out—ha, ha!—in my old age, infirm, To totter and mumble in oblivion! ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... kill all modulation, all tone-color, all delicate shades of thought and passion equally, and resolve that great gift, which I sometimes think the greatest difference between me and my dog, into a toneless, mumble-chopped grunting? ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Wampus, without moving. "Him want to steal; Mumble he make bark noise; for me, I ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... speak to you in a loud voice and in a tongue which you do not understand. Appear to listen intently to what I say, and occasionally mumble something as though replying in the same language—our escape may hinge upon the success of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... 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 the naval ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... was past speaking, so I tried to make 'im understand, but 'e only mumbled in reply. W'en I was about to go 'e seemed to mumble very 'ard, so I put down my ear to listen, and 'e w'ispered quite distinct tho' very low—'All right, my 'eartie. I'm too cute for 'em by a long way; go aboard an' say nothin'.' So I came away, and I've scarce been five minutes aboard before you arrived. My own opinion is, that 'e's ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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, and led the world, so far as he did lead it, from that ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... For 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
... themselves extremely wise When any sense records its lies, They mumble what they feel or hear, Unmindful ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... her hand to her mouth to suppress an exclamation. Pinto was talking, but his voice was a mumble. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... If several words are to be replaced, blurgle may well be doubled or tripled. "To look for something in several files use 'grep string blurgle blurgle'." In each case, "blurgle blurgle" would be understood to be replaced by the file you wished to search. Compare {mumble}, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... am. Any woman will break her neck to see two people, for whom she does not care a hair-pin, stand up, one in white and the other in black, and mumble a few words that she knows by heart, and then take position at the end of a room and have "society" paraded up to them by solemn little corporals with white favors, and then file off to the rear for rations ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... month, and the viper thrust his head between his lips; upon which the old man closes them and makes believe to mumble the horrid head, the body appearing violently convulsed, as if it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... 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
... tell, easy. Pap says when they keep looking at you right stiddy, they're a-witching you. Specially if they mumble. Becuz when they mumble they're saying ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he calls you?" she said. "'Tis but a mumble, his little tongue is not nimble enough for clearness, but he says it his pretty best. 'Tis Mother Anne, he says—'tis ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with stern and wrinkled face. Her mild eyes gliding very slow Across the letters to and fro, While wagged the guttering candle flame In the wind that through the window came. And sometimes in the silence she Would mumble a sentence audibly, Or shake her head as if to say, 'You silly souls, to act this way!' And never a sound from night I'd hear, Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; Or her old shuffling thumb should turn Another page; and rapt and stern, Through her great glasses ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... is not a moment to be lost. At any minute they may enter our room and find it empty! You are ready? Then, not too softly, or it may rouse suspicion! And mumble something at the door." ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... mumble in an unintelligible manner mysterious words (the meaning of which he does not know himself) when a poisonous mixture is being boiled in order to render its venomous virtue more efficacious. He makes exorcisms against the evil spirits when the wind arises or a heavy storm breaks ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... throwing it for him to retrieve. Lad made a tentative snap at the bag, his tail wagging harder than ever. But he missed it. And, in another moment the man stopped swinging the bag and tucked it under his arm again as he began to mumble with ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... could have planted finger and foot on the ledges of that solid precipice and climbed to the invisible summit. Hilderman was muttering to himself beneath his breath, but I was too dazed, my brain was too numbed to make any sense out of the confused mumble of words which came from him. Dennis held my arm in a vice-like grip that stopped the circulation, and almost made me ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... his 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 ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... all through that 9th of November his lordship has had a racking rheumatism, or a toothache, let us say, during all dinner-time—through which he has been obliged to grin and mumble his poor old speeches. Is he enviable? Would you like to change with his lordship? Suppose that bumper which his golden footman brings him, instead i'fackins of ypocras or canary, contains some ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... another of his colleagues turned their heads, and smiled faintly. He slept through two acts and the intervals between them, in spite of the voices from the stage and the loud talking between the acts, and woke up in the middle of the third act, to mumble in my ear, "It is not much pleasure to see the piece ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... instantly—instantly!—know the difference between "Platoon right," for instance, and "Right by squads," even though the commands may not have been given for an hour. And one must know it whether corporal or not, for half the time the corporals do not yet know it themselves, and either mumble their commands or are silent, so that they are no help. And even if a fellow knows what to do, but lags in the doing of it, then he is likely to put the whole line out. Further, freight trains rumble by at the bottom of the drill field, the wind whistles ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... moved down to the doorway amidship that led below, he heard Galton mumble: "Yes, we'll be going, Hi think, down some sea sorpint's scaly throat, but th' tug an' th' ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late: We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware! Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer. But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout, and we tramp With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... squat, outstretched head on the centre of the knee-cap. And so cunningly was the creature perched (as its owner gleefully pointed out) that the least movement of his crural muscles set the jagged backbone a-quivering, and the slobbering lips to mumble and mow. Cospatric said that dragon was a most finished piece of workmanship, and worth all ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... owing to the habitual languor of that long illness. That satirical mumble is the only trouble he will take to lift up his testimony, except when a thing is most decidedly his duty, and then he does it ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... men lay patiently 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 name of his ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... good manners put on his glasses to look at Mr. Edwardes, and I, having to say something, thought that I might as well introduce them to each other, though I took care to mumble Bunny's name so that it could not be heard. Mr. Edwardes bowed and opened his paper again, but Bunny having arrived at the fact that I was face to face with a don of some kind, thought he would try to pass the time pleasantly. Considering what he had already said about race-horses ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... there to keep evil spirits away. Frequently also, three crosses are seen in conspicuous places near the roadside or even in the middle of the road. They are supposed to propitiate the Almighty, and pious persons mumble prayers as they pass them. When the destruction wrought by the Martinique volcano became known here, the dismay of the countrymen was responsible for more than one "calvario" (calvary), as these collections of crosses are called. It is especially ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... it 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 ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 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
... dictates 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, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... lots of songs and we played marbles, mumble peg, and town ball. In de winter we would set around de fire and listen to our Mammy and Pappy tell ghost tales and witch tales. I don't guess dey was sho' nuff so, but we ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... on his knees trying to mumble a prayer, while the minister sat with bowed head. The lantern cast flickering shadows in the corners of the room, and the firelight danced and fell. A water bug crawled over the floor; a spider dropped from the rude rafters; ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... sooner got Dad to his room than he began to mumble that you were to blame for his condition," cut in the lawyer. "He connected you in no favorable way with some woman in Australia. This man Phillips was involved, too, from what I could gather. I was questioning him when the doctor arrived, ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... insatiable thirst That whelmed their parched bodies, lo, would make A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops. Respite of torment was there none. Their frames Forspent lay prone. With silent lips of fear Would Medicine mumble low, the while she saw So many a time men roll their eyeballs round, Staring wide-open, unvisited of sleep, The heralds of old death. And in those months Was given many another sign of death: The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread Deranged, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... of the word brought her feet to a halt. MacQueen padded across till he faced her. "Don't make any mistake, girl. You're mine. I don't care how. If it suits you to have a priest mumble words over us, good enough. But I'm the man you've got ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... very loving and gentle that she give me so great a work, because that she have her hands so little. And truly, she presently to stop me of my mocking; for she put her pretty hands upon my mouth, and I then to have to mumble and to laugh, and so she to go forward again ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... chargeable long bill of ana's: those of my family have the grace to die cheaper. In a word, Sir Dominick, we understand one another's business here: I am resolved to stand like the Swiss of my own family, to defend the entrance; you may mumble over your pater nosters, if you please, and try if you can make my doors fly open, and batter down my walls with bell, book, and candle; but I am not of opinion, that you are ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... cat—for I had got into the habit of talking to him quite as much as he talked to me—while we sat at supper together on the last evening that we were to pass on board of the Ville de Saint Remy; and while he did not make much of a reply to me he did mumble some sort of a purring answer that I took to mean he was willing, if I were, to ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... were mumble-the-peg, high-spy, snap- the-whip, a rather dangerous performance, in which a long row of boys, with the biggest boy at one end, and tapering down to the smallest at the other end, would run over a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... meals, when they sat opposite each other, not looking at each other, never speaking, forcing themselves to eat a few mouthfuls, not so much for the sake of eating as for the sake of appearances. Christophe would contrive to mumble a few words, but Louisa would not reply; and when she tried to talk he would be silent. This state of things was intolerable to both of them, and the longer it went on the more difficult it became to break it. Were they going to part like ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland |
