"Mumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the hunt, doth Ogyges! And therefore should we blow the horn for him: He, sitting mumbling in his surf-white cave With helpless feet and alienated eyes, Should hear the noises nathless dawn by dawn Which send him wandering swiftly through the days When like a springing cataract he leapt From crag to crag, the strongest in the chase To spear the lion, ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... much later that neighborhood searchers found Alexander sitting on a mound of salvaged wheat with the head of an unconscious man in her lap. It was a man stripped to the waist, sweat-covered and smoke blackened. The girl was mumbling incoherent things ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... of one's mumbling (see {mumble}). "All that mumblage" is used like "all that stuff" when it is not quite clear how the subject of discussion works, or like "all that crap" when 'mumble' is being used as an implicit replacement ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... his first idea and continued to the bottle, which he generously inverted skyward. But the second idea, petty as it was, persisted; and, after swaying and mumbling to himself for a time, after unseeingly making believe to study the crisp fresh breeze that filled the Arangi's sails and slanted her deck, and, after sillily attempting on the helmsman to portray eagle-like vigilance in his drink-swimming eyes, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... "Don't stand mumbling to yourself there," cried Ezra, catching his father's arm and half dragging him along the beach. "Don't you understand that there's a hue and cry out after you, and that we'll be hung if we are taken. Wake up and exert yourself. The gallows would be ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knocked upon the door and it opened. And they went inside and all was quiet and black as night. And they groped their way till they heard a low mumbling sound, and, pulling aside a curtain, they saw an old man with a long white beard, sitting in a room with ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... stiffly, her nose still balanced, as it were, in preparation to strike. Then she lowered her head with the air of one who carefully replaces a weapon, and mumbling something about being "dreadfully late as it was," continued her interrupted plunging into the resistances that separated her from her goal. The others followed, as if they were being trailed in her wake by invisible hawsers. None of them took any ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... lay helpless on the bed, she watched him. She was racked with pain, and he was mumbling that it would be all right again in a little time. "A week from now," said he, "and you will have forgotten all ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... executed a combination that netted him two balls and broke the bunch. After that he proved the insincerity of his statement by clearing the cloth for a second time. The succeeding frames went much the same, and finally Blaze put up his cue, mumbling: ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... down four. You tall gal, what's your name, you keep back there, or I'll fetch you such a cut as'll keep you at home till next reckoning. Cuss you, you old fool, do you think I am to be kept all day while you are mumbling here? Who's pushing on there? I see you, Mrs Page. Won't there be a black mark against you? Oh! its Mrs Prance, is it? Father, put down Mrs Prance for a peck of flour. I'll have order here. You think the last bacon a little ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one—the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... which we have grown as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our whole existence, is a knowledge that has got itself taught in nooks and corners; while the ordained agencies for teaching have been mumbling ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... a jollification in the native village. The two shipkeepers left on board woke up suddenly and saw the devil. It had glittering eyes and leaped quick as lightning about the deck. They fell on their knees, paralysed with fear, crossing themselves and mumbling prayers. With a long knife he found in the caboose the Solomon Islander, without interrupting their orisons, stabbed first one, then the other; with the same knife he set to sawing patiently at the coir cable till suddenly it parted under the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... sir," said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, "that we have been summoned here not to discuss whether it's best for the empire at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia. We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign the Emperor has honored ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... repeated slowly, precisely, as if every word belonged to a charm and must be repeated just right or it would not work. The man's mumbling words halted after hers. He was reflecting upon the curious tableau they would make to the chance passer-by on the desert if there were any passers-by. It was strange, this aloneness. There was a wideness here that made ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... and all this brings Norwegian soil with it, and is alive. The satire is fierce, local, and fantastic. Out of the two comes a clashing thing which may itself suggest, as has been said, the immense contrast between Norwegian summer, which is day, and winter, which is night. Grieg's music, childish, mumbling, singing, leaping, and sombre, has aptly illustrated it. It was a thing done on a holiday, for a holiday. It was of this that Ibsen said he could not have written it any nearer home than Ischia and Sorrento. But is it, for all its splendid scraps and patches, a single ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... "there was a rustic usually mounted on a white hobby, with a basket on one arm, who used to invade the northern purlieus of London, mumbling Holloway Cheesecakes, which from his mode of utterance, sounded like 'Ho all ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... window shade in the courthouse, saw several indistinct figures congregated at the side door, outside. He slipped behind a tool shed at the side of the track, and crouching there, watched and listened. A mumbling of voices reached him, but he could distinguish no word. But it was evident that the men outside were awaiting the reappearance of one of their number who had gone into ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... fabricated banquet hall itself. Clinging to him still were the grim flowing robes of the Black Terror. As though he were some old-fashioned tragedian, he was pacing up and down, hands behind his back, head bowed, eyes on the floor. More, he was mumbling to himself. It was evident, however, that it was neither a pose nor mental aberration. Shirley was searching for something, out in the open, without attempt at concealment, swearing softly at his ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... dismounted. They shook hands again, and MacDonald drove on ahead of him the saddled horses and the pack. And as Aldous turned back toward the bungalow old Donald was mumbling low in his beard again, "God ha' mercy on me, but I'm doin' it for her an' Johnny—for her ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... mumbling the dainties that he can no longer enjoy, and glowering with bleared eyes at the indulgences which now mock him even while they tempt him. The goal of the path of covetousness may be discerned in the face of any old money-worshipper; keeping guard over his piles ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... for those suffering women and children with all the politeness I was capable of mastering, with disgust boiling over. With stuttering and mumbling his dislikes, and shaking his head, with the feathers and straws waving and nodding in every direction, he took his pen and scribbled a pass that was difficult to decipher. The next line of guards hardly knew what to do with it until ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... half-mile lay behind me before I met the first man. He was riding an ass, but when I gave him "Buenos dias," he replied with a whining: "Una limosnita! A little alms, for the love of God." He wore a rosary about his neck and a huge cross on his chest. When I ignored his plea he rode on mumbling. The savage bellow of a bull not far off suggested a new possible danger on the road in this unfenced and almost treeless country. More men passed on asses, mules, and horses, but none afoot. Finally over the brown rise appeared Dolores Hidalgo; two enormous churches ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... Of her old sanctuary, A deity obscure and legendary, Of whom there now remains, For sages to decipher and priests to garble, Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble, Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases, And the inarticulate snow, Leaving at last of her least signs and traces None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places. "She will love well," I said, "If love be of that heart inhabiter, The ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... Of course it looks queer—but they're all old men. I wouldn't be s'prised if old Jerry was off his head, mumbling like he does. As far as being pirates goes, that's all foolishness; pirates ain't old men like them, and besides, piratin' is gone out ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... women, gazing with their lustreless eyes on one image, before which candles burned, pressed hard with the tips of their fingers on the 'kerchief of the forehead, the shoulders and the abdomen, and, mumbling something, bent forward standing, or fell on their knees. The children, imitating their elders, prayed fervently when they were looked at. The gold iconostasis was aflame with innumerable candles, which surrounded a large one in the ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... have always lived around animals and used to spend whole days in the woods; but first I want to tell you about a story concerning cows; and this is the trufe too. Every New Years night when the whistles begin to blow, cows get down on their knees lift up their front legs and make a mumbling noise. This is true cause one night I made it my business to be around some cows when the whistles begin to blow and sho nuff they got down on their hind legs and started making that noise. I was so fraid I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with crosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas in the trenches—how many billions of you have been led out to slaughter by the greeds and ambitions of your religious masters, since first this accursed Antichrist got its grip upon the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... demoniac trees—nothing but snow and the clean bare crag above it on which was Tong Tong Tarrup. All day he climbed and evening found him above the snow-line; and soon he came to the stairway cut in the rock and in sight of that grizzled man, the long porter of Tong Tong Tarrup, sitting mumbling amazing memories to himself and expecting in vain from the stranger a ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... appreciative palate. In some vague way the act was vastly insolent. Temple appeared uncertain, no uncommon thing with him; then, going to set his emptied glass down he put an elbow on the mantel, dropped his head, and spoke in a low, mumbling voice: ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... you fellows had never been offshore! This isn't going to last. These easterlies are always freakish things! But anyhow! What's the use of getting scared? It's a sailor's place to die at sea! I always said so: sooner a lobster than a mumbling parson and the worms! Pull yourselves together, boys. And lash yourselves to something. The boat's all right. ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... explain, so she turned to the stove while mumbling to herself the doubts she had over the sanity of the women-folks of this queer ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... had built a little office, with an entrance from a short brick walk leading to the street. The ground-glass door held the inscription, "Josiah L. Crimmins, M.D. Office." Wade's ring brought the Doctor's housekeeper, a bent, near-sighted, mumbling old woman, who informed Wade that the Doctor was out on a call, but would be back presently. She led the way into the study, turned up the lamp and left him. The study was office and library and living-room in one, a large, untidy room with books lining two sides of it, and a third devoted ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... large brown dish, and she had already portioned out a plateful for the grandfather. Few words were uttered, for Martha was hot, and rather testy; and Stephen felt a sullen weight hanging upon his spirits. Only every now and then the old grandfather, chuckling and mumbling over the uncommon delicacy, would call Stephen by his father's name of James, and thank him for his ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... As Joseph was mumbling indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, and gave no sign of ascending, his master dived down to him, leaving me vis-a-vis with the ruffianly bitch and half a dozen four-footed fiends that suddenly broke into a fury, while I parried ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... perpetually in such a position. Others again have one or both arms extended. Some hang by their feet from the limb of a tree by means of a cord, and remain head downward for days at a time, with their face uncongested and their voice clear, counting their beads and mumbling prayers. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... the faint trail for some distance, but taking care not to step in it, he at length struck it where it passed through the tall grass. Here he squatted down and made some sort of strange passes over his trap, mumbling certain words in a strange tongue. Like all of his people, Skookie was superstitious. What he wanted to do now was to wish his trap good-luck. Having attended to this part of his ceremony, he drew his knife and began to detach a square of the ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... Protestant eyes. Ritual worship in general appears to the modern transcendentalist, as well as to the ultra-puritanic type of mind, as if addressed to a deity of an almost absurdly childish character, taking delight in toy-shop furniture, tapers and tinsel, costume and mumbling and mummery, and finding his "glory" incomprehensibly enhanced thereby:—just as on the other hand the formless spaciousness of pantheism appears quite empty to ritualistic natures, and the gaunt theism of evangelical sects seems intolerably bald ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... to greet him. He went to the window and sat down, scanning the groups, and listening to what was being said around him. He felt depressed, especially because everyone else was, as he saw, eager, anxious, and interested, and he alone, with an old, toothless little man with mumbling lips wearing a naval uniform, sitting beside him, had no interest in it ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the Captain, in a mumbling tone, like that of a double echo, and with a flourish of his hat, the circumference of which was greatly abridged, compared with those which had so cordially graced his introduction to the Marquis and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... forth the child swayed, mumbling comforting words; and then she spoke louder, faster—her words became wild, disconnected. She laughed and cried and called for every one of her little ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... down below in the wreck of the cabin the missionary and his converts prayed to God to save the Minota. It was an impressive scene! the unarmed man of God praying with cloudless faith, his savage followers leaning on their rifles and mumbling amens. The cabin walls reeled about them. The vessel lifted and smashed upon the coral with every sea. From on deck came the shouts of men heaving and toiling, praying, in another fashion, with purposeful will ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... awaiting her, for this time she did not hide at the sound of approaching footsteps, but came forward, courtesying and mumbling greetings, while her eyes gleamed with a satisfaction that ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... her head, and with tears filling her eyes, as her mother prompted her continually, repeated the text in a low mumbling voice, half crying: "Whose adorning, let it not be the putting on of gold, or the plaiting of hair, or the putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of GOD ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for instance, make fifteen, by counting up from seven to fifteen hundreds of times. Now how much better it would be to spend a little time in fixing the fact in the mind once for all, and then, when you come to the case, seven and eight are—say at once 'Fifteen,' instead of mumbling over and over again, hundreds of times, 'Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... spongy hollows as an insulation against the fearsome cold of night. Some were so small that they could only be seen under a microscope. Frank's interest, here, however, palled quickly. And Lester, in his mumbling, studious preoccupation, was no companionable ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... a bunk, with a face so white and thin that he might have been taken for a corpse if it had not been for the dark glare in his sunken eyes. Billy smelled the odor of whisky; he smelled food. He saw no sign of welcome in the faces turned toward him, but he advanced upon them, mumbling incoherently. And then the spark, the fighting spark in him, gave out, and he crumpled down on the floor. He heard a voice which came to him from a great distance, and which said, "Who the hell is this?" and then, after what seemed to be a long time, ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... rose menacingly and moved away to put their boat into the stream. Simon Gosler was left mumbling and sniveling and fingering his coat pocket, in which he kept his glass. Chris, watching him, had a sudden inspiration and whispered to Amos. "Hide here behind those bushes and don't follow me. Don't move or show yourself. I'm ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... men turn stiffly, Mumbling to each other. They are gentle and torpid and busy with eating. But one lifts a face of clayish pallor, There is a dull fury in his eyes, like little rusty grates. He rises slowly, Trembling in his many swathings like an awakened mummy, Ridiculous yet terrible. —And the Committee ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... the train in place of the old king of Spain, who, with the Austrian Emperor, alone of all European sovereigns, had preserved the unbroken continuity of faith. The old man leaned over his fald-stool, mumbling and weeping, even crying out now and again in love and devotion, as, like Simeon, he saw his Salvation. The Austrian Emperor twice administered the Lavabo; the German sovereign, who had lost his throne and all but his life upon his ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... embers in her father's face glowing to dark-red heat. Everybody had been watching them except Harold who, though addressing his father, had been mumbling "what chaps had said" to ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... feeling of momentary discomfort, but, not being able to locate his ideas clearly, he irritably gave up the attempt to arrive at a solution of this instinctive sensation, mumbling to himself: "This tropical hell is enough to ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... to pray on the hillside. I look with reverence on those men at that time. Which is the sublimer spectacle—the good John Wesley, surrounded by his congregation of miners at the pit's mouth, or the queen's chaplains mumbling through their morning office in their ante-room, under the picture of the great Venus, with the door opened into the adjoining chamber, where the queen is dressing, talking scandal to Lord Hervey, or uttering sneers at Lady Suffolk, who is kneeling with the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the monstrosity wonderingly. "'Tis a rare big bean," he said, in the trembling quaver of old age, and with a mumbling laugh like that of a pleased child. "I'll give you two shillin's for it. I suppose you want money badly, or else you wouldn't be wanderin' about at ten o'clock at night tryin' to sell it. I hope you come by it ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... more than a century his predecessors have bemoaned the increasing wickedness of the world: Pius VII, tossed like a helpless cork on the waves of the Revolution; Leo XII and Pius VIII, the associates of the Holy Alliance; Gregory XVI, eating sweetmeats or mumbling his breviary while young Italy sweated blood; Pius IX, grasping eagerly his tatters of sovereignty; Leo XIII, the unsuccessful diplomatist; Pius X, the medieval monk. They saw their Church shrink decade by decade, and ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... my feet, and lifting Melannie into a more easy position, I turned my attention to Van Luck. He was sitting in the stern, handling the gems and mumbling over them, and when he saw me he clutched the bag, and, springing up, made as though to run from me, unmindful of the fact that we were tossing in mid-ocean. Without turning his head from looking back at me, he stumbled blindly into the sea, ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... violent illness, which, after three or four days of acute suffering, brought him to the grave. During his illness he was constantly and zealously tended by his wife, but he displayed great aversion to her, declaring himself bewitched, and that an old woman was ever in the corner of his room mumbling wicked enchantments against him. But as no such old woman could be seen, these assertions were treated as delirious ravings. They were not, however, forgotten after his death, and some people said that he had certainly been bewitched, and that a waxen image made ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... parents to let me be educated, and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing but the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can spend his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country gentlemen would put up at papa's inn, and they used to talk a great deal of things which in those days I had never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring and moved me to envy. I used to cry and entreat ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... monarchs looked at one another in silence for a moment, and then both began to speak at once, their counsellors interrupting them and mumbling their guttural comments with anxious earnestness. It did not take them very long to see that they were all of one mind, and then they both turned to Gordon and dropped on one knee, and placed his hands on their foreheads, and Stedman ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... So mumbling, with the responsive titter still continuing below and Irving standing there stern and red, Westby disappeared into the loft. There was a moment's silence, then a sudden clicking of a ratchet wheel, and Allison began to rise rapidly ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... Indians, too, and will often hear their low mumbling and give little growls before I dream that one is near. They have a disagreeable way of coming to the windows and staring in. Sometimes before you have heard a sound you will be conscious of an uncomfortable feeling, and looking around you will discover five or six Indians, large ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... as the butler presented himself; "you don't come till the second act. I'll take the Irate Parent first." The Irate Parent was dragged from a corner where he had been anxiously mumbling over his lines. "What's the matter?" asked Patty, as she began daubing in wrinkles with a liberal hand; ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... He repeated the name to himself, mumbling it toothlessly. "It sticks i' my memory," he said, "but when and where I canna tell. Certes, there's no man ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... loudly. Eva took the place of honour, and behind them all was—Beckmesser, wildly struggling to learn his great song. He kept taking the manuscript from his pocket and putting it back, sweating and mumbling, standing first on one of his sore feet and then upon the other, a ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... her knees beside him, mumbling inaudible words with husky voice. The hands that loosened the reddening collar of his shirt were firm and decided. She did not hear the grate of Zephyr's shoes. She was only conscious of other hands putting hers aside. His knife cut the clothes that hid the ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot's charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or we'll ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... whispered aloud. "Then I am still mad. Careful ... mad. For there was blood ... and not mine. So it would seem I have been seducing myself with optimisms. A true madman. Yes, a lunatic mumbling excitedly to himself in the snow all ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... rest. Oh, how good it seemed to be out of play! He was tired ... desperately tired ... his whole body was sore ... he was miserably wet and uncomfortable ... his eye-lids were almost stuck shut with mud ... his mouth was thick with the grime of it ... but he kept mumbling to himself, ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... the room, a prepared speech upon the aptitude of women and their field of labor. Her husband was watching her intently—and thought how beautiful she looked as the blood mantled to her white forehead, descending and rising as her thoughts took turn after turn. The unfortunate deacon was mumbling forth a few ill-connected sentences. At last with a groan he sank to his seat and placed a handkerchief to his fevered brow. Presently Augusta sat down and there was again an awful silence. No one advanced another petition and Dominie Graves ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... for the discomfiture of the opposite party, and had given him some account of the representation of the play at the Parthenon. Her father was delighted to find her in high spirits. So many people come back from the theater looking glum and worn out, yawning and mumbling when asked what they have seen and what it had all been about. Phyllis was not glum, nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene, and more than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her own powers of description, and began to act the bits that had impressed her—bits ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... fence, clings to it for support with both hands, and roars with a somewhat nasal, drunken voice back at the inn.] The garden'sh mine ... the inn'sh mi-ine ... ash of a' inn-keeper! Hi-hee! [After mumbling and growling unintelligibly he frees himself from the fence and staggers into the yard, where, luckily, he gets hold of the handles of a plough.] The farm'sh mi'ine. [He drivels, half singing.] Drink ... o ... lil' brother, drink ... o ... lil' brother ... ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... trying to daunt him, Led him confused in circles through the brake. He was forgetting his old wretched folly, And freedom was his need; his throat was choking; Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs, And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps. Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!' Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom, Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns, He peers around with boding, frantic eyes. An evil creature in the twilight looping Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off, He screeched ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... Leopold sat looking at the toe of his boot. Peter of Blentz, Maenck, and the Austrian watched him intently. The possibilities of the plan were sinking deep into the minds of all four. At last the king rose. He was mumbling to himself as though unconscious of the presence of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mouth and watched him. And suddenly his lips began to work, and he was mumbling to himself, and I saw that his hands were grasping the arms of the wooden chair tight, so tight that as he prayed, he actually worked himself over the floor, as a child will, you know. After he'd moved several feet that way, between ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... "Big Mose kept mumbling and crying for a long time, and I shaking more and more, when all at once, hebens, golly! I see'd somefin' bright-like shine trough de winder, and I looked out and de barn was all afire. Den dar come a yell ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... scudding in front of the moon. At this hour of the night passers-by were becoming few and far between in the Boulevard Haussmann. He skirted the enclosures round the opera house in his search for darkness, and as he went along he kept mumbling inconsequent phrases. That girl had been lying. She had invented her story out of sheer stupidity and cruelty. He ought to have crushed her head when he had it under his heel. After all was said and done, the business was too shameful. Never would he see her; never would he touch ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... mumbling beneath his breath, so that no one can detect that he is talking save the person whose ear is nearest to him. It is convenient sometimes, but at other times it is most embarrassing, especially when he is making comments upon people ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... only a moment, flash. By the foot of the coconut-tree, Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his head on the root of the tree and fell into ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... was Christ, who wrought to bless All groping things with freedom bright as air, And with His mercy washed and made them fair. Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch, While we began to struggle along the ditch; And some one flung his burden in the muck, Mumbling: "O Christ Almighty, now ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... elderly gait upon the grassy margin of the highway, and looking pleasantly around him as he walked. From time to time he paused, took out his note-book and made an entry with a pencil; and any spy who had been near enough would have heard him mumbling words as though he were a poet testing verses. The voice of the wheels was still faint, and it was plain the traveller had far outstripped ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the ground at the sight of a Christian. Every day the "Holy woman," with wild eyes and vermilion-painted cheeks, is to be seen prophesying in some public place. And the "Holy man," too, who is incessantly walking like the wandering Jew, always in a hurry and all the while mumbling his prayers. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... to the altar, and before I knew where I was I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor. It was all done in an instant, and ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... at her with a chill of horror. She did not care, I suppose, what sort of feelings she might excite, for she went on mumbling sarcastically to herself. I had paused, and overcame my reluctance to speak to her again, for I was really very much frightened. 'Do you think he is in danger? Shall we send for a ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... left the room, and he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag who did the casual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to be hardly able to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled behind them, mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of sail-cloth, belonging to Cornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... to their feet unaided, while others could not. These Denman helped; but, as he assisted them with one hand, holding his pistol in the other, there was no demonstration against him with doubled fists—which is possible and potential. Mumbling and muttering, they floundered down the small hatch and forward into the forecastle. The last in the line was Sampson, and Denman ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... very much as if it were his own funeral. But he did not speak. He couldn't. The other forged on, his big, mumbling bass mingled with the buzz of the blue-bottle ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... the door, as if she were overhearing something, and then speaking a short monologue. For at least an hour and a half before her cue, while the others were walking, reading, having tea, quarrelling, she never left me and kept on mumbling her part, and dropping her written copy, imagining that everybody was looking at her, and waiting for her to come on, and she patted her hair with a ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... seeking him, his purpose was to stand revealed. To combine these two attitudes until she should declare herself was by no means an easy task, but she looked neither near nor far in scrutiny until she stood, mumbling ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... discipline or order, and a letter-of-marque was consequently worse. As it afterwards appeared, we were first seen by the mate of the watch, who ran to the taffrail, and, instead of giving an order to call all hands, he hailed us. Mr. Forbank, our second-mate, answered; mumbling his words so, that, if they were bad French, they did not sound like good English. He got out the name "Le Hasard, de Bordeaux," pretty plainly, however; and this served to mystify the mate for a few seconds. By the end of that ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... suggested that he need not wait longer. The locksmith, having received the money, thought it incumbent upon him to apologize and explain still further, till Marcus took hold of the door, as if to close it, when he accepted the hint, and departed, mumbling an apology ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... at the door, and overthrew his father in his flight. The old gentleman would not spend time in getting up, but crawled backwards like a crab, with great speed, till he had got over the threshold, mumbling exorcisms all the way. I was exceedingly mortified to find myself in danger of perishing through the ignorance and cowardice of these clowns; and felt my spirits decay apace, when an old woman entered the barn, followed by the two fugitives and with great intrepidity advanced to the place where ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... back again," said an old halberdier, staunching a savage cut on his knee, and mumbling his words because he was chewing as he spoke an herb that's the poultice ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... loaf in England, I having a valiant stomach of the age of almost of a hundred and twenty hours breeding, fell to, and ate two loaves and never said grace: and as I was about to make a horse-loaf of the third loaf, I did put twelve of them into my breeches, and my sleeves, and so went mumbling out of the cave, leaning my back against a tree, when upon the sudden a gentleman came to me, and said, "Friend, what are you eating?" "Bread," (quoth I,) "For God's sake," said he, "give me some." ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... time, Copernicus Droop might have been seen approaching the white cottage. Still nursing a faint hope, he walked with nervous rapidity, mumbling and gesticulating in his excitement. He attracted but little attention. His erratic movements were credited to his usual potations, and no one whom he passed even gave ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... rooms; I saw his two sons marvelling, and the wrinkled old woman's gnarled face as she asked for her cat. I experienced again the strange sensation of seeing the cloth disappear, and so I came round to the windy hillside and the sniffing old clergyman mumbling 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' at ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... by a coal from the hearth, she tied a second handkerchief over that she wore, turban-wise, on her head, mumbling something about "cold ears" and "rheumatiz;" settled herself in a rush-bottomed chair, put her feet upon the rounds of another, and was regularly on duty, prepared for any emergency, and to be alarmed at ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... mother's generation has passed, as has also the "mumbling" of food for the young child; we no longer give the babies concentrated sugar, nor do we "chew" our children's food at ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... General Rezukhin. I bowed to him and received his silent acknowledgment. After that I swung my glance back to the Baron, who sat with bowed head and closed eyes, from time to time rubbing his brow and mumbling to himself. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... goat-skin apron, adorned with numerous charms, and used a paddle for a mace or walking stick. He was not an old man, though he affected to be so—walking very slowly and deliberately, coughing asthmatically, glimmering with his eyes, and mumbling like a witch. With much affected difficulty he sat at the end of the hut beside the symbols alluded to, and continued his coughing full half an hour, when his wife came in in the same manner, without saying a word, and assumed the same affected ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... not many. A few mothers with brown babies in their arms; a few mumbling crones, and bent old men with faces like strange masks; but the flow of children ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... deny that it's a handsome arrangement," Mr. Letterblair had summed up, after mumbling over a summary of the settlement. "In fact I'm bound to say she's been treated ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... alone as usual; he entered with his jovial, self-satisfied, and stubborn air, without noticing Sam, who was standing at the left side of the door, his right hand hidden in his trowsers, and passed rapidly by the first frames, tossing his head, mumbling his words, and casting his glance, which was law, here and there, not perceiving that the eyes of all who surrounded him were fixed upon him as upon a fearful phantom. On a sudden he turned sharply round, surprised to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... First to seek our aid was the wife of the absent hunter, Tserin Dorchy. She rode up one day with a two-year-old baby on her arm. The little fellow was badly infected with eczema, and for three weeks one of the lamas in the tiny temple near their yurt had been mumbling prayers and incantations in his behalf, without avail. Fortunately, I had a supply of zinc ointment and before the month was ended the baby was almost well. Then came the lama with his bill "for services rendered," and Tserin Dorchy ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... little deaf," she said, mumbling a laugh with her toothless gums. "Will your reverence tell me ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... Cromwell saw the Covenanters in confusion; again he shouted, "They run! I profess they run!" The quotation from the 68th Psalm was always an inspiration to these religious warriors. Old Leslie, the Scotch Covenanting general, with the patience of stupidity, had been mumbling petitions for hours to the God of the Anointed to form an alliance with him to crush the unholy rebellion against King and Covenant. "Thou knowest, O God, how just our cause is, and how unjust is that of those who are not Thy ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... head receding toward the altar. In some incomprehensible way that back view made her feel sorry for Alice. Also she remembered very vividly the smell of orange blossom, and Alice, drooping and spiritless, mumbling responses, facing Doctor Ralph, while the Rev. Edward Bribble stood between them with an open book. Doctor Ralph looked kind and large, and listened to Alice's responses as though he was listening to symptoms and thought that on the whole she ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... all zest from our intercourse. Religion, sex, politics— any subject on which man really thinks, is scrupulously excluded from all polite gatherings. Conversation has become a chorus; or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious to no conclusion. When not occupied with mumbling, 'I quite agree with you'—'As you say'—'That is precisely my opinion'—we sit about and ask each other riddles: 'What did the ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... his having a new blanket by the portion of nap left on the branches of the trees among which he passed. His having a short gun he discovered by the mark left in the bark of the tree against which he had leaned the muzzle, and an old dog by the mumbling of a ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of rice, milk, and leaves of the tulsi plant in earthenware platters, then sprinkle over this flowers and kusa-grass; they added threads, plucked from their garments, to typify the presenting of the white death-sheet to the dead one; a priest all the time mumbling a prayer, at the end of the simple ceremony receiving a ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... and must you still be mumbling that! Come now, forget you are a woman, and be reasonable! You exercise the fair and ancient privilege of kinship by calling me harsh names, but it is in the face of this plain fact: I got from you what never man has got before. I am a monstrous clever fellow, say what you will: for already ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... existed in pugilism. At peace, Veuillot was no more than a mediocre writer. His poetry and novels were pitiful. His language was vapid, when it was not engaged in a striking controversy. In repose, he changed, uttering banal litanies and mumbling childish hymns. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... yes, all Rhaetians, I believe. I could not let you go back to your own land with the idea that we do not love the noblest Emperor country ever had. As for what I said about the portrait, I didn't know that I spoke aloud, I am so used to mumbling to myself, since I began to grow deaf and old. But of course, I wished it put away only because it is such a poor thing, it does Unser Leo no sort of justice. You—you would not recognize him from that picture, if you were to see ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson |
