"Prate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strife, Welcome the cares, the thorns of life, The visage wan, the purblind sight, The toil by day, the lamp by night, The tedious forms, the solemn prate, The pert dispute, the dull debate, The drowsy bench, the babbling hall,— For thee, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... smiling sneeringly, And why? because, forsooth, so many moons, Here dwelling voiceless by the voiceful sea, Thou hast not set thy thoughts to paltry tunes In song or sonnet. Them these golden noons Oppress not with their beauty; they could prate, Even while a prophet read the solemn runes On which is hanging some imperial fate. How know they, these good gossips, what to thee The ocean and its wanderers may have brought? How know they, in their ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... my age better than suits it. But the earl has a will of his own. He is a master worth serving though. And there is my lady Elizabeth and my lady Mary—not to mention my lord Herbert!—But,' he concluded, rubbing his injured knee with both hands, 'why do I prate of them ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... correct, was not always thus a watering-place; but seems, for a long period, to have been a place under water. The very stones prate of Neptune's whereabouts in days of langsyne. No one who has seen what heaps of rounded pebbles are gleaned from the corn-fields, or become familiar with the copious remains of fresh water shells and insects, which are kneaded ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... you know all I have endured. To me, earth has been a hell—not the place of flames and torments of which your divines prate, but the true hell—that of the conscience and the soul. I, too, a man whose whole nature was athirst for truth. I sought it first among its professors; there I found that they who, too idle or too weak to demonstrate their creed, took it upon trust, did what their fathers did, believed what ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... break. I'll proclaim on the house-top what others dare not say, and we'll see if I don't succeed in organizing a little crusade against you." And animated by the sound of his own words, his anger came back to him, and in a louder and ever louder voice he continued: "Ah! you prate of the scandal that would be created by my resistance to your demands. That's your system; but, with me, it won't succeed. You threaten me with a law-suit; very good. I'll take it upon myself to enlighten Paris, for I know your secrets, Mr. Dressmaker. I ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... You may prate of the fervour of Phoebus Of days that are calm and serene, When a tint as of teak is imposed on the cheek That is commonly pallid (when clean); But we have a taste that's aesthetic; Mere sunshine seems vulgar and crude, As we gather to gaze with artistic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... fops and fools together prate, O'er punch or tea, of this or that, What silly poor unmeaning chat Does all their talk engross! A nobler theme employs my lays, And thus my honest voice I raise In well-deserved strains to praise The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... apologizing, first at the levee and then at the drawing-room; and he reprehended him very sharply at both places. An explanation afterwards took place through Lord Camden, to whom he said that he was angry because de Saumarez would prate at the levee, when he told him that it was not a proper place ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... thou prate of all that man shall do? Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be Glad in his gladness that comes after thee? Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to: Cover thy countenance, and ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... least, the king's highway of progress. Here, in England, too many painters and writers dwell dispersed, unshielded, among the intelligent bourgeois. These, when they are not merely indifferent, prate to him about the lofty aims and moral influence of art. And this is the lad's ruin. For art is, first of all and last of all, a trade. The love of words and not a desire to publish new discoveries, the love of form and not a novel reading of historical events, mark ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... You prate of duty and honor, of a patriot's glorious death, Of love of country, heroic deeds—nay, for shame's sake, spare your breath! Pray, what have you done for your country? Whose was the blood that was shed In the hellish warfare that served your ends? My boy was shot ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... instead of fresh, withered better than blooming, excellence in the abstract rather than the palpable. With their idle prate of feminine intellect, and a grotto nymph, and a mother of Gracchi! Why, he must think me dazed with admiration of him to talk to me! One listens, you know. And he is one of the men who cast a kind of physical spell on you while he has you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I grow a talker!' Let us prate. The next of perils, though I place it sternest, Is when, without regard to 'church or state,' A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest. Abroad, such things decide few women's fate— (Such, early traveller! is the truth thou learnest)— But in old England, when a young bride errs, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... to feel quite as though one had known many of them personally for years, and been distinctly the better, too, for that knowledge. Such boys stand at the antipodes alike of the unreal abstractions of an effeminate sentimentalism—the paragons who prate platitudes and die young—and of the morbid specimens of youthful infamy only too frequently paraded by the equally unreal sensationalism of to-day to meet the cravings of ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... preached now, it was to a dear, stupid lot of old marketwomen and overworked men and mischievous children. Oratory is a collaboration—let him wax eloquent about the precession of the equinoxes, and prate of Plato and Pythagoras if he wished—no one could understand him! Rome is wise—the crystallized experience of centuries is hers. Responsibility tames a man—marriage, political office, churchly preferment—read history and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... saw the deed, Detesting the vexatious breed, Bespoke him thus: "When coxcombs prate, They kindle wrath, contempt, or hate; Thy teasing tongue, had judgment tied, Thou hadst not ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... "Prate not to me, but depart from this tent," said the Grand Master; "the Marquis shall not confess this morning, unless it be to me, for I part not from ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... your patience, and be trew. This play was never liked, unlesse by few That brought their judgements with um, for of late First the infection, then the common prate Of common people, have such customes got Either to silence plaies, or like them not. Under the last of which this interlude, Had falne for ever prest downe by the rude That like a torrent which the moist south feedes, ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... went these pretty babes, Rejoicing at that tide, Rejoicing with a merry mind, They should on cock-horse ride. They prate and prattle pleasantly, As they rode on the way, To those that should their butchers be, And work their ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... they emulate her sons, And in the horrid phalanx dare to move, 'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove, Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate: In softness as in firmness far above Remoter females, famed for sickening prate; Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... yea, an harmless man, a fool, Who boasts he hath a message from our God, And lest that you, for bravery of heart And stoutness, being angered with his prate, Should lift a hand, and kill him, I ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... might prate of and should do with pleasure Except that they're far from the point of my song, Which is aimed at a dental adornment, a treasure Unheard of as yet by the ignorant throng, But an ivory fairer, More fleckless and rarer, Than ever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... a talker!"[637] Let us prate. The next of perils, though I place it sternest, Is when, without regard to Church or State, A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest. Abroad, such things decide few women's fate— (Such, early Traveller! is the truth thou ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... to read, and to reflect upon what she read, and to apply it to the purpose for which it is valuable, viz. in enlarging her mind and cultivating her taste; but she had never been accustomed to prate, or quote, or sit down for the express purpose of displaying her acquirements; and she began to tremble at hearing authors' names "familiar in their mouths as household words;" but Grizzy, strong in ignorance, was no wise daunted. True, she heard what ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... began to prate to him about the shameful way he had been jilted by Cecilia, and, by constantly reiterating the same thing, they at last succeeded in persuading him that he was an ill-used man. His self-esteem being roused by this silly chatter, he began to affect a ridiculous ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... dear my Lord, among other worse crimes, The whole was no more than a lie of The Times. It is monstrous, my Lord! in a civilis'd state That such Newspaper rogues should have license to prate. 90 Indeed printing in general—but for the taxes, Is in theory false and pernicious in praxis! You and I, and your Cousin, and Abb Sieyes, And all the great Statesmen that live in these days, Are agreed that no nation ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Shakspeare, and this criticism of him. Dryden measures himself with Juvenal, Lucretius, and Virgil. We, somewhat violently perhaps—with a gentle violence—construe a translation into a criticism, and prate too of those immortals. Glorious John modernizes Father Geoffrey; and to try what capacity of palate you have for the enjoyment of English poetry some four or five centuries old, we spread our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... a cold incredulous voice, he said:— "What prate is this of fathers and revenge? The mighty Rustum ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... Nancy groaned, "and I've hammered my finger to a pulp, trying to open this crate, while you perch on a broken step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The saucers to these cups may be in here, and I can't wait to find out. I'm perfectly crazy about this ware. ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... I confess 'tis a good hand against the player: but then there are Spadilio, Punto, the king, strong trumps, against you, which, with one trump more, are three tricks ten ace: for, suppose you play your Manilio—Oh, silly, how I prate, and can't get away from this MD in a morning! Go, get you gone, dear naughty girls, and let me rise. There, Patrick locked up my ink again the third time last night: the rogue gets the better of me; but I will rise in spite of you, sirrahs.—At night. Lady Kerry, Mrs. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch,—thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.—Thou sure and firm-set earth! Hear not my, steps, which way they walk; for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror for the time ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... him). The same applies to the artificial disparity of circumstances that you prate about with tears in your eyes! I heard you once. Class ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... flesh and blood, as a matter of course! You may talk of iron, and prate of force; But, after all, and do what you can, The best—and cheapest—machine is Man! Wealth knows it well, and the hucksters feel 'Tis safer to trust them to sinew than steel. With a bit of brain, and a conscience, behind, Muscle works ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... once again the Volscians make new head! Who, "like an eagle in a dovecote," then Will flutter them and discipline AUFIDIUS? An eagle! Shall I spurn my shadow, then Trample my own projection? So they babble Who'd silence me, make this my mouthpiece[1] mute; Who prate of prosecution—banishment, Perchance, anon, for me, as for the Roman, Because "I cannot brook to be commanded Under COMINIUS." What said VOLUMNIA To her imperious son? "The man was noble, But with his last attempt he wiped it out; Destroy'd his country; and his name remains To ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... utter scoundrel, after all? Have you no honour left? Is there nothing in you to which a woman can appeal? You talk of being human! You prate of your man's nature! And in the same breath you threaten an innocent girl with public infamy, if she will not disgrace herself of her own free will! Is that your love? Did I give you mine for that? Shame on you! And shame on ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... will force me to write a book about Italy myself, to give them 'the loud lie.' They prate about assassination; what is it but the origin of duelling—and 'a wild justice,' as Lord Bacon calls it? It is the fount of the modern point of honour in what the laws can't or won't reach. Every man is liable to it more or less, according to circumstances or place. For instance, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... concealed the sword, he snatched it up and smashed it across his knee. "See, then, how I treat the symbol of my monarchy," he cried with a terrible laugh. "I shall soon demonstrate to you what a pricked balloon is this Kingship of which you prate. I believe that you, my own father, are ready to supplant me, I know that Julius, my cousin, is straining every nerve to procure my downfall; but you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... loquaciousness; talkativeness &c adj.; garrulity; multiloquence^, much speaking. jaw; gabble; jabber, chatter; prate, prattle, cackle, clack; twaddle, twattle, rattle; caquet^, caquetterie [Fr.]; blabber, bavardage^, bibble-babble^, gibble-gabble^; small talk &c (converse) 588. fluency, flippancy, volubility, flowing, tongue; flow of words; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... also say, God is a Being, it is not true; He is transcendent Being and superessential Nothingness. Concerning this St Augustine says: the best thing that man can say about God is to be able to be silent about Him, from the wisdom of his inner judgement. Therefore be silent and prate not about God, for whenever thou dost prate about God, thou liest, and committest sin. If thou wilt be without sin, prate not about God. Thou canst understand nought about God, for He is above all understanding. A master saith: If I had a God whom I could ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... go with the multitude to do evil. My singularity is, that when I say that Freedom is of God, and Slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. My fanaticism is, that I insist on the American people abolishing Slavery, or ceasing to prate of the rights of man. My hardihood is, in measuring them by their own standard, and convicting them out ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... in remainder after the death of a tenant in tail without issue." "Spoke like a true disciple of Geber," cries Ferret. "No, sir," replied Mr. Clarke, "Counsellor Caper is in the conveyancing way—I was clerk to Serjeant Croker." "Ay, now you may set up for yourself," resumed the other; "for you can prate as unintelligibly ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... he cried, "what doth this fellow prate of? ... Past love? ... Thou profane boaster! ... how darest thou speak of love to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of aversion are the rabbins. The sublimest passages of the Scriptures they shamefully corrupt. As a case in point, they prate concerning Enoch that, while he was good and righteous, he very much inclined toward carnal desires. God, therefore, out of pity, prevented his sinning and perishing through death. Is not this, I pray you, a shocking corruption of the text ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... feel, can you be so shallow as to dream that I feel nothing? What is your love for Tom Faggus? What is your love for your baby (pretty darling as he is) to compare with such a love as for ever dwells with me? Because I do not prate of it; because it is beyond me, not only to express, but even form to my own heart in thoughts; because I do not shape my face, and would scorn to play to it, as a thing of acting, and lay it out before you, are you fools enough to think—" but here I stopped, having said more than ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... supper dispatch'd, our illustrious Guest, Till his Story was told, not a moment cou'd rest; While the OWL her brain rummag'd, (now quite on th' alert,) [p 21] For a few scraps of learning, by way of dessert: But the PEACOCK had no inclination to wait, And the PARROT was still more impatient to prate: So the Poem was read, and the OWL vow'd she never Had heard any Verses ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... suited well to such a guest, Immortal, unimpair'd, she rears her head, And damns alike the living and the dead. Oft have I known thee, Hogarth, weak and vain, Thyself the idol of thy awkward strain, Through the dull measure of a summer's day, In phrase most vile, prate long, long hours away, 460 Whilst friends with friends, all gaping sit, and gaze, To hear a Hogarth babble Hogarth's praise. But if athwart thee Interruption came, And mention'd with respect some ancient's name, Some ancient's name who, in the ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... woman started, alarmed at the word. "Nay, but of course not. 'Tis nothing to prate about: come along home," said she harshly, pushing the child. Ditte was unaccustomed to be spoken to in this manner, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... purpose, a definite human application. When the cup of human life is so overflowing with woe and pain and misery, it seems to me a narrow dilettanteism or downright charlatanism to devote one's self to petty or bizarre problems which can have no relation to human happiness, and to prate of self-satisfaction and self-expression. One can have all the self-expression one wants while doing ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... "Now cease thy prate," quoth Little John, "Thou japest but in vain; An he have not a groat within his pouch, We ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... "time's compensation"! Who now may prate, "Evil is good misunderstood"? Surely such cogent blending requires some ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... old man! Neither good nor ill wilt thou ever prate of mortal more, for I've drawn thy sting. Once thou wert kind to me; twice, in return, did I steal for thee, and once took a beating from thy shoulders. But thou wert more loyal to thy master than ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... as I do, and bark. The world," added he, "is chiefly unjust and ungenerous in this, that all are ready to encourage a man who once talks of leaving it, and few things do really provoke me more than to hear people prate of retirement, when they have neither skill to discern their own motives, or penetration to estimate the consequences. But while a fellow is active to gain either power or wealth," continued he, "everybody produces some hindrance to his advancement, some sage remark, or some unfavourable prediction; ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... defiantly, "this is hypocrisy enough. To dare to prate of reparation after the insults that you and yours have inflicted, is adding intentional humiliation to insult—and I will ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... take it and thee! I never heard a man yet begin to prate of his conscience, but I knew that he was about to do something more ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... quite certain about Lady Angelina's feelings. Girls are wild and romantic. They do not see the necessity of prudent establishments, and I have never yet been able to make Angelina understand the embarrassments of her family. These silly creatures prate about love and a cottage, and despise advantages which wiser heads than theirs ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... opportunely and somewhat aggressively burst into a guffaw of derisive laughter. "Miss Loomis is just one of those admirable women," said he, "that empty-headed idiots prate about. I wish other people had half her sense." A luckless way of essaying the defence of the absent, for it reflected on ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... their words mistrust, But you must hear them, and they know you must. One plainly sees a friendship firm and true, Between the noble candidate and you; So humbly begs (and states at large the case), "You'll think of Bobby and the little place." Stifling his shame by drink, a wretch will come, And prate your wife and daughter from the room: In pain you hear him, and at heart despise, Yet with heroic mind your pangs disguise; And still in patience to the sot attend, To show what man can bear to serve a friend. ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... and said, "They ceased not to bring ill-news of my slave-girl till she died,[FN79] methinketh Abu al-Hasan's death was grievous to her and that she died after him."[FN80] Quoth the Caliph, "Thou shalt not prevent me with thy prattle and prate. She certainly died before Abu al-Hasan, for he came to me with his raiment rent and his beard plucked out, beating his breast with two bits of unbaked brick,[FN81] and I gave him an hundred dinars and a piece of silk and said to him, "Go, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... hate to prate— - I'm no fanatic croaker, But learn contentment from the fate Of this East India broker. He'd everything a man of taste Could ever want, except a waist; And discontent His size anent, And bootless perseverance blind, Completely wrecked the peace of mind ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... of our soldiers, it is easy to understand their contempt for those civilians who go on strike, prate of weariness, scream their terror when a few Hun planes sail over London, devote columns in their papers to pin-prick tragedies of food-shortage, and cloud the growing generosity between England and America by cavilling criticisms and mean reflections. Their contempt is not that of the ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... everlasting robes This democrat is dressed, Then prate about "preferment" And "station" ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... "Let the fools prate!" responded Clementine, with an angelic smile. "I do not trouble myself to explain my affection for poor Fougas, but I love him very much, that's certain. I love him as a father, as a brother, if you prefer it, for he is almost as young as I. When we have resuscitated him, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... is here, and desires to be my bedfellow to-night. So I shall not have an opportunity to sit down with that seriousness and attention which the subjects of yours require. For she is all prate, you know, and loves to set me a prating; yet comes upon a very grave occasion—to procure my mother to go with her to her grandmother Larking, who has long been bed-ridden; and at last has taken it into ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... to lay all their complaints before the Church; to hold for heathen all who are cast out of the Church; and that nevertheless so many men for so many centuries should not know where the Church is or who belong to it! This much only they prate in the darkness, that wherever the Church is, only Saints and persons destined for heaven are contained in it. Hence it follows that whoever wishes to withdraw himself from the authority of his ecclesiastical superior ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... this vulgar scoundrel to the dust, but at what a price! The convict's dress now worn by his brother would soon be worn by him. And what solace would it be then that the same suit would be worn by the impostor also? Yet why prate of solace in a matter like this? What alternative was left to him? In what quarter of the sky was the light dawning for him? He was traveling toward the deepening night, and the day of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Stella, and selected a blue cup with dragons on it. "At any rate," she continued, "it is very disagreeable of you to come here and prate like a ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release From dusty ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... done, the epilogue, by rule, Should come and turn it all to ridicule; Should tell the ladies that the tragic bards, Who prate of Virtue and her vast rewards, Are all in jest, and only fools should heed 'em; For all wise women flock to mother Needham. This is the method epilogues pursue, But we to-night in everything are new. Our author then, in jest throughout the play, Now begs a serious ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... him in the council of state, and that the appointment of this or any Spaniard was a violation of the charters of the provinces and of the promises of his Majesty. As if it were for the nobles of the obedient provinces to prate of charters and of oaths! Their brethren under the banner of the republic had been teaching Philip for a whole generation how they could deal with the privileges of freemen and with the perjury of tyrants. It was late in the day for the obedient Netherlanders to remember ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time Which ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... prate against wedlock! how did he strut about as a wit and a smart! and what a wit and a smart did all the boys and girls of our family (myself among the rest, then an urchin) think him, for the airs he gave himself?—Marry! No, not for the world; what man of sense would bear the insolences, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... cheeks, did rumple passionate, Like AEschylus—and tried to prate On trolling tongue, of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... she smiled 'And even in this lone wood, Sweet lord, ye do right well to whisper this. Fools prate, and perish traitors. Woods have tongues, As walls have ears: but thou shalt go with me, And we will speak at first exceeding low. Meet is it the good King be not deceived. See now, I set thee high on vantage ground, From whence to watch the time, and eagle-like ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... impudence and cant!" said Julian, starting from his seat, aroused by his hypocritical prate into unwonted intolerance; and he suddenly observed, by the cowering attitude which Hazlet assumed, that the worthy youth was afraid of receiving at his head the water-bottle, on which Julian's hand was resting. Julian thought it best to avoid the temptation, and hoping ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... of thy novitiate, doest well, verily, to prate of obedience and doctrines," interrupted Father Gianmaria, less severely than he was wont to treat such breaches of etiquette; for Fra Francesco had deep, spiritual, loving eyes, in which an unuttered wonder sometimes seemed to chide, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Beds, &c. We are all for Humour, Gallantry, Conversation, and Courtship, and shou'dn't endure the chief Lady in the Play a Mute, or to say very little, as 'twas agreeable to them: Our amorous Sparks love to hear the pretty Rogues prate, snap up their Gallants, and Repartee upon 'em on all sides. We shou'dn't like to have a Lady marry'd without knowing whether she gives her consent or no, (a Custom among the Romans) but wou'd be for hearing all the Courtship, all the rare and fine things that ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... spite of me . . . enough! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, 50 Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness, Discussed of—"This I love, or this I hate, This likes me more, and this affects me less!" Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series. Virgin, Babe and ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... replied Aymer, "and therefore scarce angels in disguise, even though you prate of the clouds. So if you wish to measure blades I shall not balk you. Nathless," as he slowly freed his own weapon, "it is a ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change your tune. Anyway, I'm a thief,—make the most of that,—but I'm not a devil from hell, God strike me dead! I would have you to know I've an honour of my own, as good as yours, though I don't prate about it all day long, as if it was a God's miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I keep it in its box till it's wanted. Why, now, look you here, how long have I been in this room with you? ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... the itch of verse and praise; Nor like a puppy, daggled thro' the town, To fetch and carry sing-song up and down; Nor at Rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd, and cry'd, 225 With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left the whole ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... longer couldst thou sit and hear This demon prate in upper air— Deeds horrible to maiden ear. Begone, thou spokest. Over-head The startled fiend his pinion spread, And ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... Arise and look ye forth yourselves, for I With doubtful ken behold him; yet the man Seems, in my view, AEtolian by descent, A Chief of prime renown in Argos' host, 590 The hero Tydeus' son, brave Diomede, But Ajax Oiliades the swift Him sharp reproved. Why art thou always given To prate, Idomeneus? thou seest the mares, Remote indeed, but posting to the goal. 595 Thou art not youngest of the Argives here So much, nor from beneath thy brows look forth Quick-sighted more than ours, thine eyes abroad. Yet still thou pratest, although ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... statement James makes a wide thrust at all factions and sects. For they also have a word and boast much of their doctrine, but theirs is not the Word of truth whereby men are made children of God. They teach naught, and know naught, about how we are to be born God's children through faith. They prate much about the works done by us in the state derived ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... takes longer, and, accordingly, the nights are long. Such is the doctrine drawn from Holy Scripture, says Cosmas, and as for the vain blasphemers who pretend that the earth is a round ball, the Lord hath stultified them for their sins until they impudently prate of Antipodes, where trees grow downward and rain falls upward. As for such nonsense, the worthy Cosmas ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... happiness, Alas! for human sorrow; Our Yesterday is nothingness, What else will be our Morrow? Still Beauty must be stealing hearts, And Knavery stealing purses; Still Cooks must live by making tarts, And Wits by making verses; While Sages prate and Courts debate, The same Stars set and shine; And the World, as it roll'd through Twenty-eight, Must ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... triumph now elate, His grinning Rival 'gan to prate. Oh, fie! my friends; upon my word, You're too severe: he should be heard; For Mind can ne'er to glory reach, Without the usual aid of speech. If thus howe'er, you seal his doom, What hope have I unknown to Rome? But since the truth ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... that to be President of the United States is the most honorable office a man can hold, and our elected candidates (except when they have the splendid self-abnegating courage of a Cleveland!) wade to Washington through a perfect bog of venal promises. We prate of our democratic institutions, and forget that free trade is one of the first proofs of a free people, and that protected industries are the feudalism of manufacture. We sneer at the corruption of a Jeffreys ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... not: but the joy of the people was real. They know what is right. Besides, consult the grand thermometer of opinion, the price of the funds: on the 17th Brumaire at 11 francs, on the 20th at 16 and to-day at 21. In such a state of things I may let the Jacobins prate as they like. But let them not ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... wealthy may prate, An booast o' ther riches and land, Some o'th' laadest 'ul sink second-rate To that lad with his ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads, masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... misgivings—why these idle qualms, This shrinking backwards at the bugbear conscience; In early life I heard the phantom nam'd, And the grave sages prate of moral sense Presiding in the bosom of the just; Or planting thongs about the guilty heart. Bound by these shackles, long my lab'ring mind, Obscurely trod the lower walks of life, In hopes by honesty my bread to gain; But neither commerce, or my conjuring ...
— The Group - A Farce • Mercy Warren
... nothing forgotten, for the facts were probably never known to those who prate about the conquered rights from the crown. As you say, however, the civilization of a community is to be measured by its consciousness of the existence of all principles of justice, and a familiarity with its own history. The ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... great sinking at his heart. They prate who say it is success that tries a man. He flung ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... that lad about bein' weak-kneed after you have shown the courage he has within the past four an' twenty hours. You an' your mutinous comrades prate loudly of bravery when there is no enemy in sight; but I'll lay odds that not one out of an hundred like you would dare go alone ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... might prate about wealth till commonplace print was exhausted, but as matter of habit, few Americans envied the very rich for anything the most of them got out of money. New York might occasionally fear them, but more often ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... gabble, murmur, prattle, blurt, chat, gossip, palaver, tattle, blurt out, chatter, jabber, prate, twaddle. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Why prate of peace? when, warriors all, We clank in harness into hall, And ever bare upon the board Lies the necessary sword. 1319 ROBERT ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... "Sure as we're both alive here sittin' on this sooty London grass," he cried. "This Call of the Wild they prate about is just the call a fellow hears to go on 'the bust' when he's had too much town and's got bored—a call to a little bit of license and excess to safety-valve him down. What I feel," his voice turned grave and quiet again, "is quite a different affair. It's the call of real hunger—the call ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... judge, to be that the anti-foreign feeling, which is undoubtedly intense especially in the south of the Empire, may come to a head any day and prematurely explode. The nincompoops and quidnuncs and newspaper men ravenous for copy who prate about a "yellow peril" may, in this latter fact, find some slight excuse for their blatant lucubrations. There is no real "yellow peril." Poor old China, which has been so long slumbering, is just rousing herself and making arrangements for defence against the "white peril," materialistic ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... like lead, Accents uncertain: "Time to taste life," another would have said, "Up with the curtain!" This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Patience a moment! Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment. 60 Let me know all! Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy! Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Ay, nor feel queasy." Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give! Sooner, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... Blueskin. "Take my life, if you're so disposed. You're welcome to it. And let's see if either of these women, who prate of their love for you, will ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... have driven others to seek a better reason for their religious faith than barbarous tradition and the vote of ecumenical councils. Bigotry has quailed beneath the ringing blows of your iconoclastic hammer, dogmatism become more humble and the priesthood well-nigh forgotten to prate of a hell of fire in which the souls of unbaptized babes forever burn. Without intending it, perhaps, you have done more to promote the cause of true religion, more to intellectualize and humanize man's conception of Almighty God, than any other ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... silent, audacissime juvenis! Why should I exert myself to explain my opinions to coarse and common folk, who don't know what universalia entia rationis formae substantiales are? It certainly is absurdissimum to try to prate of colors to the blind. Vulgus indoctum est monstrum horrendum informe, cui lumen ademptum. Not long ago a man ten times as learned as you wished to dispute with me, but when I found that he did not know what quidditas was, I promptly ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... the five-and-thirtieth rule of the order is that in the presence of a woman the face should be ever averted and the eyes cast down? Hast forgot it, I say? If your eyes were upon your sandals, how came ye to see this smile of which ye prate? A week in your cells, false brethren, a week of rye-bread and lentils, with double lauds and double matins, may help ye to remembrance of the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... prince these lords had iterate Their welcomes oft, and oft their dear embrace, Toward the rest of lesser worth and state, He turned, and them received with gentle grace; The merry soldiers bout him shout and prate, With cries as joyful and as cheerful face As if in triumph's chariot bright as sun, He had ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... monk, and in what posture he hanged; wherefore he said to Eudemon, You were mistaken in comparing him to Absalom; for Absalom hung by his hair, but this shaveling monk hangeth by the ears. Help me, said the monk, in the devil's name; is this a time for you to prate? You seem to me to be like the decretalist preachers, who say that whosoever shall see his neighbour in the danger of death, ought, upon pain of trisulk excommunication, rather choose to admonish him to make his confession to a priest, and put his ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... a secret, says a beau, And sneers at some ill-natured wit below; But faith, if we should tell but half we know, There's many a spruce young fellow in this place, Wou'd never presume to show his face; Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate; How many tip-top beaux have had the fate, T'enjoy from mama's secrets their estate! Who, if her early folly had made known, Had rid behind the coach that's now ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... so tragic over it! If your father wins—and as the law stands he can scarcely fail to win—I shall be driven out of Upcote. But there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit of some sort to prate from." ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... capable of bearing arms departed long ago to join the ranks of the factious in the Basque provinces. Those who remain are for the most part grey-beards and priests, good for nothing but to assemble in private coffee-houses, and to prate treason together. Let them prate, Don Jorge; let them prate; the destinies of Spain do not depend on the wishes of ojalateros and pasteleros, but on the hands of stout gallant nationals like myself ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Wagner doctrines—Ah! that odious, heavy, pompous prose of Wagner. In this erotic comedy there is no action, nothing happens except at long intervals; while the orchestra never stops its garrulous symphonizing. And if you prate to me of the wonderful Wagner orchestration and its eloquence, I shall quarrel with you. Why wonderful? It never stops, but does it ever say anything? Every theme is butchered to death. There is endless repetition ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... best company, and one is not expected to undergo the fatigue of listening. Aman. Does your lordship think that the case at the opera? Lord Fop. Most certainly, madam. There is my Lady Tattle, my Lady Prate, my Lady Titter, my Lady Sneer, my Lady Giggle, and my Lady Grin—these have boxes in the front, and while any favourite air is singing, are the prettiest company in the waurld, stap my vitals!—Mayn't we hope for the honour to see you added to our society, ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... higher and ever higher perception and attainment. The great majority of the world's inhabitants live with less consciousness of this Spirit than flies or worms—they build up religions in which they prate of God and immortality as children prattle, without the smallest effort to understand either,—and at the Change which they call death, they pass out of this life without having taken the trouble to discover, acknowledge or use the greatest gift God ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... his shop, to retire from business, and for some time he had been thinking of going to see Sidonie, in order to interest her in his new schemes. That was not the time, therefore, to make disagreeable scenes, to prate about paternal authority and conjugal honor. As for Madame Chebe, being somewhat less confident than before of her daughter's virtue, she took refuge in the most profound silence. The poor woman wished that she were deaf and blind—that she never ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... waves seems fast asleep, And oft again the blust'ring North In angry heaps provokes them forth. If then this world, which holds all nations, Suffers itself such alterations, That not this mighty massy frame, Nor any part of it can claim One certain course, why should man prate, Or censure the designs of Fate? Why from frail honours, and goods lent Should he expect things permanent? Since 'tis enacted by Divine decree That ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... beneath the inevitable diminutive—Flossie; or he will build up painfully, inch by inch, a barrier against the name's corroding action. He will boast of his biceps, flexing them the while. He will brag about cold baths. He will prate of chest measurements; regard golf with contempt; and speak of the ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... prating what the priest may prate, But to love, as God hath loved them, all things, be they small or great; And true bliss is when a sane mind doth a healthy body fill; And true knowledge is the knowing what is good and what ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... is naught to thee— 'Tis but the jealous raving, wild and frantic, Of those who would, but never can, be free;— Who, slaves to selfish passions bold ambition, Hold up their shackled arms in heaven's broad light, And prate of freedom, boast their high position, And strive to turn to interest Truth ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... referring to the one person in half a million to whom Art is anything more than a name. Dismissing the countless hordes who have absolutely never heard the word, and confining attention to the few thousands scattered about Europe and America who prate of it, how many of even these do you think it really influences, entering into their lives, refining, broadening them? Watch the faces of the thin but conscientious crowd streaming wearily through our miles of picture galleries and art museums; gaping, with guide-book in hand, at ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... strangers, a gracious breeze that brings from the gulf shore showers and fills with its rain our streams. And this, of a truth, I know—no fancy it is of mine: who holds mean his kith and kin, the meanest of men is he! And surely a foolish tongue, when rules not its idle prate discretion, but shows men where thou dwellest with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... began, but caught himself. No, he would prate no more of 'going to'. "I'll not ask you to believe it," he said, "until I bring it to you and place it in ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... one thing," Selingman replied; "your Press, written for and inspired with the whole spirit of the bourgeoisie. You prate about your Empire, but you've never learnt yet to think imperially. But there, it is not for this I crossed the Channel. It ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... beforenamed prophetess, who while they all sat at the table, began to groan and quake gradually until at length the whole bench shook. Then rising up she began to pray, shrieking so that she could be heard as far as the river. This done, she was quickly in the dish, and her mouth began immediately to prate worldly and common talk in which she was not the least ready. When the meal was finished, Ephraim obtained a horse for himself and his wife, and we followed him on foot, carrying our travelling bags. Our host took us to the path, and Ephraim's ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my where-about, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. [A bell rings.] Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell, That summons ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... replied that these windows were not of the new-fangled sort, made to open, that honest men might get rheums, and foolish maids prate therefrom. So there was no hope in that direction. He really seemed to be less ungracious than utterly clownish, dull, and untaught, and extremely shy ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fervour, or patriotic enthusiasm, for its inspiration. It was the very law of their life, the essential spirit in them. They were unconscious of it as a man is unconscious of breathing, unless diseased. Their honour was not a thing to talk about. To prate about the honour of the army or the honour of England was like talking about the honour of their mother. It is not done. And yet, as Mark Antony said, "They were all honourable men," and there seemed an austerity of virtue in them which no temptation would betray—the virtue of men who have ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... firmly he holds that little hand! I think I see him paddle with it; and then the dog's earnest, intent look,—and she all blushes, though she dare not look up to meet his gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh, the demure, modest, shamefaced hypocrite! How silent she is! She can prate enough to me! I would give my promised garter if she would but talk to him. Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only simper, in God's name, and I shall be happy. But that bashful, blushing silence,—it is insupportable. Thank Heaven, the dance is over! Thank Heaven, again! I have not felt ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the scholars were renewed, and further intimations of violence were exhibited. Again the peas rattled upon the hands and faces of the halberdiers, till their ears tingled with pain. "Prate to us of the king's favorites," cried one of the foremost of the scholars, a youth decorated with a paper collar: "they may rule within the precincts of the Louvre, but not within the walls of the university. Maugre-bleu! We hold them cheap enough. We ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... I sit and steep My soul in GRANVILLE'S logic. Companions mine, sound ale, good wine— That foils Teetotal dodge—hic! With solemn pate our sages prate, The Pump-slaves neatly pinking. He's proved an ass, whose days don't pass In ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... through the long nights of winter?—The panther would teach them savage cruelty and a speedy step, and the deer would counsel them to fly from the pursuit of a snail, or a land-tortoise, or the cry of a wren, or the prate of a jackdaw; the fox might teach them cunning, and the dog sagacity, and the wild cat nimbleness, and the antelope fleetness, and the wolf courage, and the owl an insight into my ways. But there must be a being to repress the insolence, and controul the rage, of the more savage creatures, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... he hadn't come up against that confounded artist-fellow! That had upset him, most absurdly. A half good-looking sort of fellow: a fellow who could prate with a certain brio; not unlikely to make something of a figure in the eyes of a girl like Cecily. And ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... going, by your theoretical treatises on philosophy, to make me learn the practical part of it, and prate upon learning while I am supporting ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... confident I am Thy life is one of very little ease; Albeit men mock thee with their similes And prate of being "happy as a clam!" What though thy shell protects thy fragile head From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea? Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee, While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed, And bear thee off—as foemen take their spoil— Far from ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... notice of the little boys. He dilated their hearts, and set them a prating; and was pleased with their prate. The doctor, who had never seen him before in the company of children, applauded him for his vivacity, and condescending talk to them. The tenderest father in the world, he said, could not have behaved more tenderly, or shewed himself more delighted with his own children, than ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... I go to the balls and the races A lonely companionless elf, And the ladies bestow all their graces On others less grey than myself; While the talk goes around I'm a dumb one 'Midst youngsters that chatter and prate, And they call me 'the Man who was Someone Way back in the ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... pearl-gray dawn. Dearest, dearest, don't sob so. It is a case of two affirmatives making a negative; two great nationalities decried, derided, rendered null and void in their offspring through the dictates of those who, in religion, prate that we are all brothers. I have just got to stick it, my mother, and life is not very long. But I shall never marry." And as he spoke, Fate flicked a page of an illustrated paper, which was but the volume of the Book ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... the great truth that faithfulness and loyalty are general human traits, nowhere more so than among those from whom they should not be expected; nowhere more so than among those who are debarred from hope. The great captains of industry so-called, themselves blown full of pride of circumstance, prate often of the inefficiencies of human cattle; yet continually the wonder remains that these same cattle continue to do that which their conscience tells them is right for them to do, and to do it for the sake of the doing. The lives of all of us are daily put in charge of beings entitled ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... being up with the pike and shillelagh on any or no occasion. God forbid Scotland should retrograde towards such a state—much better that the Deil, as in Burns's song, danced away with the whole excisemen in the country. We do not want to hear her prate of her number of millions of men, and her old military exploits. We had better remain in union with England, even at the risk of becoming a subordinate species of Northumberland, as far as national consequence is concerned, than remedy ourselves ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... success? Think of the Deemster! Wifeless, childless, living solitary, dying alone, unregretled, unmourned. What is the wickedness you are plotting? Your father is dead, you can do him neither good nor harm. This girl is alive. She loves you. Love her. Let the canting hypocrites prate ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... inscription or writting made as it were vpon a table, or in a windowe, or vpon the wall or mantel of a chimney in some place of common resort, where it was allowed euery man might come, or be sitting to chat and prate, as now in our tauernes and common tabling houses, where many merry heades meete, and scrible with ynke with chalke, or with a cole such matters as they would euery man should know, & descant vpon. Afterward the same came to be put in paper ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... shall have time to prate. My Lord Brachiano— Alas! I make but repetition Of what is ordinary and Rialto talk, And ballated, and would be play'd a' th' stage, But that vice many times finds such loud friends, That preachers are charm'd ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... hostages off to Denmark against his plighted faith. There Gustav was held prisoner a year. All that winter rumors of great armaments against Sweden filled the land. He heard the young bloods from the court prate about bending the stiff necks in the country across the Sound, and watched them throw dice for Swedish castles and Swedish women,—part of the loot when his fatherland should be laid under the yoke. Ready to burst with anger and grief, he sat silent at their boasts. In the ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... you on? Even for my love then, I beseech you, sir, To seek him out, and lest he prate of me To put your knife into him ere he come forth: Meseems this were not such ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... can make garments, yes, though they were cut from the skins of beasts and had to be sewn with backbone sinews. Because you despise fine clothes, and because you have seen me only decked out as fan-girl, you think I am useless. Bah, Deucalion! Never let people prate to me about your perfection. You know less about a woman than a ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... will get. For once I shall not be sorry to see a lad get on, who has been brought up in the school of adversity. But, pshaw! he will be like all the rest. Prosperity will turn his brain. Already he begins to prate of his ancestors. . . . Poor humanity he almost made me laugh. . . . But it is mother Gerdy who surprises me most. A woman to whom I would have given absolution without waiting to hear her confess. When I ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... these happy days when we Can loll in cooling shades while others toil For us, on stipends which like widow's mite Are small: will in the future disappear. These men who prate of slavery in these isles Do know full well that witness false they bear. We buy not souls and on the record place Their names among the chattels which we own, But their life's labor for a certain sum We purchase, when in times of sorry stress They fain prefer ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... them all upon me, as I intended it should: it was as a tub to a whale; and after I had let them play with it a while, I claimed their attention, and, knowing that they always loved to hear me prate, went on. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... is not only rigorously in accordance with the canons of scientific logic, but that it is the only adequate method. Critics exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have never determined a scientific fact in their lives by induction from experiment or observation, prate learnedly about Mr. Darwin's method, which is not inductive enough, not Baconian enough, forsooth, for them. But even if practical acquaintance with the process of scientific investigation is denied them, they may learn, by the perusal of Mr. ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to me ridiculously inconsistent for gentlemen upon this floor to prate so much about a republican form of government, and rise here and offer resolution after resolution about the Monroe doctrine and the downtrodden Mexicans, while they force upon the people of this ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... you prate, fool?" he questioned huskily, seeking to bluster it before the startled glances of ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... But why prate history, why evoke phantoms of the past, when we can gaze on this exquisitely concrete thing—this glad and simple creature of Hokusai? Let us emulate his calm, enjoy his enjoyment as he sprawls before us—pinguis, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm |
