"Stammer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been delightful," Lucy contrived to stammer, and then fell to scanning the road, which stretched away for a long half mile ahead of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... his grammar badly tangled, but my heart burned as I listened. And I have heard a man talk with smooth speech, and it rolled off me as easily as it rolled out of him. Do your best, and leave the rest. If we are in touch with God His fire burns whether the tongue stammer or has good control ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... his chair hastily back, his face fairly crimson, and began to stammer an explanation; but ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... not yet over; hardly had Caroline left when the door was opened and Miss Avies was shown in. Maggie started up with dismay and began to stammer excuses. Miss ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... would show you the double parlours. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist. Mrs. Parker's manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who had neglected to train you up in one of ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale face, but before he could stammer a ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... behind the carriage, my face muffled up in my cloak. I desired the servants to make no mention of my sudden appearance. They soon made a sign to me that she was recovering consciousness, and I heard her voice stammer forth these words, as if in a dream: "Oh, if Raphael were here! I thought it was Raphael!" I hastily returned to my own carriage; the horses started afresh, and a wide distance soon lay between us. In the evening ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife; While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be— Properly based Oun Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... fell abashed within me. I could scarce stammer forth a reply. Had he but known my latest thoughts, he might have been able to read the flush of shame that so ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... diurnal heat No reliques chafe the cold beams of the moon, O'erpower'd by earth, or planetary sway Of Saturn; and the geomancer sees His Greater Fortune up the east ascend, Where gray dawn checkers first the shadowy cone; When 'fore me in my dream a woman's shape There came, with lips that stammer'd, eyes aslant, Distorted feet, hands ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... man can [Page 237] answer. We trace it up through the worlds, till its increasing fineness, its growing power, and possible identity of substance, seem as if the next step would reveal its spirit origin. What we but hesitatingly stammer, the Word ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... much taken aback to do better than stammer out helplessly, hopelessly, almost unintelligibly, a few words striving to remind her of her own admission. Nothing, indeed, could take the sting out of this, and yet it was all but impossible to accuse her, to blame her even for ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... peculiar kind. His arms and legs had grown feeble, but he had not lost the use of them, and his brain indeed worked perfectly; but his speech was muddled and instead of one word he would pronounce another: one had to guess what it was he wanted to say.... "Tchoo—tchoo—tchoo," he would stammer with an effort—he began every sentence with "Tchoo—tchoo—tchoo, some scissors, some scissors," ... and the word scissors meant bread.... My father, he hated with all the strength left him—he attributed all his misfortunes to my father's curse and called him alternately the butcher ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... he contrived to stammer. "I should be glad of a ride. I don't often get one. Besides, I ought to have been at home ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... mention of Ella, Algernon crimsoned to the eyes, and became so exceedingly confused, that he could with difficulty stammer forth, by way of reply, the query as to the time when the important event was ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... to me afterwards to remember that my father had thanked these good people 'properly,' as I considered. As for myself, I had only been able to blush and stammer out something that was far from expressing my delight with the lovely nosegay I received. Then the slender lady went back to her gardening. Her sister took up the knitting which she had laid down, the old gentleman nodded his lamp-shade in the direction where he supposed us to be ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... young Burnham-Seaforth. "A great, handsome fool—all beauty and no brains, like a doll of wax!" Then she bent over and murmured smilingly to Zuilika: "I shall make a bigger nincompoop of this big, fair sap-head than Heaven already has done before he leaves here, just for the sake of seeing him stammer ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... people, for his great services as an officer. This the Speaker did in glowing terms, quite unexpectedly to Washington. Washington rose to reply. His face flushed; he struggled to speak; but could only stammer, and stood speechless and trembling. "Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the Speaker, with a smile. "Your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... she really did amuse herself by telling him the names of the things he touched. He could only stammer, reiterating the syllables, and failing to utter a single word plainly. However, she began to walk him about the room, holding him up and leading him from the bed to the window—quite a long journey. Two or three times ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... put a bold face upon the matter and walked into the Giant's room to thank him for his lodging. The Giant started when he saw him, and began to stammer out: "Oh! dear me; is it you? Pray, how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in the ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... with a slight stammer that somehow lent an additional kindliness to his tone, "what has the day's work been? You first, Herr Graf," he added, turning to the Count. "I suppose that you have made ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... emerged, safe and unscratched from the confused heap of men and furniture, it was to cut off instantly the stutter and stammer of poor Shafto's apologies, to bid him go instantly for the ship's doctor, and, with face the color of death, to turn quickly to Armstrong. The blow had burst open the half-healed wound, and the blood was ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... know I dazzled as if I entered in And walked upon a windy sunset and drank it, Yet must I stammer with such strange uncouthness And tear it from me, tangling my arms in it. Why should I so befool myself and seem A laughable bundle in each woman's eyes, Wearing such things as no one ever wore, Useless ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... a stifled cry, thrust his hand into his pocket and began to stammer inarticulate syllables, while Mme. Dugrival ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... with each day. Occasionally the fever would go down sufficiently to allow him to get something to eat. Then it would be worse than before. In his dire need he wanted to pray, but he was so weak that he could only stammer, "Dear God, help ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... has practised himself in love-making till his own glibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the lover's awe—may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and needles after numbness: how much more may that energetic timidity possess a man whose inward ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... ladies who used to talk like mechanical dolls. They could say 'papa' and 'mamma,' and when they went to a dance they never lost sight of their parents. The little childlike young lady who was always so timid and bashful and who used to blush and stammer, brought up to be ignorant of everything, neither knowing how to stand up on her legs nor how to sit down on a chair—all that sort of thing's done with, old-fashioned, worn out. That was the marriageable young lady of the days of the Gymnase ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... about twelve summers the remark that she tho't it was rich to talk about the crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a Tower where so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder stammer and turn red. ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... remark, and then evidently restrain himself, and remain silent. It was very curious to see this big, handsome, manly young fellow, who ought to have had any amount of success with women, suddenly stammer and grow crimson in the presence of his own wife. Nor was it the consciousness of stupidity; for when you got him alone, Oke, although always slow and timid, had a certain amount of ideas, and very defined political ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing, Then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfulls of lingerie and stammer dresses. She moved quietly. but deadly efficiency, and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie had helped ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... do you hesitate?" retorted the Moor. "Do Englishmen blush and stammer when they tell the truth? Tell me the truth now. Do you know where the ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... introducing artfully his rugged lines, and to serve a particular purpose, had probably seldom, and never but by accident, composed a smooth one. Such has been the versification of the earliest poets in every country. Children lisp, at first, and stammer; but, in time, their speech becomes fluent, and, if they are well ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... which rose from that cellar-like place below the level of the street, repelled the country-bred lad. Were it not for the desperate urgency of his errand he never would have dared to enter. As it was, the fumes of alcohol and steaming, dirty clothes nearly choked him, and he could scarce stammer the name of "citizen Rateau" when a gruff ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... appeared to be alive; but they were alive, still glittering brightly with a stubborn flame of energy. The attack had this time fallen on his right side, almost entirely depriving him of the power of speech. He could only stammer a few words, by which he succeeded in making them understand that he wished to die there, without being moved or worried any further. He had no relative at Lourdes, where nobody knew anything either of his former life or his ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... silence, seeing that I would not get him to respond in that way, I began to stammer something about my calling, my love of art, my desire to learn and so forth. . . . He continued to peel his potatoes. Finally, I asked him to give me lessons. He glanced at me and grumbled: 'How old are you, my boy?' ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... now in the wrong, was a little frightened at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift descent of Malcolm's heavy riding whip on his shoulders and back made him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... stared dumbly at the weak faced one, who looked at a complete loss, but managed to stammer simperingly that it was a ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... of her feelings, blushed and hesitated. Just as she was about to stammer out some disconnected words, however, voices were heard behind the shrubbery, which separated the arbor from a neighboring walk, and this created ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... he replied, in a kind of stammer; "an' as to Sally, the nerra one o' me knows any thing about her, since ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to the scorn of stripling orators. Our minds and bodies being ravaged with age, Posidon should protect us, yet we have no other support than a staff. When standing before the judge, we can scarcely stammer forth the fewest words, and of justice we see but its barest shadow, whereas the accuser, desirous of conciliating the younger men, overwhelms us with his ready rhetoric; he drags us before the judge, presses us with questions, lays traps for us; the onslaught ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... When they grow up and have ideas which are beyond their powers of expression, especially in writing, tautology begins to appear. In like manner when language is 'contaminated' by philosophy it is apt to become awkward, to stammer and repeat itself, to lose its flow and freedom. No philosophical writer with the exception of Plato, who is himself not free from tautology, and perhaps Bacon, has attained to any ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... he was flushing to the peak of his forage-cap. He knew he was trying to stammer something. He saw that she was perfectly placid and at her ease. He saw, worse luck, that she wore a little knot of roses on the breast of her natty jacket, but that they were not his. He faltered something to the effect that he had ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... low summons, When the silver winds return; Rills that run and streams that stammer, Goldenwing with his loud hammer, Icy brooks that brawl and clamor, Where the Indian willows burn; Let me hearken to the calling, When ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... at the lot of a mere commuter, You think that my life is hard, mayhap, But I'm sure than you I am far acuter: I ain't afraid of no cat nor trap." The city rat could but meekly stammer, "Don't use such grammar, My ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... downcast eye, and cold perspiration on his pallid brow, did not understand him; for he continued to stammer incessantly,— ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... him in bewilderment; then, as the captain's meaning dawned upon him, he stepped forward impulsively and, seizing his hand, began to stammer out incoherent thanks. ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... would under no circumstances and for no considerations ever consent to go into a room in the dark by himself, being extremely imaginative and nervous; and that on one occasion when he was asked what he expected to befall him, he said with a shudder and a stammer: "To fall over a mangled corpse, squish! into a ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the other half being a constable who does duty in the daytime. Waggoner suffers from an affection which in a large community might prevent him from holding such a job as the one he does hold. He has an impediment of the speech which at all times causes him to stammer badly. When he is excited it is only by a tremendous mental and physical effort and after repeated endeavours that he can form the words at all. In other regards he is a first-rate ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Pinocchio was filled with such great and unexpected joy that he became almost delirious. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to say a thousand things, and instead he could only stammer out a few confused and broken words. At last he succeeded in uttering a cry of joy, and, opening his arms, he threw them around the little old man's ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... environment. Thus the anecdote of the servant who had been instructed to summon the visiting English nobleman by tapping on his bedroom door and inquiring, "My lord, have you yet risen?" and who could only stammer, "My God! ain't you up yet?" Or the anecdote of the minister who in a sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son told how a young man living dissolutely in a city had been compelled to send to the pawnbroker first his overcoat, next his suit, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... doubtless with a firm heart, but with hesitating speech. When the little fair-haired officer dared to look him in the face and insult him, he, holding the sword of the people, he, General of the sovereign Assembly, he only knew how to stammer out such wretched phrases as these, "I have just declared to you that we are unable, 'unless compelled and constrained,' to obey the order which prohibits us from remaining assembled together." He spoke of obeying, he who ought to ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the phrenologist entered. He carried a bag with a pumpkin in the bottom of it, and, sitting down on a stool, he let the bag down with a bump on the floor between his feet. Malachi was badly scared, but he managed to stammer out— ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... she inquired, with the blandest accents imaginable. I can't tell a lie, pa,—you know I can't tell a lie; besides, I had not time to make up one, and I said, "Yes," and then, of all stupid devices that could filter into my brain, I must needs stammer out that I should like a few matches! A pretty thing to bring a dowager duchess up nine pairs ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... about his spare frame and smoke from his cigarette rose in a quivering blue-white stream. Ward spied him at the same moment and stepped forward with quick outstretched hands. I remember the flame of adoring zeal in the youngster's eyes as he tried to speak. At length he managed to stammer some congratulatory phrases while Drayle clapped ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... for this decisive step; but he could only stammer out, 'Really, sir, you are too good;' and Mr Glowry departed to bring Mr Hilary to ratify ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... a triumphant eye. When he began to stammer out what was in effect an apology, she improved the opportunity, threw off her suave manners, and let him understand with a certain plain brutality that she had taken Louie's measure. She would do her best to keep the girl in order—it was lucky for ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... imagination; the expression is that of the sure and serene master. There are here no echoes of Raff, or Wagner, or Brahms, men that have each influenced mightily the musical thought of to-day. There is the voice of one composer: a virile, tender voice that does not stammer, does not break, does not wax hysterical: the voice of a composer that not only must pour out that which has accumulated within him, but knows all the resources of musical oratory—in a ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... plunged him into the depths of depression and bashfulness. She had come to him several times for a light, or to apologise for the imaginary depredations of her poodle; but his mouth was closed in the presence of so superior a being, his French promptly left him, and he could only stare and stammer until she was gone. The slenderness of their intercourse did not prevent him from throwing out insinuations of a very glorious order when he was safely alone with a ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said; he was so bewildered by this unexpected mildness that he could not think what to say next. "I very much appreciate your overlooking my not telling you about it before I did it. The—the fact was," he began to stammer; her face was not reassuring; "the fact was, it was all so hurried, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... filled the room with a wild tumult of movement. I had not heard anything like it in my life. It set every nerve of me dancing. I suppose Paragot found his interest in me because I was such an impressionable youngster. When, at the abrupt finale, he asked me what I thought of it, I could scarce stammer ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... wood-cut of an old fellow with a wooden leg, and a letter in his right hand, is intended to grace this title-page. "Do you believe (said I to the young woman, who sold me the book, and who could luckily stammer forth a few words of French) what the author of this work says?" "Yes, Sir, I believe even more than what he says—" was the instant reply of the credulous vender of the tome. Every body around seemed to be in good health and good spirits; and a more cheerful opening of a market-day ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... your ideas fly from you when you attempt to express them, that you stammer and flounder about for words which you are unable to find, you may be sure that every honest effort you make, even if you fail in your attempt, will make it all the easier for you to speak well the next time. It is remarkable, if one keeps on trying, how quickly he will conquer his awkwardness and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... only German gutturals held the table, and we who had no facility with them muttered meek French or sullen English to our neighbors. The next day French would be the rule, and Teuton must mumble in it and Anglo-Saxon stammer or hold its peace. Curiously enough, although we were in Italy, Italian was rarely, almost never, spoken among us, our only use of it being in orders to the servants. Our landlady was English, with an Italian husband, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... joined by two or three good-looking, well-dressed young women. My friend talked to them in French and bought drinks for the whole party. I tried to recall my high-school French, but the effort availed me little. I could stammer out a few phrases, but, very naturally, could not understand a word that was said to me. We stayed at the cafe a couple of hours, then went back to the hotel. The next day we spent several hours in the shops and at the tailor's. I had no clothes ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... said Ethel. "What a mess every one will make! Oh, if I could but stay away, like Harry! There will be Dr. Hoxton being sonorous and prosy, and Mr. Lake will stammer, and that will be nothing to the misery of our own people's work. George will flounder, and look at Flora, and she will sit with her eyes on the ground, and Dr. Spencer will come out of his proper self, and be complimentary to people who deserve it no more!—And Norman! ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... foolish and feel that they are contemptible. This was such a moment to Lord Spoonbill. He was moved, and he was mortified that he was moved; and there was a general feeling of confusion and perplexity in his mind. What could he say? or how could he act? He began to stammer out something like gentleness, and something like reproof. But she who stood before him was as an accusing spirit, to whom apology was mockery, and repentance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... Every member of the family I boarded with died within a week, and I was left in the house alone. This man, this peculiar fellow, Nat Parker, found me, took charge of me and did not leave me until I was out of danger. Of course, there was no way to reward him—you can merely stammer your gratitude to the man who has saved your life. He told me that the time might come when I could do him a good turn. Well, I met him the other day in New Orleans, and I incidentally spoke of my intention to sell my paper. He said that he ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... man made the astounding proposition as calmly as though he were asking the Kentuckian to a lunch of bacon and hardtack, and Crittenden flushed with gratitude and his heart leaped—his going was sure now. Before he could stammer out his thanks, the general was gone. Just then Rivers, who, to his great joy, had got at least that far, sat down by him. He was much depressed. His regiment was going, but two companies would be left behind. ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... studying they get into the way of gabbling and pronouncing carelessly and ill; it is still worse when they repeat their lessons; they cannot find the right words, they drag out their syllables. This is only possible when the memory hesitates, the tongue does not stammer of itself. Thus they acquire or continue habits of bad pronunciation. Later on you will see that Emile does not acquire such habits or at least not ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... became unendurable. I felt that I must overcome my languor so far as to address him. I am not a nervous man, and I never knew before what Virgil meant when he wrote "adhoesit faucibus ora." At last I managed to stammer out a few words, asking the intruder who he was and what ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and Lisping (Literal Dysarthria).—Children just beginning to form sentences stammer, not uttering the sounds correctly. They also, as a rule, lisp for a considerable time, so that the words spoken by them are still indistinct and are intelligible only to the persons ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... had inadvertently fallen asleep, that I was usually a wide-awake citizen of the land that Lafayette went to save, that I wanted my dinner, and would like to get out. I walked down near enough to the gate to see the policeman, but my courage failed. Before I could stammer out half that explanation to him in his trifling language (which foreigners are mockingly told is the best in the world for conversation), he would either have slipped his hateful rapier through my body, or have raised an alarm ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... beside herself. She is like a maniac. She has lost you; she cannot explain to—to Mademoiselle's father. Mon dieu, when he met her unexpectedly in the hall, he shouts, 'where is my daughter?' And poor Madame she has but to shiver and stammer and—run away! Oui! She dash out into the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... have done better had he not been haunted by the Englishman's fear of being over-demonstrative. He was easily capable of turning a nice little speech. Apart from the fear of transgressing the canons of negative good form he would have enjoyed turning one. As it was, he assumed a stammer and a drawl, jerking out a few inarticulate phrases of which the lady could distinguish only "so awfully good of you" and "never forget your jolly kindness." This being masculine, soldier-like, and British, he was hurt to notice an amused smile on the Marquise's lips. He could have sworn ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... these words, but I was not prepared to answer him, and in the rush of his indignant accusation my defence was swept down, and I could only stammer out— ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... soldier, was Peal, and undeniably there was music in the name. But nature had also given him a strong will, which stiffened his back like an iron bar, and that is a splendid gift, quite invaluable in the struggle for an existence. When he was still a baby, only just able to stammer a few words, he would never refer to his own little person as "he," as other babies do, but from the very first he spoke of himself as "I." You have no "I," said his parents. When he grew older, he expressed every little want or desire by "I will." But then his ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... and enunciation often suffered in point of clearness and steadiness, from the agitation of her excessive organic sensibility. At times the self-counteraction and self-baffling of her feelings caused her even to stammer. But the greatest deductions from Miss Wordsworth's attractions, and from the exceeding interest which surrounded her, in right of her character, of her history, and of the relation which she fulfilled towards her brother, were the glancing quickness ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... Vargrave suffered Mr. Douce to stammer out sentence upon sentence, till at length, as he rang for coffee, his lordship stretched himself with the air of a man stretching himself into self-complacency or ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... wanted to get cool," answered Kat with a stammer, and her eyes going hurriedly from ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... very kind of you to make it again," Christopher managed to stammer out, adding with a bluntness worthy of Masters himself, "I never could understand why you ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... this to do with poor Dick? Why do people turn away from me and stammer at the mention of his name, as though they were ashamed? He, poor boy, knew ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... how I cried on first entering the cars, and now—would you believe it?—I got terribly embarrassed. It seemed as if everything I did or said made matters worse. I was scarcely able to stammer, 'My aunt—' ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... little girl—tears of joy over her first success—she could hardly see what the coin was, but when she picked it up she managed to stammer ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... Connecticut was abundantly strong enough to secure Impartial Suffrage. But it chose, instead, to insult its black-faced brethren, and refused their alliance." Mr. Raymond, in the New York Times, speaks without a stammer on the suffrage question. It declares, "In New York suffrage is now absolutely universal for all citizens except the colored people; and upon them it is only restricted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... like her, nibble a morsel and drink a mouthful; they tell one another the history of their martyrs; their sorrow becomes vehement; their libations increase; their eyes, swimming with tears, are fixed on one another; they stammer with inebriety and desolation. Gradually their hands touch; their lips meet; their veils are torn away, and they embrace one another upon the tombs in the midst of the cups ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... are consonants. They would be almost pure hexameters, if in lieu of the long a[a-macron]nd, we could put e[e-breve]t, or te [tau epsilon]. And there are only three Saxon words in the two lines. But hexameters consisting of purely English words, especially of Anglo-Saxon words, halt and stammer like a schoolboy's exercise. The attempt of Kingsley in Andromeda is ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... not gasp or stammer or question. She did none of the dismayedly enlightening things into which a lesser poise might have tottered. After an inconsiderable moment of silence she merely uttered her familiar, "Oh!" and uttered it in a voice in which so many things were blended ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... case," broke in Lateral Stability, and affecting the fashionable Flying Corps stammer, "it would be a h-h-h-o-r-rible affair! If there were too much Keel-Surface in front, then that gust would blow the Aeroplane round the other way a very considerable distance. And the right-hand Surface being on the outside of the turn would have more ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... curious, kindly little man—lame, with a brown wig, a wrinkled face, and a long mouth, of which he only made use of the half on the right side to stammer out humorous and often witty sayings—at least so they appeared to those who had grace enough to respect his position and his age. As often as reference is made in my hearing to Charles Lamb and his stutter, up comes the face of dear old Professor Fraser, and I hear ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... stammer her apologies, while Carrie sought to soothe the enraged Frenchman by saying, that "Miss Gordon was merely complimenting his ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... impossible. "Very well," said General Sigel, "I think I shall want this place to-morrow for a hospital. Madam, your kindness will be reciprocated." He spoke very emphatically, whereat the pretty daughter began to cry, and the mother to stammer apologies, and said she would do the best she could for them, but she really had nothing to cook. The general retired very indignant. Whether or not his threat was carried out I do not know, for the next morning we were off without ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... touch on his temples, she was alert. Color was surging into his face; his features, large, irregular, took on for the instant a look of speechless, almost demoniac power; he seemed to be swimming some mental tide before his foot touched the sands of language and he could helplessly stammer: ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... You have talents and art to captivate any woman. I'm doom'd to adore the sex, and yet to converse with the only part of it I despise. This stammer in my address, and this awkward prepossessing visage of mine, can never permit me to soar above the reach of a milliner's 'prentice, or one of the duchesses of Drury-lane. Pshaw! this fellow here ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... to see you even drink a cup of coffee ungracefully, and slop yourself with it, by your awkward manner of holding it; nor should I like to see your coat buttoned, or your shoes buckled awry. But I should be outrageous, if I heard you mutter your words unintelligibly, stammer, in your speech, or hesitate, misplace, and mistake in your narrations; and I should run away from you with greater rapidity, if possible, than I should now run to embrace you, if I found you destitute of all those graces which I have set my heart upon their making you ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... ran on smilingly: "He promised to shackle you to a table until I could stammer out my halting apologies, and now that I've done so in the presence of press and public won't you forgive me and help me to bury the hatchet in a Welsh rarebit?" He was speaking directly to her with a genuine appeal in his handsome eyes. Now that she ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... monks who are horrified, as at some prodigy, if they stammer, or repeat even a syllable in the Canon of the Mass,[16] though this may be a natural defect of the tongue, or an accident, and is not a sin. Again, there is no priest who does not confess that he was distracted, or failed to read his Preparatoria, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... and Dugazon. Several foreigners were present at a breakfast given by Eugene, the parts having been assigned, and learned in advance, and the two victims selected. When each had taken his place at table, Dugazon, pretending to stammer, addressed a remark to Thiemet, who, playing the same role, replied to him, stammering likewise; then each of them pretended to believe that the other was making fun of him, and there followed a stuttering quarrel between the two ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... hurt, he had not even fallen, but excitement as usual had robbed him of the power of connected speech. He could do no more than stammer at the window. "Too heavy. Too heavy." Winnie put out her ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... articulation was affected by a slight stammer, which, in my opinion, but added piquancy to her epigrammatic sayings. She once remarked to me, "I shall never be c-c-cold until I'm dead." An impulse took possession of me which somehow, in spite of the great difference in our ages, I seemed unable to resist, and I retorted, "We are not all assured ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... his hand in dismissal and settled himself to sleep. When Culver began to stammer thanks for ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... a surprise to Garnett that for the moment he could only stammer out—"You consent then? I may go and ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find him. So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled HOTI's business—let it be!— Properly based OUN— {130} Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic 'De', Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... sometimes for a few facts; correcting still his old records,—must relinquish display and immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation he must betray often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept—how often!—poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of course, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... seems but the symbol of pride, and incompleteness of technical resource the image of an imagination too limitless to find within the limits of form its complete expression, or of a love too simple not to stammer in its tale. But to us the rule of art is not the rule of morals. In an ethical system, indeed, of any gentle mercy good intentions will, one is fain to fancy, have their recognition; but of those that would enter the serene House ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... street, did not seem to know why they stopped him, who, lacking West's verbal felicity, could do nothing but take his hand, hot with the fear that they might be betrayed into expressing any feeling, and stammer out: "Doc, if you want anything—why dammit, Doc—you call ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... getting confused again, and he began to stammer. Mr. Cavendish wondered that, in some way, Mr. Balfour did not come to the relief of his witness, but he sat perfectly quiet, and apparently unconcerned. Mr. Cavendish rummaged among his papers, and withdrew two letters. These he handed to the witness. "Now," ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... separate so quickly. It is not, however, possible that they will fight.... Can we see them from here?" He approached the window, which indeed looked upon the enclosure. The sight which met his eyes caused the excellent man to stammer.... "The miserable men!.... It is monstrous.... They are mad.... They have found seconds.... Whom have they taken?.... Those two huntsmen!.... Ali, my God! My God!".... He could say no more. The doctor had hastened to the window to see ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... harsh. Yet, he was great: and though he turned language into ignoble clay, he made from it men and women that live. He is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. Even now, as I am speaking, and speaking not against him but for him, there glides through the room the pageant of his persons. There, creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... hands with the lady, and she said a great many very pretty things to him, which made the gallant little hero blush like a rose in June, and stammer so that he could hardly make ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... Captain Snaggs managed to stammer out after a bit, his long face perceptibly longer and his rubicund complexion turned to an ashy grey. He was conscience-stricken and thoroughly frightened at the second-mate thus bringing up again, as he thought, his cruel murder of the negro cook; for, Jan Steenbock spoke ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for grammar, Nor did we care to teach, But soon he learned to stammer Some words of ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this new light; Peter loving a woman, and denied. The knowledge seemed to fling a strange glamour about him; she saw new charm in him, or perhaps, as she told herself, she saw for the first time how charming he really was. His speech seemed actually the pleasanter for the stammer at which they had all laughed years ago; the slight limp lent its own touch of individuality, and the man's blunt criticisms of books and music, politics and people, were softened by his humour, his genuine humility, and his ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... "Boris Godounow," and out of the dust of ages an halting, inarticulate voice calls to us. He is the poor, the aging, the half-witted; the drunken sot mumbling in his stupor; the captives of life to whom death sings his insistent, luring songs; the half-idiotic peasant boy who tries to stammer out his declaration of love to the superb village belle; the wretched fool who weeps in the falling snowy night. He is those who have never before spoken in musical art, and now arise, and are about us and make us ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... tortured man could not speak. But while his rescuer slashed loose the rawhide ropes that bound him, he began to stammer ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... with his hands, did not frown or clench his fists, but remained impassively calm. His words, however, cut Rrisa like knives. The orderly remained trembling and sweating, with a piteous expression. Finally he managed to stammer: ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... flatter and caress them; they allow some part of their body to be uncovered as if by accident; their breasts appear to swell; they show unusual alacrity; they blush; their eyes are bright; and if they experience unusual ardor they stammer, talk beside the mark, and are scarcely mistress of themselves. At the same time their private parts become hot and swell. All these signs should convince a husband, however inattentive he may be, that his wife craves for satisfaction" (Zacchiae Quaestionum Medico-legalium ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... with his emotion and desire to be polite, half rose to acknowledge the pretty speech, and to stammer some sort of reply, but as he did so his hand by chance touched her own that was resting upon the table, and a shock that was for all the world like a shock of electricity, passed from her skin into his body. His soul wavered and shook deep within ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... do, Mr. Crowninshield?" he at last managed to stammer after the master had ceased his pacing of the veranda and at length became ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... like me?" Mr. Darley now appealed to Sydney, who managed to stammer out: "I certainly ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... reached out to something that she felt must be beyond the pleasant sound of falling water, so small and transitory; beyond the drip and patter of human destinies—something vast, solitary, and silent. How should she find that which none has ever named or known? Men only stammer of it in such words as Eternity, Fate, God. All the outcries of all creatures, living and dying, sink in its depth as in an unsounded ocean. Whether this listening silence, incurious, yet hearing all, is benignant or malevolent, who can say? The wistful dreams of men haunt ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... so. The poor fellow wanted to learn to stammer in his Testament, and Letty, like any true-hearted wife, had given him the little assistance she could render. The whipping failed of its intended effect, however. Going one evening, at a late hour, into Letty's cabin, I found ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... hesitation &c v.; impediment in one's speech; titubancy^, traulism^; whisper &c (faint sound) 405; lisp, drawl, tardiloquence^; nasal tone, nasal accent; twang; falsetto &c (want of voice) 581; broken voice, broken accents, broken sentences. brogue &c 563; slip of the tongue, lapsus linouae [Lat.]. V. stammer, stutter, hesitate, falter, hammer; balbutiate^, balbucinate^, haw, hum and haw, be unable to put two words together. mumble, mutter; maud^, mauder^; whisper &c 405; mince, lisp; jabber, gibber; sputter, splutter; muffle, mump^; drawl, mouth; croak; speak thick, speak through the nose; snuffle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Maud Mackenzie frankly hadn't any chin, Her hands were rough, her feet she turned invariably in; Her general form was German, By which I mean that you Her waist could not determine To within a foot or two: And not only did she stammer, But she used the kind of grammar That is called, for sake of ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... discomfited, and was about to stammer out some awkward reply, when the marshal of the household threw open the doors of the banquet-hall, and approaching the king, cried out, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... have their mental powers confused. This is recognized in such common expressions as "she was covered with confusion." Persons in this condition lose their presence of mind, and utter singularly inappropriate remarks. They are often much distressed, stammer, and make awkward movements or strange grimaces. In certain cases involuntary twitchings of some of the facial muscles may be observed. I have been informed by a young lady, who blushes excessively, that at such times she does not even know what ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... stammer, and the door reply, The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... gained it as for him who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; Blucher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington does not understand it at all. Look at the reports: the bulletins are confused; the commentaries are entangled; the latter stammer, the former stutter. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it into three acts; Charras, altho we do not entirely agree with him in all his appreciations, has alone caught with his haughty eye the characteristic lineaments of this catastrophe ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Wilford Cameron's wife; but the sight of Katy, together with the errand on which she came, had unnerved her, and she wept bitterly in her desolation, until Katy's reappearance startled her from her position on the floor, making her stammer out some excuse about "homesickness and the seeing Katy bringing back ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... sometimes, To move compassion: Sir, there is a table, That doth command all these things, and enjoyns 'em, Be perfect in their crutches, their feign'd plaisters, And their torn pass-ports, with the ways to stammer, And to be dumb, and deaf, and blind, and lame, There, all the halting paces are set ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... replied, very energetically for him, and reining his horse up under a wide spreading butternut tree, which grew upon the river bank, he sprang out and pretended to be busy with some part of the harness, while he astonished Jerrie by bursting out, without the least stammer, he was so earnest and so excited: 'I've something to say to you, Jerrie, and I may as well say it now as any time, and know the worst, or the best. I can't bear the suspense any longer, and I got out of the cart ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... us to wriggle, and strain, and stammer, and we do not recognize the root of the trouble and shun it, and learn to yield and quietly relax our nerves and muscles, of course the strain becomes worse. Then, rather than suffer from it any ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... The visitor came in, leaving the door ajar, and after a minute during which, to help her, he charged her with the purpose of telling him that he ought to be ashamed to send her down such rubbish, she recovered herself sufficiently to stammer out that his song was exactly what she had been looking for and that after reading it she had been seized with an extraordinary, irresistible impulse—that of thanking him for it in person ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... gazing out on the dull leaden sky, watching the snowflakes falling through the dreary air. There followed then a long, long pause, in which I had time to recover from the effect her words had produced, and to frame and stammer forth such congratulations as seemed required by the occasion. These she did not answer, or even seem to comprehend, but roused from her revery by the sound of my voice, she crossed the room and seated herself beside me, and took my hand within ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... law, at the completion of his legal studies he was admitted an advocate of the parlement of Paris in 1785. His professional success was not great; his manner was violent, his appearance unattractive, and his speech impaired by a painful stammer. He indulged, however, his love for literature, was closely observant of public affairs, and thus gradually prepared himself for the main duties of his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... born in Athens; had many impediments to overcome to succeed in the profession, but by ingenious methods and indomitable perseverance he subdued them all, and became the first orator not of Greece only, but of all antiquity; a stammer in his speech he overcame by practising with pebbles in his mouth, and a natural diffidence by declaiming on the sea-beach amid the noise of the waves; while he acquired a perfect mastery of the Greek language by binding himself down to copy five times over in succession Thucydides' "History ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to see what was the matter. When he got near, the lights went into the house: he went up quietly and as he looked in found the house full of women who extinguished the light directly they saw him and rushed out of the house. Then he asked my sister what the light was; but she could only stammer out "What light? I saw no light," so he struck her a blow and went back to the threshing-floor and told the others what he had seen. That night he would not tell them the names of the women he had seen; and before morning his right arm swelled ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... stammer out a few words, but I was already outside the door on the street. I dropped the watch into the bottom of my pocket, held it tight with my hand and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... see her receiving my guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp as you lisped when you were six ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find Him. So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's deg. business—let it be!— deg.129 Properly based Oun deg.— deg.130 Gave as the doctrine of the enclitic De deg. deg.131 Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... the terms of the will; but he explained that he was a bachelor with hardly any living relation, that he had known my parents in his youth, and that he had always heard of me as a very deserving young man, and was assured that his money would be in worthy hands. Of course, I could only stammer out my thanks. The will was duly finished, signed, and witnessed by my clerk. This is it on the blue paper, and these slips, as I have explained, are the rough draft. Mr. Jonas Oldacre then informed me that there were a number of documents—building leases, title-deeds, mortgages, scrip, and ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of some formelesse conceptions, which they cannot distinguish or resolve within, and by consequence are not able to produce them in as-much as they understand not themselves: And if you but marke their earnestnesse, and how they stammer and labour at the point of their deliverle, you would deeme that what they go withall, is but a conceiving, and therefore nothing neere downelying; and that they doe but licke that imperfect and shapelesse lump of matter. As for me, I am of opinion, and Socrates would have it so, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... Morton's nephew from Indiana," the young man managed to stammer, feeling some explanation might bridge the gulf of ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... "She had a little stammer that—that Laurie thought very pretty, and she had a restless little way of playing with her fingers as if on a piano. Oh, my dear, it would have been too dreadful; ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... to give myself airs. When one puts on the semblance of anything for a time, it will soon become a portion of our nature. Imitate a stutterer for a while, and you will have to keep diligent watch over yourself not to stammer in earnest. I fell in love, and was on the point of changing into a totally different person; for my passion was sincere and ardent. But new distress. The noble being who soon became my wife, could never give me her heart. The strongest passion must die away when it finds no return; and in such ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck |
