"Mutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he fancied he could hear rumbling noises in the distance, dull and threatening like the mutter-ings of thunder before a storm. There surely must be a storm raging down below at the foot of the mountains. He got up ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... pulled in his head and scowled at his aunt, but he dared not disobey, and went out slowly with a sulky mutter. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... run you out of camp, you iss so bad?" she asked me by way of greeting. Then, more kindly, "Your boy iss all right, the mutter also. I am come, though, to find you. It iss time you are home with the kinder. ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... would be blasphemy—but of one great, yea, most high, Sackiema, by which name they—living without a king—call him who has the command over several hundred among them, and who by our people are called Sackemakers; and as the people listen, some will begin to mutter and shake their heads as if it were a silly fable; and others, in order to express regard and friendship for such a proposition, will say Orith (That is good). Now, by what means are we to lead this people to ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... too elevated to tread the common ground of fact and detail; it would touch nothing but generalities, for they alone are safe, harmless, and respectable; and, if they are also empty, how can that he helped? Starving, it shrank into itself, muttering old incantations; and it continued to mutter them, automatically, some ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... voice had forgotten his presence. It ceased not to mutter to itself while he was speaking, and now ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... railway laborer, fresh from tunnelling or boring, and wearing a blouse to hide his working dress. These ill- used men ought to 'strike' for better clothes, in case Antigone should again revisit the glimpses of an Edinburgh moon; and at the same time they might mutter a hint about the ale. But the great hindrances to a perfect restoration of a Greek tragedy, lie in peculiarities of our theatres that cannot be removed, because bound up with their purposes. I suppose that Salisbury Plain would seem too vast a theatre: but ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... heard his voice. "Ah! here it is." He had found his hat. For a few seconds we hung in the wind. "What will you do after—after . . ." I asked very low. "Go to the dogs as likely as not," he answered in a gruff mutter. I had recovered my wits in a measure, and judged best to take it lightly. "Pray remember," I said, "that I should like very much to see you again before you go." "I don't know what's to prevent you. The damned thing won't make me invisible," ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... not then, nor by any means suspected how fearful was its character in the remote and hidden depths of her soul. She sat with Osborne's right hand between hers, and scarcely for a moment ever took her sparkling eyes off his countenance. Many times was she observed to mutter to herself, and her lips frequently moved as if she had been speaking, but no words were uttered, nor any sense of her distress expressed. Once, only, in the course of the evening, were they startled into a hush of terror and dismay, by a single short laugh, uttered so loud and wildly, ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... these simple souls!" he mused. "How sure of their salvation! To count their beads and mutter their Ave Marias; 'tis all they need. Yon fisher, with his great gold ear-rings, who throws his nets and cuddles his Juanita and carouses with his mates, hath more to thank the saints for than miserable I, who, blessed with wealth, am cursed with loneliness, and loving my fellow-men, yet know ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... special study. How is it, Bill?" he demanded, fiercely, as his disappointment grew upon him. "I've beaten not only you, but the whole class from the primary up, in history, ancient, modern, and local, until now. There's something crooked here." His voice sank to a mutter. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... that paper here, after all," Dave heard the international spy mutter in a low voice. "Certainly it has not been picked up, for I came back almost instantly, and there was no one near. It is not likely that I shall ever see that important ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... 'Did—did——' The sentence died in an unintelligible mutter. He seemed to utter a name I could not catch. All the time I was watching him intently, and never shall I forget the look that passed over his face. He had been very pale before, but now his pallor was ghastly. For a moment he looked almost like a dead man, save for the gleam in his eyes. ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... ope his eyes like a casement, Und laid a cold hand on his prow, Denn mutter in ootmosdt amazement, "Vot manner of mordal art dou? I hafe lifed in dis world a yar tausend, Und nefer yed met soosh a ding! Yet you find it hart vork to pe spouse, and Peloved ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... heard him mutter. "Must be something in the Mohammedan business after all. Extremely beautiful woman, and that gold thing looks well on her ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... With desperate firmness. In presence of another he says little, But I perceive his lips move now and then; And once or twice I heard him, from the adjoining Apartment, mutter forth the words—"My son!" Scarce audibly. I must proceed. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... fling themselves by me as I eat my noonday meal. The one, red-eyed, furtive, lies on his side with restless, clutching hands that tear and twist and torture the living grass, while his lips mutter incoherently. The other sits stooped, bare- footed, legs wide apart, his face grey, almost as grey as his stubbly beard; and it is not long since Death looked him in the eyes. He tells me querulously of a two hundred miles tramp ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... mutter of astonishment arose, and the waiter-girls, giggling, marvelling, and envious, paused, their platters in hand, to exchange comment on the new-comer's hat and gown. A cowboy at the washing-sink in the corner suspended his face-polishing ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... last he let Jack go off without offering him even a syllable of thanks, the bystanders smiled, and somebody might have been heard to mutter, "Peakslow all over! Just like ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... read the notice of a lecture on Crabbe, inscribed upon a great red poster. There was something in the lettering of the poster that displeased him exceedingly, for, having scanned over it, he would turn away with a quickened pace, and mutter some incoherent sentences no one present could comprehend, but which his increasing nervousness betold were expressive of anger. The thought of Bessie made me impatient, and following the example of the little deformed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... And seeing him higher up than on any tree one could ever climb, with the sunny sky above him and the shining water below him, I could only mutter out with envious longing—"How ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... battle-axe hewed and cut at the wolves as they sprang toward him. In a minute they had cleared their way to the figure, which was that of a knight in complete armor. He leaned against the rock completely exhausted, could only mutter a word of thanks through his closed visor. At a short distance off a number of the wolves were gathered, rending and tearing the horse of the knight; but the rest, soon recovering from their surprise, attacked with fury the little party. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... The lark sings high in the dark. The were wolves mutter, the night hawks moan, The raven croaks from the Raven-stone; What care I for his boding groan, Riding the moorland to come to mine own? Hark! hark! hark! The lark sings high in ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... at the speaker as if he'd told them the world had come to an end. It was Morse who managed to mutter: ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... drown herself according to rule, and there will be an end,' the fiendish wretch was heard to mutter. No one was allowed to follow her. She probably did drown herself, but that was by no means the end. Well, the gipsy girl is said to ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... hand of Hardinge, and the two descended rapidly but silently into the city. On their way, they heard the confused mutter of ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... tribes gave him no heed except to glower at him in the camp-ways or to mutter after him when he had passed. Seeing that Judah suffered him, they did not fall on him. Thus the young man was safe. As for the notice Kenkenes took of Israel, it began and ended with his inquiry after Rachel, the daughter of Maai the Compassionate, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... come before him and tell her own story. So the heralds blow their trumpets again and call for her, and she comes. She is dressed all in white, and she looks so beautiful and pale and sad that nobody who was not wicked himself could ever suspect her of doing anything wicked, and all the men about mutter that the one who says that she killed her brother will have to prove it. They have just heard the King say something of the kind, so they feel very righteous and very bold about it. The King, then, asks her if she can ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... one of the victims of Russian tyranny," said he. "The executioner did his work badly, and Pestal had to be strung up twice. In the interval he was heard to mutter, 'Stupid country, where they don't ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... and faint, but on the contrary, to my complete amazement, she merely bowed her head and dropped quietly upon her knees. Then, after a pause of more than a minute, she raised her eyes to the roof and her lips began to mutter as in prayer. Her right hand, meanwhile, which had been fumbling for some time at her throat suddenly came away, and before the gaze of all of us she held it out, palm upwards, over the grey and ancient figure outstretched below. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... gay—Mr. Wrenn stayed late, under the mercury-vapor lights, making card cross-files of the Southern merchants, their hobbies and prejudices, and whistling as he worked, stopping now and then to slap the desk and mutter, "By gosh! ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... resolution adopted by the people of Ypres and Bruges. But when he returned to Ghent, on the 24th of July, 1345, "those in the city who knew of his coming," says Froissart, "had assembled in the street whereby he must ride to his hostel. So soon as they saw him they began to mutter, saying, 'There goes he who is too much master, and would fain do with the countship of Flanders according to his own will; which cannot be borne.' It had, besides this, been spread about the city that James Van Artevelde had secretly ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Not ceasing to mutter threats, Gale picked up his hat and stamped out of the house, slamming the doors. Duke, exhausted by the quarrel, sat down, eying his niece. "Now what does this mean?" he ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... very nearly come. He did not again speak intelligibly to any of them. In his last hours he suffered considerably, and his own thoughts seemed to irritate him. But when he did mutter a few words, they seemed to refer to trivial matters—little plagues which dying men feel as keenly as those who are full of life. To the last he preferred George either to his niece or to his granddaughter; and was always best pleased when his nephew was by him. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... that he was doomed. Fate had struck at him mercilessly. He could only wait in dumb despair, and mutter prayers too long forgotten, and concoct bogus letters from a cousin's address in the south of England for the benefit ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... in fashion now gone by, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly: Mere puppets they who come and go At the bidding of a huge formless Thing That shifts the scenery to and fro, Ruling the World from flat and wing— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust," Isa. 29:4. "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: (should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead!) to the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them," ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... my faithful lieutenant. Her emphasis assured me that the inspiration I had obeyed was a felicitous touch. She pressed still closer to me, mindful of my dignity, and prompted me further, in an artistic mutter, without ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... struggled to his feet. He was becoming delirious with terror. He stepped forward again. The ground seemed solid and he laughed a horrid, wild laugh. Another step and another. He paused, breathing hard. Then he started to mutter,— ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... thousands Glaucon turned toward the only faces that he saw out of the innumerable host: Themistocles, Democrates, Simonides, Cimon. They beheld him raise his arm and lift his glorious head yet higher. Glaucon in turn saw Cimon sink into his seat. "He wakes!" was the appeased mutter passing from the son of Miltiades and running along every tier of Athenians. And silence deeper than ever held the stadium; for now, with Lycon victor twice, the literal turning of a finger in the next event might win or lose the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... trumpet blown above the dead. The color died into an ashen gray and the air grew cold, with a heaviness beside that dragged at the very soul. Diccon shivered violently, turned restlessly upon the log that served him as settle, and began to mutter to himself. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... flung the laird, and loud mutter'd he, "A' the daughters of Eve, between Orkney and Tweed O! Black or fair, young or auld, dame or damsel or widow, May gang in their pride to the de'il for me!" But the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a romantic, sentimental, melodramatic fraud, and his bearing impressed me with awe. I vividly remember the first time he took me into his confidence. He was planing a board, and every now and then he would pause and heave a deep sigh; and occasionally mutter broken sentences— confused and not intelligible—but out of their midst an ejaculation sometimes escaped which made me shiver and did me good: one was, 'O God, it is his blood!' I sat on the tool-chest and humbly and shudderingly admired him; for I judged he was full of crime. At last he said ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... stuck about their waists, of which herb they make their drink. To make sure of a welcome, this king brought with him a present of sixteen hogs. When the two kings came in sight of each other, they began to bow and to mutter certain prayers; on meeting they both fell prostrate on the ground, and after several strange gestures, they got up and walked to two seats provided for them, where they uttered a few more prayers, bowing reverently to each other, and at length sat down under the same canopy. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... time unbound, seated in a corner of the cabin, his hands fallen on his knees, his eyes staring on vacancy, while the two priests stood as close against the wall as they could squeeze themselves, keeping up a ceaseless mutter of prayers. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and techneer, lay on the padded shock cushion of his assigned bunk and stared with wide, disillusioned eyes at the stretch of stark, gray metal directly overhead. He tried to close his ears to the mutter of meaningless words coming from across the narrow cabin. Raf had known from the moment his name had been drawn as crew member that the whole trip would be a gamble, a wild gamble with the odds all against them. RS 10—those very numbers ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... "Delancy had something on down-town and I wanted to look over some cross-saddles they made for me at Thompson's. Do be amiable and help us eat our salad. What a ghastly place town is in September! It's bad enough in the country this year; all the men wear long faces and mutter dreadful prophecies. Can you tell me, Duane, what all this ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... heard him mutter to himself, "just 's the Swede told me." She knew their color; they had looked into ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... be ever so much in earnest at the time, their parents and guardians have the mastery of them sooner or later, and the farther it has gone, the worse it is. I saw you lying asleep here looking so innocent that it went to my heart, and I heard you mutter in your sleep 'Love is strong as death,' but that's only a bit of some play-book, and don't you trust to it, for I never saw love that was stronger than a ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gray head and feel for the beads of her rosary, and mutter many an Ave for the repose of my soul. Much as I wished it, I could never get her to talk about her mistress—it was the one subject on which she was invariably silent. On one occasion when I spoke with apparent enthusiasm of the beauty ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... conscious of victory, called for a draught, and when his attendant brought him a mighty tankard of ale, the rebel leader drank good-humouredly to "King Richard and the Commons." A knight in the royal service, a "valet of Kent," was heard to mutter that Wat Tyler was the greatest thief and robber in all the county, and Tyler caught the abusive words, drew his dagger, and ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... in the hell into which I was permitted to look, they appeared to me as if they were ghastly pale, with faces of chalk: and as they are mere concupiscences, they do not like to speak: and if they do speak, they only mutter and stammer various things, which are understood by none but their companions who are near them; but presently, as they sit or stand, they make themselves unseen, and fly about in the cavern like phantoms; for on this occasion they are in phantasy, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... He mutter'd, glorying in the work begun, 'Well done, my little Wench; 'twas nobly done!' Then said, with looks more cheering than the fire, And feelings such as Pity can inspire, 'My house has childless been this many a year; While you deserve ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... lower their heads almost as low as the table and mutter together before every move, but they muttered so low that you could ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... sudden surging forward, and a mutter of admiration much more flattering than the cheers had been, when the principals followed their hats, and slipping out of their great-coats, stood forth in all the physical beauty of ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... there trickles down that third and darker thought, the thought of the things themselves, the confused half-conscious mutter of men who are black and whitened, crying Liberty, Freedom, Opportunity—vouchsafe to us, O boastful World, the chance of living men! To be sure, behind the thought lurks the afterthought: suppose, after all, the World is right and we ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... your head, and mutter that I am mad. Well, perhaps I am mad—mad with the horror of my unbelief; but why should it not be as I say? When God made man He made a creature to whom it was given to choose for himself between good ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... he said in a low mutter, his once mighty voice sounding hollow and laboring, but fearless and firm—"ye come—not to conquer, vain rebels!—ye whose dark chief I struck down at my feet in the tomb where my spell had raised up the ghost of your first human master, the Chaldee! ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... man Mutter ist, ist Man ein Mensch; die muetterliche Bestimmung aber, oder gar die heeliche, kann nicht die menschliche ueberwiegen oder ersetzen, sondern sie muss das Mittel, nicht der Zweck derselben sein."—J.P.F. Richter: ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Prussian troopers when missed the General and drove the enemy back till they found him again; though what it all meant we never knew till it was over. Then, after mighty little rest, we marched fast and far, with cannon-thunder in our ears in a constant mutter, always growing louder, until in the afternoon we came at a quickstep through a piece of woods out upon the plain by Waterloo, where they had been fighting all day. Our feet sucked in the damp ground, the wet grain brushed our knees, as our compact column spread ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... one is left. I make no charges, but this I ask,— What made such a splurge in the waste-water cask? You are quite tender-hearted. Oh, not a doubt! But only suppose old Black Pond could speak out. Oh, bother! don't mutter excuses to me: Qui facit per ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... aloft sometimes when no one else would dare, and was the first man at the weather-earing when it was 'Reef topsails!' But he had a temper as skittish as the cap'en's, and couldn't stand being swore at. I've heard him many a time mutter after the captain had been going on at him. I know I'd not have liked to have said half to him that Captain Jarvis did, for Black Harry looked like a man who would never forget nor forgive ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... very excited and incoherent persons in the group that had assembled at the foot of the stairs. Professors Jenks and Scotch would not say much of anything, only mutter and glare daggers at each other, while Professor Gunn was too furious and too confused to tell anything straight. Barney and Hans declared over and over that they had been bitten by "centipedes," and showed the wounds. The jumbled story told by them puzzled ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... dangerous an endowment. Ellen, being persuaded by her maid, craved a specimen of this wonderful art. The hag, a smoke-dried, dirty-looking beldame, with a patch over one eye, and an idiotic expression of face, began to mutter and make an odd noise at the sight of the sick lady. She took a piece of chalk from her handkerchief, and began her work of divination. First she drew a circle on the floor, as a boundary or frame, and within it she put many uncouth and crabbed signs; but their meaning ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... I had a chill, for the snoring ceased and the sleeper began to mutter, taking all the strength out of me, till I felt that even if he or they beneath the wagon should rouse up I could escape through the ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... were the churning days, and on those mornings I remember that we were wont to peer into the kitchen as we came to breakfast and mutter the unwelcome tidings to one another that old Mehitable was out there waiting—tidings followed immediately by two gleeful shouts of, "It isn't my turn!"—and glum looks from the one of us whose unfortunate lot it was ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... the second mate, the recipient of that almost involuntary mutter, could have told his captain that a man brought up in big ships may yet take a peculiar delight in what we should both then have called a small craft. Probably the captain of the big ship would not have understood very well. His answer would have ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... time he began to sigh and move, and even mutter; and, gradually, some little color came back ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... pale; Freddy and Teddy opened their eyes to their widest. Jeffreys, on hearing Freddy mutter "Father," looked round curiously, to get a view of the father ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... has a certain logic on its side. Yet the case is more hollow than the grammarian thinks it to be, for in reply to such a query as "You're a good hand at bridge, John, aren't you?" John, a little taken aback, might mutter "Did you say me?" hardly "Did you say I?" Yet the logic for the latter ("Did you say I was a good hand at bridge?") is evident. The real point is that there is not enough vitality in the "whom" to carry it over such little difficulties ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... ill; I haf no wants now, and no one has hurt me but in kindness; yet I haf so great a grief, I could not bear it all alone, and so I came to ask a little sympathy from your good Mutter, who has been kind to me as if I was a son. She is not here, and I thought I would stop back my grief; but that moosic was too much; you pity me, and so I tell you. See, now! when I find things go bright with me, and haf a hope ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... Fenton heard him mutter to himself. "He's more like an eel than a man." And indeed the way Sweetwater wound himself out and in through that room, seeing everything that came under his eye, was a sight well worth any professional's attention. Pausing before the dead man on the floor, he held ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... fight had lasted ten minutes or an hour, when, as the enemy's fire had evidently ceased or slackened, I gave the order to cease firing. But it was very difficult at first to make them desist: the taste of gunpowder was too intoxicating. One of them was heard to mutter, indignantly,—"Why de Cunnel order Cease firing, when de Secesh blazin' away at de rate ob ten dollar a day?" Every incidental occurrence seemed somehow to engrave itself upon my perceptions, without interrupting the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... he did not answer; every faculty was absorbed in the one sense; then slowly and in gasps he began to mutter: ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... caused to descend; and in case of need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. American managers might want to make a note of that. The King was sole audience. The opera proceeded, it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimic thunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, and the mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher and higher; it developed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the Atlantic, now known to us only by the scanty dredgings of our 'Alerts' and 'Challengers,' but then upheaved into snow-clad Alps or vine-covered Apennines, will doubtless stand aghast at the huge skeletons of our whales and our razorbacks, and will mutter to himself in awe-struck astonishment, in the exact words of my friend at South Kensington, 'Things used all to be so very big in ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... a bit of music; not a bit of entertainment. The air seems as if an earthquake were at hand. I fancy that Africa sends us something of a tempest. Petrea is weeping like the cataract of Trollhaetten; and there go the people in twos-and-twos and weep, and set themselves in corners and whisper and mutter, and kiss one another, from my God-fearing parents down to my silly little sisters! The King and Queen, they go and seat themselves just has it happens, on living or dead things; they had nearly seated themselves on me as I sate unoffensively on the sofa; but I made ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Haldin had ceased speaking I felt the grip of his hand on mine, a muscular, firm grip, but unexpectedly hot and dry. Not a word or even a mutter assisted this ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... that the goddess was resting in her sleep in such a way that no one could possibly unclasp the necklace without awaking her. Loki stood hesitatingly by the bedside for a few moments, and then began rapidly to mutter the runes which enabled the gods to change their form at will. As he did this, Heimdall saw him shrivel up until he was changed to the size and form of a flea, when he crept under the bed-clothes and bit Freya's side, thus causing her to change ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... notwithstanding the proofs he had brought him, did not yet believe that Djalma was in his power. On that theory, the contempt of Van Dael's correspondent admitted of a natural explanation. But Rodin was playing a bold and skillful game; and, while he appeared to mutter to himself, as in anger, he was observing, with intense anxiety, the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... could only get as red as the little box, and mutter, "Thanky, boys!" as he fumbled to open it. But when he saw what was inside, his face lighted up, and he seized the long desired treasure, saying so enthusiastically that every one was satisfied, though is language was ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... embroidered banners. A rattling blast procures silence: in a moment it is as though oil were poured on a surging sea. Men and guns are hushed; the only sounds to be heard are the brazen tongue of the bells, the whinnying of a horse, the dull mutter of men's voices in the far-off lanes and alleys, and the clear voice of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... away an illuminated window beamed invitingly. Encouraged by it, they quickened their steps a little. But almost at the same time La Boulaye stirred on the cloak, and the men who carried him heard him speak. At first it was an incoherent mutter, then his words came ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... a goodly snare," they heard him mutter to himself. "Never yet has it failed me—no, nor ever shall, so long as I hold the secret of my evil ash, so long as I remember the words ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... garden breeze To gossip in magnolia trees; For I have heard, these fifty years, Confessions muttered at my ears, Till every mumble of the wind Is like tired voices that have sinned, And furtive skirling of the leaves Like feet about the priest-house eaves, And moans seem like the unforgiven That mutter at the gate of heaven, Ghosts from the ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... once more in the mental melting-pot. And you can melt it down as long as you like, and mutter all the jargon and abracadabra, aldeboronti fosco fornio of science that mental monkey-tricks can teach you, you won't get anything in the end but a formula and a lie. The atom? Why, the moment you discover ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... a relief to the poor fellow when, as he undoubtedly would do in the course of the drive, he inquired of Aline the name of her maid and was told that it was Simpson. He would mutter something about "Reminds me of a girl I used to know," and would brood on the remarkable way in which Nature produces doubles. But he had a bad moment, and it was partly at the recollection of his face ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a swirl of raw November evening wind and Ches Maybin. He nodded sullenly to Mr. Fell and passed down the store to mutter a message to a man ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pray. (The window on the right of the central door of the Seminary points out the place.) Ho mocked and jeered, but went, confident in his power to cure her superstition. "Do you not think that I too can pray?" And he repeated over his form in ancient Syriac, as a wizard would mutter his incantation. His child then implored mercy for her own soul, and for her perishing father, as a daughter might be expected to do, just awakened to her own guilt and the preciousness of redemption. As he heard the words "Save, O, save my father, going down to destruction," he raised his clinched ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... bewildered, the president could only mutter a vague apology and turn away. Had his friend's wife opened the door with another key in some fit of curiosity and disported herself in those clothes? If so, she DARE not speak ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... you must let me make my observations, or the Frenchman will transact his business without my knowing the sum." Peppino nodded, and taking a rosary from his pocket began to mutter a few prayers while the clerk disappeared through the same door by which Danglars and the attendant had gone out. At the expiration of ten minutes the clerk returned with a beaming countenance. "Well?" asked Peppino of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... assistant-surgeon, and an able seaman contended with handspikes for the honor of betraying my confidence. Once there were three masked murderers of the second watch bending at the same instant over the sleeping form of a cabin-boy, who had been heard to mutter, a week previously, that he had "Gold! gold!" the accumulation of eighty—yes, eighty—years' piracy on the high seas, while sitting as M.P. for the borough of Zaccheus-cum-Down, and attending church regularly. I saw the captain of the foretop surrounded by suitors for his hand, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... by several German officers, passed them by the line of the road. The two parties saluted in silence. Beyond Eva Point there was an observable change for the worse in the reception of the Americans; some whom they met began to mutter at Moors; and the adventurers, with tardy but commendable prudence, desisted from their search after the high chief, and began to retrace their steps. On the return, Suatele and some chiefs were drinking kava in a "big house," and called them in to join—their only invitation. But the night was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Skipper had turned to the Second Mate. The Second nodded, gravely. Then I heard him mutter, in a low voice, and the Old Man replied; after which he ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... beds that fringed the Ligny brook, or its steep banks, or the many strong buildings of Ligny itself. He saw the Prussians on the slope behind the village, and was at first puzzled by their exposed position. "The old fox keeps to earth," he was heard to mutter. And so he waited until matters should clear up, and Gerard's arrival should give him strength to compass Bluecher's utter overthrow while in the act of stretching a feeler towards Wellington. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... W. the subject of their serious conversation. One said that "He had seen him wander about by night, and look rather strangely at the moon! and then, he roamed over the hills, like a partridge." Another said, "He had heard him mutter, as he walked, in some outlandish brogue, that nobody could understand!" Another said, "It's useless to talk, Thomas, I think he is what people call a 'wise man.'" (a conjuror!) Another said, "You ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... to cross. Behind her back they gave her the name of the Waif Woman or the Wind Wife; to her face it must always be Thorgunna. And if any of the young men called her mother, she would speak no more that day, but sit apart in the hall and mutter with ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Indians dancing and yelling in horrid mirth: his active brain was filled with such remembrances. In the stillness and loneliness of night, in that cabin, these awful scenes came up with appalling vividness, and weird and demon faces seemed to peep and mutter at him from the corners of the room. Once he fancied that he heard the cellar stairs creak under a heavy tread. And while Bub slept peacefully in childish unconsciousness of his brother's terror, he shivered and watched ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... fond of flowers, and knew so much about their treatment, that we fancied how lovely she must look while engaged in that fascinating study; and often, in our dreaming moods, did we mutter about ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... rainy night, and I have told Topsy, who has a cold, that she cannot come with us to church. After a wild outburst of anger she was heard to mutter that "Teacher wouldn't let her go to church because she was afraid she would get ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... thick that he could see nothing, not even the battalions of retreating Americans; the forms of his own men were vague and gray of outline. He never had fancied an isolation so complete, but his nerves stood the strain; when they began to mutter he reminded himself of Mr. Cruger's store and St. Croix. There was a false summons, and after turning his back upon his post with a feeling of profound relief, he was obliged to return and endure it ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... jabber of hissings and gutturals. Carmena jerked her hand about in swift signs and cried back in uncouth thick-tongued Apache words. The dispute at last ended in a sullen mutter from below and a sudden thudding of hoofs. The Apaches dashed out from under the cliff, loping their horses toward a corral over across to ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... keep still, Jack. I'll fix it. See here, Bradley. This is the place you are thinking of. When Cobb says to Lady Ellen "Fenderson Featherhead," you enter the room, and in a nervous aside you mutter: "What, he! Does he again dare to cross my path?" That's the ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... slim, well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness of mind; he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring to observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the habit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had scarcely ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... courtesy that is so freely accorded to our sex in our own favored land is to be met with here. "A woman is weak and defenceless," argue, apparently, a large class of Parisians, "therefore we will stare her out of countenance, we will mutter impudent speeches in her ear, we will elbow her off the sidewalk, we will thrust her aside if we want to enter a public conveyance. Politeness is a thing of hat-lifting, of bowing and scraping, of 'Pardon!' and 'Merci!' It is an article to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... related that on the approach of that memorable evening there was a remarkable peace and quiet at the Chancellor House itself. Hooker was conversing quietly with his aides. Officers inside the house were copying orders. The distant mutter of the guns that came now and then was harmonious and rather soothing. The east was already darkening and it seemed that a quiet sun ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all lifeless things; the winds Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh, Never a senseless gust now man is born. The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts A secret they assemble to discuss When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare Like grates of ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five." She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... no sacred earth afford thee room, Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb, Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast. Here shall the morn her earliest tears bestow— Here the first roses of the year shall blow; While angels ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... eyes. No tears in Huggo's eyes. On Huggo's face only a look sullen and aggrieved; and sullen and aggrieved his mutter, "Well, perhaps it was different for you. I couldn't stick ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... voice. They stood there and listened. Soon they began to nod their heads. I heard them muttering that good old word "Verrno! Verrno!" again. The crowd grew. The men began to shout their approval. "Aye! it's true," I heard a solder near me mutter. "The English are thieves"; and another "Belgium?... After all I could not understand a word of what that ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... giving a cry which might have been heard by my rivals. After that, I advanced to the two gentlemen who had advocated my cause so well, extending a hand to each, which they took and kissed with great gallantry. Louis XV became thoughtful, and continued to mutter between his teeth, "I wash my hands of it—they will cry out, they will clamor, but it must be so." I saw the feelings of the king, and took care not to allow him to go away in this state. Whilst I sought to compose him by my caresses, the duc de Richelieu told us one ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... clank of sabre and clink of spurs; Once more the long grey cloaks adorn The bellicose backs of the high-well-born; Once more to the click of martial boots Junkers exchange their grave salutes, Taking the pavement, large with side, Shoulders padded and elbows wide; And if a civilian dares to mutter They boost him off ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various |
