"Rattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pleasurable sensations which may be repeated by the proper stimulation. Besides the hunger-satisfaction that it brings, the act of sucking is pleasurable in itself, and so the baby begins to suck his thumb or his quilts or his rattle. Later, this impulse to stimulate the nerves about the mouth finds its satisfaction in kissing, and still later it plays a definite part in the wooing process; but at first the child is self-sufficient ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... door. As she did so she heard a cab in the square outside, a rattle of wheels, then silence. It had stopped. Her heart seemed to stand still too. She knew now that she was a coward, though not in the way Fritz meant. She was a coward with regard to him. Her jealousy had prompted her to do ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... respects to you, and yet I should not do it in prudence, because I am afraid you have formed a higher opinion of me than I deserve; you would expect to see a person who had dedicated himself much to literary pursuits, and you would find me a rattle-skulled half-lawyer, half-sportsman, through whose head a regiment of horse has been exercising since he was five years old; half-educated, half-crazy, as his friends sometimes tell him, half-everything, but entirely ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... the floor, his ear caught the rattle of gravel on the window. The room was half lighted by a ruddy glow, and looking out he saw Sure Pop ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... Government prosperously for three years. Is that nothing for a minister to do? I have never been a friend of great measures, knowing that when they come fast, one after another, more is broken in the rattle than is repaired by the reform. We have done what Parliament and the country expected us to do, and to my poor judgment ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... finishing his mulberries, he felt a very uncomfortable sensation coming over his own head and legs. He rose from the ground and shook himself, but instead of the accustomed rattle of his steel armour no sound was produced. He wished to scratch his nose, but his arms appeared kept down before him. He tried to call Le Crapeau, but instead of his manly voice, which had so often shouted loudly in the battle, a timid cry alone proceeded ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... unnatural, uncanny, because it was cheerful. She stood for a moment on the hearth, and in sad, dreamy mood listened to the howling swoops of the wind, making the house quiver and shake. Now and then would come a greater gust, and rattle the window as if in fierce anger at its exclusion, then go shrieking and wailing through the dark heaven. Mechanically she took her New Testament, and, seating herself in a low chair by the fire, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... them. "Fire! Fire!" and struck by a horrible thought, the thought of Rumbold's deaf mother-in-law upstairs, began to bang and kick and rattle with the utmost fury at ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... flowers are gone; And the melting noon-day heat, Strips the shoes from little feet, And the coats from little backs; While the paddling bare-foot tracks, In the brooklet which I see, Tell of youthful sports and glee. Hay is rip'ning on the plain, Fields are rich in golden grain, Mowers rattle sharp and shrill, Reapers echo from the hill, Farmer, dark and brown with heat, Push your labor—it is sweet, For the hope, in which you plow, And sow, you are reaping now. Corn, which late, was scarcely ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... be upstairs; for presently they heard her running down, after which a fresh rattle began at the obstinate bolt. But still the door did not open, and at length Mrs. Worrett put her lips ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... for the Sun to return. As his wife thought of what he might do to the boys, her anger turned to compassion, and she bade them wrap themselves in the clouds that hung on the wall, and hide. Ere long a great rattle was heard outside, and a moment later the Sun came striding in and hung up his glistening shield. "What strangers are here?" he asked. There was no answer. Again he asked the question, repeating it a third time and a fourth, waxing angry. Then his wife began to scold. She told him that two boys of ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... nearly as high as her waist, and stand there till the vehicle had passed, with the snow freezing her ankles, and also ruining, as she well knew, her lovely morocco shoes. Suddenly a tall figure loomed up close before her, there was a rattle of accoutrements, and a ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... found something," he said to his companion. And they ran back; but before they could reach the terrace firing mingled with the roar of voices, and above the rattle of Mausers rose the bark of ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... his marriage, would have carried him out of Okhotsk in forty-eight hours had disease declared itself. Nor were there any inducements aside from a comfortable bed and refined fare, in the flat, unhealthy town with its everlasting rattle of chains, and the hideous physiognomies of criminals always at work to the rumbling accompaniment of ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... rattle of wagons and a bustle of departing guests as we drove into the courtyard of the famous hostelry. The eight-o'clock boat was to carry the passengers for the east-bound overland train, and the outgoing travelers were filling the place ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... extraordinary town will be surprised when I say that, within an hour after the occurrences related in the last chapter, Troy had resumed its workday quiet. By two o'clock nothing was to be heard but the tick-tack of mallets in the ship-building yards, the puffing of the steam-tug, the rattle of hawsers among the vessels out in the harbour, and the melodious "Woo-hoo!" of a crew at capstan or windlass. Troy in carnival and Troy sober are as opposite, you must know, as the poles. Fun is all very well, but business is business, and Troy is a trading port ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... twelvemonth only, since his sword Went flashing through the battle— A twelvemonth only, since his ear Heard war's last deadly rattle— And yet, have countless pilgrim-feet The pilgrim's guerdon paid him, And weeping women come to see The place where they ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... until the sound of the firing behind them was quite audible even amidst the heavy rattle of the musketry. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... I stood talking with God that way about my man, but when I turned and looked back under the maples everybody was gone, and I could hear the last rattle and whirl going down the hill. For a second I felt that there was nobody but Him and me left on the hill, but even in that second my ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... several varieties, but much the largest number are rattlesnakes. Respect is shown for serpents of every variety and none are ever intentionally harmed, but the rattlesnake is considered the most sacred and is proportionately esteemed. Its forked tongue represents lightning, its rattle thunder and its spots rain-clouds. The number of snakes they find is surprising, as they catch from one to two hundred during the four days' hunt on ground that might be carefully searched by white men for months without finding a ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... of the evening, and Faith's deeper glow at this audacious rattle passed unheeded, except, perhaps, as it might be somewhat ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... joined Leigh. As the time went on they began to fear that, for some reason or other, the Vendeans had determined to delay their attack until the next day. At half past two Charette's cannonade redoubled in vigour, and the rattle of musketry showed that his troops were advancing. The batteries of the defenders opened with equal violence, and their musketry answered that of the assailants ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... they were having tea. The rattle of the crockery sounded very distinctly. He could distinguish the sharp, staccato ring when a cup was laid in a saucer, and the nervous rattle when cup and saucer were passed from one hand to the other. Spoons struck china with a faint metallic tinkle. He felt as if all the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... trudge off to a case which may take us two hours, or may take us ten. Hard work, as you see; but Horton is such a good chap, and works so hard himself, that one does not mind what one does. And then we are all like brothers in the house; our talk is just a rattle of chaff, and the patients are as homely as ourselves, so that the work becomes quite a pleasure to all ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... their books, and were putting their desks to rights, with a good deal of unnecessary fuss, keeping an eye on the clock meanwhile. The boys wore the air of dogs who see their master coming to untie them; they jumped and quivered, making the benches squeak and rattle, and shifted their feet about on the uncarpeted floor, producing sounds of the kind most trying to a nervous teacher. A general expectation prevailed. Luckily, Miss Fitch was not nervous. She had that best of all gifts for teaching,—calmness; and she understood her pupils ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... to the table I managed to keep where I was, even when, in those moments of greatest insecurity, the screw was roaring in mid-air. Our fascinating hanging lamp would perform the impossible, hanging acutely out of plumb; and then, when I was watching this miracle, rattle its chain and hang the other way. A regiment of boots on the floor—I suppose it was boots—would tramp to one corner, remain quiet for a while, and then clatter elsewhere in a body. Towards daybreak the skipper appeared in shining ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... is your fine Lord de Adhemar; a fool, a rattle-head, a booby; but he is handsome, and a jolly lover. Our queen likes handsome men, and everybody knows that she is one of the laughing kind, a merry fly, particularly since the carousals on the ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... lists of the slam who slumber On the Danube's battle-plains The unknown hosts outnumber Who die 'neath the "Danube's" strains? Those fall where cannons rattle, 'Mid the rain of shot and shell; But these, in a fiercer battle, Find death in the ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and the monotonous roar of machinery was hushed, no longer filling the air with the pulsations of mighty manufacture. The thud of the ponderous engines had ceased; the deafening rattle of the looms was no more heard; a myriad spooming spindles were at rest. A dreamy sound of falling waters floated from the weir, and the song of birds in a clump of stunted trees made music in the quiet of the morning ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... stretched along the highway in slow-moving lines as far as the eye could see. Bells were ringing, whistles tooting, horns blowing, motor-cars honking, newsies shouting. The grinding of car-wheels, the rattle of carts, the clatter of hoofs on the asphalt, the shuffling of feet on the sidewalk, and a thousand other noises combined to make an indescribable and confusing roar. The ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... the slushy road over Ballinrobe Fair Green, the illuminated tents light up the foreground pleasantly, while the moon tinges the tree-tops and the river Robe with silver. All is beautiful enough were it not for the persistent rattle of the sabre and the jingle of the spur. So far as can be ascertained at present the Ulster contingent will consist of no more than fifty men, who will probably arrive by train at Claremorris about three o'clock to-morrow afternoon. Early in the forenoon a hundred ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... thoughts come from?—out of blank space?—from nowhere? Yet here they were, filling his head, multiplying, expanding, making his blood rattle like boiling water in a tube as it rushed up to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... accompany him, and with Dost for our guide, we threaded our way among the trees for nearly an hour, when Dost suddenly stopped short, as a shout fell upon our ears, followed by a familiar trampling sound, with the jingle of accoutrements, and rattle of ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... mind, and wrought upon his imagination. Being a stout walker, and caring little for any other form of exercise, in his free hours he covered many a league of pavement. A fine summer morning would see him set forth, long before milk-carts had begun to rattle along the streets, and on one such expedition, as he stepped briskly through a poor district south of the river, he was surprised to see an artist at work, painting seriously, his easel in the dry gutter. He slackened ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the rattle of tea-cups below, they all tore downstairs again, Pepper at their heels. They gathered around Uncle Johnny and drank iced tea and ate little frosted cakes and demanded to be told how he had felt when he knew he was lost ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... more of the spirit It took almost instantaneous effect. The eyelids half opened and the mouth distinctly moved. The action was like that of one who is parched with thirst. Grey gasped painfully, and a strange rattle came ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... flight ceased abruptly. There was no place to which to flee. He slunk forlornly through the deserted camp, smelling the rubbish-heaps and the discarded rags and tags of the gods. He would have been glad for the rattle of stones about him, flung by an angry squaw, glad for the hand of Grey Beaver descending upon him in wrath; while he would have welcomed with delight Lip-lip and the ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... events; and seeing what men want and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of sight and of arm to come at the desired point. The greatest genius is the most indebted man. A poet is no rattle-brain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says everything, saying at last something good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... calls for my arrest. He thinks his God needs help, and would like to see the police crush the infidel. I would advise Mr. Talmage (hisses) to furnish his God with a rattle, so that when he is in danger again he ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... approached the shore, Strong Desire saw that the ribs of the sorcerer's canoe were formed of living rattlesnakes, whose heads pointed outward to guard him from his enemies. Being invited, he had no sooner stepped into the canoe, than they began to hiss and rattle furiously, which put him in a great fright; but the magician spoke to them, when they became pacified and quiet. Shortly after they were at the landing upon the island. The marriage took place immediately; and the bride made presents of various valuables ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... treasure was concealed inside their bodies. This idea Mr R. L. Stevenson eagerly fostered in the slightly younger generation, and, with the love of harmless mischief natural to him, implored us to 'rattle them soundly when we ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... know, Nevil Steyne," he said with emphasis. Then he turned his head and looked away down the street, as the clatter of hoofs and rattle of wheels reached the hotel. And for the second time within a few minutes, trouble, such as only Western men fully understand, was staved off by a more ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... typewriter once more. Shall I make my heroine petite or grande? I decide that stateliness and Gibsonesque height should accompany the calm gray eyes. I rattle away happily, the plot unfolding itself in some mysterious way. Sis opens the door a little and peers in. She is ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... a city of the Zunis, came Estevan, the black man who had been with Cabeza de Vaca, with a rattle in his hand and very black behavior. Him the Indians killed, and the priest who was with him they frightened away. Then came Coronado, with an army from Mexico, riding up the west coast and turning ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... we have the roar of artillery, the rattle of musketry, the prancing of impatient steeds, the marching and countermarching of battalions, the roll of the drum, the clash and clatter of sabers, and the thunder of a thousand mounted men, as they hurry hither ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... sound were performed outside our grounds. The domestics were enjoined to conduct their operations with the utmost quietude. Carriages never came to the threshold, but stopped at the lodge; the drives were strewn with bark to drown the rattle of wheels; familiar fowls and beasts were excluded; the pines were cut down, though they had moaned for half a century; the angles of the house were rounded, that the wind might not scream and sigh of midnight, and the flapping of a shutter ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... capacity to lie in watchful calm and to move with the vibrations of the earthquake. And if ever the voice of our brother, crying out to us from the ground of any country, shall sigh among the drums which are then gathering dust in our arsenals, the long roll would wake again, and the arms would rattle in that sound, which is part of the speech of Liberty. But it is useless to affirm or to deny such possibilities. It is plain, however, that we are organizing most formidable elements, and learning how to forge them into bolts. The spirit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... room he felt the need of writing to Cynthia, with whatever obscure intention of atonement. He told her of the college tea he had just come from, and made fun of it, and the kind of people he had met, especially the affected girl who had tried to rattle him; he said he guessed she did not think she had rattled him a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his shadow and his mate the panther call. From the prairies and the regions where the pine-plumed forest grows Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and their bows; And again the shouts of battle shall resound along the plain, Bows shall twang and quivers rattle, women wail ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... leaning forward, her face alight. There was nothing visible; but a low, continuous warble, interspersed with a sort of liquid rattle, struck the ear. Taking a bunch of millet stalks from her basket, she directed Thor while he tied them to the bough of a birch that trailed its lower branches to the snow. When they had gone forward they perceived, on looking around, that some ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... I don't know exactly how to express it, but it seems somehow as though only the very little things of Life are offered in open packages—that all the big things come sealed very tight. You can poke them a little and make a guess at the shape, and you can rattle them a little and make a guess at the size, but you can't ever open them and prove them—until the money is paid down and gone forever from your hands. But goodness me!" she cried, brightening perceptibly; "if you were to ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... well; but one wet afternoon, in the interim between the end of Lance's and that of Fulbert's holidays, Mr. Audley, while coming down from a visit to Mrs. Underwood, fancied he heard an ominous rattle, and opening the door suddenly, found Fernando and Fulbert eagerly throwing the dice and ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the coast where he had left his kayak, and had halted for a feed. The sport in the woods, after its novelty wore off, had lost interest for one whose natural game, so to speak, was bears and walruses, and he was on his way back when this rattle of musketry ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the valley-head, within a nest of brake-fern, and her colouring was richer, more in tune with the glory of the hour. She had a burnt glow in her cheeks; her hair showed the hue of the corn which, not a mile away, our people were reaping afield. From where we were, she and I, one could hear the rattle of the machine as it swept down the tall and serried wheat. It was the top of noon when I found her; the sun high in heaven, but so fierce in his power that you saw him through a mist of his own making, and the sky all about him white as a sea-fog. The ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... gone on for about half an hour, when Eliot's sewing suddenly slid from her lap to the floor, and a queer rattle in her throat made every one look up in alarm. At first they thought that she must be having some kind of a fit. Her hands were thrown up, her mouth dropped open, there was a look of wild terror in her staring eyes, and her face was deathly pale. It was terrifying ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Spring, indeed!" cried Mrs. Macallister. "Is that the way you let your brother make game of people, Miss Halleck?" She directed a good deal of her rattle at Olive; she scarcely spoke to Marcia, but she was nevertheless furtively observant of her. Mr. Macallister had his rattle too, which, after trying it unsatisfactorily upon Marcia, he plied almost exclusively for Olive. He made puns; he asked conundrums; he had all the accomplishments which keep ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... in peace, loved land, For we rest not, but stand, Off shaken our sloth. When the boils of war rattle To shirk not the battle, We make thee our oath. As we hope for a Heaven, Thy chains shall be riven, Thine ensign unfurled. And in pride of our race We will fearlessly face The might of the world. When our trumpet is blown, And our standard is flown, Then set we our watch. Our watchword, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... rattle. A puzzled expression passed over Johnny's face. The same song was repeated over and over ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... prolong the waiting time by some jolly about such a stunning girl not having by any possibility such a cannibal of a parent, when the rattle of the changing gears of a car outside told of ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... village seemed to be a bedlam. Dea Ebenezer Rood was set upon while in his sleigh, and some of the mob endeavored to overturn him and cause his horses to run away. But the blood of his Puritan ancestors became rampant, and in defiance he shouted: 'Rattle your pans; hoot and toot; ring your bells, ye pesky fools, if it does ye any good,' and plying his whip to his now frantic horses ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... landscape was broken here and there by woods; in the west rose the blue range of the South Mountain; the sun was shining through showery clouds, and in the east the sky was spanned by a rainbow. This peaceful scene was now disturbed by the thundering of artillery and the rattle of musketry. The sky was darkened, here and there, by clouds of smoke rising from barns or dwelling-houses set on fire by shell; and beneath rose red tongues of flame, roaring in response ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... like a rattle of hail, Clinking a cymbal or castanet; Chirping a twitter or sending a wail Through a piccolo that thrills me yet; Reeling ripples of riotous bells, And tipsy tinkles of triangles— Wrangled and tangled in skeins of sound Till it seemed that my very soul spun round, As I leaned, in a breathless ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... offer two rupees, and, after a few minutes' bargaining, they took it quite cheerfully, the thing probably not being worth eight annas. I bought a prayer-wheel. It is a round silver thing with a handle rather like a child's rattle, and inside are slips of paper covered with writing. These are the prayers, and at intervals you twirl the wheel round, and the oftener you turn it ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... lump in his throat that day, he said. When Venosta's gramophone played, the Italians encamped near by clustered round the edge of the terrace in obvious enjoyment, and sometimes one or two would dash indignantly down the road to stop limbers and carts, which were making a rattle ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... won her. The rattle of that conversation had driven all thoughts of doubt out of her mind. She would not have denied herself of his company now for any foolish pretext of convention. In that hurried summary of himself and his affairs, proving himself by it, ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... ye see me. Because I live, ye shall live also." Around about this, Mr. Fowler wove picture after picture of passionate faith in an hereafter. He told of the death of his own father, who with the death-rattle in his throat had sat erect in his bed crying, "O Christ, I see your face ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... A rattle of rifle-shots snapped short his dismal revery. As he sprang to his feet he saw a squad of his own people, a dozen or so, galloping up the road, and a moment later four times as many men came out from behind the shoulder of the mountain ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... recesses and now made complaint there for ever. A lonely listener on a stormy night might hear strange voices uplifted—the sobbing of children; songs of feasters; cries of labouring women; young men's voices shouting in triumph; the long intonations of prayer; the death-rattle. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... fence, or mace, or mack; Or moskeneer, or flash the drag; Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack; Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag; Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag; Rattle the tats, or mark the spot; You cannot bag a single stag; Booze and ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... snips the withered leaves from a plant. But things are different now. Now he goes to the Lebedieff's to amuse himself with other women, and I sit here in the garden and listen to the owls. [The WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard] Tell me, Doctor, have you any ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... been a wonderful waste of time, and money!" cried the Colonel. "You rattle the keys, as blundering soldiers when commanded to fire: no taste, feeling, ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... silvery to the eye and ear. In the narrow little throat of street beyond, a booth drest out with flaring lamps, and boughs of trees, attracts a group of sulky Romans around its smoky coppers of hot broth, and cauliflower stew; its trays of fried fish, and its flasks of wine. As you rattle around the sharply twisting corner, a lumbering sound is heard. The coachman stops abruptly, and uncovers, as a van comes slowly by, preceded by a man who bears a large cross; by a torch-bearer, and a priest; the latter ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... when a sound struck on her ears, a loud and trembling chord, a buzz, the rattle of a "cut-out." The blessed noises drew near. They were certainly in the little by-road which led to the house. They ceased. She did not move, but sat where she ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... Son, her system was "quick returns," and the interest was consequently expected to the day. For a few seconds my father hesitated, but he manfully broke the seal—muttering, audibly, "What can the old rattle-trap write about? Her interest-money is not due for another fortnight." He threw his eyes hastily over the contents—his color heightened—and my aunt Catharine's epistle was flung, and most unceremoniously, upon the ground—the hope that accompanied ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... speedily came to grief. They had to pass by the strongest Russian artillery position, which was stationed in the low hollow through which the railway runs to Lemberg. Here a terrific hail of shells burst over their heads; rattle of machine guns and rifle fire tore great holes in their ranks; the stoutest courage and bravest hearts were unavailing against an enemy who could not be reached nor even seen. The number of killed and wounded in that fatal sortie has not been ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... He could rattle off French and German like a native; he could imitate an Englishman's intonation to perfection; and yet he came to manhood with his own honest Ohio accent untouched. And where had he learned it? Not in Ohio, surely. He had been about as much in Ohio as I have in the moon. ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... morning call woke him and without rising he listened to the bustle of men preparing for the day's work. He heard the continuous rattle of tin dishes, the mellow rasp of axes on turning grindstones, the squeak of footsteps departing over the crisp snow and the squealing of the runners of sleds. And when all were gone, there was as yet only the faintest glimmering of ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... hostages necessary for the proposed negotiations, they became less ardent and were all disposed to recede. At last, after much discussion, the matter was settled, and before nightfall a drummer was set upon the external parapet of the Porcupine, who forthwith began to beat vigorously for a parley. The rattle was a welcome sound in the ears of the weary besiegers, just drawn up in column for a desperate assault, and the tidings were at once communicated to the archduke in Fort St. Albert. The prince ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... understand their business perfectly; so when she says 'That pond needs to be cleaned out,' they merely get up a storm some night after everybody's gone to bed. The people have seen the pond fine and full when the sun went down. All that night the wind howls and the windows rattle and the trees bend and switch around; and if those in the farmhouse, instead of being in bed, were over there on the beach," the speaker waved his hand toward the shining white sand, distant, but in plain sight, "they might see ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... Apollo, thou camest to Onchestus, the bright grove of Poseidon. There the new-broken colt takes breath again, weary though he be with dragging the goodly chariot; and to earth, skilled though he be, leaps down the charioteer, and fares on foot, while the horses for a while rattle along the empty car, with the reins on their necks, and if the car be broken in the grove of trees, their masters tend them there, and tilt the car and let it lie. Such is the rite from of old, and they pray to the King Poseidon, while the chariot is the God's ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... to perform such feats of agility, and if anyone offered to lay hold of him to whirl him about, he vowed to God he would kick his soul out; and as he said this he stood up and clapped his hand upon his sword. At this instant they struck the awning and lowered the yard with a prodigious rattle. Sancho thought heaven was coming off its hinges and going to fall on his head, and full of terror he ducked it and buried it between his knees; nor were Don Quixote's knees altogether under control, for he too shook a little, squeezed his shoulders ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Europe and America have dumped all that is bad and rotten and deplorable in their modern social and political life. Here is the inferential forecast of the gentleman in question: "When Japan rings with the rattle of machinery; when the railway has become a feature of her scenery; when the boiler-chimney has defaced her choicest spots, as the paper-makers have already obliterated the delights of Oji; when ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... jumbled;" and "squalidus" is "in a sorry pickle." "Importuna" is "a plaguy baggage;" "adulterium" is rendered "her pranks;" "ambages" becomes either "a long rabble of words," "a long-winded detail," or "a tale of a tub;" "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is "to tip him a kiss;" "pingue ingenium" is a circumlocution for "a blockhead;" "anilia instrumenta" are ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... rewards. He spoke with such bitter disdain of great names and great deeds. "Children of a larger growth they were," said he, one day, in answer to her defence of the luminaries of their kind, "allured by baubles as poor as the rattle and the doll's house. How many have been made great, as the word is, by their vices! Paltry craft won command to Themistocles; to escape his duns, the profligate Caesar heads an army, and achieves his laurels; Brutus, the aristocrat, stabs his patron, that patricians ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been able to discover it, and had been wise enough to be guided by the discovery. As to outward expression, the lad's fondness for Mrs. Thorpe was a wild, boisterous, inconsiderate, unsentimental fondness, noisily in harmony with his thoughtless, rattle-pated disposition. It swayed him by fits and starts; influencing him nobly to patience and forbearance at one time; abandoning him, to all appearance, at another. But it was genuine, ineradicable fondness, nevertheless—however often heedlessness and temptation might ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... managed, I could get great things done in the matter of fish culture and fish diseases at South Kensington, if poor dear X.'s rattle trappery could be turned to proper account, without in any way interfering with the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... would have followed at once, for I saw that there was very little probability of his being able successfully to defend the house against the savage mob who had resolved to destroy it. I could hear the wild shrieks and shouts and cries of the assailants, the rattle of musketry, and the loud thundering against the doors and windows; but, anxious as I felt about my friend, my duty was to push on with my charges, and with all possible speed to convey them out of danger. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... close to Helene, full of joy at the prospect of not being undressed at once. She was in ecstasies over her embroidered purple gown and green silk petticoat; and she shook her head to rattle the pendants hanging from the long pins thrust through her hair. At last there burst from her lips a rush of hasty words. Despite her seeming demureness, she had seen everything, heard everything, and remembered everything; and she now made ample amends ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... that there is many a martyr spirit hidden away beneath the business man's suit of tweed. Wife and daughters stand ever before him, like hoppers waiting for grist to grind. "Give! Give!" is their constant cry, like the rattle of the upper and nether stones. This panegyric does not apply to the man who frequents clubs and spends his money on between-meal drinks and lottery tickets. It applies rather to the unselfish, hardworking father of a family, who works early and late to keep ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... Standing here, one may see the cloud of smoke, which waves in the wind like a pall over the city, slowly moving and settling down upon the land. One may almost hear the roar of the continual fires, the throb of the engines, the heavy beat of the trip-hammers, and the rattle of the spindles, by which the work of the world is done; and their noises, blended by the distance into one monotonous sound, seem like the voice of the restless, hard-working, unsettled spirit of gain. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... glade where Tantor flapped his giant ears and swayed his huge bulk from side to side, the ape-man must pass along the surface of the ground—a pygmy amongst giants. A great bull raised his trunk to rattle a low warning as he sensed the coming of an intruder. His weak eyes roved hither and thither but it was his keen scent and acute hearing which first located the ape-man. The herd moved restlessly, prepared for fight, for the old bull had ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hear the rattle of the train on the railway lines, and, turning towards the other end of the platform, he saw that Ninian, having settled about the luggage and finished listening to the story of the fox hunt, was approaching them. "Come on," ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... round the table, and almost all the men were of his opinion. Contarini flushed angrily, but he knew himself to be in the wrong and though he was no coward, he had not the sort of temper that faces opposition for its own sake. He therefore began to rattle the dice in the box as a hint to all that the discussion was at ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... tier sobs, had to force herself to sing beside the bed where her friend was exhaling his life. I, for my part, heard nothing; I do not know what she sang. This scene, this contrast, this excess of grief had over-powered my-sensibility; I remember only the moment when the death-rattle of the departing one interrupted the Countess in the middle of the second piece. The instrument was quickly removed, and beside the bed remained only the priest who said the prayers for the dying, and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... as he assured himself of the important fact just mentioned, and his hands trembled to such a degree as to fairly cause the paper of the chart to rattle. Then he had recourse to an expedient that was strictly characteristic of the man. He wrote the latitude and longitude in a memorandum-book that he carried on his person; after which he again sat ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... game, and I took a sly sip at the liquor, but nearly choked myself, not being used to strong waters, and finding it heady and burning in the throat. Neither man spoke, and there was no sound except the constant rattle of the dice, and the rubbing of the pieces being moved across the board. Now and then one of the players stopped to light his pipe, and at the end of a game they scored their totals on the table with a bit of chalk. So I watched them for an hour, knowing the game myself, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... deeds and their environment was great. Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat, the motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas, the rattle of dice, the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... upon his nimble foe. Again Percy, standing motionless until his assailant was almost within arm's-length, avoided his attack; and again Jabe brought up against the other wall with a force that made the boards rattle. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... gou'd on de sunny shed Was mighty proud of his pethy head, So he nuver pondered or studied or trained, An' now he's ol' an' rattle-brained. An' he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— An' he ain't by 'isself ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... quickly all your banners, Load your cannons for saluting, And erect an arch of honour!' Then we enter the next evening Through the ancient gate in triumph, And my whip I'll crack so loudly That the town-house windows rattle. Then I hear the aged Baron Asking sharply: 'What's the meaning Of these banners and this uproar?' From afar I shout already: 'Heaven's blessing rests upon us; Here a bridal pair are coming, And, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... go at a fairly fast trot, but they trusted rather to their horses' than to their own eyes. The roar and rattle of the firing increased ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... calf in a pair of yellow tops to his boots. Leaning forward in front of the carriage, he uttered wild shouts of delight, mingled with the words: "Long live the Bacchanal Queen!"—after which, he shook and whirled the enormous rattle he held in his hand. Standing beside him, Sleepinbuff waved on high a banner of white silk, on which were the words: "Love and joy to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of this nation. Between five years ago, when I visited the South, and my recent visit, there has been a change for the better that amounts to a resurrection. The Chattahoochee is about to rival the Merrimac in manufactures, and the whole South is being filled with the dash of water-wheels and the rattle of spindles. Atlanta has already $6,000,000 invested in manufactures. The South has gone out of politics into business. The West, from its inexhaustible mines, is going to, disgorge silver and gold, and pour the treasure all over the nation. May God sanctify the coming prosperity ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... was a trifle grim when he saw that more of the horses were inclined to behave similarly, but he flicked his team with the whip, and there was cheering and derision when, with a drumming of hoofs and rattle of wheels, wagons and horsemen swept away into the dust-cloud that ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... minutes she kept steadily on, looking neither to the right nor to the left, when the rattle of a particularly noisy wagon attracted her attention. She caught the eye of the driver; it was the egg-and-chicken man. ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... courage, and with all their might bent to their work. With a vigorous push and a great rattle of stones the cart went up ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... was not mistaken. In spite of the two partitions which separated us from the scene of this angry interview, we distinctly heard the furious accents of passion. All at once a violent shock made the wall—thin enough, it is true—creak and rattle; then, a moment afterward, we heard the fall as of a body, accompanied ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... young person called Polly as companion, Mahony followed after. He walked in silence, listening to the rattle of the three in front. At best he was but a poor hand at the kind of repartee demanded of their swains by these young women; and to-day his slender talent failed him altogether, crushed by the general tone of vulgar levity. Looking over at the horizon, which ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... improve the condition of affairs in the towns and cities in which we live. We find ourselves in the midst of a conflict between the criminal classes on the one hand, and the people on the other,—a conflict as stern as was ever endured upon the battlefield, amid the glitter of cold steel and the rattle of musketry. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... and there; one heard the dogs, the monsters, and the gargoyles of stone, which keep watch night and day, with outstretched neck and open jaws, around the monstrous cathedral, barking. And, if it was a Christmas Eve, while the great bell, which seemed to emit the death rattle, summoned the faithful to the midnight mass, such an air was spread over the sombre facade that one would have declared that the grand portal was devouring the throng, and that the rose window was watching it. And all this came from Quasimodo. Egypt would have taken him for the god of this temple; ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... wonderful career was in our particular circle one of the features of the following season. It was at all events for myself the most attaching; it's not my fault if I am so put together as often to find more life in situations obscure and subject to interpretation than in the gross rattle of the foreground. And there were all sorts of things, things touching, amusing, mystifying—and above all such an instance as I had never yet met—in this funny little fortune of the useful American cousin. Mrs. ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... silence, and the doors creak open like the footsteps of strangers; and into every window the old garden trees thrust their dark boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; and ever and anon the nails start from the wainscot; while behind it the mice rattle like dice. Up and down in such old specter houses one loves to wander; and so much the more, if the place be haunted by ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... proud command Thou shakest in thy little hand The coral rattle with its silver bells, Making a merry tune! Thousands of years in Indian seas That coral grew, by slow degrees, Until some deadly and wild monsoon Dashed it on Coromandel's sand! Those silver bells Reposed of yore, As shapeless ore, Far down in the deep-sunken wells Of darksome mines, In some ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... ewer, a spout-pot, from the Pers. Ab-rizwater-pourer: the old woman thus vaunted her ceremonial purity. The basin and ewer are called in poetry "the two rumourers," because they rattle when borne about. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... began to talk hastily on other matters, an art in which he was an adept, for it was his gift to be fluent on anything or nothing. But although Archie had the grace or the timidity to suffer him to rattle on, he was by no means done with the subject. When he came home to dinner, he was greeted with a sly demand, how things were looking "Cauldstaneslap ways." Frank took his first glass of port out after dinner to the toast of Kirstie, and later in the evening he returned ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the country; and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." "The company," says Boswell, "laughed heartily at this piece of 'diverting simplicity.'" And foremost among the laughters was doubtless the rattle-pated Boswell. Johnson, however, stepped forward, as usual, to defend the poet, whom he would allow no one to assail but himself; perhaps in the present instance he thought the dignity of literature itself involved in the question. "Nay, gentlemen," roared he, "Dr. Goldsmith is in ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Davis), according to the authors, "certainly represents the rattlesnake." It certainly represents a snake, but there is no hint in it of the peculiarities of the rattlesnake; which, indeed, it would be difficult to portray in a rude carving like this without showing the rattle. This is done in ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... passed in that hush of purity and peace; sounds came and went outside, the rattle of a cart far away, the sawing of the first cicada in the coarse grass twenty yards away beyond the wall; some one behind the priest was breathing short and thick as under the pressure of an intolerable emotion, and yet the figure stood there still, without a movement or sway ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... of the house had lost his rattle and was crying. The cat sat looking at him for a minute. Then he went out in the yard, bit the rattles off a dead snake and brought it in and laid it down near ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... and coming, some o' you listen to the car-wires sing, for me, and the wheels rattle," the letter went on. "Bump into somebody sometime for me! Good-by. You're ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... way of travelling, to lie inside that slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the horses' bells, the occasional smacking of the carter's whip, the smooth rolling of the great broad wheels, the rattle of the harness, the cheery good-nights of passing travellers jogging past on little short-stepped horses—all made pleasantly indistinct by the thick awning, which seemed made for lazy listening under, till one fell asleep! The very going to sleep, still with an indistinct ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... from every pore. No wonder that the wives and mothers of these farmers dreaded the wash-days after a week of threshing. There was noise and excitement enough in connection with the dust and work,—the puffing of the engine, the whir and shake and rattle of the threshing-machine, and the raised voices of the men calling to each other or giving orders. The engineer and the feeders and cutters were conceded to have the most responsible positions, but the duties ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... to do with this crazy old rattle-trap?" inquired young Hinman plaintively. "Would one of you boys accept a dollar to drive this over to Fenton, and put the horse up in my father's barn? The trip can be made in two days ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... wagons and an occasional sulky wedged into the space, that it was nothing unusual for the sermon to be interrupted by an uproar in the sheds, when some peevish horse attempted to set its teeth in the neck of a neighbor, with a resultant squealing and plunging, a cramping of wheels and a rattle of harness which could neutralize the most vociferous circuit ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... sky seems blackened by the fearful smoke which fills the air far and wide. Everywhere may be seen human bodies, single shattered limbs, ruins of the exploded building, flying through the air, and covering the groaning, trembling earth. But no syllable or sound of complaint, no death-rattle is ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... five hundred yards away, rose the gaunt sails of the mill. To reach it he walked on six score paces or more to the little landing-quay, where a raised path ran to the building. As he drew near to it he was astonished to hear the rattle of oars working in rollocks and a man's ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Turk's infantry was reported moving, and shortly before ten o'clock we heard the opening rattle of Rustum Khan's stinging defense. There was intended to be no deception about that part of our arrangements; nor was there. The oncoming enemy was met with a hail of destruction that checked and withered his ranks, and made the succeeding companies only too willing to turn at ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... wayside house, saw Sir Percy Blakeney once more mount the box of the chaise. This time he had Sir Andrew Ffoulkes beside him. The Clamette family were huddled together—happy and free—inside the vehicle. After which there was the usual clatter of horses' hoofs, the creaking of wheels, the rattle of chains. Chauvelin saw and heard nothing of that. All that he saw at the last was Sir Percy's slender hand, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... he did so rattle along that it was quite impossible for anyone to get in a word—there was a movement outside which was ominous ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... the gentleman when they heard the postal rattle into the box, "remember to always direct a letter, postal or package clearly, and correctly and then look again at the address before dropping it into ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... Raible, rattle off. Rair, roar. Rant, song, lay. Rape, rope. Raw, row. Reaming, foaming. Reck, observe. Rede, counsel. Red up, cleared up. Reek, smoke. Reike, (smoky), Edinburgh. Restricket, restricted. Reveled, ravelled, trouble-some. Reynynge, running. Reytes, water-flags, iris. Rig, ridge. Rigwoodie, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... they lined; and more than one has been shod with steel. But along them all flit and brood the memory-ghosts of old, rich-coloured days. To the shout of teamster, the yell of savage, the creaking of tented ox-cart, and the rattle of the swifter mail-coach, there go dim shapes of those who had thrilled to that call of the West;—strong, brave men with the far look in their eyes, with those magic rude tools of the pioneer, the rifle and the axe; women, too, equally heroic, of a stock, fearless, ready, and ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... us motives, to give us guidance, to give us weapons. If it does these things then it does its work. If it lies in our heads a mere acceptance of certain propositions, it is just as useless and as dead as the withered seeds that rattle inside a dried poppy-head in the autumn winds. You are meant to begin with accepting truth, and then you are meant to take that truth as being a power in your lives that shall shape your conduct. To know, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... all on deck before the crew had surrounded the wheelhouse. There was a rattle of steamer folded chairs, a pounce by the third mate, and out came the unfortunate Cupples, ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... no rattle is used. The songs are begun by the shaman in a drawling tone and all the men join in. The qacal'i acts only as leader and director. Each one, and there are many of them in the tribe, has his own particular ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... slowly, safely, and in the "skilfullest way" reached the arms of his most dangerous but dearest love; "cooned it every step," John said, talking to his horse as they trudged back toward Rosemont. "What the rattle-snakes couldn't do," he added, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... absorbed in the game. He seemed puzzled and disconcerted. He played with great care, studying each throw minutely. No conversation passed between them now. They drank occasionally, the dice continued to rattle, the money kept piling up at ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... on a cheerfuller seeming. He was free of the bonds of servitude and crime, free of the companionship of base and brutal outlaws; he was warm; he was sheltered; in a word, he was happy. The night wind was rising; it swept by in fitful gusts that made the old barn quake and rattle, then its forces died down at intervals, and went moaning and wailing around corners and projections —but it was all music to the King, now that he was snug and comfortable: let it blow and rage, let it batter and bang, let it moan and wail, he minded it not, he only enjoyed it. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... LEAST POSSIBLE.—In family government threaten the least possible. Some parents rattle off their commands with penalties so profusely that there is a steady {78} roar of hostilities about the child's head. These threats are forgotten by the parent and unheeded by the child. All government ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... no other than a most imprudent exclamation wrung from me by what I heard; it must have reached them faintly, yet it was enough. I heard their swords rattle and their spurs jingle as they sprang to their feet. I slipped hastily behind the cottage. But by good luck at this instant came other steps. As the Duke and Carford ran to the door, the owner of the cottage (as I judged him to be) walked ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope |
