"Sputter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Russia. It took a little perspicacity to see that something was weighing on the good man's mind; something he had come to say and for his honest life could not get out. His plight became more pitiable as the interview proceeded, and when he rose to go, he grew as red as a turkey-cock and began to sputter. I went ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Public-spirited Press Gang. Go around and grab the Great and the Good who insist on minding their private business and who are letting the country be gobbled up—just go and grab 'em right up by the scruff of the neck and fling them into politics head over heels. They would sputter and froth and flop for a little while—and then they'd strike out and swim. They couldn't help swimming! They'd know that the folks were looking on. And then a lot of the sinking and drowning poor devils, like you and me and the folks in the tenements, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... among the others, about him and about him; and it is notable how little real light, on any point of his existence or environment, they have managed to communicate. Dim indeed, for most part a mere epigrammatic sputter of darkness visible, is the "picture" they have fashioned to themselves of Friedrich and his Country and his Century. Men not "of genius," apparently? Alas, no; men fatally destitute of true eyesight, and of loyal ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... reached the table he threw his broad-brimmed hat, down with such an unnecessary flourish of the arm that he knocked over one of the heavy pewter candlesticks, so that it rolled down upon the floor, causing the tallow candle to sputter and die out with a weird and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... temper. Having heard them ever since babyhood he was quite accustomed to their acid tang; moreover, he had learned to gage them for what they were worth and class them along with the froth on a soda or the sputter of a freshly lighted match. The thing underneath was what mattered and he knew well that beneath the torrent of words his mother was the best mother on earth, so what more ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... tramping. Tomorrow morning he must rise while the windows still let in only the chilling gray of dawn. Yet he stopped with half his clothes removed, and, going to an improvised shelf in the corner, took down a battered volume. It was not until the lamp warned him of the spent hours with its dying sputter that he laid aside the resonant sentences in which Carlyle had been talking to him of heroes and their worship. In another room across the hall he had heard stirrings for an hour after the silence of sleep had fallen on ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... rate, let us go to Wittenberg," said I; "get a guide, a carriage, cannot you?" as I walked to one window of the station house and another, and looked out to see something wonderful. Nothing was in sight, however; and after the usual sputter of gutturals which precedes any arrangement in this country, we were mounted in a high, awkward carriage, and rode to the town. Two ancient round tower and a wall first met my eye; then a drawbridge, arched ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... gasped. "I fear 'tis for naught ye ventured yer life, bravest of men. I fear we'll soon both sputter on ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... liked it very well; but that which was strangest to him was to see me eat salt with it. He made a sign to me that the salt was not good to eat; and putting a little into his own mouth, he seemed to nauseate it, and would spit and sputter at it, washing his mouth with fresh water after it: on the other hand, I took some meat into my mouth without salt, and I pretended to spit and sputter for want of salt, as much as he had done at the ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... soaked in chemicals and sold together with little bottles of sulphuric acid. The splinter was expected to blaze when dipped into the acid. Sometimes it did blaze, and sometimes it did not; but it was reasonably certain how the acid would behave, for it would always sputter and do its best to spoil some one's clothes. Nevertheless, even such matches as these were regarded as a wonderful convenience, and were sold at five dollars a hundred. With the next kind of match ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... in the line of the duty I had undertaken, and I was willing to run some risks to see them. They were a precious set when I got to them, but by prudence and presents I got along with them, and, having began to sputter a little Sioux, I took courage, left my canoe and men there, and took a guide and interpreter and pushed on to Lac Traverse, and from thence to Coteau de Prairie, the head waters of the St. Peter's, and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... heard, never noticing three men, who were rolling in behind him a barrel, which they had taken from a nearby store. "I demand that the law be respected, and that I be permitted to—to...." He stopped to sneeze and sputter, for having knocked in the top of the barrel, which contained flour, the three men had emptied its ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... resolved, and therein set forth, that Aldermen Pennyworth, of the Sixth Ward, and Brandybottom, of the Second, together with Councilmen Bluster and Sputter, (the last named gentleman being clever at a speech,) be a committee of reception, invested with power to draw up and present a suitable address on behalf of the citizens of "this great metropolis." It was also resolved, in a flourish of speech utterly unknown in anything ever ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot: what do I say?—why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the crackle of machine guns from all sides. Now I realized what it meant. It was war. The Austrians had taken this way to acknowledge Italy's defiance. The enemy had threatened to destroy Venice, and this was their first attempt. Above the sputter of the machine guns and the occasional explosions of shrapnel could be distinguished the buzz of an aeroplane that moment by moment approached nearer. Soon the machine itself became visible, flying oddly enough from the land direction, not from the Adriatic. It flew ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... Ring round, and in their Order be, They do denote how Neighbours should agree; But if they Clam, the harsh sound spoils the sport, And 'tis like Women keeping Dover Court For when all talk, there's none can lend an ear The others story, and her own to hear; But pull and hall, straining for to sputter What they can hardly afford time to utter. Like as a valiant Captain in the Field, By his Conduct, doth make the Foe to yield; Ev'n so, the leading Bell keeping true time, The rest do follow, none commits a Crime: But if one Souldier runs, perhaps a Troop Seeing him gone, their hearts begin to droop; ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
... gusty and tempestuous, and the moon was all girt with ragged clouds. The wind blew in melancholy gusts, sobbing and sighing over the moor, and setting all the gorse bushes agroaning. From time to time a little sputter of rain pattered up against the window-pane. I sat until near midnight, glancing over the fragment on immortality by Iamblichus, the Alexandrian platonist, of whom the Emperor Julian said that he was posterior to Plato in time but not in genius. At last, shutting up my book, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tight sleeves to the elbow, long silk gloves, and great fans, big enough for a windmill; and of a hot day it was a great amusement to me to watch the bobbing of the little black bonnets, which showed that sleep had got the better of their owners' attention, and the sputter and rustling of the fans, when a more profound nod than common would suddenly waken them, and set them to fanning and listening with redoubled devotion. There was Deacon Dundas, a great wagon load of an old gentleman, whose ample pockets looked as if they might have held half the congregation, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the sounding shore the flying billows force. And now the strand, and now the plain they held; Their ardent eyes with bloody streaks were fill'd; Their nimble tongues they brandish'd as they came, And lick'd their hissing jaws, that sputter'd flame. We fled amaz'd; their destin'd way they take, And to Laocoon and his children make; And first around the tender boys they wind, Then with their sharpen'd fangs their limbs and bodies grind. The wretched father, running to their aid With pious haste, but vain, they next invade; Twice ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... you no power belongs To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter, With less of ink than incoherence fraught Befits the folly that it tries to utter. Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: You suffer from ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... to sparkle and sputter, Mark holding it firmly, but feeling as if he were the victim ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... the lookout for plays to suit cash customers, and of course, the Bard of Avon had first call, because his plays went on the various stages like a torchlight procession, while those of his so-called compeers, struggled through the acts and scenes with only the flicker and sputter of tallow dips ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... pines loomed spectral; the shadows were thick, moving, changing. Flickering lights from the camp-fire circled the huge trunks and played fantastically over the brooding men. This camp-fire did not burn or blaze cheerily; it had no glow, no sputter, no white heart, no red, living embers. One by one the outlaws, as if with common consent, tried their hands at making the fire burn aright. What little wood had been collected was old; it would burn up with false flare, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... that Andy might prepare supper. When this was almost ready peal after peal of thunder suddenly crashed among the cliffs, which seemed to collapse and fall down upon us, and a flood from the sky descended. The fire died without a sputter, everything not in rubber was soaked, and all we could do was to stand in the darkness, cold and hungry, and wait for the deluge to cease. At last we were able to start the fire once more, and had a half-cooked supper before hunting the soft sides of the rocks for beds. The next day it required ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... velvet paws like a cat. There Miss Crawley lay for days—ever so many days—Mr. Bute reading books of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during which she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light sputter; visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy apothecary; and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's twinkling eyes, or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the dreary darkened ceiling. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... right," cried King. "Where can we go? Be quick, Hobbs! Think! Don't sputter like that. I want to be personally conducted, and ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the old cock was staked upon a bamboo spit, and set over the fire, where he soon began to sputter, sending out a savoury ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... reddened. Brodie's throat corded, the Adam's apple moved repeatedly up and down as he swallowed inarticulately. This old Honeycutt saw. He jerked about and quick lights sprang up in his despairing eyes. He began to sputter but Brodie's loud voice had come back to him and drowned out the old man's shrillings. Brodie ripped out ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... farm-horse to whom Bangor's market-square had been full of strange sights became, in comparison with his former self, most sophisticated. He feared no noise save that sinister whistle made by Broncho Bill's long lash. The roaring sputter of gasoline flares was no more to him than the sound of a running brook. He had learned that it was safe to kick a mere canvasman when you felt like doing so, but that a real artist, such as a tumbler or a trapeze man, was to be respected, and that the person of the ring-master ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... everybody she could think of—that time had no time to be counted at all, but flew by with feathers unheeded. The mutter of the sea became a roar, and the breeze waxed into a heavy gale, and spray began to sputter through the air like suds; but Mary saw the rampart of the rocks before her, and thought that she could easily get back around the point. And her taste began continually to grow more choice, so that she spent as much time ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... my system and sent him down here as soon as I got Kirk's idiotic, impudent letter—" The old man began to sputter with indignation. "What d'you think he wrote me, Mrs. Cortlandt? He had the impudence to turn down a good job I offered him because 'his wife might not like our climate!' Imagine! And I had positively begged him to come back—on any terms. Of course, it ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... things for young hands to deal with. Maisie could not explain how it had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke separated her from Dick, and she was quite certain that the pistol had gone off in his face. Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on her knees beside him, crying, 'Dick, you aren't hurt, are ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... tells us this story in the late autumn evenings. Now the harvest is in, huge haycocks shelter the gable, the honey is strained and put by in jars, the apples are ripened and stored; the logs begin to sputter and sing in the big parlour at evening, hot cakes to steam on the tea-table, and the pleasant lamp-lit hours to spread themselves. Indoor things begin to have meaning looks of their own, our limbs grow quiet, and our brains begin to work. The moors ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... boxes, and arrayed ourselves in various garments—which speedily fell to pieces—and appropriated gim-cracks of all sorts. There were some arms, but the ammunition had gone bad. Perdosa, out of forty or fifty mis-fires, got one feeble sputter, and a tremendous bang which blew up his piece, leaving only the stock in his hand. A few tinned goods were edible; but all the rest was destroyed. A lot of hard woods, a thousand feet of chain cable, and a fairly good anchor might be considered as prizes. As for the rest, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... she. "Harriet is scared to death of roses and she went to sleep in the house and you got your chance. Good for you. I am thankful the Eustace family won't quite sputter out in old maids." The old lady continued to chuckle. Annie feared lest her aunts might hear. Beside the bed stood a table with the collection of things which was Ann Maria Eustace's nightly requirement. There were a good many things. First was a shaded reading ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... run at cricket, has thus broken up the harmony of many a holiday; but we hope that such feuds will now cease; for the "Boy's Own Book," will settle all differences as effectually as a police magistrate, a grand jury, or the house of lords. Boys will no longer sputter and fume like an over-toasted apple; but, even the cares of childhood will be smoothed into peace; by which means good humour may not be so rare a quality among men. But to complete this philanthropic scheme, the publishers of the "Boy's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... playing tricks with Ferris's mind—it seemed to him that he could still see those deep-set dark eyes staring up at him through the murk, with that same fearless and yet piteous look in their depths. It was a look that the brief sputter of match-light had photographed ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... I be, my Friend, to have some new utterances from you either in verse or in prose! What you say about the vast imperfection of all modes of utterance is most true indeed. Let a man speak and sing, and do, and sputter and gesticulate as he may,—the meaning of him is most ineffectually shown forth, poor fellow; rather indicated as if by straggling symbols, than spoken or visually expressed! Poor fellow! So the great rule is, That ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... The bronzed cowboy came in for his share, and the lone bandit played his part in a way to make me shiver. The great pines, the shady, brown trails, the sunlit glades, were as real to me as if I had been among them. Most vivid of all was the lonely forest at night and the campfire. I heard the sputter of the red embers and smelled the wood smoke; I peered into the dark shadows watching and listening for I ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... was heard, save the weird howling of the wind outside, with an occasional sputter as a stray gust of snow swept down the broad chimney to the roaring fire. Every Grammar School boy, as he dropped off to sleep, knew that a big blizzard ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... the support closer to the ground and set off two rockets at once. Straight across the sandy beach they flew, directly toward the crowd of natives on the ship. Right into the midst of the savages the trailing comet of fire shot, with a hiss, roar and sputter that was enough to strike terror ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... Baron, as the permit was not forthcoming, "I thought as much. I appoint you witness, Monsieur le Cure, the fellow has no permit." And we swelled the merriment with a forced sputter of ridicule. ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... and drag him within reach of the life-belt. But here the demented man managed to wreathe his legs and arms in another and more terrible hold. The pair of them were now cursing horribly, cursing whenever a wave left choking them, and allowed them to cough and sputter for breath. They fought as two men whose lives had pent up an unmitigable hate for this moment. They fought, neither losing his hold, as their strength ebbed, and the weight of their clothes dragged them lower. Dick Rendal's hand still clutched ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was so amazed and delighted that he forgot that he was in the water and started to speak. Of course, the water poured into his open mouth and he began to sputter ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... back again," says I. "And let's pipe the aforesaid fires clean down into the tailin's." So there we sat, thinking better of each other and all creation. The fires of animosity went out with a sputter and we talked large and fine. I don't care; I like to once in a while. I don't travel on stilts much, yet it does a man good to play pretty now and then; besides, you can say things in the Spanish that are all right, but would sound ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... frequent small quick squalls of sleet which brought the wind to us in sharp guns, yet as we could see where we were going, I got the schooner before it, heading her east-north-east, and under a reefed topsail, mainsail, and staysail, the old bucket stormed through it with the sputter and rage of a line-of-battle ship. There was a log-reel and line on deck, and I found a sand-glass in the chest in my cabin in which I had met with the quadrants, perspective glass, and the like, and I kept this log regularly going, marking a point ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... chat, Now spreading their fans, and now holding them flat; A fan by its play whispers, "Go now!" or "Stay!" "I hate you!" "I love you!"—a fan can say that! Beneath a dwarf tree, here and there, two or three Squat coolies are sipping small cups of green tea; They sputter, and leer, and cry out, and appear Like bad little chessmen ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... (interval) 198; solution of continuity, caesura; broken thread; parenthesis, episode, rhapsody, patchwork; intermission; alternation &c (periodicity) 138; dropping fire. V. be discontinuous &c adj.; alternate, intermit, sputter, stop and start, hesitate. discontinue, pause, interrupt; intervene; break, break in upon, break off; interpose &c 228; break the thread, snap the thread; disconnect &c (disjoin) 44; dissever. Adj. discontinuous, unsuccessive^, broken, interrupted, dicousu [Fr.]; disconnected, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... all simpletons," he exclaimed. "I am not like you, thank fortune! I do not sputter over my soup. Long life to women! Yes, all of them, pretty and otherwise! For, upon my word, there are no ugly ones. I do not notice that Miss Keepsake has feet like the English, and I forget the barmaid's ruddy ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... They opened a hole in the wire-work Across it, and dropped there a firework, And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled; A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, The blackness and silence so utter, By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter; Then earth in a sudden contortion Gave out to our gaze her abortion. Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature's but narrow, And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... meets Italian, then comes the tug of expletive. It did not seem to take one second for Dr. Hilary to whirl the padrona out into the entry, where they could be heard going at each other like two furious cats. Hiss, roll, sputter, recrimination, objurgation! In five minutes Madame Frulini was, metaphorically speaking, on her knees, and the doctor standing over her with drawn sword, making her take back every word she had said and every threat she ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... to sputter. "I'm done," he said. "I have no other proposition to make. But remember what I say. You are going ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... in it, took the place of all love. This Roman woman had aroused desires that he had never known in the gardens of Ashera; her face was to the faces of the courtesans who thronged the sacred woods on feast days, as the glory of the crescent moon was to the sputter of the rancid oil in the lamp that illumined the cell of Fancula Cluvia. Cunning beyond his race, learned in the strange learning of the East that had come to a few in Egypt and to fewer yet in Phoenicia, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne |
