"Stammer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... emotion and desire to be polite, half rose to acknowledge the pretty speech, and to stammer some sort of reply, but as he did so his hand by chance touched her own that was resting upon the table, and a shock that was for all the world like a shock of electricity, passed from her skin into his body. His soul wavered and shook deep within him. He caught her eyes fixed upon his own with ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... abide the sight of a sword. It is weakness in nature and a wound in patience, the death of hope and the entrance into despair. It is children's awe and fools' amazement, a worm in conscience and a curse to wickedness. In brief, it makes the coward stagger, the liar stammer, the thief stumble, and the traitor start. It is a blot in arms, a blur in honour, the shame of a soldier, and the defeat of ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... a word to say. He had been meditating upon a thousand possible explanations, excuses, apologies, and his tongue would not utter one of them. He accepted his orders meekly, but as he turned to go he managed to stammer out, "Of ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... to stammer a reply. The hot blood mounted to his temples, and he grasped the girl's arm so that she cried ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... in before the indignant delegation, headed by old Reamur himself, and demanded of poor Webb what he meant by sending out such a letter. The youngster was so flustered that he could only stammer a confused denial. He started sniveling. Then Gordon collared him and booted him into the corridor. That should have closed the incident, but a few moments later back comes Webb, blubbering like a whipped schoolboy, and perfectly wild with rage. He was armed with a mop that he'd snatched ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... and end by entangling themselves with one another. Whereas most people, just as we provide supports for flowers, bestow certainties and truths upon their words to which they cling, the sincere refuse to yield to any such illusions. They hesitate, stammer and contradict themselves ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... real and anxious earnestness in his assurance. "It's because I don't see you. If I were face to face with you, I'd stammer and get red and make a regular imbecile of myself. Another reason why I stick down here and decline to yield ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to stammer out thanks, and promises of explaining the whole of Robson's peculations (little he knew the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... after one of these absences that Jim Spalding, the old timber-jack, told Mrs. Gaynor in his abashed stammer that Mark King had showed up while they were gone. Gloria, on her way to her room, whirled and came back, and extracted the tale in its entirety, pumping it out of the brief, few-worded old Spalding in jerky details. King had appeared late ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... stops to read up to himself, or finds he has read the wrong bit, then it is all over with the poor patient's chance of not suffering. Very few people know how to read to the sick; very few read aloud as pleasantly even as they speak. In reading they sing, they hesitate, they stammer, they hurry, they mumble; when in speaking they do none of these things. Reading aloud to the sick ought always to be rather slow, and exceedingly distinct, but not mouthing—rather monotonous, but not sing song—rather loud, but ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... consonants. They would be almost pure hexameters, if in lieu of the long a[a-macron]nd, we could put e[e-breve]t, or te [tau epsilon]. And there are only three Saxon words in the two lines. But hexameters consisting of purely English words, especially of Anglo-Saxon words, halt and stammer like a schoolboy's exercise. The attempt of Kingsley in Andromeda is most ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... orders Silvain to be shot. But Rose bravely defends her lover, threatening to reveal the dragoon's neglect of duty. {68} When therefore Belamy's superior appears to hear the important news of which the messenger told him, his corporal is only able to stammer out that nothing in particular has happened, and so after all, Georgette is saved from discovery and Rose becomes Silvain's ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... know all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... very greatly, or at any rate matters enough to disturb our amusement, our good-temper, our toleration. Nothing matters so very greatly. And yet everything—each of us, as we try to make our difficult meanings clear, the meanings of our hidden souls, and each of these meanings themselves as we stammer them forth to one another—matters so "wonderfully," ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... husbands and brothers in cleverness and appreciation. Among small tradesmen, the wife always comes to the rescue of her slow spouse when she sees him befogged in a bargain. In the fields, you ask a peasant some question about your journey. He will hesitate, and stammer, and end with, "Quien sabe?" but his wife will answer with glib completeness all you want to know. I can imagine no cause for this, unless it be that the men cloud their brains all day with the fumes of tobacco, and the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... a stifled cry, thrust his hand into his pocket and began to stammer inarticulate syllables, while Mme. Dugrival ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... saw that they took me for the assassin. I recovered force and energy enough to free myself from the hands of those who held me, while I managed to stammer forth—'I did not do it! Indeed, indeed I did not!' A couple of gendarmes held the muzzles of their carbines against my breast.—'Stir but a step,' said they, 'and you are a dead man.'—'Why should you threaten me with death,' cried I, 'when I have ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... set every nerve of me dancing. I suppose Paragot found his interest in me because I was such an impressionable youngster. When, at the abrupt finale, he asked me what I thought of it, I could scarce stammer a word. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... way, would you like to know why universities suffer from this curse of nervous disease? Why the great personages stammer or have St Vitus' dance, or jabber at the lips, or hop in their walk, or have their heads screwed round, or tremble in the fingers, or go through life with great goggles like a motor car? Eh? I will tell you. It is the punishment of their intellectual pride, than which no sin is more ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is such ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... three buckets of a filthy black fluid that old Jimmy declared was water. We annoyed him fearfully by pretending we did not know what it was. Poor old chap, he couldn't explain how angry he was, but he managed to stammer out, "White fellow—fool; pony drink 'em." The day was excessively hot, the thermometer stood at 106 degrees in the shade. The horses or ponies, as universally called at Fowler's Bay, drank the dirty water with ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... the judge, "tell us—" He proceeded no further. Villefort tried to rise, and made strenuous efforts to stammer forth some words. The judge waited a short ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... heart, but with hesitating speech. When the little fair-haired officer dared to look him in the face and insult him, he, holding the sword of the people, he, General of the sovereign Assembly, he only knew how to stammer out such wretched phrases as these, "I have just declared to you that we are unable, 'unless compelled and constrained,' to obey the order which prohibits us from remaining assembled together." He spoke of obeying, he who ought to command. They had girded him with his scarf, and it seemed to ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... Hilary looked very uncomfortable. With an apologetic air he began to stammer something about Parish Councils. I was not to be diverted by any such maneuver. It was impossible that he could really wish to ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... confused, but he managed to stammer that it was a present for her. Femke said she would always take good care ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... at the lot of a mere commuter, You think that my life is hard, mayhap, But I'm sure than you I am far acuter: I ain't afraid of no cat nor trap." The city rat could but meekly stammer, "Don't use such grammar, My ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... in suspense, took in nothing of the president's speech beyond the acceptance of his offer, and, pale with relief, he tried to stammer his thanks and his devotion to his chosen cause. He made no attempt to contradict the president's confident prophecies; he only made the greatest possible haste to the tower-rooms which were to be his home. His eyes filled with thankfulness at his lot as he ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... persisted, with a certain awkward doggedness which was not going to allow so slight a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded justification on ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... because we had things to talk over, and it seemed the only place where we could get away from prying eyes. Somehow I stayed on and on, not realizing it was so late . . . and then, and then . . ." She began to stammer; defiance left her . . . "then, that awful knocking . . . those faces staring in! . . . all those brutes of women!" She covered her eyes with her hands and broke down utterly. "My ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... forth for thee, Renewing so from either spring The songs which both thy countries sing: Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long, Thou should'st forget thy native song, And mar thy mortal melodies With broken stammer ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... he said, with a slight stammer that somehow lent an additional kindliness to his tone, "what has the day's work been? You first, Herr Graf," he added, turning to the Count. "I suppose that you have made a ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... a swift pace recognised Gilbert and stopped. They shook hands. Grail was silent, Egremont began to stammer words. He had been to see Bunce, just now, for such and such reasons, with such and such results. But he could not stop, he had ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... McGee, you're the pick of gentility; Nothing can phase you, you've such a facility; Nobody ever yet found your utility— There is the charm of you, Barney McGee; Under conditions that others would stammer in, Still unperturbed as a cat or a Cameron, Polished as somebody in the Decameron, Putting the glamour on price or Pawnee. In your meanderin', Love and philanderin', Calm as a mandarin Sipping his tea! Under the art of you, Parcel and part of you, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... strive to be like unto the Lord, has made me overlook it till datum, and in return for my goodness she raises this outcry against me." And when I replied, "How does your lordship know that the witch raised such an outcry against you?" he first began to stammer, and then said, "Why, you yourself charged me thereon before the judge. But I bear you no anger therefor, and God knows that I pity you, who are a poor weak old man, and would gladly help you if I were able." Meanwhile he led me up four or ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... gratitude at each clause in this statement of his advantages, the poor Dominie was at last able to stammer out that Frank Kennedy had taken charge of Master Harry, in the face of his protest, and had carried him off to Warroch Head to see the taking of Dirk Hatteraick's ship by the King's sloop-of-war, which he had ridden all the way to ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... hadn't any chin, Her hands were rough, her feet she turned invariably in; Her general form was German, By which I mean that you Her waist could not determine To within a foot or two: And not only did she stammer, But she used the kind of grammar That is called, for sake of ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... from an entire stranger was unlooked for by Wilmot. He knew not what to make of it; it was so different from the cold, money-making men of the North. He tried to stammer out his thanks, when Mr. Edson interrupted him by nudging Mr. Woodburn and saying: "Don't you mind old Middleton. He's been tarin' round after a Yankee teacher these six weeks. I reckon ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... I tried to, tried to utter a prompt denial, but the words would not come. Her "guess" was so close to the truth that I could only stammer and hesitate. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... find priests and monks who are horrified, as at some prodigy, if they stammer, or repeat even a syllable in the Canon of the Mass,[16] though this may be a natural defect of the tongue, or an accident, and is not a sin. Again, there is no priest who does not confess that he was distracted, or ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... little later, his eyes reddened with tears, his hair rumpled, his face flushed. He seemed like a man awed by an entirely new experience. He could not speak, he could only stammer brokenly:— ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... question came leaping upon the tortured girl in the stand, Cynthe rose to her feet. She expected to hear the girl stammer and blurt out something that would give them a chance to ask her further questions. But when she saw the girl reel and quiver in pain, when she saw her gasp for breath and self-control, when she saw the hunted agony ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... explain that he already had a family—with stepchildren, so to speak, who adored him. And what could he say to his mother's obsession, to which she came back again and again—her longing to see her grandchildren before she died? Madame Dupont waited only long enough for George to stammer out a few protestations, and then in the next breath to take them back; after which she proceeded to go ahead with the match. The family lawyers conferred together, and the terms of the settlement were worked out and agreed upon. It happened that immediately afterwards ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... stammer, a hesitation, a slight attempt to explain, and then the truth came out. He had stolen the extra tickets from two fellow-laborers only a few minutes before, and had not reflected upon the difficulties of the situation. I gave him some good advice, required him to restore the stolen tickets, and promise ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... what I am. Ignorant, rough man I was, with the merest flicker of spiritual life; but she cared for my soul, and was so patiently loving that she led me to know God.' Bailey was afflicted with a stammer when he was converted. Of this, he says, 'She talked to me so calm and quiet. "Go slow, now," she'd say, "Count." She would insist upon my giving my testimony, and if she saw I was going to be fairly stuck, ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... sitting at their doors put down their work and call to a child of two or three playing in the street for him to come and take the breast. Did Augustin remember these things? At least he recalled his nurses' games, and the efforts they made to appease him, and the childish words they taught him to stammer. The first Latin words he repeated, he picked up from his mother and the servants, who must also have spoken Punic, the ordinary tongue of the populace and small trader class. He learned Punic without ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... had ebbed surged slowly back again. It surged back under the transparent white skin, as red wine fills a glass. Her lips parted to stammer the confession that she had no clothes except those she wore; but she ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... lady, and she said a great many very pretty things to him, which made the gallant little hero blush like a rose in June, and stammer so that he could ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... whirled, and caught a brief glimpse of a crumpled little figure behind him, evidently too scared to cry, and yet not quite at the fainting point of terror. He backed, and began to stammer an apology; but she did not wait to hear a word of it. For an instant she stared into his face, and then, like a rabbit released from its paralysis of dread, she darted past him and deaf up the stone steps into the house. He heard the kitchen-door shut, and the click of the lock. He heard other ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... well," said General Sigel, "I think I shall want this place to-morrow for a hospital. Madam, your kindness will be reciprocated." He spoke very emphatically, whereat the pretty daughter began to cry, and the mother to stammer apologies, and said she would do the best she could for them, but she really had nothing to cook. The general retired very indignant. Whether or not his threat was carried out I do not know, for the next morning we were off without trying to get breakfast. On asking ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... keeping quiet in the corner. Oh, but they are stupid, these royal people, all except my own Princess and the dear old Queen at Windsor. Neither York nor Lyonesse knew in the least what to say, and the Princess let them stammer on without helping them. I could ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Before Rob could stammer a word in answer, Captain Cuttle turned out, all in a heap, and covered the boy's mouth with ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of the early victims. Every member of the family I boarded with died within a week, and I was left in the house alone. This man, this peculiar fellow, Nat Parker, found me, took charge of me and did not leave me until I was out of danger. Of course, there was no way to reward him—you can merely stammer your gratitude to the man who has saved your life. He told me that the time might come when I could do him a good turn. Well, I met him the other day in New Orleans, and I incidentally spoke of my intention to sell my paper. He said that he would buy it. I told him ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... in your chair like a queen and wait on you," he said with a soft boyish stammer; "but I am too dazed with happiness to ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... got his grammar badly tangled, but my heart burned as I listened. And I have heard a man talk with smooth speech, and it rolled off me as easily as it rolled out of him. Do your best, and leave the rest. If we are in touch with God His fire burns whether the tongue stammer or has good control of ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... stutter; it wasn't a laugh, for I haven't laughed in years. All my laughing since 1889 has been a strictly intellectual process; but I did have an awful pain because I could not digest his statement with a bouncing laugh. All I could do was to stammer and splutter like a bass viol tuning up, while I sozzled around in my chair trying to break in with something that would count. Why should a man of my temperament take a hand in love, war or diplomacy? As a theoretical manipulator of fathers-in-law, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... yes. There's nothing to be done there. The professors—I don't think they like him much; he is too clever. When he came into the class-room and talked Latin to Johnson, the Professor of Latin, and Johnson could only stammer out a word or two, I guess he didn't make a friend;" and the girl laughed at ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... and was about to stammer out some awkward reply, when the marshal of the household threw open the doors of the banquet-hall, and approaching the king, cried out, "Le roi ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... racked him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: Tussis attacked him.... So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be!— Properly based Oun— Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... I admitted; and contrived to stammer out, "and I am very sorry that Doctor Mittendorf thinks you will ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... is going you manage, though almost bursting with the effort, to stammer out—"What do you mean by telling tales of me to all the fellows?" He looks perplexed, as if at a loss for your meaning. "Tell tales of you?" says he. "I don't know what you mean, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... thou origin? Is he not sailing Lost like thyself on an ocean unknown, and is he not guided By the same stars that guide thee? Why shouldst thou hate then thy brother? Hateth he thee, forgive! For 't is sweet to stammer one letter Of the Eternal's language;—on earth it is called Forgiveness! Knowest thou Him, who forgave, with the crown of thorns on his temples? Earnestly prayed for his foes, for his murderers? Say, dost thou know him? Ah! thou confessest his name, so follow likewise his example, Think ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... that she could calmly look upon Wilford Cameron's wife; but the sight of Katy, together with the errand on which she came, had unnerved her, and she wept bitterly in her desolation, until Katy's reappearance startled her from her position on the floor, making her stammer out some excuse about "homesickness and the seeing Katy ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... related the history of the paymaster's recent experiences and bravery so effectively that the poor little man became rosy with confusion, and when at the conclusion of the narrative his health was pledged with a round of cheers, he could only stammer in reply:— ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... placed it unnoticed in her hand. The banker's wife flushed and then turned pale. She understood. Annie would spare her. Her lips parted to protest. Even she was taken back by such an exhibition of unselfishness as this. She began to stammer thanks. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... increased with each day. Occasionally the fever would go down sufficiently to allow him to get something to eat. Then it would be worse than before. In his dire need he wanted to pray, but he was so weak that he could only stammer, "Dear God, help me, or I ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... not the case," broke in Lateral Stability, and affecting the fashionable Flying Corps stammer, "it would be a h-h-h-o-r-rible affair! If there were too much Keel-Surface in front, then that gust would blow the Aeroplane round the other way a very considerable distance. And the right-hand Surface being on the outside of the turn would have more speed, ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... had already been set up in type that afternoon from his manuscript, and consequently they did not go over it to see whether it had been changed or not. He had read three pages and had gone on to the fourth when he lost his place and then he began to tremble and stammer. He then turned it over two or three times, threw the manuscript upon the table, and, as they say in the west, "let himself go." Now the stammering man who had created only silent derision up to that point, suddenly flashed out into ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... infinite goodness has given me a clear insight into the deep mysteries of Charity. If I could but express what I know, you would hear a heavenly music; but alas! I can only stammer like a child, and if God's own words were not my support, I should be tempted to beg leave to hold my peace. When the Divine Master tells me to give to whosoever asks of me, and to let what is mine be taken without asking it again, it seems ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... not matter in the least," Drusie said eagerly, when Hal began to stammer out his shamefaced apologies. "I don't want a present from you one bit. I know quite well that boys must have a great deal to do with their ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... solitary walk to give Span a run, she saw, with annoyance, James Tapster following her, and to her acute discomfiture he managed to stammer out what was tantamount to an offer of marriage. Though, in a sense, she had certainly tried to attract him, she felt, all at once, miserably ashamed of her success. So much so, indeed, that she pretended at first not to understand what he meant. But at ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; Bluecher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington does not understand it at all. Look at the reports; the bulletins are confused; the commentaries are entangled; the latter stammer, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... justifiable he personally would have contended before archangels. This miserly uncle was keeping from him money that was as incontestably his own as the being which also his mother had given him. Before all the angelic host he would thus have protested- without stammer, without blush; with the inspiration of righteousness, with the integrity of innocence. But to protest his cause before his Mary was another matter. There might be no occasion to protest; his Mary might see eye to eye with him in the matter. She might; but it was an eventuality ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... last night. If I did not, let me say now that I think you have made good in every particular—and that I trust you in every particular. What I wished especially to say now," she went on briskly, giving Larry no chance to stammer out his appreciation, "is that I wish to go ahead without any delay with your proposition for developing the Sherwood properties in New York City which we discussed some time ago. A former objection ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... derived from the Latin sto; for example, stand, stay, that is, to remain, or to prop; staff, stay, that is, to oppose; stop, to stuff, stifle, to stay, that is, to stop; a stay, that is, an obstacle; stick, stut, stutter, stammer, stagger, stickle, stick, stake, a sharp, pale, and any thing deposited at play; stock, stem, sting, to sting, stink, stitch, stud, stuncheon, stub, stubble, to stub up, stump, whence stumble, stalk, to ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... occasionally, from a certain ill-defined sense of what may be due to their position, yet are obviously aware that what they say is entitled to no weight, and are greatly relieved when the unwelcome and disagreeable duty has been discharged. They are the men who hesitate and stammer, whose hats and canes are always in their way, and who have no very clear notions about what should be done with their hands. A visitor who chances to spend an evening in the House of Lords for the first and last time, while noblemen of this stamp are quieting their tender ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... stare. "I leave it to you, Gov'ner," he continued to stammer at length. "S'y you was me and I was ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... could only stammer over the First Reader at her mother's knee, was obliged to confess that she had never made ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... ran on smilingly: "He promised to shackle you to a table until I could stammer out my halting apologies, and now that I've done so in the presence of press and public won't you forgive me and help me to bury the hatchet in a Welsh rarebit?" He was speaking directly to her with a genuine appeal in his handsome eyes. Now that ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... thus: "It somewhat hurts the feelings to see a minister stand up in his place, and after a very pretty exordium to the budget, take up a bundle of papers from the table, gaze at the incomprehensible calculations before him, stammer out a few confused numbers, and then, with a rueful face, look over his shoulder to V—ns—rt for assistance. How often have I grieved to see unhappy A—d—g—n in this lamentable predicament!" Again, on Thellusson being ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... But at length she began to speak more clearly as she proceeded with her story, and became excited in its narration. Then she would stop and seem to forget it all. Then she went on, as if she was telling a dream. Then there would be another long pause, and confusion, and she would stammer on in the most wild and incoherent fashion, till the old miner became quite impatient, and thought her as big an imposter as the Indian woman whom she called her mother. He finally gave them each ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... her by her name, very quietly, and it is as though I made a loud avowal! She turns, and it seems that this is the first time I have seen her naked face. "Kiss me," she says; and without speaking we stammer, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... the Legion, Bonaparte covered, as did the ancient kings of France when they held a bed of justice. A profound silence, a sort of religious awe, then reigned throughout the assembly, and Napoleon, who did not now stammer as in the Council of the Five Hundred, said in ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... inadvertently fallen asleep, that I was usually a wide-awake citizen of the land that Lafayette went to save, that I wanted my dinner, and would like to get out. I walked down near enough to the gate to see the policeman, but my courage failed. Before I could stammer out half that explanation to him in his trifling language (which foreigners are mockingly told is the best in the world for conversation), he would either have slipped his hateful rapier through my body, or have raised an alarm and called out ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Rome replace me? Yesterday I had to order a slave beaten to death for breaking a vase of Greek glass. I can buy a hundred slaves for half what that glass cost Hadrian. And I could have a thousand better senators tomorrow than the fools who belch and stammer in the curia, the senate house. But where would you find another Commodus if some lurking miscreant should stab me from behind? It was the geese that saved the capitol. You cacklers ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... and bow to her. She comes closer, and bursts out into a loud, almost childlike laughter. I stammer, as only a little dilettante or great big donkey can do ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... begun to stammer in the last sentence, suddenly self-conscious again. She told him where her chair was on deck, and next minute, without another word, he was half-way along the alley-way, leaving the tea-things where they were. Then he turned back and spoke from ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery. I pr'ythee tell me who is it? quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of narrow-mouth'd bottle; either too much at once or none at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth that ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... and Mr. Harbison were rather strained. Bella had left the roof and Jim and the Harbison man came face to face in the door of the tent. According to Dal, little had been said, but Jim, bound by his promise to me, could not explain, and could only stammer something about being an old friend of Miss Knowles. And Tom had replied shortly that it was none of his business, but that there were some things friendship hardly justified, and tried to pass Jim. Jim was instantly ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Klopstock and Wieland, leaves Boie behind in the exuberance of his impressions. "This Goethe," he wrote to Fritz Jacobi, "of whom from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof and from the going down thereof to its rising I should like to speak and stammer and rhapsodise with you ... this Goethe has, as it were, transcended all the ideals I had ever conceived of the direct feeling and observation of a great genius. Never could I have so well explained and sympathised with the feelings of the disciples on the ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... for opinions, of which you understand nothing yourselves; cease to defame each other for dreams and conjectures, which every thing seems to contradict. Talk to us of things intelligible and really useful to men; and no longer talk to us of the impenetrable ways of God, about which you only stammer and contradict yourselves. ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... calculated. She had pulled the string and the marionette moved with precision. A daze, a flash, a stammer—all the embarrassment of a man who believes that in a day-dream he has given ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... was well received by the audience. Tom was beaten. A potato, vast and nobbly, fell from his palsied hand. He was speechless. Then he began to stammer. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... these words, but I was not prepared to answer him, and in the rush of his indignant accusation my defence was swept down, and I could only stammer out— ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... mean?" Captain Snaggs managed to stammer out after a bit, his long face perceptibly longer and his rubicund complexion turned to an ashy grey. He was conscience-stricken and thoroughly frightened at the second-mate thus bringing up again, as he thought, his cruel murder of ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... over to the scorn of stripling orators. Our minds and bodies being ravaged with age, Posidon should protect us, yet we have no other support than a staff. When standing before the judge, we can scarcely stammer forth the fewest words, and of justice we see but its barest shadow, whereas the accuser, desirous of conciliating the younger men, overwhelms us with his ready rhetoric; he drags us before the judge, presses us with questions, lays traps for us; the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... fear of the insurgents had given him jaundice. At the second course they all scrambled like hounds at the quarry. The oil-dealers and almond-dealers were the men who saved France. They clinked glasses to the glory of the Rougons. Granoux, who was very red, began to stammer, while Vuillet, very pale, was quite drunk. Nevertheless Sicardot continued filling his glass. For her part Angele, who had already eaten too much, prepared herself some sugar and water. The gentlemen were so delighted at being freed ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... walie hammer; About the knottit buttress clam'er; Alang the steep roof stoyt an' stammer, A gate mis-chancy; On the aul' spire, the bells' hie cha'mer, Dance your ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to talk? Boy, open your mouth! Don't you know I do not hear well with my right ear?" The child raised his voice and began to stammer so that Margaret failed to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State. They are the Southerners of the West. Now, Chicagoans are no less loyal to their city; but when you ask them why, they stammer and speak of lake fish and the new Odd Fellows Building. But ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... face, began to stammer a few disconnected and unintelligible words; but old Wardlaw silenced him and said, with much feeling, "Let none but a father tell him. My poor, poor friend—the Proserpine! How can ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... days—which elissited from a bright-eyed little girl of about twelve summers the remark that she tho't it was rich to talk about the crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a Tower where so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder stammer and turn red. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... started when he saw him, and he began to stammer out, "Oh, dear me! is it you? Pray how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in the ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my d——d cowardice made me stammer. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... directed to thank him, in the name of the people, for his great services as an officer. This the Speaker did in glowing terms, quite unexpectedly to Washington. Washington rose to reply. His face flushed; he struggled to speak; but could only stammer, and stood speechless and trembling. "Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the Speaker, with a smile. "Your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... from the office to Ruth and asked her to marry me. She didn't hang her head nor stammer but she looked me straight in the eyes a moment longer than usual ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... command in a husky, throaty stammer, weaker than a whisper, from an undersized tin-hatted youngster planted in the centre of the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot was forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... wished my curls would fall down and hide my cheeks, I tried to stammer out some apology. But he drove it back with a ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... such a surprise to Garnett that for the moment he could only stammer out—"You consent then? I may go ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... The key will stammer, and the door reply, The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... went forward without any delay, asking our interlocutors roughly what they meant and what they were doing here, and telling them, too, that we were going on. I knew that they were sexless eunuchs, who would stammer as I had heard them stammer in the old days when I had seen them trafficking things they had been donated by officials desirous of cultivating their friendship, in the mysterious curio shops beyond the great Ch'ien Men ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... would look every now and then as if he were going to make a remark, and then evidently restrain himself, and remain silent. It was very curious to see this big, handsome, manly young fellow, who ought to have had any amount of success with women, suddenly stammer and grow crimson in the presence of his own wife. Nor was it the consciousness of stupidity; for when you got him alone, Oke, although always slow and timid, had a certain amount of ideas, and very defined political and social ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... accompanied by one of her swift, half-frightened smiles; but she didn't wait for an answer. Before Chip could begin to stammer out an explanation that would give his point of view she was passing rapidly up the pathway, bordered with irises and peonies and bleeding-hearts, ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale face, but before he could stammer a reply, Harry came ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... change him to the chamber above the chapel. If that ye can swear your innocency with a good solid oath and an assured countenance, it is well; the lad will be at peace a little, and I will spare him. If that ye stammer or blench, or anyways boggle at the swearing, he will not believe you; and, by the mass, he shall die. There ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was on the floor at her feet in tears. She was shaking with sobs, and could scarcely manage to stammer out that Lizzie was all right. Mrs. Brady settled back with a relieved sigh. Lizzie was the first grandchild, and therefore the idol of her heart. If Lizzie was all right, she could afford to be patient and find ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... six of the draughtsmen grouped about Kampfer's desk, gargling away at each other in pectoral German, and gazing at something thereupon. At the Commissioner's approach they scattered to their several places. Kampfer, a wizened little German, with long, frizzled ringlets and a watery eye, began to stammer forth some sort of an apology, the Commissioner thought, for the congregation of ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... to his friend. "Why do they build hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels? They'll take away my shield and break me. I can think and talk con-con-consec-sec-secutively, but I s-s-stammer with my feet. I've got to go on duty in three hours. The jig is up, Remsen. The jig ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... but stammer piteously, I fear. I heard myself make a wretched failure of words that crowded to ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... her little fight that morning. She had yielded and she could not renew it. She had spent three miserable hours framing reasonable arguments why last night should be forgotten. But the sight of her lover coming across the meadow had set her heart so leaping that she could only stammer out a ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... he was admitted a Scholar in July, 1802, and a Fellow in July, 1805. In 1803 he was awarded by the Provost of Eton the Belham Scholarship, given to those Scholars of King's who had behaved well at Eton, and held it till 1816. A witty companion, with "a dry caustic manner, and an irresistible stammer" ('Life of Rev, F. Hodgson', vol. i. p. 204), Davies was, during the Regency and afterwards, a popular member of fashionable society. A daring gambler and shrewd calculator, he at one time won heavily at ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp as you lisped when ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... stood still, then began to beat furiously. The sound of her name always affected him incomprehensibly. He began to stammer, then took his pipe out of his mouth ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... yellow in childhood, black in manhood, and snowy white in age. His brow was broad, and his features regular, save that his left eyelid drooped somewhat, like that of his father, and hid part of the pupil. He spoke with a stammer, which did not, however, detract from the persuasiveness of his eloquence. His sinewy, muscular arms were those of the consummate swordsman, and his long legs gave him a firm hold in the saddle when riding the most spirited of steeds. His chief delight was in war and tournaments, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... I managed to stammer. "It is the only way. You will die of exposure if you are not warmed, and Nobs and I are the only means we can command for furnishing warmth." And I held her tightly while I called Nobs and bade him lie down at her back. The girl didn't struggle any more when she learned my purpose; but she gave ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
