"Chatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... buzzing with his emotions, caught only a few words, nor grasped any part of the meaning. But the sonorous "United States of America" chilled his blood, and the word "guilty" made his teeth chatter. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... red in contrast to the milder colorings. Blackbirds and bluebirds chatter and chipmunks chirp. The gold so hard to find in the mines glares from the skies. The hills cuddle in banks of snowy clouds, and above all a pure clear blue sky sweeps. The lakes and streams abound with rainbow trout, the gamest of any fresh water fish. It is indeed a paradise for either ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... poor-house? You act as though I had won that much money at the county fair, or had squandered an equal amount at the same place. The truth is, Gottfried Nothafft entrusted me with three thousand taler. That's what he did; that's the truth. It was his intention to keep the whole affair from the chatter of women. And he willed that I should use this hard-earned capital in a productive way, and not give it to the culprit who would waste it in ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... senses, fright out of one's wits, fright out of one's seven senses; awe; strike all of a heap, strike an awe into, strike terror; harrow up the soul, appall, unman, petrify, horrify; pile on the agony. make one's flesh creep, make one's hair stand on end, make one's blood run cold, make one's teeth chatter; take away one's breath, stop one's breath; make one tremble &c. haunt; prey on the mind, weigh on the mind. put in fear, put in bodily fear; terrorize, intimidate, cow, daunt, overawe, abash, deter, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Painter-man. I suppose over here"—he moved away from the window, and spoke in his mocking way—"over here, you will have a tea-table for the ladies of the circle elect—who will come to, 'oh', and, 'ah', their admiration of the newly discovered genius, and to chatter their misunderstandings of his art. Of course, there will be a page in velvet and gold. By all means, get hold of an oriental kid of some kind—oriental junk is quite the rage this year. You should take advantage of every influence that can contribute to your success, you know. And, whatever you ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... Constance," said her mother, "Miss Ringgan's cheeks will stand a much better chance if you come away and leave her in peace. How can she get well with such a chatter in ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... people was fast becoming the stumbling-block of governments and the most powerful lever of revolutionaries. The chief of the peace armies resided in sumptuous hotels, furnished luxuriously in dubious taste, flooded after sundown with dazzling light, and filled by day with the buzz of idle chatter, the shuffling of feet, the banging of doors, and the ringing of bells. Music and dancing enlivened the inmates when their day's toil was over and time had to be killed. Thus, within, one could find anxious deliberation and warm debate; without, noisy revel and vulgar ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... its comprehensiveness, the one unique expression that the mother would give to her maternal concern and curiosity, and that it condensed into six words as much interest as would have overflowed into a whole day of the chatter of some mothers. She met the candid ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... began to chatter in trees, neither man nor beast had ever denied or doubted Multiplicity, Diversity, Complexity, Anarchy, Chaos. Always and everywhere the Complex had been true and the Contradiction had been certain. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the door as the chatter becomes a babel and the practising preliminary to the overture issues in long pious ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... not weep, but just stood cowering, a chill of anguished horror racking her. All at once her teeth began to chatter, her body to shake as ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... much of interest. The men kept up a ceaseless chatter and discussion, and the sole topic of conversation was the arrival of Christopher Burley and the priest. The travelers, it appeared, had come together from Fort York—where all was quiet at the time of their departure—and by the same roundabout road our party had traversed ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... with unharmonious clack, And haunt thy holy walls in white and black. What else are those thou seest in bishop's gear, Who crop the nurseries of learning here; Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate, Devour the church, and chatter to the state? As you grew more degenerate and base, I sent you millions of the croaking race; Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn; A nauseous ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... object of a crossfire of questions from the curious sailors who wanted to know all the details of the wreck of the Mary Rogers and the life on the island. He was saved from answering nine-tenths of the chatter by a signal from the bos'n, who beckoned Harrigan to a stool a little apart from the rest of the crew. Jerry Hovey was a cheery fellow of considerable bulk, with an habitual smile. That smile went out, however, when he talked with Harrigan, and the Irishman became conscious ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... women are splendid, so quiet and strong, As with resolute purpose they hurry along— Excepting the flappers, who chatter as shrilly As parrots let loose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... answered. "Already some of the Society papers are beginning to chatter about the friendship existing between a Cabinet Minister and a beautiful Hungarian lady of title, etc., etc. The fact of it is that Brott is in deadly earnest. He gives himself away every time. If Lucille has not lost old cleverness she will be able to twist ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the house that did not think the same. Yet the girl turned fiercely towards the side-scenes, hearing it, and pitied herself at that,—that she, a woman, should stand before the public for them to examine and chatter over her soul and her history, and her very dress and shoes. But that was gone in a moment, and Lizzy laughed,—naturally now. Why, they were real friends, heart-warm to her there: when they laughed and cried with her, she knew it. Many of their faces she knew well: that pale lady's in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... began his chatter, How evil tongues his life bespatter; Much of the censuring world complained, Who said, his gravity was feigned: Indeed, the strictness of his morals Engaged him in a hundred quarrels: He saw, and he was grieved ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... characterized as depreciation either in the way of direct remark or of insinuation. There will be no call for contradiction of any slurs upon character through perversion of facts or the repetition of hearsay calumny in its pages. Nor does this seem to proceed from either a mere distaste for the chatter of gossips or an unwillingness to wound the feelings of survivors, though both these traits are discernible enough. The strong and more pervading cause lay in an instinctive nobility of nature which sought only what was excellent and had no keen scent for blemishes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... their canoes lying concealed beneath the overhanging branches of trees on the shore. They are cannibals, and are placed by Darwin in the lowest scale of humanity. An old author describes them as 'magpies in chatter, baboons in countenance, and imps in treachery.' Those frequenting the eastern end of the Straits wear—if they wear anything at all—a deerskin mantle, descending to the waist: those at the western end wear cloaks made from the skin of the sea-otter. But most of them are quite naked. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... are the most conspicuous. The bright plumage of the latter seems really like an arrival from the tropics. I see them dash through the blossoming trees, and all the forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing. The swallows dive and chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods; the long, tender note of the meadowlark comes up from the meadow; and at sunset, from every marsh and pond come the ten thousand voices of the hylas. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... bamboo shoots, in front of the pavilion, they involuntarily stepped out of the entrance of the court, and penetrated into the garden. They cast their eyes on all four quarters; but not a soul was visible. When they became conscious of the splendour of the flowers and the chatter of the birds, they, with listless step, turned their course towards the I Hung court. There they found several servant-girls baling out water; while a bevy of them stood under the verandah, watching the thrushes having their bath. They ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... better get your wife to bolt you in the closet for an hour or two, for you'll chatter it yourself to the whole boiling parish if she don't! ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... daydreams he had once had. A king's councilor, he had imagined, was a highly important, greatly respected individual. He had dreamed of himself, dressed in the ornate formal robes he'd seen in pictures of the old nobility. He'd pictured himself exchanging urbane chatter with other beautifully turned out characters, who hung on his every word. He'd seen himself striding between low-bowing lines of assorted courtiers and soldiery, pausing now and then to tap at the pavement with his ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... ladies standing there, not a hundred yards off, looking at me!—ay, gazing steadfastly at me, and, what is worse, splitting their sides laughing at my confusion! What in the world is to be done? The water seems to be growing colder and colder. I am chilled through. My jaws begin to chatter. Suppose a shark should seize me by the leg—or a sudden and violent cramp should take possession of me? My gracious! what are those women doing now? Actually seating themselves on the rocks, within ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... second break, and when Perkins went that morning to inspect the old church that served as quarters, he found the men congregated in little groups in the squad room. There was not the usual loud-voiced chatter and laughter, but a sullen murmur that dropped to quick silence when he entered. This was bad. There was nothing specific, but he instinctively felt that he was losing his hold. He chafed to do something to "smash these niggers," but there was nothing to seize ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... 'Well, sister, I suppose you want to mousey round and dream by yourself—you won't talk to a growly old bear like me. Well, I'm glad of it. I want to sleep. I don't want to be bothered by you and your everlasting chatter. Get out!' I b'lieve he just says that 'cause he knows I wouldn't want to run off by myself if they didn't think it ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... eyes that peered at him out of the darkness perhaps he would have backed out in a hurry. But it was all right. The owner of the two eyes was only Sandy Chipmunk. And he spoke pleasantly to Grandfather Mole, in a soft sort of chatter, because he didn't want ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a little pebble; I wiped it clean on my coat sleeve and put it into my mouth so that I might have something to mumble. Otherwise I did not stir, and didn't even wink an eyelid. People came and went; the noise of cars, the tramp of hoofs, and chatter of tongues filled the air. I might try with the buttons. Of course there would be no use in trying; and besides, I was now in a rather bad way; but when I came to consider the matter closely, I would be obliged, as it were, to pass in the direction of my "Uncle's" as I went home. At last I got ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... at night I must drink wine to keep out the cold. I come out like this." (He shivered violently, making his teeth chatter.) "Then I drink a glass and I am warm, and when they have taken the fish I go in again. We fish all along the shore from Isola Bella round by the point there, where there's the Casa delle Sirene, and to the caves beyond the Caffe Berardi. ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... leaped up at once, but the elder restrained her. "Wait," she said, "my sister, until we hear the Abalkakmooech." [Footnote: Ground squirrel] And she lay still till the Adoo-doo-dech [Footnote: Red squirrel] began his early chatter and his morning's work. Then, without waiting, she jumped up, as did the elder, when they found themselves indeed on earth, but in the summit of a tall, spreading hemlock-tree, and that in such a manner that they could not ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... anyone to take up reading, studying, or any exercise for self-improvement. Perhaps someone is thoughtless and keeps interrupting the others so that they can not concentrate their minds; or those who have nothing in common with your aims or your earnest life drop in to spend an evening in idle chatter. They have no ideals outside of the bread-and-butter and amusement questions, and do not realize how ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... embarrassing to justice to have my old Injin walk in on 'em, because every one knew he was guilty. Why couldn't he of stayed up here where the keen-eyed officers of the law could of pretended not to know he was? And the old fool was only making things worse with his everlasting chatter about his brother-in-law, every one knowing there wasn't such a person in existence—old Pete having had dozens of every kind of relation in the world but a brother-in-law. But they're going to have this bright young lawyer defend him, and ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... peals of laughter from the billiard-room startled her; and more than once Mr. Murray's clear, cold voice rose above the subdued chatter ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... girls came up in a group, and the next hour or two were spent wandering through the pleasant gardens, while laughter, jokes, and good-humored chatter of all sorts filled ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... kept up an incessant chatter. They talked over their situation, but could as yet decide upon nothing. It grew dark at length. The sun went down. The usual ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... Mary will know anything till we are actually gone,' he remarked. 'And I shall not tell her till the last thing. Afterwards, won't they chatter! ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... to Mary all the way home. "A hardened sinner," he was thinking. "Poor, lovely creature! So young and so lost!" Under Mary's incessant chatter, her tugs at the end of the reins, her little bursts of joy at the sight of a bird or a roadside flower, he was thinking, with a strange new pain—a pain no other sinner had ever roused in him—of the girl ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... that Toby and I were near the companion-hatch, that we might hold on tight to it. The scene was stirring in the extreme; rather more than was pleasant indeed. I did not like the state of things, and Toby's teeth began to chatter in his head. It was very dark. The wind roared through the rigging; the sails, extended to the utmost, would, I thought, burst from the bolt-ropes, or carry the stout mast out of the vessel. The lugger heeled over till the men at the guns were up to their knees in water, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... ceased to listen to Jennie's chatter. His eye had suddenly rested on a group of three men seated in the diplomatic gallery—one evidently of high official position by the deference paid him. The man on the left of the official was young, handsome, slender, and pulled the corners of his mustache with a slow lazy ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... burst out laughing (V. iii.) A little before the catastrophe in Hamlet comes the grave-digger passage, a passage ever welcome, but of a length which could hardly be defended on purely dramatic grounds; and still later, occupying some hundred and twenty lines of the very last scene, we have the chatter of Osric with Hamlet's mockery of it. But the acme of audacity is reached in Antony and Cleopatra, where, quite close to the end, the old countryman who brings the asps to Cleopatra discourses on the virtues and vices of the worm, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... warm again, he dozed off once more and dreamt that he was at the pool of Daphnis with Lubin. How cool and blue the water looked, and how lovely the plunge would be! But when he was stripped the weather suddenly changed; a chill wind sprang up which made his teeth chatter; and then Lubin—who somehow wasn't Lubin but had unaccountably turned into Mr Buskin—insisted on throwing him into the water, which now looked cold and black. He struggled furiously, and ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... till the doom, And mend the pots and kettles of mankind, And lend our sons to big-time vaudeville, Or to the race-track, or the learned world. But India's Brahma waits within their breasts. They will return to us with gipsy grins, And chatter Romany, and shake their curls And hug the dirtiest babies in the camp. They will return to the moving pillar of smoke, The whitest toothed, the merriest laughers known, The blackest haired of all the tribes of men. What ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... once that a girl in the village had run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,— an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood- encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone had ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... tomorrow. Perhaps your eloquence will succeed where my plain speech has failed." And to the tall Sagamore he said: "My brother, this is Ensign Loskiel, of Colonel Morgan's command—my comrade and good friend. What this man's lips tell you has first been taught them by his heart. Squirrels chatter, brooks babble, and the tongues of the Iroquois are split. But this is a man, Sagamore, such as are few among men. For he lies not even to women." And though his countenance was very grave, I saw his ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... had entered the cars, I noticed that the tone of the conversation among the passengers was different from what I had been accustomed to hear in France and Belgium thus far. I now heard the chatter of the Dutch, but understood no more than if it had been so much French. Dutch and German are two entirely different languages. Dutch print in the newspapers does, however, not look so perfectly strange, as the conversation ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... them," said the other; "you can always chatter those of other people, by merely showing yourself. For my part, I should be content with some light employment: would erect a cheap palace, transport a light-weight princess, threaten a small cripple—or jobs of that kind. What are the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... very gradually she drew nearer to the cage. When night fell, she was within ten feet of it. A few lamps were lit then, here and there over doorways, but nobody appeared to linger in the courtyard; no footfalls resounded; nothing but the neigh of stabled horses and the chatter around the big, flat supper pans broke on the ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... tedious in the extreme. Starting after dinner, the victim was carried throughout the night by eight men, divided into reliefs of four. The whole of the eight were changed at stages averaging from ten to twelve miles apart. The baggage was also conveyed by coolies, who kept up an incessant chatter, and the procession was lighted on its way by a torch-bearer, whose torch consisted of bits of rag tied round the end of a stick, upon which he continually poured the most malodorous of oils. If the palankin-bearers were very ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... shoulder with a rueful look. "Would that the evil spirit in the gun had cut off her tongue and not her ear! It is the Worn-out-Old-Cow's own fault; she is always peeping into everything like a monkey. Now she will have something to chatter about and leave my things alone for awhile. I thank my ancestral Spirit it was not Mameena, for then her looks would have ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... faithfully until the time came. For he was growing and learning all the while. In his happy outdoor life he became wise in many things which other people never know. He found the secret of the whispering wind, and the song of the brook. He knew what the chatter of the squirrels meant, and the caw of the crows. He learned the ways of all the little bright-eyed animals whom he met in his walks over the hills of heather; and he grew to love every creature which has fur or feathers and ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... a hair more important than any of the hundred and one ordinary messages which went to make up a large part of his daily life. The talk was so commonplace that we were none of us interested enough to even stop our chatter. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... said the man, angrily, yet with an uneasy look in his eyes; "if you must chatter to me, come into the library." He arose and made a step ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... me out of court one of these days, squire," muttered Potts, "and so will you too, Master James Device.—A day of reckoning will come for both—heavy reckoning. Ugh! ugh!" he added, shivering, "how my teeth chatter!" ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... immediate understanding and common action by the workingmen, and which give immediately strength and impetus to the needs of the class struggle and to the organization of the workers as a class. The Parisian gentlemen had their heads filled with the most empty Proudhonian phraseology. They chatter of science, and know nothing of it. They scorn all revolutionary action, that is to say, proceeding from the class struggle itself, every social movement that is centralized and consequently obtainable ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... hear you," warned Jack; although truth to tell there was little fear of that, because all the while there came across the field the cries of the workers and the chatter of those who ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... biological scheme had something more than an academic interest for herself. And not only so, but that it was after all, a more systematic and particular method of examining just the same questions that underlay the discussions of the Fabian Society, the talk of the West Central Arts Club, the chatter of the studios and the deep, the bottomless discussions of the simple-life homes. It was the same Bios whose nature and drift and ways and methods and aspects engaged them all. And she, she in her own person too, was this eternal Bios, beginning again its recurrent journey to ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... two and made a wet bandage for each of Jocko's knees, and then she could do no more, and sat down by him on the roadside to wait till the fog should clear up a little. Her teeth began to chatter with cold, and she felt ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... face, and after one look around him he lay resolutely still, with eyes on the ground passively awaiting his fate. The ponderous stone of the gate clapped to in its place; the cave-tigers turned in their prowlings; and a chatter of wagers ran to and fro amongst the watchers behind ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... enemies cease their empty chatter, which is no better than the twittering of birds. Let them cease their talk about the cathedral at Rheims and about all the churches and castles of France which have shared its fate. These things do ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... before I close down this over-long and too discursive chatter, on the subject of yonder twin red volumes which flank the shelf. They are Maxwell's "History of Wellington," and I do not think you will find a better or more readable one. The reader must ever feel towards the great soldier what his own immediate followers felt, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my men," said he. "The more they laugh, and chatter, and smile, the more they are inclined for mischief, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... cock, pointed directly at the small of my back. Having halted and carefully put the rifle at 'safety', we started again, and all went well till we were within one hundred yards or so of the kraal, when his teeth began to chatter in the most ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... was instantly transformed into the Giant, and the Giant was so big that as he stood on the ground his head was higher than the trees of the forest. The monkeys raised a great chatter but did not seem to understand that the Giant was one ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... nurse are you? How do you expect to rise in the profession, miss, if you don't have an egg-nog ready the instant yo' patient happens to think of it? Oh, here you are! Well, sit down here, then, and see that the Baron takes every drop of that, and don't tire him out with yo' chatter. Do you understand?" ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... too. She was not glaring. She was laughing. Her dark, handsome face was alight with merriment at her sister's characteristic attack. She loved her irresponsible chatter, just as she loved the loyal heart that beat within the girl's slight, shapely body. Now she came over and laid a caressing hand upon the girl's shoulder. In a moment it dropped to the slim waist about which her arm ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... the evening, as a rule, when Margot had been carried away to bed by the hard-featured old woman who had succeeded Mrs. Bullen in the superintendence of his household; for the child, with her sweet, shrill voice and her infantile chatter, had come to seem to him far more even than Oswyn, about whom there would always lurk something shadowy and unreal, a last link with the living; when the tide was nearly out, so that the stillness was not even broken by ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Malachy," I said in parting, "you will keep this matter a profound secret. Miss Kinglake and I are desirous that we shall not be annoyed by village chatter ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... small. The conifers, in the king's honor, flaunt from stem and greater branch long fluttering ribbons of pale green moss. Thousands of squirrels chatter in the branches. Millions of birds make music. It is a ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... bite! and so will a Yorkshireman; A fly will drink out of anybody's cup! and so will a Yorkshireman; A magpie will chatter! and so will a Yorkshireman: And a flitch of bacon looks best when it's hung! and ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... And who asked thee, thou naughty knave, to whom belonged these flocks, Sibyrtas, or (it might be) me? Eh, thou'rt a chatter-box! ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... might storm the city from above. The lanes became little runnels of darkness and night slowly silted up the broader streets. The incessant orgy of sound that by day had been but the tuneless rattling of healthy throats and the chatter of castanets became charged with tragedy by its passage through the grave twilight. The people pressed about him like vivacious ghosts, differentiating themselves from the dusk by wearing white flowers ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... followed her, wondering at her, and giving slight heed to the chatter she flung over her shoulder at him as she strode ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... oftener than I did. My father troubled himself very little about him: he knew that David never listened to him. And Raissa used to appear from time to time at the gate between our garden and the street, and meet David there. She did not chatter with David, but merely told him of some new loss or misfortune that had happened to them, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... talking crisscrossed the floor this way and that seeking seats. The girls and women sinking affectedly or plumping in matter-of-fact style down into their places, with languishing upward looks if they be young and in tune with the moon outside, with red faced jollity and much frankness of chatter if they were married and perhaps had a husband and children likewise disporting themselves, made long rows about the walls of the schoolhouse, looking for the world like orderly flocks of bright plumaged birds in their bravery of many hued calicos ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... right resolve? It is the resolve to renounce pleasures, to bear no malice and do no harm. What is right speech? To abstain from lying and slandering, harsh words and foolish chatter. What is right conduct? To abstain from taking life, from stealing, from immorality. What is right livelihood? To abandon wrong occupations and get one's living by a right occupation. This is elsewhere defined as one that does not bring ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... with the Thrales that he began to frequent drawing-rooms at an age when the arm-chair at home or at the club has an irresistible charm for most men of sedentary pursuits. It must be admitted that the evening parties in which he was seen, afforded a chance of something better than the "unidead chatter of girls," with an undue fondness for which he reproached Langton; for the Blue Stocking clubs had just come into fashion,—so called from a casual allusion to the blue stockings of an habitue, Mr. Stillingfleet.[1] Their founders were Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Montagu; ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... recollection of the tattered man took all elation from the youth's veins. He saw his vivid error, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them, save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... connection with his tutor, and the rest he set down to the score of his own humanity, and took credit to himself accordingly: whereas in truth Monsieur Crapaud was of incalculable service to his master, who would lie and chatter to him for hours, and almost forget his present discomfort in recalling past happiness, as he described the chateau, the gardens, the burly tutor, and beautiful Madame, or laughed over his childish remembrances of the ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... it had time to more than squeak. At the sound of that despairing squeak, to be sure, she woke up and made a savage rush at the enemy. But the wary bird was already in the air, with the prize drooping from his talons. And the mother could do nothing but sit up and chatter after him abusively as he sailed away to ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... whim as was eminently characteristic of Lady Scrope. She had had nothing but her own whims to guide her through life, and she indulged them at her pleasure. She had taken a fancy to Dinah from the first moment. She knew all about the family of her young companion, from having listened to Dorcas's chatter when in the mood. Keenly interested in the spread of the plague, which had driven away all her fashionable friends, she was eager for news about it, and the more ghastly the tales that were told, the more did she seem to revel in them. To have news first ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Bits of the chatter around him came vaguely to Shotwell—the birth-control lady's placid inclination toward obstetrics; Wardner on concentration, with Palla listening, bending forward, brown eyes wide and curious and snowy hands framing her face; Ilse partly turned where she was seated, alert, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... younger! Fruit! There wasn't anything that boy wouldn't do to get it—any kind of mischief." She grew garrulous on the subject of Tom's infancy. The two men answered her questions, and listened amusedly to her chatter. Occasionally they interchanged smiles. Presently the train got near to the station just before the terminus. The Curate warned the Old Lady that the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... at seeing only this? Judging by his looks, the reverse. Before, he only trembled slightly, with a hue of pallor on his cheeks. Now his lips show white, his eyes sunken in their sockets, while his teeth chatter and his whole frame shivers as if under an ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... most energetic fashion, commenced to spray the vicinity with a shower of leaden missiles. The chatter of the machine gun drowned any cries from the two men below. The Yankee plane swooped past the spot where the injured pilot still sat at bay, ready to sell his life dearly if ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... the greatest of armies, we have laboured at scientific, social, and economic progress; our enemies trusted to the rule of force and to chatter.—O.A.H. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... them suffered a little in sweetness by the confusion. Mr. Gutermann-Seuss had truly, for the crisis, the putting down of his cards, a rare manner; he was perfect master of what not to say to such a personage as Mr. Verver while the particular importance that dispenses with chatter was diffused by his movements themselves, his repeated act of passage between a featureless mahogany meuble and a table so virtuously disinterested as to look fairly smug under a cotton cloth of faded maroon and indigo, all redolent of patriarchal teas. The Damascene tiles, successively, and ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... that master artist, the Frost-King. Flocks of robins and blackbirds were gathering rather late this year, preparatory to taking their annual pilgrimage to the warm Southland. They flew overhead at times in vast numbers, making a tremendous chatter. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... the music of Lovin Child's chuckling laugh and his unintelligible chatter. Bud made the discovery that "Boy" was trying to say Lovin Child when he wanted to be taken and rocked, and declared that he would tell the world the name fit, like a saddle on a duck's back. Lovin Child ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... maintain without serious disturbance. It may indeed cry "Hush!" and "Put him out!" but not only would that cry be of doubtful effect, but experience proves that a concert audience will not raise it. If the audience were left to itself, it would permit late arrivals, and all the disturbance of chatter and movement. To twist the line of Goldsmith, those who came to pray would be at the mercy of those who came to scoff; and such mercy is merciless. The conductor stands in loco parentis. He is the advocatus angeli. He does for the audience what it would not ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... talked together, very fast, all but the tall one, who, though she talked also, did not chatter as the others did, but spoke slowly, in a low tone which must be listened to, or it could not be heard. The four laughed a good deal, and when the tall woman smiled she lost something of her fascination, for she had large, slightly prominent eye-teeth which went far to ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... inhabitants. Almost, however, before putting foot on Scandinavian ground, Mr Boas, who, as a traveller, is decidedly of the gossiping and inquisitive class, fills three chapters with all manner of pleasant chatter about himself, and his feelings, and his fancies, and the travelling companions he meets with. His liveliness and versatility, and a certain bantering satirical vein, in which he occasionally indulges, would have caused us to take his work, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... and the master of the gathering on the lawn would not dare to throw sand on the spots where the rich man's prideful skin had been raked off. The entertainment was to consist of talk among the older ones, chatter among the slips of girls and striplings of ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... necessary to know how to make ourselves ridiculous, and not only to others but to ourselves. And more than ever to-day, when there is so much chatter about our backwardness compared with other civilized peoples, to-day when a parcel of shallow-brained critics say that we have had no science, no art, no philosophy, no Renaissance, (of this we had perhaps too much), no anything, these same critics being ignorant of our real history, a history that ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... to hear the old ladies chatter away, and it was interesting to think of the distinguished men who had been under that roof, and of the cultivated and beautiful women who had ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... them twice as long to return; and when Louise tried to get out of the chair, she found herself so paralysed with cold that she could hardly stand. Blinded by the snow, she clung to Maurice's arm; he heard her teeth chatter, as they toiled their way along the ARNDTSTRASSE, through the thick, new snow-layer. Not a droschke was to be seen; and they were half-way home before they met one. The driver was drunk or asleep, and had first to be roused. Louise sank limply ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... capable recruits as it does. And while the private lives under these conditions, the would-be capable officer stifles amidst equally impossible surroundings. He must associate with the uneducated products of the public schools, and listen to their chatter about the "sports" that delight them, suffer social indignities from the "army woman," worry and waste money on needless clothes, and expect to end by being shamed or killed under some unfairly promoted incapable. Nothing illustrates the intellectual blankness of the British army better than ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... knew me well, and they liked me, and I am sure they had no idea that when they ran past me on the road their looks and nods gave me no pleasure, but pain; and I always tried to avoid them. As they passed us they somewhat modified the noise they were making, but only to cackle, chatter, and bawl and laugh at each other the louder after ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... with her; but, suddenly, she feigned to be seized with a sharp pain in the spleen, and was conducted to a sofa. The young Comte de Vermandois came and sat there near her. They were both exhibiting signs of gaiety; their chatter amused them, and they were seen to laugh with great freedom. Although Monsieur le Dauphin was assuredly not in their thoughts, he thought they were making merry at his expense. He came and sat at the right of the ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... English-speaking delegates, it might perhaps be natural to dispense with the tedious use of two languages where only one is necessary. No one listens to the interpretations into English of French speakers; the general chatter of voices and movement which immediately starts when the English interpreter begins, is surely sign enough of the ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... trail of Snake River bluff straggled a blanketed half dozen of old Wolfbelly's tribe, the braves stalking moodily in front and kicking up a gray cloud of dust which enveloped the squaws behind them but could not choke to silence their shrill chatter; for old Hagar was there, and Viney, and the incident of the dog was fresh in their minds and ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... elder—for so I had to call him to distinguish him from my friend his namesake—rattled on in this strain, more for the sake of keeping me interested and amused than any other reason. Still, his talk was something better than idle chatter, and I began to feel that here at last, among all my miscellaneous acquaintance, was ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... had fallen upon all. Even the women and children peeping out of the palm-leaf hovels stopped their chatter and looked with ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... gayety he felt strangely out of place. Here all was chatter and froth—the activity of the surface-joy of living; but he had stepped into it fresh from a series of events that had uncovered the ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... dozen New York newspapers and the interest was always that of the trained editor at work. Richard was not only physically restless but his mind practically never relaxed. When others, tired after a hard day's work or play, would devote the evening to cards or billiards or chatter, Richard would write letters or pore over some strange foreign magazine, consult maps, make notes, or read the stories of his contemporaries. He practically read every American magazine from cover to cover—advertisements were a delight to him, and the finding ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... most costly is most fashionable." Nor is the cost the only evil, for the costly dinners and parties of the ostentatious are not only characterized by an absence of serious and elevated sentiment, but by intellectual poverty and frivolous chatter. To waste $5,000 for an evening's lavish display of flowers to a thoughtless and crowded throng, almost within hearing of the never-ending moan of misfortune in a city in which police stations shelter 150,000 of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... earth was bare and brown. The chatter of the snow streams had ceased. In the high places, on southern slopes, there was even a suggestion of green. At last, on the sunny side of a knoll, there peeped forth the blue face of an anemone. The following day it had several companions. Within a week ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the gentlest of ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... than that already imparted to Jose, but his elastic Latin imagination had supplied all lacking essentials, and now, with much gesticulation and rolling of eyes, with frequent alternations of shrill chatter and dignified pomp of phrase, he was portraying in a melange of picturesque and poetic Spanish the supposed happenings ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... speaking and the light chatter died away as a footman entered and announced the Reverend William Hope, who followed him immediately into the room, an elderly man with a full, clean-shaven face and a comfortable ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... hillock, they slid down, often stumbling and rolling together to the bottom. Many a peal of laughter rang out, and echoed far back in the forest, and two blackbirds could not have kept up a more continuous chatter. Apart from all this sat Beulah; she had remembered the matron's words, and stopped just at the verge of the woods, whence she could see the white palings of the asylum. Above her the winter breeze moaned and roared in the pine tops; it was the sad but dearly loved forest music that she so often ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... probably liked to chatter to them all, and hear his own voice, and talk rubbish about what he'll do for them in ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... that he had been away from it all for a year and more. Nothing was changed. Across the room the same mirrors repeated the reflections he had observed so many times before. Nearby were the same booths and from within them came the same laughter and chatter and suppressed song. Opposite the tiny table the same man with the broad, good-natured face was making critical, smiling observation, as of yore. As ever, the look recalled the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge |
