"Babble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... jaded and forlorn, Welters and wanders wearily—wretchedly—on; Yet in and out among the ribs Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles Of some dead lake-built city, fall of skulls, Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, Lingers to babble, to a broken tune (Once, O the unvoiced music of my heart!) So melancholy a soliloquy It sounds as it might tell The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, The terror of Time and Change and Death, That wastes this floating, ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... and she shrinking before him, very white and mute and frightened. Her father looked on with darkling brows, and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip and look less lazy, whilst in the courtly background there was a respectful murmuring babble, supplying a sycophantic chorus to the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... highly amusing study—in moderation, and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your philosopher is a complete novice in the life comme il faut.... I like very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals. The Aleibiades, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the hillsides covered with richer crops, and the valleys decked out with a more luxuriant and warmly coloured vegetation. Shechem lies in an actual amphitheatre of verdure, which is irrigated by countless unfailing streams; rushing brooks babble on every side, and the vapour given off by them morning and evening covers the entire landscape with a luminous haze, where the outline of each object becomes blurred, and quivers in a manner to which we are accustomed in our Western lands.* Towns grew and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... who's looked into it, sir, but they can't get anything but babble out of the old fellow. He thinks ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... hand-bag. She gave it up to him, passively, but when he offered her his arm, merely shook her head and pursed up her lips. The sun shone clearly and pleasantly; the wind was fresh and brisk upon their faces, and smelt racily of woods and meadows. As they went down into the valley of the Thyme, the babble of the stream rose into the air like a perennial laughter. On the far-away hills, sun-burst and shadow raced along the slopes and leaped from peak to peak. Earth, air and water, each seemed in better ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "on the cheap" from the rough rank and file of her sons Has been England's good fortune so long, that the scribblers' swift tongue-babble runs To the old easy tune without thought. "Gallant sea-dogs and life-savers!" Yes! But poor driblets of lyrical praise should not be their sole guerdon, ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... the open Place when their progress was suddenly arrested. A crowd spread almost across the broad road, and sergents-de-ville imperiously commanded a halt. There was a babble of tongues, great excitement, and a thousand eager fingers pointing at a house. The doorway was in ruins, and workmen were busy shoring it up with beams. In the middle of the crowd there was an open circle, surrounded by gendarmes, and kept clear of people. ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... command at the beginning of no articulate sounds; then they learn these and syllables; after this also words of one syllable; then they speak short words of more than one syllable and sentences, but frequently babble forth words they have heard without ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am ashamed to say that selfishness took me by the soul, and that my heart turned as heavy as lead within me. I stammered out some few halting words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head drooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring information as to the composition and action of innumerable ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... displayed his ineptitude, as he often does later, Thersites had no chance. All this appears sufficiently obvious, if we put ourselves at the point of view of the original listeners. Thersites merely continues, in full assembly, the mutinous babble which he has been pouring out to his neighbours during the confused rush to launch the ships and during the return produced by the influence of Odysseus. The poet says so himself (Iliad, II. 212). "The rest sat down ... only Thersites ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... There followed a babble of voices speaking all at once; afterwards the same shrill voice took up his challenge, wailing like the wind— "Spiridion, open the door before we ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... Babble babili. Babe infaneto. Baboon paviano. Baby infaneto. Bachelor frauxlo. Back (of body) dorso. Back (reverse side) posta flanko. Back (behind) poste. Backbite kalumnii. Backbone spino. Backslider rekulpulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... smoke Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness, Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, 40 Horribly massacred, ascend to Heaven In honour of His name; or, last and worst, Earth groans beneath religion's iron age, And priests dare babble of a God of peace, Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, 45 Murdering the while, uprooting every germ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, Making the earth ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... this verse was a reproduction of Mrs. Abel's rendering, spoken in a voice not unlike hers, and with scarcely the falter of a syllable. It was followed by a few seconds of incoherent babble, at the end of which tremors again broke out over Snarley's body; he swayed to and fro, and his head fell forward on his chest. "Catch hold of him, or he'll fall," cried somebody. Then a medley of voices—"Give him a ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... alive to-day, Barantsevitch would not have been so depressed and we should not be so dull and ill at ease as we are, and you would not feel drawn to the theatre and I to Sahalin. But criticism maintains a dignified silence or gets out of it with idle trashy babble. If it seems to you authoritative it is because it is stupid, conceited, impudent, and clamorous; because it is an empty barrel one cannot ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... a moment later by a courteous fellow-passenger—courteous, but with a smile of gentle pity in his eye as he glimpsed the author's name. "Thanks very much," I would stammer, blushing guiltily, and perhaps I would babble about a sick friend to whom I was taking them, or that I was running out of paper-weights. But he never believed me. He knew that he would have said something like ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... his moderation. The conviction that the duke's government would only cease with the termination of his public career was so general, that the moment he was installed in office, the whigs smiled on him; political conciliation became the slang of the day, and the fusion of parties the babble of clubs and ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... confused Of banqueters beside the meats and wine. They, lifting in their hands the beakers brimmed, Recklessly drank, till heavy of brain they grew, Till rolled their fluctuant eyes. Now and again Some mouth would babble the drunkard's broken words. The household gear, the very roof and walls Seemed as they rocked: all things they looked on seemed Whirled in wild dance. About their eyes a veil Of mist dropped, for the drunkard's sight is dimmed, And the wit ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the time of Shakespeare, thanks to the prudery of our illiterate middle class. Divorced from reality, with its activities all fettered in baby-linen, our literature has atrophied and dwindled into a babble of nursery rhymes, tragedies of Little Marys, tales of Babes in a Wood. The example of Shakespeare may yet teach us the value of free speech; he could say what he liked as he liked: he was not afraid of the naked truth and the naked word, and through his greatness a Low Dutch dialect has become the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... splinters, but Alleyne thought it best to leave the twain to settle the matter at their leisure, the more so as the sun was shining brightly once more. Looking back down the pool-strewn road, he saw the two excited philosophers waving their hands and shouting at each other, but their babble soon became a mere drone in the distance, and a turn in the road hid them from ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... do with rabble? Froth is better than their babble; Let him toss them flakes of froth, To pronounce his ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... attachment that would spring up between himself and the princes, his brothers. At the Montespan chateau, I admit, he would have learned to ride an unbroken horse, as well as to shoot hares, partridges, and big game; he would also have learned to talk loud, to use bad language, to babble about his pedigree, while ignorant of its history or its crest; in fine, he would have learned to despise his mother, and probably to hate her. Educated under my eyes, almost on the King's lap, he soon learned the customs of the Court and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... silence among the people while they listened to the ringing voice of the man walking in the center ground. Then broke forth a rippling, laughing babble among the cone-shaped teepees. All were glad to hear of the chieftain's grandson. They were happy to attend the feast and dance for its naming. With excited fingers they twisted their hair into glossy braids and painted their cheeks with bright red paint. To and fro hurried ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... Some, more alive to the big events of a clashing world, repeated the meagre news of the ha'penny press and dwelt with prideful fervor on the latest bit of heroism reported from the front. Now and again an outburst of raucous humor echoed above the babble of cockney tongues. The maudlin clamor of "a pore lone lidy 'oos 'subing 'ad desarted 'er" failed to arouse anyone's curiosity. Ladies in their cups are not a rarity in Walthamstow. In side streets, lads in khaki, many of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... buried, and the song of hope is hushed for ever, then revenge mounts the chariot and gathers the reins in her hands of steel; and beyond the writhing hearts whose blood dyes her rushing wheels sees only the goal. Some wise anatomists of that frail yet invincible sphinx—woman's nature, babble of one weighty fact, one conquering law,—that only the mother-joy, the mother-love, fully unseals the slumbering sweetness and latent tenderness of her being; for me, maternity opened the sluices of a sea of hate and gall. Had I ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... threatened, for there are circumstances in which it would be shameful to live, but we shall never do anything which may bring about results such as those before us." That would be a fair and temperate mode of talking—far different from the airy babble of the warlike scribe. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... and in the days that followed, wandering through the lone mountain-land, the sharp sting of life grew blunted and the wandering merged half into a dream. Smoke would become abruptly conscious, to find himself staring at the never-ending hated snow-peaks, his senseless babble still ringing in his ears. And the next he would know, after seeming centuries, was that again he was roused to the sound of his own maunderings. Labiskwee, too, was light-headed most of the time. In the main their efforts were unreasoned, automatic. And ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... the stories which he said had been spread abroad about him. I smiled, saying, I admitted it was not true that his veins had been opened. This observation completed the irritation of the monk, who began to babble in a sort of fury. I diverted myself with it at first in silence; then I said to him, that the King, shortly after arriving in Spain; had had the curiosity to open the coffin of Don Carlos, and that I knew from a man who was present ('twas Louville), that his head had been found between his legs; ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... square upon the crown, and dropping lightly to the shoulders. Later I saw these comely maidens crouching on the ground in the market-place, and selling their wares, with much glitter of eyes, teeth, and earrings, and a continual babble ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... eight o'clock train from Winchester. To-morrow evening I shall be sitting on a form in a big bare class-room, listening to the babble of a lot of girls ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to find any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk for the gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in the two educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was liveliest among the young ladies. Here is an extract from a letter of one of these young ladies, who, having received at her birth the ever-pleasing ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... composition of a single scene. The memorandum-book alluded to—on the first leaf of which he had written in his neatest hand (as if to encourage himself to begin) "Affectation"— contains, besides the names of three of the intended personages, Sir Babble Bore, Sir Peregrine Paradox, and Feignwit, nothing but unembodied sketches of character, and scattered particles of wit, which seem waiting, like the imperfect forms and seeds in chaos, for the brooding of genius to nurse them into system ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... matters, trying to find out the truth about them, writing books and building churches—our civilization is going to drift just precisely as those other civilizations which have been guided by the same dreadful fatalism have drifted—towards the Turkish goal. "Kismet. Man is a fool to babble of these things; what he may do is of no avail; all things will happen as they were pre-ordained." And the English Turk—the man who prefers to fight things out instead of thinking things out—takes the ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... not matter; it's essential in the long run. They have their ways of doing things here. I encourage it, of course; Yulia Mihailovna, in the first place, Gaganov too.... You laugh? But you know I have my policy; I babble away and suddenly I say something clever just as they are on the look-out for it. They crowd round me and I humbug away again. They've all given me up in despair by now: 'he's got brains but he's dropped ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... quiet and passive listeners in his own fantastic endless fashion. And ever and again Lawford would find himself intercepting fleeting and anxious glances at his face, glances almost of remorse and pity; and thought he detected beneath this irresponsible contradictory babble an unceasing effort to clear the sky, to lure away too pressing memories, to put his doubts ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... The babble continued, but diminished gradually in volume. Through the trees, as I waited, I caught a glimpse of the sea. I wished I was out on the Cob, where beyond these voices there was peace. My head was beginning to ache, and I felt faint for ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... letter of New York gossip published in the New York Star, called "Bab's Babble." Edward had read it, and saw the possibility of syndicating this item as a woman's letter from New York. He instinctively realized that women all over the country would read it. He sought out the author, made arrangements with her and with former Governor Dorscheimer, ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... in them? It was something akin to what I had felt somewhere, that I knew. But the sun went down and left me in the dark; or it rose clear of the distant hills and drowned me in daylight, and still I did not know. Then there was the babble of politics in my ears, and I spoke of Reform and such urgent matters in the dusty ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... through the great gate on the east side—a dark entrance kept by a porter who saluted him—and rode through into the court; and here, indeed, was the company; for out of the windows of the low hall on his left came a babble of tongues, while two or three gentlemen with pots in their hands saluted him from the passage door, telling him that Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert was within. Mr. Fenton was one of these, come over from North ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... of English liberty will hinder or destroy, let them, instead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour with all their influence to stop the license of translators, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France.' Ib. p. 49. 'I have rarely admitted any words not authorised by former writers; for I believe that whoever knows the English tongue in its present extent will be able to express his thoughts without further help ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... has become accustomed to his new food (whether he likes it or not) or begins to babble a word or two, he is given a name that usually recalls the place where he was born, some particular event of the moment or the way he may have of making use of a word often, or ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... Her Majesty's Bengal Civil Service should thus discuss a third, also in that service, and a cultured and affable man withal, seems strange and saddening. Yet listen to the artless babble of the Blind Mullah of Jagai, the priest of the Khusru Kheyl, sitting upon a rock overlooking the Border. Five years before, a chance-hurled shell from a screw-gun battery had dashed earth in the face of the Mullah, then urging a rush of Ghazis against half a dozen British bayonets. So ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... imagine the effect of her silence upon the magnanimous wretch. Some of these lovers, it has to be stated in sadness for the good name of man, have not preserved an attitude that said so nobly, 'Child, thou art human—thou art woman!' They have undone it and gone to pieces with an injured lover's babble of persecuting inquiries for confessions. Some, on the contrary, retaining the attitude, have been unable to digest the tonic; they did not prepare their systems as they did their dose, possibly thinking the latter a supererogatory heavy thump on a trifle, the which was performed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... quarter to eight in the evening the hickory fire in the hall was pouring a sheet of flame up the chimney, the house was in a drench of gas- light from the ground floor up, the guests were arriving, and there was a babble of hearty greetings, with not a voice in it that was not old and familiar and affectionate; and when the curtain went up we looked out from the stage upon none but faces that were dear to us, none but faces that were lit up with welcome ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... seats, and there was a great babble of voices. As in a dream, Jessie saw them all file slowly out of the room, each one casting that backward look of horror upon her as they went. The door closed slowly after Miss Duncan; then she was alone with the detective ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... Monsieur Ude to sit, And prate about the mundane spit, And babble of Cook's track— He'd roast the leather off his toes, Ere he would trudge thro' polar snows, To ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... springy step, Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step, A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh, Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, Words babble, hearing and touch callous, No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex; Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, Such a result so soon—and ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... the cook. The motor shot up the drive into a babble and halted at the steps. Someone immense rose from a chair and leaped down the space in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... the babble of the Babel! Oh, the flutter and the fuss; To begin with Cain and Abel, And ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... complaining of lutes. Indeed, wherever Monna Vittoria went she seemed to carry with her an atmosphere of subtle seclusion, of a cloistered lusciousness, of dim, green, guarded gardens, where the sighs of love's novices are stifled by the drip of stealthy fountains and the babble of fantastic birds. I suppose it was no more than my fancy, or a trick of my memory confusing later things with earlier, that makes me now, as I write, seem to recall what seemed like a smile on the face of the pagan effigy of Love as Madonna Vittoria swam into her company, as if the ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... last she took her hands away and turned her face on him, his lover's observation saw how beautifully she wept. Her eyes were not red, her face was calm. He took heart from her glance, began to babble foolish love ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... perfect babble arose, and every one tried to express their opinion at once. As for the Phi Sigma Tau, they were in the seventh ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... of the day from the four corners of the world, the tales of love and death, of fire and flood, of strife and pestilence, and under eight thousand miles of shivering sea, whispers the babble of two hemispheres. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... "You babble of terms?" was the biting interruption. "I can leave you to perish on the sand, as ye no doubt deserve, or I can carry you in with me, when ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... my heart is cold, Because of a silent tongue! The lute of faultless mould In silence oft hath hung. The fountain soonest spent Doth babble down the steep; But the stream that ever went ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... said the King: "Have hope, O friend! Yea, Death disgraced is hard; Much honour shall be thine"; and called the Captain of the Guard, Yar Khan, a bastard of the Blood, so city-babble saith, And he was honoured of the King — the which is salt to Death; And he was son of Daoud Shah, the Reiver of the Plains, And blood of old Durani Lords ran fire in his veins; And 'twas to tame an Afghan pride nor Hell nor Heaven could bind, The ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... lived up to from the age of one year to that of two years, would be almost enough. But there are other things that the mother can do as the mental development of the baby increases with each month of life. She should encourage him to babble and gurgle and murmur, as much as possible, to laugh and crow and make all the various baby noises that will train and develop his voice. Encourage noisy, romping, rollicking games as he gets older, that make him shout and call, for they are the ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... woke up at four o'clock in the morning and continued drinking. He would get free. Gradually the tension in him began to relax. He began to feel happy. His riveted silence was unfastened, he began to talk and babble. He was happy and at one with all the world, he was united with all flesh in a hot blood-relationship. So, after three days of incessant brandy-drinking, he had burned out the youth from his blood, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... word Fell from her flowerlike mouth Not sweet with all the south; As though the dust shrined in Certaldo stirred And spake, as o'er it shone That bright Pentameron, And his own vines again and chestnuts heard Boccaccio: nor swift Elsa's chime Mixed not her golden babble with Petrarca's rhyme. ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... him babble on, conscious that his remarks meant nothing. And then a horrible thought began to steal over the mind of James Barker. He began to think that the King's remarks did not ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... School and Harrow playgrounds to London, and, later on, to Bath. London did not make him much more industrious or more careful than he had been at Harrow-on-the-Hill. It was far pleasanter to translate the honeyed Greek of Theocritus, with its babble of Sicilian shepherds, its nymphs and waters and Sicilian seas, than to follow the beaten track of ordinary education. It was vastly more entertaining to translate the impassioned prose of Aristaenetus into impassioned verse, especially in collaboration with a cherished friend, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... waters; another at the tiller encouraged the rowers with cordial and well-meant abuse. A hundred people shouted futile directions from the ship. The gravity of the Indian Ocean was disturbed by the babble of dialects. One voice rose above all the rest, sonorous, masterful, cursing the ship into order with a deliberate flow of invective that had the dignity and force of ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... probably recollecting that he would hear the whole story at the Settlement, or simply because he could not keep still any longer, his face cleared, and he resumed his engaging, inconsequential babble. ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... betray'd a trusting friend, Haply now dead, or any other lie So monstrous, wicked, gross, improbable, That weak men found it easier to believe Than the invention; while the bad in heart, By true worth most offended, felt relief, Protesting still they wish'd it were not so, With that lean babble, custom's scant half-mask, Worn uselessly by hatred. Think me not Of these—nor yet too rash in sympathy. I would reflect well ere I draw the sword To fling the sheath away; I bid you ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... send home for Gospel ministers, and largely contributed for their maintenance. But Virginia savouring not handsomely in England, very few of good conversation would adventure thither, (as thinking it a place wherein surely the fear of God was not), yet many came, such as wore black coats, and could babble in a pulpet, roare in a tavern, exact from their parishioners, and rather by their dissolutenesse destroy than ...
— Religious Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - The Faith of Our Fathers • George MacLaren Brydon
... Above the continual, distracting babble one sonorous voice rose insistently. Laughter and applause broke in upon it occasionally. There was a din in that corner of the lobby that attracted many of the curiosity-seekers in ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Argument seemed child's babble indeed under the smile of Night. And the face of the woman, left alone at her window, was a little like the face of this warm, sweet night. It was sensitive, harmonious; and its harmony was not, as in some faces, cold—but seemed to tremble and glow ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... too, staring out at her husband; and a quick babble of talk and exclamations from behind made itself audible in spite of the roaring tumult of ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... Father Lamson or Abby Folsom were borne by main force from an antislavery meeting, and the non-resistants pleaded that these protestants had as good right to speak as anybody, and that what was called their senseless babble was probably inspired wisdom, if people were only heavenly minded enough to understand it, it was but another sign of the impending anarchy. And what was to be said—for you could not call them old dotards—when the younger protestants of the time came walking through the sober streets ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Thyself the idol of thy awkward strain, Through the dull measure of a summer's day, In phrase most vile, prate long, long hours away, 460 Whilst friends with friends, all gaping sit, and gaze, To hear a Hogarth babble Hogarth's praise. But if athwart thee Interruption came, And mention'd with respect some ancient's name, Some ancient's name who, in the days of yore, The crown of Art with greatest honour wore, How have I seen thy coward cheek turn pale, And blank confusion seize thy mangled tale! How ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... feet with a cry that had in it something inhuman, and began rapidly to babble in a tongue that was not European. He was facing Dr. Cairn, a tall, sinister figure, but one hand was groping behind ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... of the winter wren is something that must be heard to be appreciated; words can no more describe it than they can paint the sky at evening, or translate the babble of ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... flaming on the utmost North-West; for it is his longest day this year. The hill-tops rejoicing will ere long be at their ruddiest, and blush Good-night. The thrush, in green dells, on long-shadowed leafy spray, pours gushing his glad serenade, to the babble of brooks grown audibler; silence is stealing over the Earth. Your dusty Mill of Valmy, as all other mills and drudgeries, may furl its canvass, and cease swashing and circling. The swenkt grinders in ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... disappeared in the lake. A cry of horror ascended from the boats. They had never seen the princess go down before. Half the men were under water in a moment; but they had all, one after another, come up to the surface again for breath, when—tinkle, tinkle, babble and gush! came the princess's laugh over the water from far away. There she was, swimming like a swan. Nor would she come out for king or queen, chancellor or daughter. But though she was obstinate, she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... am going to quote directly from them because they tell the story in the most vivid way. Fancy between the lines, please, dozens of cheers, a couple of rebel yells, a great deal of talking and shouting for "T.R.!" "T.R.!" and a Babelous babble that ebbed or flowed according to the strength Colonel Roosevelt used in ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... dream the grey buildings drew nearer, The babble rose louder and the organ's whine clearer, The hurdle came closer, he rushed through its top Like a comet in ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... lord efface all traces and memory of my degradation. Was not I struck by two vile slaves, who will babble through the city? Was not I held down by an executioner? These arms, which have wound round the master of the world, and no other, polluted ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... shot downward and struck the metal paving outside, Randall heard a wild babble of cries from inside. A moment he and Lanier gazed frenziedly around them, then were running with great leaps along the base of the building from which they had ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... that grammar is better, take the Tower of Babble. They built it, I suppose, many miles high, and the Lord looked down and mixed up their grammar. So if a man was on top of the tower he would call down, 'John, bring up the hammer,' and John would come up with a saw. Then he would send him down for the hammer ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... I have sung Much song of matters vain, And a heaven-sweetened tongue Turned to unprofiting strain Of vacant things, which though Even so they be, and throughly so, It is no boot at all for thee to know, But babble ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... is fain to babble of the "disciplines of peace." No one denies them. But how can humanity be compelled to embrace these disciplines of peace? The German lesson of thoroughness and social organization and responsibility was as necessary before the war as it is to-day, but neither England nor France, neither ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... began to babble, showing the stumps of his yellow teeth, but nobody could understand a word; he drained the other glasses, rested his forehead against his hand and slowly made his way to a corner, into which he squatted, and then stretched ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... then out of the darkness to seaward emerged a deeper blot, which loomed up hugely yet proved to be no more than a life-boat banked full of people. It came to a stop within an oar's-length of him. From the babble of voices he distinguished one that was familiar, and cried the name of Johnny Brennan. His brain had cleared now, a great dreamlike sense of thanksgiving warmed him, and he felt equal to any effort. ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... more from the speaker. A confused babble broke out in the bomb-bay. The Sergeant fiddled with his dials frantically, spinning across wavelengths, trying to find a word. The confusion ceased when the speaker rattled again, seeming ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry
... and told her she had lost her wits, and said her babble should not stand in the way of their ride ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... there was such a babble of exclamations that hardly a word of what was said could be understood. And in the midst of this the cadets gave a rousing cheer for Clearwater Hall and everybody ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... you leave behind you your love, my heart, and miss peace through all your days? And is the path you followed lost and forgotten, making your return hopeless? I go roaming listening to brooks' babble, to the rustle of leaves. And it seems to me that I shall find the way, that reaches the land of lost love beyond ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... I will look abroad in the market-place myself. Through the clatter of feet and the babble of many voices, I may perhaps catch a whisper, a hint of Her presence. Possibly She may love the eager haunts of men even more than She loves the silent haunt of the wood-dove and the great wide moors where the kite circles slowly. I will move among ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... the angry interview, clung to Medland's arm, looking in wonder from him to Benham. Some half-dozen people, seeing the group, stopped for a moment in curiosity and, walking on, cast glances back over their shoulders. A lull in the babble of conversation warned Medland, and he looked round. Alicia Derosne was passing by in company with the Chief Justice. Near at hand stood Kilshaw, watching the encounter with a sneering smile. The Chief Justice stepped up ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... she lies in bed And the soft babble of their talk comes to her And the silences... I know she never sleeps Till the keen draught blowing up the empty hall Edges through her transom And she hears his foot ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... should ever be Abbot!"' One man, it appears, is nice in his victuals. Another is indeed wise, but apt to slight inferiors; hardly at the pains to answer, if they argue with him too foolishly. And so each aliquis concerning his aliquo,—through whole pages of electioneering babble. 'For,' says Jocelin, 'So many men, as many minds.' Our Monks 'at time of blood-letting, tempore minutionis,' holding their sanhedrim of babble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I remarked, never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he took good note of what ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... at heart The selfsame aims as he to whom we pay Tribute for every pound of coal we burn. Their scope is narrower, but their act the same As his—against whose millions all the tongues Of little tricksters in each corner store Babble and rail ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... to tell where he had been, what he had seen, and the many things he had done. A Frenchman must babble while he eats and drinks. A little wine makes him eloquent. He talks with his hands, shoulders, eyes. Madame Roussillon, Alice and Jean, wrapped in furs, huddled around him to hear. He was very entertaining, and they forgot the patrol until a noise startled them. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... and silent, the electric lights burning, the tray with whiskey, siphon and cigarette-box marking the midnight hour. Then we have the stumbling, fumbling entrance of Jack Barthwick, beatifically drunk, his maudlin babble, and his ill-omened hospitality to the haggard loafer who follows at his heels. Another example of a high-pitched opening scene may be found in Mr. Perceval Landon's The House Opposite. Here we have ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Country, a babble of black spume . . . Faith, an eyeball in the sand . . . Mother, a nail through a broken hand— A kissing fume— And out of her breast the bloody bubbling ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... impossible, being alternately bookish and absurdly rustic. In reality, the conventional dialect ascribed to the rustic order in general—to peasants even more than to gentlemen—in our English plays and novels, is a childish and fantastic babble, belonging to no form of real breathing life; nowhere intelligible; not in any province; whilst, at the same time, all provinces—Somersetshire, Devonshire, Hampshire—are confounded with our midland counties; and positively the diction ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... What need have the inhabitants for walls and ramparts, except to build summer-houses, to trail vines, and hang clothes to dry on them? No enemies approach the great mouldering gates: only at morn and even the cows come lowing past them, the village maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the ever-voluble stream that flows under the old walls. The schoolboys, with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the gymnasium, and return thence at their stated time. There is one coffee-house in the town, and I see one old gentleman goes to it. There are shops ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... random activity that goes with euphoria. The child derives satisfaction not so much from the muscular activity of vocalization as from the sounds that he produces, so that deaf children, who begin to babble much like other children, lag behind them as the months go by, from not deriving this auditory satisfaction from the vocal activity. Though whistling, blowing a horn, shaking a rattle and beating a drum are not native responses, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... profile. The youthful voices of the two others rang like bells. He did not scowl at Coke; he merely looked at him as if be gently disdained his mental calibre. In fact all the talk seemed to tire him; it was childish; as for him, he apparently found this babble almost insupportable. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... women went into the drawing-room, and the conversation for the next half-hour was a languid babble of politics, dress, New York, the lady of the White House, and the play. Betty thought the women very nice, but less interesting than the men, possibly because they were women. They certainly looked more intelligent than the average one sat with during the trying half- hour ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... sir—worth a thousand pounds, they say—better singeing pigs' faces than trimming courtiers—but ours is the less mechanical vocation.—Farewell, sir; hope your custom. "So saying, he at length permitted Nigel to depart, whose ears, so long tormented with continued babble, tingled when it had ceased, as if a bell had been rung close to them for the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... purple morning glories swinging in the dense shade of rustling corn; listening as in a dream to the laughter of reapers, whetting scythes in the blistering glare of meadow slopes, yet hearing all the while, the low, sweet babble of the slender stream that trickled through pine roots, down the hillside, and added its silvery tinkle to the lullaby crooned by the river to its fringe of willows, its sleeping ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... said again, 'I will have you silent, for if the King should pass the door he will be offended by your babble.' He interjected to Viridus, speaking in Italian, 'Speak thou to this fool and engage him to think. I can give you no more grounds, but you must quickly decide either to go with Rich the Chancellor and myself or to remain the liege of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... an amanuensis," said Thorny, dropping book and pencil one day, after a brief interval of silence, broken only by the whisper of the young leaves overhead and the soft babble ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Then a babble of inquiry and speculation broke out Where was the thing going? What was it doing? What did its sudden swift voyage mean? For the rest of the day the camp was less sleepy than usual. Men everywhere discussed ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... of blue flame from out the pit, carrying on its heated breath a drifting sheet of incandescence that fluttered and pulsated like a thing alive. Mado switched on the sound mechanism of the rulden and the roaring of the pillar of flame came to their ears. There were other sounds as well; the babble of alien voices and the ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... fall from him, or a murmur of half-articulation float up like the sound of a river of souls; but whether Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something like this, he could not tell, for he could not be certain that he had not himself shaped the words by receiving the babble into the moulds of the laird's customary thought and speech: "I dinna ken whaur I cam frae—I kenna whaur I'm gaein' till.—Eh, gien He wad but come oot an' shaw Himsel'!—O Lord! tak the deevil aff o' my puir back.—O Father o' lichts! gar him tak the hump wi' him. I hae no fawvor for't, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... in full-blown lotuses, and in those stars that bespangle the autumnal firmament. I reside in elephants, in the cow pen, in good seats, and in lakes adorned with full-blown lotuses. I live also in such rivers as babble sweetly in their course, melodious with the music of cranes, having banks adorned with rows of diverse trees, and restored to by Brahmanas and ascetics and others crowned with success. I always reside in those rivers also that have deep and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... mother, lest its bad father should claim it, the little story was very simply opened, and made effective by the real boiling of the kettle on the crane, the ticking of a tall clock, and the appearance of a pair of blue worsted shoes which waved fitfully in the air to the soft babble of a baby's voice. Those shapeless little shoes won the first applause; and Mr Laurie, forgetting elegance in satisfaction, whispered to ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... life had I seen Miss Ruth so full of vivacity or girlish charm. Her laughter was like the music of bells; the jest, the kindly word was for every man; and yet sometimes I, at her side, could look deep into those grey-blue eyes to read a truer story there. And in the babble of the talk she would whisper some treasured word to me, or touch my hand with her own, or say, "Jasper, it must be well, it must be well with us!" Of that which lay above in the darkening East, no man spoke or appeared to think. There was ruby wine ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... was, Certainly. Bullfinch (who is by nature of a hopeful constitution) then began to babble of green geese. But I checked him in that Falstaffian vein, urging considerations of ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... here: Tell me thine happiest hour. Lady Clarence. I will, if that May make your Grace forget yourself a little. There runs a shallow brook across our field For twenty miles, where the black crow flies five, And doth so bound and babble all the way As if itself were happy. It was May-time, And I was walking with the man I loved. I loved him, but I thought I was not loved. And both were silent, letting the wild brook Speak for us—till he stoop'd and gather'd one From out a bed ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... take my advice. Avoid The places where thou seest much drapery, Colours, and gold, and plumes, and heraldries, And such new-fanglements. But, above all, Take care how evil chance or youthful wandering Bring thee upon the house of Idle Babble." "What place is that?" said I; and he resumed;— "Enchantresses dwell there, who make one see Things as they are not, ay and hear them too. That which shall seem pure diamond and fine gold Is glass and brass; and coffers that look silver, Heavy with wealth, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... Dagonet answer'd, "Ay, and when the land Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself To babble about him, all to show your wit— And whether he were king by courtesy, Or king by right—and so went harping down The black king's highway, got so far, and grew So witty, that ye play'd at ducks and drakes With Arthur's vows on the great ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... kitchen garden was locked, but they found a way round it to where three creeper-grown cottages stood in a pleasant lonely space girdled by beech-woods. One only was inhabited, but from that the smoke was going up, and a babble of ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "I guessed by thy insolent babble thou wert no true lover of the longbow, and I see thou darest not adventure thy skill among such merry ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... the work of each to make it grow. The mother of the newborn can hold its little hand and make it drop the seeds into the earth. As the child grows she must show it the green shoots when they pierce the brown soil. She must babble to it of its Blue Flower. By the time it is pleased by color it will love the blossoms, and the spell of happiness and good fortune will begin to work for it. It is not one person here and there who must plant the flower, but each and every one. To those who have not land about them, all the ...
— The Land of the Blue Flower • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... jumble in company, two lights of altogether a different nature; but the party get into a rattling conversation, in which the noisy babble of the College Cubs is ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... this woollen trade. For a lawyer I was born, and a lawyer I will be; one is never too old to learn."* All this while John had conned over such a catalogue of hard words as were enough to conjure up the devil; these he used to babble indifferently in all companies, especially at coffee houses, so that his neighbour tradesmen began to shun his company as a man that was cracked. Instead of the affairs of Blackwell Hall and price of ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... "To-night we babble to the stars and dream vain dreams as other fools have done before us. To-morrow rests—perhaps—with heaven; but, depend upon it, Messire de la Foret, whatever we may do to-morrow will be foolishly performed, because we are ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... Mr. MacDonald? Matthews back yet? Oh, gone across to the Mission School? No, nothing wrong: better not pay any attention to the little Irish kid's babble of trouble at the mine! They'd hardly dare that! Yes, I know they did on the Rim Rocks; but that was daring only you and Williams: this would be daring the great Government of the greatest Nation in the world! Oh, that doesn't bother me! The point is—they haven't given me time to get a Government ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... and binds you for weary days and nights,—in which life hovers doubtfully, and the lips babble secrets that you cherish. It is astonishing how disease clips a man from the artificialities of the world! Lying lonely upon his bed, moaning, writhing, suffering, his soul joins on to the universe of souls by only natural bonds. The factitious ties of wealth, of place, of reputation, vanish from ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... the bluebells and primroses bloomed, the apple and peach blossoms burst exquisitely white and pink against the blue sky. Oak Creek fell to a transparent, beautiful brook, leisurely eddying in the stone walled nooks, hurrying with murmur and babble over the little falls. The mornings broke clear and fragrantly cool, the noon hours seemed to lag under a hot sun, the nights fell like dark mantles from the melancholy ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... extent the cause, by the agitation which he had excited within her. All these thoughts and fears were in his mind as he held her upraised in his arms, and looked wildly around for some means of restoring her. A fountain was playing not far away, under the trees, and the babble of running water came to his ears amidst the deep stillness. There he carried his precious burden, and dashed water in her face, and chafed her hands, and murmured all the time a thousand words of love and tenderness. To him, in his intense anxiety, the moments ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... created by the deed that upset all his calculations. The reaction was overwhelming. He was correct in his faith that a blood feud once raised, all appeal to reason and common sense, all appeal to law, order, tradition, religion would be vain babble. But he had failed to gauge the moral sense of his own party. They had not yet accepted the theory which he held ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... for thee to down on thy knees, and say over a many Scripture words only; for that thou mayest do, and yet do nothing but babble. But if thou from a sense of thy baseness canst groan out thy heart's desire before the Lord, He will hear thee, and grant thy desire; for He can tell what is the meaning of the groanings of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... anything stronger than the "crystal spring," was sitting upright in the bed, perfectly delirious. His hair had been rubbed up, and stood out like so many needles of iron gray. He did not (like Falstaff) "babble of green fields," but of the "watery Neptune." "I soon found out where I was," he cried out to me, laughing; and then he went wandering on, his words taking flight into regions where no one could follow. Charles Lamb has commemorated ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... value of the ideas, the hopes, the aspirations, the tendencies this nation embodies. We have risen to see that it were a good bargain to barter all the material wealth it holds for the priceless spiritual ideas it represents. France babbles about 'going to war for an idea.' We don't babble. We buckle on our armor and fight, we practical, money-making Yankees, who are said to value everything by dollars, and, after two years of tremendous fighting, are half amazed ourselves to find we have been fighting solely for a half-dozen ideas the world can lose only ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... shirt with only one sleeve, and a pair of breeches so tattered that they barely covered his nakedness. While he lay thus, dismally depressed by so sad a pickle as that into which he found himself plunged, he was strongly and painfully aware of an uproarious babble of loud and drunken voices and a continual clinking of glasses, which appeared to sound as from a tap-room beneath, these commingled now and then with oaths and scraps of discordant song bellowed out above the hubbub. His wounded head beat with tremendous and straining painfulness, ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... 'If thou listest to babble concerning what hath befallen thee on the Mountain, so do, and repent it once only, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... brain-struck man, seeing that thou dost not choose to go and sleep at a smithy, or at some place of common resort, but here thou pratest much and boldly among many lords and hast no fear at heart. Verily wine has got about thy wits, or perchance thou art always of this mind, and so thou dost babble idly. Art thou beside thyself for joy, because thou hast beaten the beggar Irus? Take heed lest a better man than Irus rise up presently against thee, to lay his mighty hands about thy head and bedabble thee with blood, and send thee ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... said at last, resting her hand on that of her companion. Obediently the doctor stopped his horse. The park was still but for the bird notes, the laughter and babble of the brook far below, and the rustle of the fresh leaves, each one a ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar and held her in my arms... Silent after the first babble was over. And after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed... It was tremendously still there, the sun high and the shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still—in ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... came out and joined the group. He stood near Ferguson, mingling his voice with the others. For a little time the talk flowed easily and much laughter rose. Then suddenly above the good natured babble came a harsh word. Instantly the other voices ceased, and the men of the group centered their glances upon the range boss, for the harsh word had come from him. He had been talking to a man named Tucson and it was to the latter that ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... in the back room, for they moved very softly around the head of the stairs, but once in front they let their tongues run loose again. I, who cared nothing for their babble when it contained no information, walked slowly about the room and ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... belonged to the order of sociable drunkards, for whom drink has no flavour without company, and who can no more drink alone than men can smoke in the dark. Ada was an ideal companion, rarely breaking the thread of her ceaseless babble, and never forgetting to pay for her share. It was little enough she could squeeze out of Aaron, and often she drank for ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... I and the gillie waited the woman's coming, MacLachlan tossed in a fever, his mind absent and his tongue running on without stoppage, upon affairs of a hundred different hues, but all leading sooner or later to some babble about a child. It was ever "the dear child," the "m'eudailgheal" "the white treasure," "the orphan "; it was always an accent of the most fond and lingering character. I paid no great heed to this constant wail; but M'Iver pondered and studied, repeating at last ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... face was gradually taking on a deep flush, for those flaming spots on her cheeks were spreading to throat and temples—to her very hair. She kept her hands in constant motion. Next, the small tongue began to babble uninterruptedly. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... stopped, and Nana slid down from the straw, right into Lucia's waiting arms. She was so glad to see her, that she could only babble foolishly. All during her long journey, and her stay in strange villages, she had thought of nothing but Lucia in the hands of the enemy, and she was nearly crazy with relief and joy to find ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... the box, and heartily wished that Quicksilver, or whatever was the messenger's name, had left it at some other child's door, where Pandora would never have set eyes on it. So perseveringly as did she babble about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it, without Pandora's continually stumbling over it, and making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... year of fruit. The smell of peaches and grapes piled in barrows and barrels scented the air, as it scents the memory still. The odour of a peach brings back to me all the magic-lantern impressions of a stranger—memories of dazzling, dancing, tropical light, bustle, babble, and gayety; they made me feel that I had never been alive before, and the people of the old seaport, active as I had thought them, became in a bewildered retrospect as slow and quiet as snails. But far sweeter to me than the fragrance of peaches ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various |
