"Mumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whirled on this roundabout for a bit, and then had the fortune to fall off into a tete-a-tete with a lady whom my aunt introduced as Mrs. Mumble—but then she introduced everybody to me as Mumble that afternoon, either by ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... fashion now gone by, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly: Mere puppets they who come and go At the bidding of a huge formless Thing That shifts the scenery to and fro, Ruling the World from flat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... general attitude towards the forthcoming exhibition was merely one of politeness. As the first case was opened, however, his manner completely changed. Without taking the slightest further notice of his hostess, he adjusted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and commenced to mumble eagerly to himself. Mrs. Rheinholdt, who did not understand a word, strolled around the apartment, yawned, and finally interrupted a little stream of eulogies, not a word of which she understood, concerning a green beetle ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sweetmeats, and if ever so well-disposed, compliance with the request was impossible. None of the rest, however, not even his sister, could keep their countenances, for the eye of the speaker had pointed and sharpened his words; and William, very red in the face, was understood to mumble, as soon as mumbling was possible, that "he wouldn't laugh unless he had a mind to," and a threat to "do something" to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... 68 to mumble painful guilty the dormitory the tie the chin he got off with a good fright without appearing to do so, he was looking at them ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... againe? Ber. Neither of either, I remit both twaine. I see the tricke on't: Heere was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas Comedie. Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight Zanie, Some mumble-newes, some trencher-knight, som Dick That smiles his cheeke in yeares, and knowes the trick To make my Lady laugh, when she's dispos'd; Told our intents before: which once disclos'd, The Ladies did change Fauours; and then we Following the signes, woo'd but the signe of she. Now to our periurie, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of me the woman began to mumble out something about my delay, and how she could not be held responsible if anything happened; but caring nothing about responsibility, hers or mine, I took baby from her without ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the old lady who sat huddled in an armchair, her hands crooked over a cane, a ruffled cap above her silvery hair. He manfully voiced his request for the child's hand in marriage. The old lady seemed to mumble an assent. The happy lover looked about for his fiance when, to his stupefaction, the old lady arose briskly from her chair, threw off cap, silvery wig, gown of black, and stood revealed as the child herself, smiling roguishly up at him from beneath the sunbonnet. With a glad cry ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... gossiped in voices scarce above a whisper; and brown children fondled each other, laughing noiselessly, or lay asleep on rugs which would be costly elsewhere. In the bazaars nothing was selling, and no man did anything but mumble or eat, save the few scholars who, cross-legged on their mats, read and laboured towards Nirvana. Priests in their yellow robes and with bare shoulders went ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... account of her visit to the Law Courts. At her first visit she had come to the conclusion that the Judges were either made of wood or were impersonated by large animals resembling man who had been trained to move with extreme dignity, mumble and nod their heads. To test her theory she had liberated a handkerchief of bluebottles at the critical moment of a trial, but was unable to judge whether the creatures gave signs of humanity for the buzzing of the flies induced so sound a sleep ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... manage to stop the crying before she could write to Coombe. She would be obliged to go down into the pantry and look for some condensed milk. The creature had no teeth but perhaps she could mumble a biscuit or a few raisins. If she could be made to swallow a little port wine it might make her sleepy. The sun was paying its brief morning visit to the kitchen and pantry when she reached there, but a few cockroaches scuttled ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bent upon the girl, who flushed under his scrutiny. As a matter of fact, the trader had been too taken aback at the thought of a woman—and a young and pretty woman—being related to the owner of Mystery Ranch to do more than mumble a greeting. Then the vividness of the girl's beauty had slowly worked upon him, rendering ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... Giles bless Walkyn's long legs! 'Twas Walkyn I saw—Walkyn hath brought down the outlaws—the woods be full of them. Oho! Sir Pertolepe's slow fire shall not roast me yet awhile, nor his dogs mumble ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... in a voice and manner as mechanical as that of the judge, would mumble his oft repeated story, giving the exact minute of his observations, the actions of the woman in accosting different pedestrians and in her final ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... immediately, saying "Honey, wait now," when his wife thought herself well organized to talk, and frequently broke into his narrative. "Wait untell I gits through. Den you can talk." Aunt Mollie would frown and grunt, mumble to herself as she rocked back and forth in her chair. She pulled the two long braids of brown silky hair, streaked with white, and tied at the ends with cotton strings. She spat vigorously into the fire, kept muttering and shuffling ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... There was a new sound in the air, a low mumble, a vague murmur. Men's voices. Outside, coming nearer swiftly, were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was too soon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, and returned. A deep, heavy bass voice drowned out the others; it ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... I began to hear voices. Yes, from under nearly every seat. Voices praying. A mumble-bumble that filled the car. I didn't know what to make of it for a few minutes. But then I remembered. Of course, the car was full of rabbis or at least holy men and they were as usual riding with their beards folded up ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... she did not deign to answer them. They asked a robin, but she was hurrying home with a worm in her mouth and could only mumble something which sounded like "yeast." They asked a pussy-cat and she said if they would come home with her first she would look it up in a book she had there. But Hazel did not want to go. "For," she whispered to Bushy-Tail, "she has ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... priest, who was shivering with cold, and understood little of this dark talk, began to mumble his ritual, skipping those parts of it which he could not remember. So another grain was planted in the cornfields of death and immortality, though when and where it should grow and what it should bear he neither knew nor cared, who wished to escape from fears and fightings ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... cornered, turned first red, then white, and tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to be put off ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... If you mumble over your words and have difficulty in pronouncing clearly, you will find it a great help to talk very slowly and take deep breaths between each two or three words. For stammering, deep breathing is also suggested before uttering ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... I will not mumble it. You all know colonial law on homicide. In the case of any person killed while in commission of a felony, no prosecution may be brought in any degree, against anybody. I'm going to contend that Leonard Kellogg was murdering a ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... another room and came back with a number of grey cards in his hand. He began to mumble over the descriptions, ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... "Hello, Galbreath, old fellow, I thought you were in heaven long before this." He laughed a sort of dry, cracking laugh, and asked me to hand him a drink of water. I handed it to him. He then began to mumble and tell me something in a rambling and incoherent way, but all I could catch was for me to write to his family, who were living near Mt. Pleasant. I asked him if he was badly wounded. He only pulled down the blanket, that was all. I get sick when I think of it. The lower part of ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... stepped down from the tombstone, and the legitimate clergyman took his place. After making a slight apology for his stay, he read his text by the light from a horn lantern, which the clerk held up to his nose, and then proceeded to mumble over a written discourse upon the subject he had chosen, and which held him about half an hour.—'In my country,' observed the Indian, 'they would make a more animated speech at the interment ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... utterly bewildered long before she had ever reached the end of it, by this way she was shoved, so to speak, from person to person, without ever really finding out who half of them were, for it would seem as if there had been a conspiracy to mumble the names spoken to Arethusa, that she could almost have fled the Party. "The Advice to Young Ladies" had said nothing of such a proceeding as being part of the Routine of Parties, nor had Elinor made any mention of it. Arethusa was totally unprepared. ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... me and my pitcher at one exact spot, every morning by six o'clock.' 'You wear vastly well, my old friend, pray what age may you be'? 'Only eighty-eight, sir; in fact, eighty-nine come next Christmas pudding; aye, and though I've lost my teeth I can mumble it with as good relish and hearty appetite as anybody.' 'I'm glad to hear it; Brighton would not look like itself without you, Martha,' said I. 'Oh, I don't know, it's like to do without me, some day,' answered she, 'but while I've health and life, I ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Simon, and in a low tone—for by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand—he continued, "But may be daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. Let's try him with a lie—'twon't hurt, noway: let's tell him we've been playin' mumble-peg." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... remarked upon the surging and the shooting, and Big Medicine turned his head quickly and sent a hoarse stage whisper in the general direction of the mumble. ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... the starlit heavens, wandered off into dreams of the life he would like to lead but from which he seemed inexorably shut out. The seriousness of life was striking deeper than ever into Joe's heart, and he lay silent, thinking hard. A mumble of heavy voices came to them from the Reindeer; and from the land the solemn notes of a church bell floated across the water, while the summer night wrapped them ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... went away, but an hour passed and he did not return. Then another hour followed, and Anthony, who had now begun to feel the effect of his drubbing more keenly, renewed his clamor, with the result that a half-dozen policemen appeared, causing Allan to retreat to a corner and mumble prayers. From their demeanor it looked as though they were really bent upon mischief, but Kirk soon saw that an official had come in answer to his call. He felt less reassured when he perceived that the person in uniform who now stepped forward was the same upon whom he had turned the hose ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... men appeared to be talking earnestly, only a mumble of voices reached Dick's ears when the men were no more than thirty feet away. Then they stepped into the road, where they halted hardly more than a dozen feet away ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... assistance (which was long before he wanted it in his own opinion) he used to be wheeled in a chair to his School: and even in the delirium of his last sickness insisted on giving his daughters a Greek author, over which they would mumble and mutter to persuade him that he was still hearing his ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... been deeply interested in this conversation, gave a great leap from Trot's shoulder and landed on that of the Scarecrow. Blinkie saw him alight and at once began to make magic passes and to mumble magic incantations. She was in a desperate hurry, knowing that she had no time to waste, and the grasshopper was so suddenly transformed into the old sailor-man, Cap'n Bill, that he had no opportunity to jump off the Scarecrow's ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... mental activity which is the cardinal element in human life. After all, in spite of the pretentious impostors who trade upon the claim, literature, contemporary literature, is the breath of civilized life, and those who sincerely think and write the salt of the social body. To mumble over the past, to live on the classics, however splendid, is senility. The New Republic, therefore, will sustain its authors. In the past the author lived within the limits of his patron's susceptibility, and led the world, so far as he did lead it, from that cage. In the present he lives ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day?" The multitude were bewildered by the glare of royalty. But here and there a sullen fish-woman, leading her ragged, half-starved children, would mumble and mutter, and curse the "Austrian," as the beautiful queen swept by in her gorgeous equipage. These discontents and portentous murmurs were spreading rapidly, when neither king, queen, nor ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Antonio Mumble thy prayers if that affords relief, But if by sundown I am not repaid Another Moses must thou be and bring Another set of miracles from heaven Or lose the very coat from off thy back. By sundown—but a few short ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the committee on naval affairs." droned the clerk, mechanically. "House Bill No. 1,109 is amended to read as follows—" And his voice sank to an unintelligible mumble, for every Senator present he well knew was aware that the amendment named Altacoola ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... to mumble an explanation, burst into tears and fled in alarm, never again to emerge from the back regions. My father commanded me to the bell again, but as I rose Thompson entered. He was even then a stately and dignified person, and it was with a measured ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... old mumble-peg. Don't you get carried away by the fire of old Rome. That's your motto. Here are the tools, a perfect picter of the sublime and beautiful; and all I hope is that our friend and pitcher, the Deakin, will make a better ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... having caused the destruction of Didymus's granddaughter. He would not have gone to Antyllus again had not his recent generosity bound him to him, but now he must atone-ay, atone. Then, as if completely crushed, he continued to mumble the word, "atone!" and for a time nothing more could be won ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of you, and dimly you know that, while all the world outside is snow-covered and swept with bitter winds, and the earth is gripped solid in the frost, you are very warm and comfortable. Changes of temperature do not reach you, and you sit and croon to yourself and mumble your paws, and all sorts of thoughts and tangled scraps of dreams go swimming through your head until, before you know it, you have forgotten everything and are ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... next line if any of them faltered. The prompter, surely he was destiny, fate, the irresistible course of events, with which no man can struggle, any more than the actor can struggle with or alter the lines that are set down for him. He may mumble them, he may act dispiritedly and tamely, but he has undertaken a certain part; he has to go ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... free pardon; besides, I may offend as often as I please, and you will be compelled to forgive me because I have paid them; and if it were not for these indulgences, I could fast, I could beat myself, and perform numberless other penances; I could mumble petitions to you, not thinking of what I was saying; indeed, I have no fear but what I can make ample amends to you for this gift which you have bestowed, for this pardon which you have offered. Dear friends, you will say what a weak, conceited, foolish, ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... and self-depreciation, to find himself suddenly transformed into a lion, is a cause of no little embarrassment. Uncle Ith was so much flustered by all these tokens of popularity, that he could not utter an articulate word, but only mumble, and wipe his heated brow. He wished that the usages of society would permit him to take off his coat, as he did in the bell ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... nature. The remembrance of those childish reproaches haunts me yet oftentimes in my dreams. My school-days come again, and the horror I used to feel, when in some silent corner, retired from the notice of my unfeeling playfellows, I have sat to mumble the solitary slice of gingerbread allotted me by the bounty of considerate friends, and have ached at heart because I could not spare a portion of it, as I saw other boys do, to some favorite boy; for if I know my own heart, I was never selfish,—never ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... and over again, laughing stupidly. "Then I am two hundred and thirty-three years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely they haven't reversed the tendency of our time and gone back to the rule of the oldest. My claims are indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a great age! Ha ha!" He was surprised at first to hear himself laughing, and then laughed again deliberately and louder. Then he realised that he was behaving foolishly. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... oil all over her body, sat by me and fanned me. The "Buli" was an aristocratic-looking old fellow with a large nose and a very haughty look. He is a very important chief, but knew no English, and we carried on our conversation through the medium of Masirewa. He spoke in a kind of mumble, with a very thick voice. Once when he had been mumbling worse than usual there was a kind of restrained titter from someone in the crowd at the back. The "Buli" heard it, and slowly turning his head he transfixed the crowd with his piercing gaze for many seconds amid a dead ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... it were in nowise his conception of a remarkable feed-box. The sentry also stood facing it. His carbine he held in the hollow of his arm. His legs were spread apart, and he mused. From without came the low mumble of the three other troopers. The ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... dog on the floor, and Peg put a piece of meat under his nose. In her excitement, Jinnie rushed away to Lafe. Peg's mumble followed her even through ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... for kisses, some for Few, Others deep sup, their Thirstings to renew, And mumble into Maunderings, but I, In Kissing, scorn the ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... brushed the dirt off his knees. "If there's anything that stirs my temper, it's this mumble-grumble, whiffle-and-hint business. Out and open, that's my style." He was reflecting testily on the peculiar ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... had taken no interest in Uncle Remus's story of the horses' tails, and yet, as soon as the little boy and Aunt Tempy were through laughing at a somewhat familiar climax, the old African began to twist and fidget in his chair, and mumble to himself in a lingo which might have been understood on the Guinea coast, but which sounded out of place in Uncle Remus's Middle Georgia cabin. Presently, however, his uneasiness took tangible shape. He turned around ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... to the castle. In a few minutes the little band of fishermen returned, carrying lanterns in their hands, and with a priest walking amongst them. They reached the spot, and paused, while the priest commenced to mumble a prayer. He was scarcely half-way ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... school. Thus the time passed very quickly. At last Zourine glanced at the clock, put down his cue, and told me I had lost a hundred roubles.[13] This disconcerted me very much; my money was in the hands of Saveliitch. I was beginning to mumble excuses, ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... other day a peasant woman called out to me in the street. I went into her house. Her stove smoked and she asked me to give her a charm to cure it. First of all I made her give me a good bit of bacon, and then I began to mumble a few words in Romany. 'You're a fool,' I said, 'you were born a fool, and you'll die a fool!' When I had got near the door I said to her, in good German, 'The most certain way of keeping your stove from smoking is ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... one's self. He will multiply tabooed questions; his morality will be as flexible as seasons, men, and circumstances. He will seek to impose on humanity by gesticulations and studied attitudes; an hundred times a day he will mumble over words whose sense has evaporated and which have become empty conventionalities. He will traffic in holy things, but just enough not to shake faith in their sanctity, and he will take care that the more intelligent the people are, the less open shall the traffic be. He will take part in ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... points of his black mustache and regarded her askance, smiling crookedly. "Yoh 'fraid for trus' me, that's why I promise," he said at last. "Me, I don' need padre to mumble-mumble foolish words before I can be happy. Yoh 'fraid of Luck Leen'sey, that's why I promise. Now yoh come way up here, so luck don' matter no more. Yoh ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... dejectedly. "It makes me yawn. John says I mumble." She looked at me sharply, distrustfully. "You are very kind, but—it's too much! ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in art. Afterwards the master said to me in a shy mumble, "She wouldn't luff up in time, somehow. What's the matter with her?" And I made ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... knock off quite a number of these while I'm abroad like this. Send 'em in letters to relatives at home—gives them a notion of the place. They are—ar—kind enough to value them. (CULCHARD makes a complimentary mumble.) Yes, I'm a very rapid sketcher. Put me with regular artists, and give us half an hour, and I—ar—venture to say I should be on terms with them. Make it three hours, and—well, I daresay I shouldn't ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... Lucia was diseased-looking and unkempt-looking and she ironed very badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed her with a flow of English. When Lucia would but shake her head they used the same flow, only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia would mumble to herself for several minutes over her ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, Miss ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... life and flight, Upon the sandy bottom, agate strewn. The fishers mumble, waiting till the night Urge on the clouds, and ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... for one week, but if she wants to stop away longer she needn't come back at all. And this is on the condition that neither you nor she are to mention her sister Diana to me ever again, whether she is ill, or well, or anything about her. As to your reading to me, I've no doubt you either mumble or squeak, and I couldn't bear it, so pray don't imagine you'll be the least use while she's away, or let her ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... make out no words. Suddenly the low, even mumble was broken. Some one cried out "There's got to be a divvy soon. There's no use letting Morse hold that whole seventy-five thousand any longer. I'm going to get what's ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... finally managed it. As Raven remembered, it was something about pa'tridges and his gun. Whether he was shaken by fright, one could not have told, but he was, as Charlotte remarked upon it afterward, "all to pieces." Raven ignored the mumble, whatever it was, and Tenney, finally understanding that he might as well be as far off the earth as Dick, for all the attention anybody was going to pay him, turned, limping, and then Raven, with that mechanical sensitiveness to physical need always awake ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... supply of ham at the eating-counter below-stairs was exhausted, the oysters were soon after minus, and those who had brought no lunch had to mumble ginger-cakes. It was remarked by good judges that as the morning advanced the coffee grew weaker, suggesting a possibility that the caterer could not distinguish between cocoa and cold water, and only replenished his boiler with the latter. There were more ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... with rosemary, box, lavender, and lentisk. On the way it passes the Abbaye de Mont Majeur, a ruin of gigantic size, embracing all periods of architecture; where nothing seems to flourish now but henbane and the wild cucumber, or to breathe but a mumble-toothed and terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast Italian buildings of Palladian splendour looking more forlorn in their decay than the older and austerer mediaeval towers, which rise up proud and patient and defiantly ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... room above him he could hear Earle poking the fire. He could hear the low mumble of his voice, the soft treble of Marian's. They avoided him now as if he were a plague. He did not try to make it out. His master was providence. He could not question the decrees of providence, but he would circumvent them if he could. Once he had broken a collar. ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... ez he got out o' sight he pulled up, an' we walked along tell we come to de road whar leads off to'ds Mr. Barbour's. He wuz de big lawyer o' de country. Dar he tu'ned off. All dis time he hedn' sed a wud, 'cep' to kind o' mumble to hisse'f now and den. When we got to Mr. Barbour's, he got down an' went in. Dat wuz in de late winter; de folks wuz jes' beginnin' to plough fur corn. He stayed dyar 'bout two hours, an' when he come out Mr. Barbour ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... he hastened to mumble, still rubbing his shin, and making faces as though it hurt him considerably. "I've tried to run, but shucks; what's the use when you can hardly limp at the best? I'm through, Hugh, sorry to say. You keep on, and bag the prize; next to winning it myself I'd love ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... sprinkle, twinkle, there is implied a frequency, or iteration of small acts. And the same frequency of acts, but less subtile by reason of the clearer vowel a, is indicated in jangle, tangle, spangle, mangle, wrangle, brangle, dangle; as also in mumble, grumble, jumble. But at the same time the close u implies something obscure or obtunded; and a congeries of consonants mbl, denotes a confused kind of rolling or tumbling, as in ramble, scamble, scramble, wamble, amble; but in ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... One will tell you he sees nothing in billiards or pool or golf or tennis, but will grow enthusiastic over the scientific possibilities of mumble-peg; you agree with him, only you ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... you and me, to any man and woman—that time makes the difference. You worry over your fortifications. Why? It is in ourselves that the tragedy lies. To lose our looks, our voice—to grow old and mumble—" She broke off ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... shall be seen To mumble prayers baith morn and e'en, I'll swap them a' for Mary Quean! I'll bid nae mess for me be sung, Dies ille, dies irae, Nor clanking bells for me be rung, Sic semper solet fieri! I'll gang ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... again to talk to him, but I was suffering too much to do more than mumble. I don't know how long we'd been there. I suppose he'd only stopped to rest, for before long he hoisted me over his shoulder again and away we went. Quite a while after that we struck that little valley where the hut stands. He carried me into the shack and laid me on the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... whelmed their parched bodies, lo, would make A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops. Respite of torment was there none. Their frames Forspent lay prone. With silent lips of fear Would Medicine mumble low, the while she saw So many a time men roll their eyeballs round, Staring wide-open, unvisited of sleep, The heralds of old death. And in those months Was given many another sign of death: The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread Deranged, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... hours of agony in his solitude, and all is over. Tidings of the event are carried to the nearest factory, and then to another and another. Two or three of his former acquaintances ride over to his bungalow, knock up a rude coffin, mumble a few sentences about "the resurrection and the life," "our dear brother here departed," and "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," bury him out of sight, and set up a decent stone over his grave. His place is filled again in a few weeks or months, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... have one, He'll let it so dear that he shall be undone. And he seeks to get parsons' livings into his hand, And puts in some odd dunce that to his payment will stand: So, if the parsonage be worth forty or fifty pound a year, He will give one twenty nobles to mumble ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always failed;" and "What ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... face I looked into was alert and hard set, and the eyes gleamed strangely as though the man were laboring under a strong, repressed excitement. Newman wore an air of triumph, as though he had just accomplished a difficult victory. My tongue had suddenly become very thick, but I managed to mumble a query. "Say, matey, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... monpuno. Mule mulo. Muleteer mulisto. Mulish obstina. Multiple multoblo. Multiplicand multigato. Multiplication multigado. Multiplied multigita. Multiplier multiganto. Multiply (trans.) multigi. Multiply (intrans.) multigxi. Mumble murmuri. Mummy mumo. Munch macxi. Mundane monda. Municipal urba. Munificence malavareco. Munificent malavara. Murder mortigi. Murder mortigo. Murderer mortiganto. Murky malhela, malluma. Murmur murmuri. Muscat wine muskatvino. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... word brought her feet to a halt. MacQueen padded across till he faced her. "Don't make any mistake, girl. You're mine. I don't care how. If it suits you to have a priest mumble words over us, good enough. But I'm the man you've got to ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... away and place her under the proper treatment. Well, we learned that she had a sister living in New Jersey. The detective went to see her, and you know the result—the old lady's removal. Recently we received word that she was so much improved that she could mumble in a way to be understood, and last week the detective and I went to see her. This was my apparently inconsistent business out ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... that he flew out at the boatmen and the summer visitors who listen to their tales. Without moving a muscle of his face he emitted a powerful "Rot," from somewhere out of the depths of his chest, and went on in his hoarse, fragmentary mumble. "Stare at the silly rocks—nod their silly heads [the visitors, I presume]. What do they think a man is—blown-out paper bag or what?—go off pop like that when he's hit—Damn silly yarn—Hint indeed! . . . ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... is not of age; and we keep the secret even from her father. In this village you will mumble over the bans without one of your congregation ever taking heed of the name. I shall stay here a month for the purpose. She is in London, on a visit to a relation in the city. The bans on her side will ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... suddenly and in such contrasted tones to the mumble in which the miser had heretofore been speaking that for the moment Roy was ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... past. Still no noise from the town, no suspicious move on the other shore. Then from the tambo itself came a low mumble of voices. Knowlton stepped swiftly into it. As noiselessly as they had gone the two ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... man, who was gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and proceeded ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... rest of the evening was, standing in the library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentences in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech,—but better where other talking is going on. Thus,—"We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies,—"I am very gligloglum, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... enemies. There is nothing I would not have done to ensure the carrying of the measure I had proposed this session. I pique myself on never having proposed anything which I have not carried. But the moment their success was ensured, and I had the satisfaction of seeing two drowsy Masters in Chancery mumble out, at the table of the House of Commons that the Lords had passed the Corn and Customs Bills, I was satisfied."[93] Sir Robert expresses himself satisfied, but the coincidence which caused this satisfaction was not, in the slightest degree influenced either by himself or any member of his ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... for a husband. All this delay was produced by doubt, which the poets truly declare to be the father of delay. It was a doubt which arose in the mind of one of the Brahmins, who, when a doubt arose in his mind, would mumble it over and over, but never masticate, swallow, or digest it; and thus was the preservation of the royal line endangered. For years had the aspirants for regal dignity, and more than regal beauty, hovered round the court, each with his mandolin on his arm, and a huge packet of love-sonnets ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... because your porter, like every slave in Capua, is drunk to-night, and because the boy whom he left to keep the gate was only enough awake to mumble that ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... boy was past speech-making now. He managed to mumble a few words of thanks, got to the ground somehow and mingled with the ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... reproached him quickly. "Of course it must be looked after right away. And then, Doctor, I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind." She watched them retreat to the bunk-house together. Swan's big form towering above the doctor's slighter figure. Swan was talking earnestly, the mumble of his voice reaching Lorraine without the enunciation of any particular word to give a clue to what he was saying. But it struck her that his voice did not sound quite natural; not so ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the official reports of the Lords' debates a speech begins thus: "Lord —— (who was indistinctly heard)." The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... nothing said the fog. Only he rose up slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I hear him telling infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... Whilst ASHBOURNE declaiming, DERBY seized opportunity to read his speech over to himself. This all very well if he had strictly carried out intention, but, when he grew so interested in it as to mumble passages in an audible voice, situation grew embarrassing. At last KIMBERLEY, who sat near, gently nudged him. "One at a time, my dear DERBY," he whispered. "We know you're accustomed to dual action. DARBY and JOAN, you know; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... clap coming they all wery religiously signe theyr forfronts and their breast wt the signe of the cross, in the wertue of which they are confident that clap can do them no scaith. Some we have sein run to their beads and their knees and mumble over their prayers, others away to the church and doune before the Altar and blaither anything that comes in their cheek. They have no thunders in ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... mumble of relief from Jot's quarter, followed by another silence. Then again Old Tilly's contented voice crept through ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... A mumble of assent replied to him, and the townsmen craned their necks to look out. A procession slowly wended its way up the street, led by the marshal, astride a piebald horse bearing the crude brand of the CG. Three men followed him and numerous ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... heard. On November 4 the storm abated, and land loomed up on the horizon, dim at first, but taking shape as the vessel approached it and showing a well-defined, rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom. A cask of brandy was opened, {25} and tears gave place to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear that he recognized this headland, that he had known they were following the right course after all, and that ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... clenching her hands. But he cried out, "Hold! or I will cleave thee in twain, even as thy cat." And in truth she stopped stone-still, but soon began to spit and murmur. Whereupon he cried out again, "Ay, spit and mumble; but know that my good friend, of whom I told thee, stands without, and if but a finger of mine aches, now or in future, he hath ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... down," Evadne managed to mumble, dropping into her own chair again from sheer inability to stand ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... river, and all that was Renee in the spirit of the place she had abandoned for him, believing in him. She had proved that she believed in him. What in the name of sanity had been the meaning of his language? and what was it between them that arrested him and caused him to mumble absurdly of 'doing best,' when in fact he was her bondman, rejoiced to be so, by his pledged word? and when she, for some reason that he was sure she had stated, though he could recollect no more than the formless hideousness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... man, who appeared very harmless, had by the side of the brook piled a great number of stones; he would wade into the river for them, followed by a cur dog, whom he would frequently call his Jacky, and even his Nancy; and then mumble to himself, 'Thou wilt not leave me. We will dwell with the owl in the ivy.' A number of owls had taken shelter in it. The stones he waded for he carried to the mouth of the hole, and only left just room enough to go in. Some of the neighbors at last ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... may be said only in a ruined or deserted church, where owls mope and hoot, where bats flit in the gloaming, where gypsies lodge of nights, and where toads squat under the desecrated altar. Thither the bad priest comes by night with his light o' love, and at the first stroke of eleven he begins to mumble the mass backwards, and ends just as the clocks are knelling the midnight hour. His leman acts as clerk. The host he blesses is black and has three points; he consecrates no wine, but instead he drinks the water of a well into which the body of an ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to body, and heart join'd to heart, To make sure of the cure, Go call the man in black, to mumble ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... he goes on to give a truly appreciative and affectionate sketch of young Arthur Mynors; and then he quotes the sentence about the Master of the Beagles, and on this he comments thus: "The aged Barbarian will, upon this, admiringly mumble to us his story how the battle of Waterloo was won in the playing-fields of Eton. Alas! disasters have been prepared in those playing-fields as well as victories; disasters due to inadequate mental training—to want of application, knowledge, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... many affections are swallowed up. They only met at meals, when they sat opposite each other, not looking at each other, never speaking, forcing themselves to eat a few mouthfuls, not so much for the sake of eating as for the sake of appearances. Christophe would contrive to mumble a few words, but Louisa would not reply; and when she tried to talk he would be silent. This state of things was intolerable to both of them, and the longer it went on the more difficult it became ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... in peace with Whittington and his Cat. As my contempt for them has not, however, made me disgusted with what they do not understand, antiquities, I have published two numbers of "Miscellanies," and they are very welcome to mumble them with their toothless gums. I want to send you these—not their gums, but my pieces, and a "Grammont,"[2] of which I have printed only a hundred copies, and which will be extremely scarce, as twenty-five copies are gone to France. Tell me how ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... dreaming," he continued to mumble to himself. "And it wasn't a noise. Must have been a hunch. Guess I'll get up and see if there's anything wrong ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... rendezvous of the most fervent Catholics. Her writings had filled him with insufferably horrible boredom; they were more than merely wretched: they were wretched in every way, resembling the echoes of a tiny chapel where the solemn worshippers mumble their prayers, asking news of one another in low voices, while they repeat with a deeply mysterious air the common gossip of politics, weather forecasts and the ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... by himself and, walking rapidly, would try through pure physical fatigue to force his mind to give up the remembrance of the persistent, complaining voice. At times he would give way to fits of anger and strew impotent oaths along the silent street, or, in another mood, would mumble and talk to himself, praying for strength and courage to keep his own head during the ordeal through which he thought they were passing together. And when he returned from such a walk and from such a struggle with himself it often ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... fires, Roaring louder than they, With their strong wines, And their concubines, And never a bell, With its swagger and swell, Calling you up with a start of affright In the dead of night, To send you grumbling down dark stairs, To mumble your prayers; But the cheery crow Of cocks in the yard below, After daybreak, an hour or so, And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds, These are the sounds That, instead of bells, salute the ear. And then all day ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... were in camp. Then as cautiously he crawled up the bank. Through the scrub with his uninjured eye he could make out the figures around the yellow of the fire which had gone down considerably. Now what would they do? He could hear the mumble of the corporal's voice. Would they be sufficiently sobered to be ready for the chase in the morning? Birnier did not think so with that case of brandy there; the corporal would not, at all events. There was a scream of pain and ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... will be behind the bastions of Belle Isle; were it not for my Madeline's sake, I would make it six; but this bloodhound having been slipped upon us."—The sounds were here lost in the trampling of their horses; I heard the man of masses mumble something in reply, and they wheeled out of hearing up the rugged pathway to the bridge. "Now, mind your promise, Master William," said Aleck, as we rose and proceeded to the house. We soon arrived there; and he led me to a low wing, repeating his cautions, and, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... you hear a step in dead of night; In stillness the long rustle of my robe. So long as stand these walls I cannot leave them. Yet will I go: behold you, that stand by, A mother by her own son thrust away, Cast out—ha, ha!—in my old age, infirm, To totter and mumble in oblivion! ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... dope this morning that we'd leave here for Soissons to-morrow." Martin's words tailed off into a convictionless mumble. ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... the Devil should she do with me? Can't her Old Chopps mumble her Beads o're, but I Must keep count of her Pater Nosters: No, no, she's Gon on Pilgrimage to some Shrine, to beg Children For my Lady; 'tis a ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... so filled with pride that this fair being could wear his shoes, and that she was wearing them, that he could only mumble some stupid words about being so glad to serve her. And she, wise girl, said nothing about the quantities of soft cotton-wool which Dame Charter had been obliged to stuff into the toes before they would stay upon the small feet ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... other should be held back from such knowledge by mere convention, by the unwritten law of the solemn and formal introduction! A great happiness might lie in their intercourse, but conventionality solemnly and selfishly forbade it, unless they could find a common acquaintance to mumble a few unmeaning words over them. Mumbo-Jumbo! What a fantastic world of stupidly obedient puppets this world of London was! She said to herself that she hated it. Then she thought of her first widowhood and of her ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... units, which begins, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends, "All those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall be heard." However, you would have thought it was of no import here. Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink to a mumble. A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition to these there were present a court clerk—small, pale, candle-waxy, with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored hair and beard, who looked for all the world ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... of country houses, placed there to keep evil spirits away. Frequently also, three crosses are seen in conspicuous places near the roadside or even in the middle of the road. They are supposed to propitiate the Almighty, and pious persons mumble prayers as they pass them. When the destruction wrought by the Martinique volcano became known here, the dismay of the countrymen was responsible for more than one "calvario" (calvary), as these collections of crosses are ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... to the habitual languor of that long illness. That satirical mumble is the only trouble he will take to lift up his testimony, except when a thing is most decidedly his duty, and then he ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into place. Jimmie Dale continued to blink at it, and mumble to himself. The Rat's pleasant little plan of robbing somebody's safe of fifteen thousand dollars had nothing to do with her—but it involved a moral obligation on his part that he had neither the right nor the intention to ignore. And the fulfilment, or ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... mumble and I stooped low but he relaxed suddenly and seemed to shrink. I felt his heart but it was still. I tried his eyes and they were sightless. Patsy sent up a heartrending wail and crawled over behind his master's gun and knapsack, so I knew my ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... that the pail fell to the ground and the berries were spilled, "you ain't gwine for ter sell me to nobody? Say you ain't, an' fo' de Lawd I'll never touch nothin', nor lie, nor sass ole Miss, nor make faces and mumble like she does. I'll be a fust cut nigger, an' say my prars ebery night. I'se done got a new one down ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... their nails. See yonder night garment laid out for the heir of a kingdom. It is of Canton flannel, a plain, homely thing, in one piece, buttoning ignominiously down the back, and having no apertures for the august hands and feet to come through. In vain the little king-to-be may mumble the Canton flannel with his mouth. He cannot bite his royal nails; and, hush! in the next crib a princess asleep. Why that cruel, tight cap down over her ears? It's because she will double them forward and lie on them, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the New North Road, when he ran ahead and had the door open for the doctor when he came. He heard the two meet outside the bed-room, and caught scraps of their conversation. "Sorry to knock you up—nasty case—decent people." Then it sank into a mumble and the ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Nothing less, answered Gargantua. True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells they trouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them. Right, said the monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said. They mumble out great store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they say many paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or apprehending the meaning of what it is they say, which ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... elevator. He tramped up the broad stairs to the floor above the office. The doors of the large parlor were closed. He turned the knob cautiously; the doors were locked. He heard within the dull mumble of many voices—men in conversation. It was evident that the formal meeting, whatever it might be, had not begun its session. He tiptoed away from the door and climbed another flight ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... he said it for her admonition, and observed, 'But she was good,' only, however, in a mumble, that the other two thought it inexpedient to notice, though it made both hearts ache for her, even Alice's—with an additional pang of self-reproach that she herself was not good enough ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Burgesses hesitated for months to pass any law for enforcing obedience, lest it should trench on the liberties of free white men. The service was to the last degree unpopular. "If we talk of obliging men to serve their country," wrote London Carter, "we are sure to hear a fellow mumble over the words 'liberty' and 'property' a thousand times."[335] The people, too, were in mortal fear of a slave insurrection, and therefore dared not go far from home.[336] Meanwhile a panic reigned along the border. Captain Waggoner, passing ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... and smiled faintly. He slept through two acts and the intervals between them, in spite of the voices from the stage and the loud talking between the acts, and woke up in the middle of the third act, to mumble in my ear, "It is not much pleasure to see the piece played ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... you?" she said. "'Tis but a mumble, his little tongue is not nimble enough for clearness, but he says it his pretty best. 'Tis Mother Anne, he says—'tis ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... There, with a thumb to keep her place She'd read, with stern and wrinkled face. Her mild eyes gliding very slow Across the letters to and fro, While wagged the guttering candle flame In the wind that through the window came. And sometimes in the silence she Would mumble a sentence audibly, Or shake her head as if to say, 'You silly souls, to act this way!' And never a sound from night I'd hear, Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; Or her old shuffling thumb should turn Another page; and rapt and stern, Through her great glasses bent on me She'd glance ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... To put herself in the way of visible temptation. What fretted her so, what was wearing her down to the point of fatigue, was the patent imbecility of her reluctance. There would have been some sense of it if Cutty had proposed a real marriage. All she had to do was mumble a few words, sign her name to a document, live out West for a few months, and be in comfortable circumstances all the rest of ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Belford, it is impossible so far to hurt the morals of this lady, as thou and thy brother varlets have hurt others of the sex, who now are casting about the town firebrands and double death. Take ye that thistle to mumble upon. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... but eat the man we sent ... out oars, let's away from here though it cost our lives ..." The frightened mumble was low under ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... money, he could pardon all his sins, and even when in purgatory for them, he could bring him to heaven. And so we must conclude he died 1733, Dec. 23d, and went down to Tophet with a lie in his right hand, and so remains in spite of all the priest could mutter or mumble over him, as the author of his Elegy in his master's name well ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... it was that, with many a queer thought in my head, I sat in the kitchen rocker, listening to the mumble of their voices and waiting up to see if they should want me for anything. And so it was, too, that at last I found myself nodding with sleep, and started to go ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... of Betty's consolations, she broke into a flood of tears, and seemed in some sort relieved; and Betty gave her her drops again, and she began to mumble to herself, and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... exchange of words between the lawyers on the other side of the rail, now with the judge, now with one another; and now it was the clerk of the court who was speaking; and I couldn't repress the absurd feeling of surprise that they should turn their backs and mumble so, since it appeared irresistibly to me that we were an audience, and the thing was ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... some of your masses are younger, as that of St. Thomas a Becket, the traitor, wherein you pray, That you may be saved by the blood of St. Thomas. And as for your Latin service, what are we of the laity the better for it? I think if any one were to hear your priests mumble up their service, although he well understood Latin, yet he would understand very few words of it, the priests so champ them and chew them, and post so fast, that they neither understand what they say, nor they that hear them; and in the mean time the people, when ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... sir, a number are here prisoners: My cousin Morton, whom I came to visit. But he (good man) is at his morrow mass; But I, that neither care to say nor sing, Come to seek that preaching hate and prayer, And while they mumble up their orisons, We'll play a game at bowls. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... and you and the surface be everlastingly damned!" said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown watched his receding aspect. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... mother was away, in the barn while milking—at every opportunity I went through my selection with most impassioned voice and lofty gestures, sustained by the legends of Webster and Demosthenes, resolved upon a blazing victory. I did everything but mumble a smooth pebble—realizing that most of the boys in my section were going through precisely the same struggle. Each of us knew exactly how the others felt, and yet I cannot say that we displayed acute sympathy ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Maurice stood looking at the scene in silent horror; they heard not Chouteau's appeals for assistance; were powerless to raise a hand. And Pache, in a sudden outburst of piety and pity, dropped on his knees, joined his hands, and began to mumble the prayers that are repeated at ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... read up to himself, or finds he has read the wrong bit, then it is all over with the poor patient's chance of not suffering. Very few people know how to read to the sick; very few read aloud as pleasantly even as they speak. In reading they sing, they hesitate, they stammer, they hurry, they mumble; when in speaking they do none of these things. Reading aloud to the sick ought always to be rather slow, and exceedingly distinct, but not mouthing—rather monotonous, but not sing song—rather loud, but not ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... brutal to say how very far from contented he felt, so Horace could only mumble that he had never been lodged like that before in ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... that poor old dame to trudge it, Tick, tack, tick, tack, on such a devil's dance: Crumbs, it took me quite aback to see her stop so humble, Casting up into my face a sort of shiny glance, Bless you, bless you, that was what I thought I heard her mumble; Lord, a prayer for poor old Bill, a rummy sort of chance! Crumbs, that shiny glance Kinder made me king of all the sky ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... hand to her mouth to suppress an exclamation. Pinto was talking, but his voice was a mumble. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... great reason to doubt how far the second line could justly be applied to the parish! but there was no judging of the sermon, for only detached sentences reached us in a sort of mumble. Griff afterwards declared churchgoing to be as good as a comedy, and we all had to learn to avoid meeting each other's eyes, whatever we might hear. When the scuffle and tramp of the departing congregation had ceased, we came forth from our sable box, and beheld the remnants of a once handsome ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mumble thy charm o'er the embers warm," That baron proud replied; "No boon from my hand shalt thou receive, Nor foaming ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the bell in person. There was a low mumble of voices. Then the landlady appeared in the parlor doorway, the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, tap of her hand ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... you did. I'll go to our Parson, Sir John, and he shall mumble up the marriage out ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... to hear so many words from that rigid shadow. Its monotonous mumble was fascinating, its sudden loquacity was shocking. And in the profound stillness that reigned outside it was as if there had been no one left in the world with her but the phantom of that old adventurer. He was heard again: "What ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... came in a mumble from his wrecked mouth, and some of those near shuddered in affected disgust. I turned on them with a black brow: "Your charity, my lords, seems of as small account as your courage. You affected a fine disbelief of Zaemon's sayings, and a simpering contempt for his priesthood, but ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... curiosity than good manners put on his glasses to look at Mr. Edwardes, and I, having to say something, thought that I might as well introduce them to each other, though I took care to mumble Bunny's name so that it could not be heard. Mr. Edwardes bowed and opened his paper again, but Bunny having arrived at the fact that I was face to face with a don of some kind, thought he would try to pass the time pleasantly. Considering what he had already ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... along, the wiring party's going out"— And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out," Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud, They toil with stealthy haste and anger in ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... established. Having, I say, at the bottom of our English hearts a very strong belief in freedom, and a very weak belief in right reason, we are soon silenced when a man pleads the prime right to do as he likes, because this is the prime right for ourselves too; and even if we attempt now and then to mumble something about reason, yet we have ourselves thought so little about this and so much about liberty, that we are in conscience forced, when our brother Philistine with whom we are meddling turns boldly round upon us and asks: Have you any light?—to shake ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... good, quiet fun for a rainy day is Jack-stones. Although not played much nowadays it is very interesting and is to indoors what "mumble-the-peg" is to outdoors. It is played usually with small pieces of iron with six little feet: but it can also be played with small pebbles all of a size. All kinds of exercises can be used, many of which ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher |
