"Murmur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all night to incite the members at their first meeting to murmur at the Queen's answer, which in the main was very plausible, importing that, though this affair did not fall within the cognisance of Parliament, the Queen would, however, out of her abundant goodness, have regard to their supplications and restore the Princes to liberty. Besides, it promised a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... purge the visual Ray, v. 5, 6.] And on the sightless Eye-ball pour the Day. 'Tis he th' obstructed Paths of Sound shall clear, And bid new Musick charm th' unfolding Ear, The Dumb shall sing, the Lame his Crutch forego, And leap exulting like the bounding Roe; [No Sigh, no Murmur the wide World shall hear, From ev'ry Face he wipes ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Mendelssohn's Spring Song. He was surprised, presently, to note a strange hush settling down over the woods. A chill vapor seemed to arise from the water. There was a melancholy note in the tweet of the low-flitting birds. The rustling trees softened their murmur to a continuous whisper, soothing and caressing. The tinkle of the creek became more metallic and pronounced. Near by, down the stream, a sudden chorus of frogs burst into croaking, their isolated notes blended by the chirping undertone of the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the centre of the enchanted garden a fountain spurned diamond spray high in the air, to fall back coolly plashing into the marble home of the golden carp. The rustling of innumerable feet upon the sandy pathway and the ceaseless murmur of voices, with pealing laughter rising above all, could be heard amid the strains of the military band ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... each have a bouquet. Harriet, where are the flower scissors? Dr. Hartwell never objected to my carefully cutting even his choicest flowers. There! Clara, listen to the cool rippling of the fountain. How I have longed to hear its silvery murmur ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... murmur and shuffle of released suspense throughout the hall. The preacher beamed joyfully as he reached forward and shook Henley ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... have been more apt to lead him to regard the king as an unfeeling father. But when he was made to see, by the manner in which the king had dispensed the law, that he cherished the warmest feelings of affection for him, there was no cause left for a murmur on the part of any, but for the highest admiration on the ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... waiting for the opening of the great cause of ship-money, peremptory orders from the king forced the clergy of Edinburgh to introduce the new service into their churches. On the 23rd of July the Prayer-Book was used at the church of St. Giles. But the book was no sooner opened than a murmur ran through the congregation, and the murmur grew into a formidable riot. The church was cleared, and the service read; but the rising discontent frightened the judges into a decision that the royal writ enjoined the purchase, not the use, of the Prayer-Book, and its use was at once discontinued. ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... them all! I will go away, but never to see him more!—never, never!' Thus thought Gladys. For half-an-hour, whilst she was striving to calm herself, such thoughts and thousands of others flitted through her mind; but she did not murmur again at the sad lot which had been assigned to her by Providence; she had gathered strength in that prayer which she had offered up out of her trouble of heart. Still she felt aggrieved by her master's hard words, knowing as she did that she did not deserve them; ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... worth the cost or not, it was for my lords the States-General to decide, not for Governor Marquette. And the decision of those "high and mighty" magistrates, to whom even Maurice of Nassau bowed without a murmur, although often against his judgment, had been plainly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... players kept perfectly still for a minute and heard what seemed to be the murmur of voices a room or ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... A spontaneous murmur of admiration fell from many lips. For an instant Helen Young's hands poised above the keyboard, then descended; and as spontaneously as a bird begins its love song to the blue, so Tessibel ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... stiffened by the long service of full seventy years. And, as in the case made famous by Cowper, of the "softer sex" and the old-fashioned iron-cushioned arm-chairs, the old man had, as became his years, "'gan murmur." I contrived, by sitting on the edge of the gig on the one side, and by getting the postman to take a similar seat on the other, to find room for him in front; and there, feeling he had not to do with savages, he became kindly and conversible. We beat together over a ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... life is everlasting love unfeigned, and takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind: in God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life: it is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression: it can never rejoice but through sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered: I found it alone, being forsaken; I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens, and desolate places in the earth, who through ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... near to Dulcissima, and there, before them all, he fell on his knee. And a murmur ran through ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... thinking. And a breath of wind set the leaves outside to rustling. Instantly she was back again in the little house, and the sound was not leaves, but the shuffling of many stealthy feet on the cobbles of the street at night, that shuffling that was so like the rustling of leaves in a wood or the murmur of water running ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the place. The tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bluebird began to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur by the door, and the fragrance of growing herbs and flowers came ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... murmur of surprise, a hand was laid over her mouth with a whispered—"Gare a toi petite! ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... clock in the clock-tower slowly and distinctly strike the hour of twelve, I saw the pale lips move and heard them murmur: "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... plain. Before your legitimate son, I ought to give way without a murmur, if not without regret. Let him come. I am ready to yield to him everything that I have so long kept from him without a suspicion of the truth—his father's love, his fortune and ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... declined she would quit the stream to sit before the blazing logs, staring at the flames. What am I doing here? she would murmur. And what is this my life? When I was at home in Devon I had a dream of Winchester, of Salisbury, or other great towns further away, where the men and women who are great in the land meet together, and where my eyes would perchance sometimes ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... while Ben Jope and his sister had been talking earnestly: I had heard at intervals the murmur of their voices through the partition; but no distinct words save once, when Mrs. Pengelly called out to her husband to keep an eye along the beach and report the appearance of constables. Now so ludicrous was the figure I cut in my borrowed clothes ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and hearken, ye the serpent with the words, 'Dust shalt thou eat,' yet it complained not of its food. But ye, My people that I have led out of Egypt, for whom I caused manna to rain down from heaven, and quails to fly from the sea, and a spring to gush forth from the abyss, ye do murmur against Me on account of manna, saying, 'Our soul loatheth this light bread.' Let now the serpents come, that complained not, even though whatever food they ate tasted only of the dust, and let them bite those who murmur though they have a food that possesses every conceivable ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... patrician dames helped the peasant women to stir the mortar, and to cook the food; all lived together in an undreamed surrender of prejudice; all were alike ready to be mere labourers, machines, loins and arms, and to toil without a murmur under the orders of the architects who had come out of the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... rose—she understood from the murmur of those around her that he was one of the leaders of the Opposition, and commenced a powerful and bitter speech. She noticed that Geoffrey roused himself at this point, and ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... silence of the place, there seemed to lurk misfortune and pain. Suddenly from a distance sounded the whirr of an electric car, passing on the avenue behind them. The noise came softened across the open lot—a distant murmur from the big city ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... business is at a standstill. The shelves in stores are almost everywhere empty; the shop of the artisan is abandoned and in ruins. The people who are to be seen passively submit to all that emanates from Richmond without a murmur; they are for the most part simple minded, and ignorant of all that is transpiring in the great theatre about them. An intelligent-looking man in Columbia laughed heartily when told that Union troops occupied New Orleans—Jefferson Davis would let them know it were such ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Zama. This we should the more carefully bear in mind because our tendency is to admire individual greatness far more than national; and, as no single Roman will bear comparison to Hannibal, we are apt to murmur at the event of the contest, and to think that the victory was awarded to the least worthy of the combatants. On the contrary, never was the wisdom of God's Providence more manifest than in the issue of the struggle between Rome ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... itself or its Master or great personages of the Court of Heaven. And all was set in this little bare setting of white walls, a tumbled bed, a shuttered window, a guttering candle or two, a cross of ashes on boards, a ring of faces, and a murmur of prayers! ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... and red-eyed from the whiff of phosphorus smoke, spoke with him. The U.P. man had sagged drunkenly into a chair, but the other newsmen noted that Dr. Barnes glanced at them as he spoke, in a confidential murmur. ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... just Shall doom him wrath and woe.' He paused;—the word the vassals took, With forward step and fiery look, On high their naked brands they shook, Their clattering targets wildly strook; And first in murmur low, Then like the billow in his course, That far to seaward finds his source, And flings to shore his mustered force, Burst with loud roar their answer hoarse, 'Woe to the traitor, woe!' Ben-an's gray scalp the accents knew, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... blue, and the sun so bright, that an eternal summer seemed to reign over this prospect. Thistledown floated round them, enraptured by the serenity, of the ether. The heat danced over the corn, and, pervading all, was a soft, insensible hum, like the murmur of bright minutes holding revel ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... been so long separated and whom he fondly wished to see. In facing about, Kit took upon his shoulders the prospect of encountering fearful dangers; but, he undertook his new duties without allowing a murmur to escape his lips, and without even asking additional pay; though, had he but mentioned it, the general could not have well refused the demand. A noble motive engrossed Kit Carson's mind. He has ever labored to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... had only two hours to live, she rose and began dressing, but before she had finished, Bourgoin came into her room, and, afraid lest the absent servants might murmur against the queen, if by chance they were discontented at the will, and might accuse those who had been present of having taken away from their share to add to their own, he begged Mary to send for them all and to read ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... rain is on my roof! Every murmur, through the dark, Stings me with a dull reproof Like a half-extinguished spark. Me! ah me! how came I here, Wide awake and wide alone! Caught within a net of fear, All my dreams ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... glistening mass of snow and ice. A score of these glaciers are in sight. They are supplied in winter by the drifting snows, and yield in summer, from their lower extremities, streams of ice-cold water. A multitude of streams raise a gentle murmur, broken occasionally by a dull roar as some glacier, in its slow descent, breaks upon the edge of a precipice and its fragments ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... meat, and they got it—impressing cattle, sheep, and hogs, geese, chickens, and ducks, vegetables—nothing escaped the capacious maw of the Army of the Callahan. It was a beautiful idea, and the success of it pleased Flitter Bill mightily, but the relief did not last long. An indignant murmur rose up and down valley and creek bottom against the outrages, and one angry old farmer took a pot-shot at Captain Wells with a squirrel rifle, clipping the visor of his forage cap; and from that day the captain began to call with immutable regularity again on Flitter Bill for bacon and ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... he spoken when he knew that startling news had reached the square. A murmur arose on the skirts of the mob, and swept with the roar of the sea towards the town-house. A detachment of the soldiers were marching down the Roods from ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... which he was bound, had volunteered to accompany him. The men were all Africans accustomed to desert fighting and trained in warfare in Spain. The Romans, good judges of physical strength, could not repress a murmur of admiration at the sight of these sinewy figures. Less heavy than themselves, there was about them a spring and an elasticity resembling that of the tiger. Long use had hardened their muscles until they stood up like cords through their tawny skin, most ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... the throng, as the horses neared a sudden turn into a side-road, toward which they seemed to be making, frightened by the persons who came running toward them on the main street. Among these was Gabriel, who, hearing the confused murmur that rang down the road, turned and recognized the carriage that was whirled along at the mercy of wild horses. He seemed to his companions to fly as he went—to himself he seemed ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... imagination; the sense of dazzling all-pervading sunlight seemed to blot out the shadows and the lights of the laboratory, and he felt again the heated air beating in gusts about his face, saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard the myriad murmur ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... A murmur of satisfaction and gratified expectation ran through the crowd, which had already been waiting many long hours, for the arrows of the midday sun were ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... examination: but when he was informed that I held the variation at London to be still increasing; which he and the other philosophers, his pupils, thought to be then stationary, and on the point of regression, he declared that he believed my system visionary. I did not much murmur to be for a time overborne by that mighty name, even when I believed that the name only was against me: and I have lived till I am able to produce, in my favour, the testimony of time, the inflexible enemy of false hypotheses; the only ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... stood upon the table; and their scent mingled with the faint smell of decay that hung about the room. Lying still, Dick heard the leather curtain rustle softly in the draught, muffled sounds of traffic, and the drowsy murmur of the surf. Its rhythmic beat was soothing and he thought he could smell the sea. By and by he made an abrupt move that hurt him as a voice floated into the room. It was singularly clear and sweet, and he thought he knew it, as he seemed to know ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... have you right here on the spot. It is the person who aims to be of service who is really valuable in the world. Look at Jean. In her way she has been doing the same thing that you have. When she found I was in a hole and needed her she gave up her vacation in the East without a murmur. I sha'n't forget it, either. Come in, missy. I'm talking ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... muse sadly, and murmur Your doings as boys - Recall the quaint ways Of your babyhood's innocent days. Some pray that, ere dying, your faith had grown firmer, And higher ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... murmur: stay thy waves from warring, And bid thy steeds be still; Why should'st thou rage, when not a breeze is stirring The treetops on the hill? To sheltered haven bring my husband's bark Ere yet the shadows fall and night ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... diseased survivors hang before Their sickly cells, and droop about the door, 330 Or slowly in their hives their limbs unfold, Shrunk up with hunger, and benumbed with cold; In drawling hums the feeble insects grieve, And doleful buzzes echo through the hive, Like winds that softly murmur through the trees, Like flames pent up, or like retiring seas. Now lay fresh honey near their empty rooms, In troughs of hollow reeds, whilst frying gums Cast round a fragrant mist of spicy fumes. Thus kindly ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... answer, save the incessant angry murmur of the Nile as it raced round a basalt-walled bend and foamed across a rock-ridge half a mile upstream. It was as though the brown weight of the river would drive the white men back to their own country. The indescribable scent of Nile mud in the air told that the stream was falling ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... little while, you saw the red-brown roofs of the barns and outbuildings clustering round the house itself, and almost hiding it, and soon a pleasant confusion of noises met your ear. Ducks quacked, hens cackled, pigeons perched about on the roofs kept up a monotonous murmur; then came the deep undertones of the patient cows, and as you neared the house you could generally hear Mrs Hatchard's voice in her dairy adding its commanding accents to the medley of sounds. It certainly was a delightful farm, and David had long ago determined that when he grew up he would have ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... sir," said the doctor. "There are limits to pain beyond which further treatment simply doesn't register. Also, I'm a little suspicious about this man's heart. It has a murmur, and questioning puts a terrific strain on it. You wouldn't want him to die on ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... bandaging the arm of a fine looking fellow, who shut his eyes and grated his teeth as she worked. On a half-dozen chairs sat as many men, some holding their heads in their hands, some doubled in two, others clenching their fists in agony. Not a murmur escaped them. The floor in several places was ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... cold having abolished her appetite. It went on until the fifteenth day, with increasing general strength and diminishing weight. The last days before hunger came she was able to go up a long flight of stairs without the aid of the railing and without marked loss of breath, the heart-murmur had nearly disappeared, and water by the gallon ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... only a year and eight months. He had no time to do anything of permanent value, and was hardly powerful enough to do it, even if time and opportunity had been afforded. In the thunderstorm gathering over Rome and the Papacy, he represents that momentary lull during which men hold their breath and murmur. All the place-seekers, parasites, flatterers, second-rate artificers, folk of facile talents, whom Leo gathered round him, vented their rage against a Pope who lived sparsely, shut up the Belvedere, called statues "idols of the Pagans," and spent ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... flags, they swept slowly down the chancel steps, along the broad nave between the garlanded pillars, and out under the lifted scarlet curtains into the blazing sunlight of the street; and the sound of their chanting died into a rolling murmur, drowned in the pealing of new and newer voices, as the unending stream flowed on, and yet new footsteps ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... grief with his remembered lay, And will no more reply to winds or fountains, Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day; 5 Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear Than those for whose disdain she pined away Into a shadow of all sounds:—a drear Murmur, between their songs, ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... extolled the study of real life, and announced the publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead of the Neapolitan cypresses dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the continuous murmur of the valley, and no longer to the sound of the Pyrennean streams that murmured a faint accompaniment to the tales of Marguerite's cavaliers, the master and his disciples took turns in narrating some striking or pathetic episode of the war. And the issue, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... would murmur, as though unconscious of her audience, 'the unhappy day when Jack Rann was ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... am yt bred which is come downe from heaue[4], and they sayde: Is not this Iesus, Iosephs sonne, whose father and mother we knowe? How sayeth be then, I am come downe from heaue[5]? Iesus answered, and sayde vnto them: Murmur not amonge youre selues. No man can come vnto me, excepte the father which hath sent me, drawe him. And I shal rayse him vp at the last daye. It is wrytten in the prophetes: They shal all be taughte of God. Who so euer now heareth it of the father and lerneth it, commeth vnto me. Not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... they had not a morsel of meat or fish; nor anything to subsist on, excepting roots, wild rosebuds, the barks of certain plants, and other vegetable production; neither had they any weapon for hunting or defence, excepting an old spear: yet the poor fellows made no murmur nor complaint; but seemed accustomed to their hard fare. If they could not teach the white men their practical stoicism, they at least made them acquainted with the edible properties of roots and wild rosebuds, and furnished them ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... steps more brought him to the entrance of Sah-luma's princely abode,—the gates stood wide open, and a pleasant murmur of laughter and soft singing floated toward him across the splendid court where the great fountains were tossing up to the bright sky their straight, glistening columns of snowy spray. He listened,—and his heart leaped with an intense ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... diligence, they were able to add a little each year to the small stock of money which they had contrived to put together. Still would the unhappy recollection that they were childless steal painfully and heavily over them; the wife would sometimes murmur, and the husband reprove her, but in a tone so cool and indifferent that she could not avoid concluding that his own want of resignation, though not expressed, was at heart equal to her own. Each also became somewhat religious, and both remarkable ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Pleasant?— that's my two best waggon-hosses," the farmer explained to his brother-in-law. "An' didn' he say as most likely he'd be over again, inside a fortni't, after light draught hosses for the Artillery? I don't murmur, for my part. We must all be prepared to make sacrifices in these times. But all I say is, you can't pick up draught hosses—light or heavy—off a greengrocer, nor yet off a bird-fancier; an' the man who says you can, I'll ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... misfortune, we murmur and complain of unfaithfulness, violence, and injustice, but will not see that we ourselves are knaves who have fully deserved this punishment, and yet are not thereby reformed. We will have no favor and happiness, therefore it is but fair ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... the wooded hills arise, Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, The creek goes twinkling through long glows and glooms Of woodland quiet, poppied with perfumes: The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools Glitter or dart; and by whose deeper pools The blue kingfishers and the herons haunt; That, often startled from ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... to go away. Then something seemed to occur which his stepdaughter fancied must really be a hallucination of hers. A murmur apparently came from Henchard's lips in which she detected the words, "You refused to see me!" reproachfully addressed to Lucetta. She could not believe that they had been uttered by her stepfather; unless, indeed, they might have been spoken to one of the yellow-gaitered ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... balloting for places in the Strangers' Galleries on the night Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill. On that occasion the Speaker's Secretary, with the assistance of a clerk, and in the presence of as many members as cared to look on, arranged the ballot without a hitch or a murmur of complaint from anyone concerned. The sooner the public balloting is relegated to the same agency the better it will be for the dispatch of public business. With it should disappear the consequent wanton waste of time involved in ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... station. So we went out and walked about Leipsic; we attracted the suspicion of the police, and they wanted to arrest us. But we pleaded our innocence, and they let us go. So we retired into a narrow dark street, and sat down by a blank wall, and told each other not to murmur. We sat together through the whole rainy night, the rain ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... solemn murmur of the invisible sea, singing like a lullaby about the peaceful dwelling, and hushing it into a more profound quiet than even utter silence; for utter silence is irksome and fretting to the ear, which needs some slight reverberation to keep the brain behind it still. A perfume of violets, and the ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... cottage could be heard a murmur of voices, as the old farmer tried to comfort his wife, while inside the house no one spoke lest he should seem careless of the grief and disappointment of those who were still within hearing. Suddenly a third voice was heard outside, speaking excitedly. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... second, a proud, tranquil, fearless look that sunk deep into his soul and poured balm into every wound she had ever made there. The next moment she felt a torrent of hot kisses on her face, a pressure that almost stifled her on her breast, a murmur of "Darling, my darling," and knew nothing very clearly any more except that she was loved and ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... left her at exactly the right moment. She was undoubtedly annoyed by the publication of the book; but that was because she had read some reviews of it, and was, girl-like, under the impression that the murmur of the reviewers was the mighty voice that echoes round the world. He felt that she would think differently when his real persecution began. He looked forward with great hope to the result of his real persecution. She would never hold out against that. If the bishop would only take ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... of the Fare, and the Niceness of her Appetite would permit: After which, she bruis'd the outward green Shells of a Wall-nut or two, and smear'd her lovely Face, Hands, and Part of her Arms, with the Juice; then looking into the little purling Stream, that seem'd to murmur at the Injury she did to so much Beauty, she sigh'd and wept, to think to what base Extremities she was now likely to be reduc'd! That she should be forc'd to stain that Skin which Heaven had made so ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... down on the rocky pavement a long way below. He never heard the shouts and shrieks which the incident occasioned above his head. Once only he became dimly conscious of a quivering network of prismatic flashes, which he could not see through, and a booming throb in his ears, which made him murmur dazedly: "Wirra, I thought I'd got beyond hearin' of them drums." In another moment: "What's took me?" he said, with a start. But the depths he sank among remain ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... said doubtfully. "There don't seem to me anything of guns in it. It is just a sort of murmur that ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... had known it but twenty years agoe, I would have gained a hundred pounds onely with that bait. I am bound in duty to divulge it to your Honour, and not to carry it to my grave with me. I do desire that men of quality should have it that delight in that pleasure: the greedy angler will murmur at me, but for that I care not.' Barker calls salmon roe 'an experience I have found of late: the best bait for a trout that I have seen in all my time,' and it is the most deadly, in the eddy of a turbid water. Perhaps trout would take caviare, which ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... impatience tried to lead the doctor into a run, but in this the self-possessed man checked him, knowing that he covered the most ground who walked with an even step. For a little time Matt submitted to the restraint without a murmur. At last, however, his patience failed ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... considerable humour. As the young gentleman could not see the joke however, possibly in consequence of its being on the top of his own head, it did not go off quite as well as it might have done; indeed, the young gentleman was heard to murmur some general references to 'impertinence,' and a 'rascal,' and to state the number of his lodgings in an angry tone—a turn of the conversation which might have been productive of slaughterous consequences, if a young lady, betrothed to the young gentleman, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... master: the greatness of his services, the splendour of his merit and his birth, and the fortune he had abandoned in adhering to the fate of his prince, rendered him worthy of it nor durst the courtiers even murmur at seeing him grand steward of the household, first lord of the bed-chamber, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He exactly resembled the Marshal de Grammont, in the turn of his wit and the nobleness of his manners: and like him was the honour ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... part us," Eleanor said; "forever and ever." And again they were silent—islanded in rippling tides of wind-blown grass, with the warm fragrance of dropping locust blossoms infolding them, and in their ears the endless murmur of the river. Then Eleanor said, suddenly: "Maurice!—Mr. Houghton? What will he do when he hears? He'll think an ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... before them, the full moon mirrored on its scarcely heaving surface like a tremulous column of pure and shining silver. The murmur of the ripples came up from the strand as soothing and inviting as the song of the Nereids; and if a white crest of foam rose on a wave, she could fancy it was the arm of Thetis or Galatea. There, where the blue was deepest, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... up the hill, between rows of tombs, gleaming white amid the heavy foliage, while the green turf around them was just beginning to be starred by the opening daisies, From the little chapel on its summit I looked back at the blue spires of the city, whose roar of life dwindled to a low murmur. Countless pyramids, obelisks and urns, rising far and wide above the cedars and cypresses, showed the extent of the splendid necropolis, which is inhabited by pale, shrouded emigrants from its living sister below. The only sad part of the view, was the slope of the hill ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... consciousness. Her actions appeared to flow more from her nerve-centres than from her mind. She moved like an automaton. There is scarcely any condition of which I am more fearful than this. The patient becomes wax in one's hands. She will do anything without a murmur, or as willingly refrain from anything. She simply is indifferent to life and all that therein is. Is it any wonder, then, that I rejoiced to see Gwen interest herself in poor Jeannette? It was a long time, however, before ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... a climate! And the industry of the people! Catch a few English farmers and set them to do what the Italian peasant does, year in and year out, without a murmur! Look at all the coast south of Naples. There is not a yard of it, scarcely, that hasn't been made by human hands. Look at the hill towns; and think of the human toil that has gone to the making and maintaining of them ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that his rights under the law be protected. Let us have an ordinance of the State Convention which will satisfy the demands of the popular mind, and no loyal man will murmur. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... after the forme That ye pleinly me wolde enforme, 1340 So that I may myn herte reule In loves cause after the reule. Toward this vice of which we trete Ther ben yit tweie of thilke estrete, Here name is Murmur and Compleignte: Ther can noman here chiere peinte, To sette a glad semblant therinne, For thogh fortune make hem wynne, Yit grucchen thei, and if thei lese, Ther is no weie forto chese, 1350 Wherof ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... oft at evening's close Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow, 115 The mingling notes came soften'd from below; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that low'd to meet their young; The noisy geese that gabbled o'er ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... shouted quickly, when Eveley's voice drifted away into an apologetic murmur. "Get that idea out of your head right away. I don't know a nail from ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... intend Address, and to begirt the almighty throne Beseeching or besieging. This report, These tidings carry to the anointed King; And fly, ere evil intercept thy flight. He said; and, as the sound of waters deep, Hoarse murmur echoed to his words applause Through the infinite host; nor less for that The flaming Seraph fearless, though alone Encompassed round with foes, thus answered bold. O alienate from God, O Spirit accursed, Forsaken of all good! ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... had seen the party of men pass them, and it never struck either that this was not all, till they stood beneath the opening in the act of throwing the grapnel. Then, plainly heard, came a boisterous laugh, followed by the murmur of voices. ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Bertram, who approached the wretched couch. The wounded woman took hold of his hand. "Look at him," she said, "all that ever saw his father or his grandfather, and bear witness if he is not their living image?" A murmur went through the crowd—the resemblance was too striking to be denied. "And now hear me—and let that man," pointing to Hatteraick, who was seated with his keepers on a sea-chest at some distance—"let him deny what I say, if he can. That is Henry Bertram, son to Godfrey ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... likened best to floods and streams: the shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.—Sir ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... her beauty therefore less? Is she gray or ill-complected? I should call her some success. Soft the murmur of the river, Bright the shore that lines the sea— Is the universe a flivver? No, ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... land, grey town, and peaceful village, Where never jar was heard, nor wail, nor cry of strife, From every laden stream and all the fields of tillage, Arose the murmur and the kindly hum ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... same idea), and by this friction of the dense and the rare what is rare is condensed, and resistance is caused; and again, when the rare in swift motion and the rare in slow motion come into contact, they condense one another and produce sound, and a great noise is made. The sound or murmur made by the rare moving through the rare {188} with slow motion is like the great flame whence sounds issue in the air; the exceedingly great noise made by the rare, when the air which is rare and swift mingles with that which is rare ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... generous encore, and the girls played again. Then there was a suppressed murmur of expectancy—a picture was about ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... a miner's wife, and there was no need for more. I could see the pattern of the sunlight falling through the trees upon the grass. I could hear the murmur of the river, and the cry of the cat-bird in the bushes, but we seemed to be in a strange and unreal world. Suddenly she stretched out her hands to me, and with a little moan said, "Take ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... frying-pan and cleaning the last vestige of burnt egg from the top of the stove, did not hear Mrs. Saggs come in at the front door with Aunt Elspeth's dinner on a tray. Nor did she hear the murmur of voices that went on while it was being eaten. The bedroom was in the front of the house, and the rasping noise she was making as she scratched away with the edge of an iron spoon, kept her from hearing anything else. So when the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... golden bells of Exodus, tinkling in the twilight of the temple on the priest's raiment. The clinking, clinking, that lingers in the brain long after, drawing the players to it night after night; an intoxicating murmur, singing the desires that dominate the world; the jingling ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... buzzed around him; he heard the smiling prophet saying, "Altruism, altruism," and in his voice a something seemed to murmur, "Oh, I do so hope ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... present war (Spain) is Napoleon's war; it is not even that of his army." But Napoleon himself was aware of the danger of the Empire from its own extent. In the silence of his cabinet his secretary Meneval sometimes heard him murmur, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... me! he had seen folk murmur politely in the Upper House, and drone or hammer away at the Speaker down below, with more ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... it but to lower her eyes and murmur 'thank you,' and before she reached the end of the street her discomfort had materially increased. She was humiliated and angry, humiliated that that girl should have seen through her so easily, angry that Ralph should have ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... across the bridge. All of them searched the base of the dam—or as much of it as could be seen, for the fringe of trees and shrubs that masked it—but not a moving figure did they see. The water poured over the flashboard with a splashing murmur at that distance, and ran down under the bridge in a rocky bed. It was clear and cool looking. Below the factories the river water was of an entirely different color, and people in Seacove had begun to object ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... ex sectione secunda satis constat, glaciem, neque septem, neque octo mensibus circa ipsam Insulam fluitare: Deinde etiam, glaciem hanc, et si interdum ex collisione grandes sonitus & fragores edit, interdum propter vndarum alluuionem, raucum murmur personat, quicquam tamen human voci simile resonare ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... lines of her delicate face hardened, but she said nothing—nothing really audible, that is to say, though a murmur escaped her of, 'I knew it had something to do with them; it is ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... familiar path. It was full of memories of his wooing of Denas, and he smiled with a soft triumph to them. And the exquisite morning, the thrushes singing to the sun, the fluting of the blackbirds, the south wind swinging the blue-bells, the mystical murmur of the sea—all these things set themselves unconsciously to his ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... state-room from her hand. They both stoop, and a jocose scuffle for it ensues, after which the talk takes an autobiographical turn on the part of the young man, and drops into an unintelligible murmur. "Ah! poor Real Life, which I love, can I make others share the delight I find in thy foolish ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... England had been annihilated. The Welch took no step to excite an insurrection in his favour; the French made no attempt towards an invasion; his court was divided into factions; the highland chiefs began to murmur, and their clans to be unruly; he saw himself with a handful of men hemmed in between two considerable armies, in the middle of winter, and in a country disaffected to his cause. He knew he could not proceed to the metropolis ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... moments as now occurred. As soon as the kitchen-dining-room door closed behind them like the portals of sanctuary, Osborn held out his arms and Marie went to them. She rested there while Osborn kissed her with hard, devouring kisses which made her murmur little pleased protests. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... light, changed, as the sinking orb declined, from purple to flame-color, and thence to ashy, angry gray. Night rushed onwards, like a sable steed. There was a dead calm. The stillness was undisturbed, save by an intermittent, sighing wind, which, hollow as a murmur from the grave, died as it rose. At once the gray clouds turned to an inky blackness. A single, sharp, intensely vivid flash, shot from the bosom of the rack, sheer downwards, and struck the earth with a report like that of a piece of ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the sentence was whispered in the ear of his listener, but the effect was magical. The Honorable Mr. Tickels started, and rapidly surveyed the person and countenance of the Corporal; then he reddened with confusion, and began to murmur a broken apology for his conduct, in which ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... terrible spectacle met my eyes, for I crossed those parts of the town in which preparations had been made for a house-to-house fight. The incessant groaning of big and small guns reduced to an uncanny murmur all the other sounds that came from armed men ceaselessly crying out to one another from barricade to barricade, and from one house to another, which they had broken through. Pitch brands burnt here and there, pale-faced figures lay prostrate around the watch-posts, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... so positive, so wholesome!" he would murmur to himself in tacit apology for the instructive hours spent before their common ground, the great fireplace in the central hall. He never sat there without remembering their first interview: her resentment at an ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... the evening, when the murmur of the multitude was hushed, I crawled cautiously into the cairn (I should have been buried alive had it collapsed), and at once commenced operations with the flint and steel and tinder which I had taken care to leave there. In another minute I had set fire to the wood and dry material ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... got a part in it, That I can wear a cloak in and look smart in it? Not that I care a fig for gaudy show, dear boy— But juveniles must look well, don't you know, dear boy; And shall I lordly hall and tuns of claret own? And may I murmur love in dulcet baritone? Tell me, at least, this simple fact of it— Can I beat Terriss hollow ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... phraseology came smoothly from his tongue. He knew no other. It drew a murmur of amusement from the room ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... was proving an unqualified success. People entered into the spirit of the thing and spent their money without a murmur. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... disposed, and still frequently, notwithstanding the chasm that separated the parties, joined hands in a common endeavour to effect the removal of the worst evils. But, while they did not stop the evil at its source, it was to little purpose that the better-disposed listened with anxiety to the dull murmur of the swelling flood and worked at dikes and dams. Contenting themselves with palliatives, and failing to apply even these—especially such as were the most important, the improvement of justice, for instance, and the distribution ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... decision of the Lord.' Stone passed nearly the whole night in prayer and supplication for wisdom to decide the matter, and the next morning declared to the officers that the view taken by their leader was the right one; on which they all submitted without a murmur. ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... his advice, and without another murmur we commenced our march. We got over five or six miles before it grew dusk, when we camped near a pool of fresh water, numbers of which are found ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... of Musa was a pathetic one. Never was there a Moslem, he said, who less deserved such a fate; never a man of milder heart, braver soul, or more pious and obedient disposition. In the end the poor old man broke down, and he could only murmur,— ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... when Margaret got out the threefold mirror and showed her herself in the new headgear. She trotted away at last, the wonderful bonnet in one hand, the box in the other, a look of awe on her face, and Margaret heard her murmur as she put ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... clambering into the immense bed, and whose head was already buried in an enormous pillow. "As I was saying," he continued hazily, "put it to her in—in that way, and—and—no doubt ... very probably ... no reason to suppose ... any...." But here his voice sank into an unintelligible murmur, until it rose presently into his first, but not by any means last, snore in ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... d'Aspe, after the manner of Pyrenean rivers, making cascades, waterfalls, whirlpools on its way. Most beautiful are these mountain streams, their waters of pure, deep green, their surface broken by coruscations of dazzlingly white foam and spray, their murmur ever in our ears. When far away we hardly miss the grand contours of the Pyrenees more than the music of their rushing waters. No tourists meet us here, yet whither shall we go for scenes sublimer or ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... went to sea himself, and took his wife down to Devonshire before he sailed, eh?" said the captain. "Very fine goings on, upon my word! And did Miss Rosy consent to leave her father's home without a murmur?" he asked, angrily. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... congregated travelers, I casually set down a suit-case which was plastered over with many labels from many lands; and this suit-case affected them as I might be affected by a messenger from Mars. They spelled out many unfamiliar languages, and a murmur of amazement swept through the entire company when one of them discovered that that suit-case had been to Morocco. Morocco, they assured me, was a place where black men rode on camels; and I had no heart to tell them that it was a country where white men rode on mules. ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... prisoners, but because, owing to the fight that had taken place, the matter was very much more serious than a mere capture of contraband goods. There was a general buzz of conversation until three magistrates came in and took their places, and there was a little murmur of satisfaction as Colonel Chambers, the chairman, took his seat; for, had he not been present, Mr. Faulkner, who was next in seniority, would have taken the chair. A minute later, twelve prisoners were brought in. Five Frenchmen ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... could, for once, stand there in the soft November sunshine. The splendor of the light is veiled in a golden haze, the brown fields bask in the soft radiance and seem to quiver in the heat, while the ceaseless murmur of the great river is like a cradle song to a sleepy child; the rattle of the old ferryman's chain and the drowsy squeak of his long sweeps seem even to augment the stillness. The trees along the banks appear to lack the energy to ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... forlornly in a corner, refusing all offers of partners, but watching wistfully as the others whirled by. Miss Hampson, whose wrath was of the short, explosive kind that quickly turns to softness of heart, was understood to murmur something to Miss Todd about the impossibility of waltzing in anything but dancing-slippers; but the Principal's mouth was set firm, and she would not remit the least atom of the sentence till it was paid to ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... energetic conviction with which Raymond spoke, his bold and martial bearing, the flash of his eye, and the indignant rage of his manner, impressed his hearers as they listened, and a murmur of applause followed his exclamation. Marie, pale as death, sat like a statue of marble; her hands clasped, her breath suspended, and her eyes fixed wildly on the trembling old man,—the object of ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... and tried to picture the chief events of those years; but we could not remember what they were; so we sat down on the grassy fort, regardless of ticks and redbugs, to read up some more. For a while there was no sound but the twitter of the birds and the murmur of the river. Then the Commodore found something in his book, and he began very solemnly to tell of how on that very spot the colonists endured the horrors of the "Starving Time." At this there was such a genuine exclamation of pleasure from ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... road; and sincerely did I pity the feeble men, whom I saw in the burning heat of a tropical sun, which was reflected with redoubled intensity from the bare sandstone rocks, toiling to displace large stones and obstacles which they had hardly sufficient strength to move; not a murmur however escaped them; they saw the necessity of the case and exerted their failing energies as readily as they had done when these were in full strength and vigour. The road was at last made and we moved on to the westward, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey |
