"Mutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jove and jealousy well placed; What sport to see proud Oberon stare, And flirt it with a pet-en Pair!" Then thrice she stamped the trembling ground, And thrice she waved her wand around; When I endowed with greater skill, And less inclined to do you ill, Mutter'd some words, withheld her arm And kindly stoppld the unfinish'd charm But though not changed to owl or bat, Or something more indelicate; Yet, as your tongue has run too fast, Your boasted beauty must not last, No more shall frolic Cupid lie In ambuscade ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... as he told all he knew the Colonel groaned again and again and to Dick's horror he heard him mutter to himself:— ...
— Our Soldier Boy • George Manville Fenn
... hark! The lark sings high in the dark. The were wolves mutter, the night hawks moan, The raven croaks from the Raven-stone; What care I for his boding groan, Riding the moorland to come to mine own? Hark! hark! hark! The lark sings high in ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... clasped his hands together violently as if under a strong impulse. In doing so, the clank of his chains echoed harshly through the cell. This seemed to change the current of his thoughts, for he again covered his face with both hands and began to mutter to himself. ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... And Taggi responded. A mutter became a growl, teeth gleamed—those cruel teeth of a carnivore to whom they were weapons of aggression. Danger ... Shann thought "danger." Then he raised his hand, and the wolverine shuffled off, heading north. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... stage at the front, and Peter sat in the shadow back of me. Julia and one of Peter's classmates were just behind us. As the curtain went up Peter took a hard hold on my hand under my white chiffon scarf, and I heard him mutter ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... would mutter aloud, under the old man's constant appeals to Clara, "I shan't be sorry when this ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... deepened the depression which she felt creeping over her, as the fog had crept over the country side. The village children had been called in by their mothers, and there was not the usual sound of boys and girls at play in the street. The rumble of a cart in the distance sounded like the mutter and mumble of a discontented spirit; and as Lucy passed through the square formed by the old timbered houses by the lych gate, ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... invested by God Himself with supernatural powers for that specific purpose, it must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work. For God always adapts means to ends. Hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language—tribunals that dare not commit themselves to anything definite and precise. Yea, which utterly fail and break down just at the critical moment, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... having adjusted his teeth, his wig, and his glass eye, thanked Dr. Small for a suggestion so valuable, and thought best to put John Pearson under arrest before proceeding further. Mr. Pearson was therefore arrested, and was heard to mutter something about a "passel of thieves," when the court warned him to ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... and ghastly hag Who walks head bent, with lips a-mutter; With twitching hands and feet that drag, And tattered skirts that sweep the gutter. An outworn harlot, lost to hope, With staring eyes and hair that's hoary I hear her gibber, dazed with dope: I often wonder ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... in the tone of a doctor who has found arsenic in the stomach at a post-mortem inquiry. The truth is that whenever a scene in a novel is really convincing, a certain type of critical and uncreative mind will infallibly mutter in accents of pain, "Autobiography!" When I was discussing this topic the other day a novelist not inferior to Mr. Wells suddenly exclaimed: "I say! Supposing we did write autobiography!"... Yes, if we did, what a celestial rumpus there ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bondsman to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... however, a minute later, when he felt sure he could again hear the low mutter of voices. It struck him that several persons might be urging each other on, as though inclined to feel the need ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his resentment against this complacent Christendom which took so much from the Jew and gave so little. 'Shylocks!' he would mutter between his clenched teeth as he ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... of petulance, followed by one of inquiry, came up from Milburn's eyes, and he pressed his head between his wrists, as if to bring back the blood that might propel his judgment. They heard him mutter, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... are playing That grand old wordless rhyme; And still those two ate swaying In perfect tune and time. If the great bassoons that mutter, If the clarinets that blow, Were given a voice to utter The ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of priests o'er our union was mutter'd, To rivet the fetters of husband and wife; By our lips, by our hearts, were our vows alone utter'd, To perform them, in full, would ask more than ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... grey cloaks adorn The bellicose backs of the high-well-born; Once more to the click of martial boots Junkers exchange their grave salutes, Taking the pavement, large with side, Shoulders padded and elbows wide; And if a civilian dares to mutter They boost him off ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... to go," Ma Mandle would mutter. "I'm better off at home. You enjoy yourself better without ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... have given me something better to do, then. If you had taught me an honest trade, I should not have been so given to making penny whistles and cutting cockades out of foolscap paper. Nay, don't look so black, and mutter, 'Fool's cap paper, indeed!' between your teeth. I'll go, I'll go," and he accordingly ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... said one evening to me, 'dat dis not go on much much longer. De crew getting desperate. Dey talk and mutter among demselves. Me thinks ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... hunter shook his head solemnly as he said this in a low voice, more to himself than to his companions, and he continued to mutter and shake his head for some minutes, while he knocked the ashes out of his pipe. Having refilled and relighted it, he drew his blanket over his shoulder, laid his head upon a tuft of grass, and continued to smoke until he fell asleep, and ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... there was no wickedness under the sun that he had not practised in his time. He was also one of the very few among the prisoners who insulted the venerable chaplain when he could, though all the notice the good man took of it was to mutter to himself, "N'importe." ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... limbs? —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! And then how I shall lie through centuries, 80 And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... no friend in the place. It would have been fatally dangerous to mutter anything before such an assemblage. He was by this time an utterly broken and disgraced old man; wishful, of all things, to get away and hide himself and his miseries from the public gaze; probably with his senses deadened and stupefied by the mental sufferings he had undergone, and no ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... lost Lilian Dale round and round with his inexorable crank. It does not disturb me that his organ wheezes and sputters and grunts. Indeed, there is for me absolutely no wheeze, no sputter, no grunt. I only see dark eyes of Italy, her olive face, and her gemmed and lustrous hair. You mutter maledictions on the infernal noise and caterwauliug. I hear no caterwauliug, but the river-god of Arno ripples soft songs in the summertide to the lilies that bend above him. It is the guitar of the cantatrice that murmurs through the scented, dewy air,—the cantatrice ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... lieutenant. Her emphasis assured me that the inspiration I had obeyed was a felicitous touch. She pressed still closer to me, mindful of my dignity, and prompted me further, in an artistic mutter, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... finished the man uttered an inarticulate mutter, and flushed deeply, dashing out of the room as the ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... in honour of the arrival of the Prince of Wales; and as the little cavalcade dismounted at the door and entered the noble hall, a figure, habited after the fashion of the ecclesiastics of the day, stepped forth to greet the scion of royalty, and the twin brothers heard their comrades mutter, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... by, a movement of reverent worship vibrates through the crowd. Forgetful of silks and broadcloth and gossip, they fall on their knees in one party-colored mass, and, bowing their heads and beating their breasts, they mutter their mechanical prayers. There are thinking men who say these shows are necessary; that the Latin mind must see with bodily eyes the thing it worships, or the worship will fade away from its heart. If there were no cathedrals and masses, they say, there would be no religion; if ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... on the midnight sand, Heap the fire and mutter the charm, Call her out to ye, soul in hand, Blind and bare to the moon she'll stand, Then out to the sea ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... without too much effort the three transported the injured man, who was but a light weight, across the yard, into the house, and to a room which Mrs. Candace showed them. He began to groan and mutter before they managed to get him ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... Spiele der Menschen, p. 112. Zmigrodzki (Die Mutter bei den Volkern des Arischen Stammes, p. 414 et seq.) has an interesting passage describing the dance—especially the Russian dance—in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... away and walked to the window, his face a deep scarlet. I heard him mutter, "Beelzebub, prince of devils," so I suppose the cabin boy had given ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly; Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... sensible philosophies and the wholesome chatter which the open-street trades and street gossipry encourage, for it is good for the populace to sfogare and in no other way can it do so one-half so innocently. Drive it back into musty shops, and it is driven at once to mutter sedition. . . . But you want ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the burro as if asleep. He had never once roused to give heed to the words or the trail through the long ride. At times where the way was rough he would mutter thanks at the help of Kit ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... A cat bereft, Of all my kittens, but one is left. I make no charges, but this I ask,— What made such a splurge in the waste-water cask? You are quite tender-hearted. Oh, not a doubt! But only suppose old Black Pond could speak out. Oh, bother! don't mutter excuses to me: Qui facit per alium facit ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... of chimeras, his heart of true love, was slowly walking through the woodlands of the Parcq de Charrebourg, towards that haunted spot, the cottage in which the beautiful demoiselle had passed her happiest days, when the storm began to mutter over the rising grounds, and before he had made much way, the thunder burst above his head with fury, and in a little time the rain descended with such tropical violence as to arrest his further progress, under the dense canopy of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... unusual!" I said dryly, and slipped past him as he barred the way. He was not pleased; I heard him mutter something and come rapidly after me, but I had the voices as a guide, and I was not going to be turned back like a child. The men had gathered around a low stone arch in the furnace room, and were looking down a short flight of steps, into ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... soon as we have yielded to the infernal temptation, the lying prism vanishes, the halo disappears, and there only remains vice in all its hideousness and repulsive nudity. It is then that we hear a threatening voice mutter secretly in ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... Your radio doesn't work any more. I'm bringing the message from Nyjord that you have been waiting to hear." This was a slight bending of the truth without fracturing it. There was no answer—just the hiss of wind-blown sand against the rock and the mutter of the car in the background. ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... blessed stream rests from its rocky wanderings, all its mountaineering done,—no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild, exulting song. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by the night-wind, which, coming down the canon, makes it croon and mutter in ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... turned toward the only faces that he saw out of the innumerable host: Themistocles, Democrates, Simonides, Cimon. They beheld him raise his arm and lift his glorious head yet higher. Glaucon in turn saw Cimon sink into his seat. "He wakes!" was the appeased mutter passing from the son of Miltiades and running along every tier of Athenians. And silence deeper than ever held the stadium; for now, with Lycon victor twice, the literal turning of a finger in the next event might win ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... at those bodies piled between the castle and the shore, and it was easy to see that he was laughing and pointing them out to the Scots. At that Brian heard his men mutter no little, and he himself clenched his nails into his palms and cursed bitterly; but he forbade his men to fire and they durst not disobey him. The party rode up under the walls, and the Dark Master grinned ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... his jackalls: and his avant-couriers: for it was well known how dearly he loved every thing that was interesting and rare in the literature of former ages. As he walked the streets of London—careless of his dress—and whether his wig was full-bottomed or narrow-bottomed—he would talk and "mutter strange speeches" to himself; thinking all the time, I ween, of some curious discovery he had recently made in the aforesaid precious black-letter tomes. But the reader is impatient for the Bibliotheca Farmeriana: ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, "Too much pepper!" which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another of the same period, whose profession was originally house-breaking; in the pursuit ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... for yourselves, and the worse for Tom Tailor," said the Baron; "but come, sit down, or, if thou needs must e'en give us a cast of thy office, mutter thy charm." ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... a light cloud passed over his visage, and I heard him mutter to himself in the Scottish dialect, "Beef and pudding! 'tis cauld kail ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the person becoming affectionate or quarrelsome. There is a loss of coordination as shown by the staggering, swinging, the relaxation of the muscles, and finally deep sleep, with snoring breathing. The person is unconscious, but can be partly aroused and will mutter when questioned or disturbed. The pupils are contracted or dilated, and they will dilate when the face is slapped. The urine is increased, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... almost rounded the slough and were gradually closing towards the wooded ground of the river bank. We were within ear-shot of the settlers. They were flying past with terrified cries of "The half-breeds! The half-breeds!" when I heard Grant groan from sheer alarm and mutter— ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... her scream and faint, but on the contrary, to my complete amazement, she merely bowed her head and dropped quietly upon her knees. Then, after a pause of more than a minute, she raised her eyes to the roof and her lips began to mutter as in prayer. Her right hand, meanwhile, which had been fumbling for some time at her throat suddenly came away, and before the gaze of all of us she held it out, palm upwards, over the grey and ancient figure outstretched below. And in it we beheld glistening the green jasper ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Ach! Gott im Himmel! He's in the hall!" She sank wretchedly into a chair. "Can you do nothing but gape and mutter?" In her desperation ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... cabinet. His eyes flashed, and his face, which elsewhere was impenetrable, like that of the brazen statues of the Roman emperors, disclosed the fiery impatience and stormy passions which raged within him. His lips, which were pressed closely together, opened now and then to mutter a word of threatening or of anger, and that word he hurled like a poisoned arrow directly at the man who, in a respectful attitude and with pallid cheeks, stood not far from the door, near the table covered ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... a mutter from the west, a hollow, solemn warning; and the cliffs responded with a plaintive moan. Even incredulous Hayoue started, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... and fling themselves by me as I eat my noonday meal. The one, red-eyed, furtive, lies on his side with restless, clutching hands that tear and twist and torture the living grass, while his lips mutter incoherently. The other sits stooped, bare- footed, legs wide apart, his face grey, almost as grey as his stubbly beard; and it is not long since Death looked him in the eyes. He tells me querulously of ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... the first time conscious of her subjects, and at the end, when her hands fluttered, as a woman delighted, awed not a little, but transfigured and illuminated with sheer, compelling affection and goodwill. I caught the broken mutter of welcome—the coo which is more than tornadoes of applause. It died and rose and ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... in sprees, was observed in his Sunday clothes throwing five bushels of corn on the ear into the pen where he kept half a dozen hogs, and he was heard to mutter: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... in moody solitude, Spreads her huge tracks and frozen wastes around, There ice-rocks piled aloft, in order rude, Form a gigantic hall, where never sound Startled dull Silence' ear, save when profound The smoke-frost mutter'd: there drear Cold for aye Thrones him,—and, fix'd on his primaval mound, Ruin, the giant, sits; while stern Dismay Stalks like some woe-struck man along ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... to hell!" and the man fades away again, without even looking startled, to mutter "Well, you needn' be so damn peeved about it—I'll say you needn' be so damn peeved—whatcha think you are, anyhow—Marathon Mike?" as Oliver's feet take Oliver ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... author didn't know what a stainless gentleman Mr. Red House is he would think he heard him mutter a word that gentlemen ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... to mutter, for Captain Ogilvy's letter suddenly occurred to his mind. Opening it hastily, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... Churchwardens be prepared with hose whenever a prelate runs any chance of ignition from his own "burning eloquence." If Mr. Punch's advice as above is acted upon, a Bishop if "put out" may probably mutter, "Darn your hose." But this can be easily ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... hard for some sixty of Uncle Sam's men to stand there, with guns in their hands, and witness such desecration as that. Some of the soldiers began to mutter. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... almost, for the mail up from Pocotaligo today, is it not, Pluto?" she said, moving towards a book-case. Receiving no reply, she stopped and looked at him, at which he recovered himself enough to mutter, "Yes, mist'ess," and turned towards the door, his trembling tones and the half-groping movement as he put his hand out before him showed he was laboring under some emotion too intense for concealment, and involuntarily she made a ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... couldn't let the crew see him like this, I was obliged to struggle and get him back into his bunk. He was like a log and absolutely incapable of rendering me any assistance, though he did open his eyes and mutter once or twice as I lifted him up, trunk first and then his legs. He stank of spirits and I hated touching him. Lord! what a truly hoggish man he is; yet I cannot help envying him his ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... not being able to answer him. He was the cleverest man at war that I have known, either before or since that day; sharper than any hound in ear and scent, clearer sighted than any eagle; he was listening now intently. I saw a slight smile cross his face; heard him mutter, "Yes! I think so: verily that is better, a great deal better." Then he stood up in his stirrups, and shouted, "Hurrah for the Lilies! Mary rings!" "Mary rings!" I shouted, though I did not know the reason for his exultation: my brother lifted his head, and smiled too, ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... the captain's quarters. We found him a very pleasant young man, keenly conscious of the difficulties of his position; as we afterwards heard, he was such an improvement on his predecessor that the carabinieri were convinced he was a Yugoslav and had been heard to mutter threats against his life. He had apologized to the inhabitants, and had dismissed one of his men who had hauled down a Yugoslav flag and blown his nose on it. For these men an extenuating circumstance was that they had been very drunk on the night before our arrival, as they had ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... Gentile care for truth? They want you to worship one dead man, and you prefer to worship another dead man. What's the odds to you? Can't you mutter your Latin, and play with your beads, before both, ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... with her the scenes she was chiefly concerned in with Sir Courtly, which I then acted. However, we ran them over with a mutual inadvertency of one another. I seem'd careless, as concluding that any assistance I could give her would be to little or no purpose; and she mutter'd out her words in a sort of mifty manner at my low opinion of her. But when the play came to be acted, she had just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment, by the (almost) amazement that her unexpected performance awak'd me to; so forward and sudden a step ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... but the chuckling mutter of the tide along the buoys, But the creak of straining cables, but the night wind's mournful noise, Sighing with a rising murmur in among the ropes and spars, Setting every shroud and backstay singing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... explanation of the hatred, of the intense animosity, shown by these people? Was that then the reason why these two Berlin constables, for one of them at least knew Jules and Henri to be French—why they too should grit their teeth, should scowl and mutter at the name of Britain? Yes, indeed, that was the reason why all the subjects of the Kaiser, deliriously happy but a few hours ago, were now snarling with anger, less contented with what was occurring, furiously indignant at something beyond their ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... that troubled the magician. He began to mutter spells and strange words, and all of a sudden he was gone, and in his place was a great black ant, for he had changed himself into an ant. In he ran through a crack of the door (and mischief has got into many a man's house ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... the Prussian troopers when missed the General and drove the enemy back till they found him again; though what it all meant we never knew till it was over. Then, after mighty little rest, we marched fast and far, with cannon-thunder in our ears in a constant mutter, always growing louder, until in the afternoon we came at a quickstep through a piece of woods out upon the plain by Waterloo, where they had been fighting all day. Our feet sucked in the damp ground, the wet grain brushed our knees, as our compact ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... her gray head and feel for the beads of her rosary, and mutter many an Ave for the repose of my soul. Much as I wished it, I could never get her to talk about her mistress—it was the one subject on which she was invariably silent. On one occasion when I spoke with apparent ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... turned pale; Freddy and Teddy opened their eyes to their widest. Jeffreys, on hearing Freddy mutter "Father," looked round curiously, to get a view of the father of ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... him mutter as he neared the boat-house where Fin and I were stowing cargo. "Ought to be worn on a watch-chain or ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... loudly that land so fair,[E] "The king thou set'st over us, by a free air Is swept away, senseless." And old Sword then First knew the might of great Captain Pen. So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his brain, That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his reign; Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood; and now 'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his brow. Then suddenly came he, with gowned men, And said, "Now observe me—I'm Captain Pen: I'll lead all your changes—I'll write all your books— I'm every thing—all ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... cried Tim Rooney rather savagely as he stopped and faced round towards the break of the poops on which Mr Mackay stood by the rail; and I'm sure I heard him mutter something else below his breath even that ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... I really believe that Malachi's hair bristled between the phrenologist's fingers. Whenever he made a hit his staunch admirer, "Donegal," would exclaim "Look at that now!" while the girls tittered and said, "Just fancy!" and from time to time Malachi would be heard to mutter to himself, in a tone of the most intense conviction, that, "without the least mistake it was a caution." Several times at his work the next day Malachi was observed to rest on his spade, while he tilted his hat forward with one hand and felt the back of his head as though he had not been previously ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... together. Later he saw Richardson quit the gambler's presence abruptly. The other took a few steps after him, then fell back with a shrug. Broderick heard the deputy-marshal mutter: "Too damned fresh; positively insulting," but he thought little of it. Richardson was apt to grow choleric while drinking. He often fancied himself insulted, but usually forgot it quickly. So Broderick ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... denunciation, the fair culprit gasped for breath, and her evident distress having been watched in growing wonder by the assembled ladies and cavaliers, the latter began to mutter threats of vengeance. One of them now stepped forward, and, grasping the hilt of his rapier, accused the Venetian of having insulted the wife of a nobleman high in the councils of the archduke, when the Proveditore, looking down upon the courtier with that riveted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... the plot doth thicken that would make way with Jesus? Passed is that day when the Sanhedrin did sneer and condemn and mutter and hatch plans. Now doth it ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... it is true, would mutter "shocking!" And give her head a sorrowful rocking, And make a clucking with palate and tongue, Like the call of Partlet to gather her young, A sound, when human, that always proclaims At least a thousand pities and shames; But still the darker the tale of sin, Like certain ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... She sat quite confounded. 'Is it Robert Moore that speaks?' I heard her mutter. 'Is it a man—or ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... would in my shoes," whispered Betty back with ever so slight a trembling of her left eyelid; while Margaret heard the king mutter to ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... as half a mile away an illuminated window beamed invitingly. Encouraged by it, they quickened their steps a little. But almost at the same time La Boulaye stirred on the cloak, and the men who carried him heard him speak. At first it was an incoherent mutter, then ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... with light; And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last Must needs express his love's excess With words of unmeant bitterness. Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together Thoughts so all unlike each other; To mutter and mock a broken charm, To dally with wrong that does no harm Perhaps 'tis tender too, and pretty, At each wild word to feel within A sweet recoil of love and pity. And what if in a world of sin (O sorrow and shame should this be true!) Such giddiness of heart and brain Comes seldom ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... asked she, and crossed herself with looks of superstitious alarm. "You can buy what you like in the village, and cook it in our oven; but, prithee, mutter no charms nor sorceries here, good man; don't ye now, it do make my ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... and wailed as if he did not like these strange creatures a bit. Scraps began to mutter something about "hoppity, poppity, jumpity, dump!" but no one paid any attention to her. Ojo kept close to the Scarecrow and the Scarecrow kept close to Dorothy; but the little girl turned to the ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... his little ones playing somewhere near the spot, he clutched his ride more firmly, and gasped out their names one by one. Where were they?—his sunny-hearted Bessie, his manly little Rudolph, and Kitty, his bright-eyed darling? Alas! the only answer to the father's call was the angry mutter of the thunder, or the quick lightning that flashed ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... is this awful secret? I know that something is killing you. You mutter in sleep; you are sullen at times; and then you break ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... have lost that paper here, after all," Dave heard the international spy mutter in a low voice. "Certainly it has not been picked up, for I came back almost instantly, and there was no one near. It is not likely that I shall ever see that important ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... goaded men to mutter Words unhappily profane, Trailed in ball-room or in gutter, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... Park: His horses wait; he's going for a ride.' 'Fool, 'tis his tilbury,' another cried; 'D'ye think his lordship rides without his spurs?' 'A curse upon such base unmanner'd curs,' Between his teeth impatient Belcour mutter'd, As each his wit so truly attic utter'd; Then, 'mid the laughter of the brutal throng, Dark frowning through the door he moved along. Within the upper lobby Morris sate, And touch'd with easy complaisance his hat; And cried, not deigning from his seat to stir, 'We hope you're pretty comfortable, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... dark. I found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and painlessly struck her out of being. Since the night of my return from Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the darkness of God. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat leaving its hiding place—a ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... all. It broke in, not through well-contrived and well-disposed windows, but through flaws and breaches,—through the yawning chasms of our ruin. We were taught wisdom by humiliation. No town in England presumed to have a prejudice, or dared to mutter a petition. What was worse, the whole Parliament of England, which retained authority for nothing but surrenders, was despoiled of every shadow of its superintendence. It was, without any qualification, denied in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... flapping the covers back without removing them, they were apt to feel and smell unaired, and to be rumpled and loose at the foot. Susan could not turn over in the night without arousing Mary Lou, who would mutter a terrified "What is it—what is it?" for the next ten minutes. Years before, Susan, a timid, country-bred child, had awakened many a time in the night, frightened by the strange city noises, or the fire-bells, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... consequence of my refusal of further advances, and that he should be unable to provide for his family, I said: 'Why, Twigsmith, retire to one of your country seats, and live on the interest of some canal or other, or discount bonds and mortgages for the country banks.' Actually, I heard Twigsmith mutter as he went out, that it wasn't right to insult a man's poverty. Now I hadn't the remotest idea of injuring Twigsmith's feelings, for he was a very clever fellow, and we made a good thing out of him in his time, but it seems that my advice might not ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... past indicates the depths plumbed by the early creed in the abyss of Eastern personality. The vague simulacrum quickly faded, like a flickering flame in the wind which fanned it into life; but simple souls, as they pass Boro-Boedoer in the brief twilight, mutter incantations, and brown hands grasp the silver amulets which ward off the powers of evil, for the deserted temple is still regarded as the haunt of unknown gods, who may perchance wreak vengeance on the world which ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... at the western end of the Cuzco Basin. At the last point from which one can see the city of Cuzco, all true Indians, whether on their way out of the valley or into it, pause, turn toward the east, facing the city, remove their hats and mutter a prayer. I believe that the words they use now are those of the "Ave Maria," or some other familiar orison of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the custom undoubtedly goes far back of the advent of the first Spanish ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... a line with our house, when the wind from the lake caught and drove it back. The underbrush soon burnt out, but the trees were like pillars of flame, crackling and roaring in the silent night, till they fell with a crash to the ground. Half roused by the noise, old Cahill would mutter something about keeping watch until the master came home. The old fellow had wrapped himself in his great-coat, and was sitting on a chair in the yard sound asleep. Fearing that he might catch cold, I woke him. But he treated the insinuation that he had slept a wink with such indignant ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... the Greek, petulantly, "that he begins to suspect; that I have seen him watch thee, and mutter as he watched, and play with the hilt of his dagger. Better let us fly ere it is too late, for his vengeance would be terrible were it once roused against us. Ah, why did I ever forsake my own sweet land for these barbarous shores! There, love is not ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... now, could that have anything to do with it," they heard him mutter, as he looked curiously at ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... stab a toad, And mutter swift, as vypers swear; And spectres that the cauldrons wrought, Glare at the storm-swept sins that tell Of monsters that the night-winds rode When bloody plumes stole to a lair Beyond the confines of a ghaut. And ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... was a far greater fault than the first, and his father only treated it as his just desert when he was ordered off under the squire in charge to be soundly scourged, all the more sharply for his continuing to mutter, "It was her fault." ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the heralds blow their trumpets again and call for her, and she comes. She is dressed all in white, and she looks so beautiful and pale and sad that nobody who was not wicked himself could ever suspect her of doing anything wicked, and all the men about mutter that the one who says that she killed her brother will have to prove it. They have just heard the King say something of the kind, so they feel very righteous and very bold about it. The King, then, asks her if she can say anything about this dreadful accusation, ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... von den hoechsten Ideen der Zeit getragen und suchte die Erziehung an diese Ideen anzuknuepfen. So lange die Mutter nicht nach den Gesetzen der Natur ihr Kind erzieht und bildet und dafuer nicht ihr Leben einsetst, so lange—davon geht er aus—sind alle Reformen der Schule auf Sand gebaut. Trotsdem verlegt er einen Theil der muetterlichen Aufgabe ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... way, and once more began to mutter to himself: 'Ah, if I could but shudder! Ah, if I could but shudder!' A waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked: 'Who are you?' 'I don't know,' answered the youth. Then the waggoner asked: 'From whence do you come?' 'I know not.' ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... interest in its success. What a powerful sensation, for instance, is that which we experience when, after studying the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' Gibbon tells us how the thought of writing it came to him upon the Capitol, among the ruins of dead Rome, and within hearing of the mutter of the monks of Ara Coeli, and how he finished it one night by Lake Geneva, and laid his pen down and walked forth and saw the stars above ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... mutter something more, when his father jumped up, and, taking him by the collar, led him to the cellar-door, and told him to go down and stay until he was sent for. Then, shutting the door, and turning the button, he resumed his seat at the table, and ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... disorganization of the after-dinner promenade on the veranda, was instantly referred to Sarah Walker. Nor were her efforts confined entirely to public life. In cozy corners and darkened recesses, bearded lips withheld the amorous declaration to mutter "Sarah Walker" between their clenched teeth; coy and bashful tongues found speech at last in the rapid formulation of "Sarah Walker." Nobody ever thought of abbreviating her full name. The two people in the hotel, otherwise individualized, but known only as "Sarah Walker's father" and "Sarah Walker's ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... frightfully close in the little attic, and she heard the low mutter of the rising storm in the west. She forgot her troubles a little, listening to the far-off gigantic footsteps ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the great folk disappeared in the windings of the neighboring streets. The group in the portico scattered. The sexton was locking up the doors, when two women were perceived, who had stopped to cross themselves and mutter a prayer, and who were now going on their way ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... of them, I think it was Alfonso, mutter. I resented it, but Kennedy affected not ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... the boys outside heard the man mutter to himself. "Phil Lawrence? Oh, it can't be!" Then he raised his voice: "You are trying to play some trick on ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... too disconcerted to do more than mutter confusedly: "I! . . . In a general way. . ." and then gave me up. But he retired in good order, under the cover of a heavily humorous remark that he, too, was getting soft, and that this was his time for taking ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... looking down; he got up in confusion, and went to the window. From there he heard Sabina mutter: "I say, let's swear blood bond. Where's your knife, Freda?" and out of the corner of his eye could see each of them solemnly prick herself, squeeze out a drop of blood and dabble on a bit of paper. He turned and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lebendigem Glauben.... Die Predigt muss eine That des Predigers auf seinem Studirzimmer, sie muss abermals eine That seyn auf der Kanzel; er muss, wenn er herunter kommt, Mutterfreuden fuehlen, Freuden der Mutter, die unter Gottes Segen ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... fond of mosques, delighting in their airy simplicity, in their casual holiness which seemed to say to her, "Worship in me if you will. If you will not, never mind; dream in me with open eyes, or, if you prefer it, go to sleep in a corner of me. When you wake you can mutter a prayer, or not, just ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... lower! there is only the closed door between my room and his," whispered Brettison, "and he is restless to-night. I've heard him move and mutter. In Heaven's name, what is it—the ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... faces of his fellows and saw that the effect was electrical. The great ships swung around into battle order and the responsive sea rocked and churned as the massive vessels raced for what were virtually enemy waters. As the grand fleet drew near the scene of action the smoke of battle and mutter of guns came down on the winds. The eagerness of the men became almost unbearably intense and it was a blessed relief when our own guns ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... made Mr. W. the subject of their serious conversation. One said that "He had seen him wander about by night, and look rather strangely at the moon! and then, he roamed over the hills, like a partridge." Another said, "He had heard him mutter, as he walked, in some outlandish brogue, that nobody could understand!" Another said, "It's useless to talk, Thomas, I think he is what people call a 'wise man.'" (a conjuror!) Another said, "You are every one of you wrong. I know ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... simultaneously the long rosaries hanging from their waists, made the sign of the cross, and began to mutter in unison interminable prayers, their lips moving ever more and more swiftly, as if they sought which should outdistance the other in the race of orisons; from time to time they kissed a medal, and crossed themselves anew, then resumed their rapid ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... in a dismayed and surprised fashion, and mutter some words to somebody that was evidently with him, and then there was heavy tramping below, and presently Chisholm's face appeared round the corner; and as he held his bull's-eye before him, its light fell full on Hollins, and he jumped back a ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... not, like the feeling of the Tories, undergone a complete change, was yet not quite what it had been. Some, who had thought it most unjust that Russell should have no counsel and that Cornish should have no copy of his indictment, now began to mutter that the times had changed; that the dangers of the State were extreme; that liberty, property, religion, national independence, were all at stake; that many Englishmen were engaged in schemes of which the object was to make England the slave of France and of Rome; and that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The black bag was a passport through wretched alleys and down foul-smelling courts into which a policeman was not ready to venture by himself. Once or twice a little group of men had looked at Philip curiously as he passed; he heard a mutter of observations and then ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... his feet and in the blackness of the vaulting overhead. Terror was in him, for his blasphemy would bring death to Darion. But the vision of Dura-ki was in him too, giving strength to tortured muscles. The bolts came away with a metallic screech, piercing against the mutter of shifting stone. ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown
... to coward of that mob, changed from three hundred strong to three hundred weak. Then I bowed and withdrew, leaving them to mutter and disperse. I felt well content with the trend of events—I who wished to impress the public and the financiers that I had broken with speculation and speculators, could I have had a better than this unexpected opportunity sharply to define my new course? And ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... required for breathing, now growing scarcer and scarcer. My mind was in a daze. I lay outstretched, strength gone, nearly unconscious. My gallant Conseil felt the same symptoms, suffered the same sufferings, yet never left my side. He held my hand, he kept encouraging me, and I even heard him mutter: ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Jubbulpore district, was sent out to Mandla[3] with a message of some kind or other. He took a cock from an old Gond woman without paying for it, and, being hungry after a long journey, ate the whole of it in a curry. He heard the woman mutter something, but being a raw, unsuspecting young man, he thought nothing of it, ate his cock, and went to sleep. He had not been asleep three hours before he was seized with internal pains, and the old cock was actually heard crowing in his belly. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... be religious after a fashion, and frequent the chapel or the cottage in which the itinerant preacher holds forth. In summer this preacher will mount upon a waggon placed in a field by the roadside, and draw a large audience, chiefly women, who loudly respond and groan and mutter after the most approved manner. Now and then an elderly woman may be found who is considered to have a gift of preaching, and holds forth at great length, quoting Scripture right and left. The exhibitions of emotion on the part of the women at such meetings and ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... Theresa. The Princesses of the House of Bourbon had long ceased to take the trouble of speaking in such cases. Madame Addlaide blamed the Queen for not doing as they did, assuring her that it was quite sufficient to mutter a few words that might sound like an answer, while the addressers, occupied with what they had themselves been saying, would always take it for granted that a proper answer had been returned. The Queen saw that idleness alone dictated such a proceeding, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... out of the way in time, damn them!" I heard Keston mutter. True, but not all the prolats had moved fast enough at the warning shout. Cowering under the saving key-boards, shrinking from the metallic arms not quite long enough to reach them, I could count only a score. The others—but what use to describe the slaughter ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the chimney-corner, where he was busied about a black pot, he continued to mutter and glance at me askance; but after a while ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... had forgotten his presence. It ceased not to mutter to itself while he was speaking, and now it ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... other. And I tell thee of a sooth that I also had a sharp knife in my hand to defend my life if need were. She held the lamp up above her head before she drew near to the bed-side, and I heard her mutter: 'She is not there then! but she shall be taken.' Then she went up to the bed and stooped over it, and laid her hand on the place where I had lain; and therewith her eyes turned to that false image of thee lying there, and she fell ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... windy, rainy night, and I have told Topsy, who has a cold, that she cannot come with us to church. After a wild outburst of anger she was heard to mutter that "Teacher wouldn't let her go to church because she was afraid she would get ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... once more in the mental melting-pot. And you can melt it down as long as you like, and mutter all the jargon and abracadabra, aldeboronti fosco fornio of science that mental monkey-tricks can teach you, you won't get anything in the end but a formula and a lie. The atom? Why, the moment you discover the atom it will explode under your nose. The moment you discover the ether it will ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... firing-machine—always this insistent whisper of moving dead leaves. Steam-sieves sift it into grades, with jarrings and thumpings that make the floor quiver, and the thunder of steam-gear is always at its heels; but it continues to mutter unabashed till it is riddled down into the big, foil-lined ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... You mutter, "There should be no wonder." Well, somehow, Sir Caucasian, Perhaps southern gentleman, I, marked a "whelp," am moved To ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... pinched faces, and they seemed to point at me as they plodded past, muttering, "But for you." Then, to the clanking of chains, hoarse curses, and the sharp whip-snap, lines upon lines of men in striped suits, with cropped heads, and faces branded by despair, filed up. Faintly a mutter of sobs and groans echoed, "But for you." The clanking ceased; there came the slow shuffling of many feet, and a procession of men, bearing stretchers on which lay shrouded figures, advanced into view. Like a solemn knell upon my ear smote the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... each other: "The River—the River is rising! If it floods, we are lost! Our beasts will drown; we, even we, shall drown! The River!" And women stood like things of stone, listening; and men shook their fists at the black sky and at that traveling mutter of the winds and waters; and the beasts sniffed at ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... their berths to visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. "It feels like going down into one's tomb,"—he would mutter to himself—"for an old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... her carriage. The tone of perfect nonchalance of the whole proceeding struck me dumb; I faltered, stammered, hesitated, and was silent. Donna Inez turned from one to the other of us with a look of unfeigned astonishment and I heard her mutter to herself something like a reflection upon "national eccentricities." Happily, however, her attention was now exclusively turned towards her friend, and while assisting her to shawl, and extorting innumerable promises of an early visit, I got a momentary reprieve; the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... expressly contrived to shut out the sun and the revelations of day light.—Looking round, he observed that the old woman was asleep: he drew near and touched her: she did not however awaken under the firmest pressure of his hand; but still in dreams continued at intervals to mutter, and to croon snatches of ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... she put her arm about his waist to steady him; they turned into a dark room they were passing—but scarcely had they taken two steps before suddenly a door swung open, and a man entered, carrying a lantern. "Who's there?" he called sharply. And Jurgis started to mutter some reply; but at the same instant the man raised his light, which flashed in his face, so that it was possible to recognize him. Jurgis stood stricken dumb, and his heart gave a leap like a mad thing. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... could only mutter a vague apology and turn away. Had his friend's wife opened the door with another key in some fit of curiosity and disported herself in those clothes? If so, she DARE not speak ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... blouse to hide his working dress. These ill- used men ought to 'strike' for better clothes, in case Antigone should again revisit the glimpses of an Edinburgh moon; and at the same time they might mutter a hint about the ale. But the great hindrances to a perfect restoration of a Greek tragedy, lie in peculiarities of our theatres that cannot be removed, because bound up with their purposes. I suppose that Salisbury Plain would seem too vast a theatre: but at least a cathedral would be ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... except to inquire the way to Boston. Half of the time the man would be headed in a direction opposite to the one he seemed to want to follow, and when set right would cry that he was being deceived, and was sometimes heard to mutter, "No home to-night." In Hartford, Providence, Newburyport, and among the New Hampshire hills the anxious face of the man became known, and he was referred to as "the stormbreeder," for so surely as he passed there would be rain, wind, lightning, thunder, and darkness ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... understanding nothing, Auntie followed him. A minute later she was sitting in a sledge by her master's feet and heard him, shrinking with cold and anxiety, mutter ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... upon the Table, they ordered me to read it to them, which I did with a very clear Voice, till I came to the Greek Verse at the End of it. I must confess I was a little startled at its popping upon me so unexpectedly. However, I covered my Confusion as well as I could, and after having mutter'd two or three hard Words to my self, laugh'd heartily, and cried, A very good Jest, Faith. The Ladies desired me to explain it to them; but I begged their pardon for that, and told them, that if it had been proper for them to hear, they may be sure the Author would not have wrapp'd ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... utter despair, and her mother trying, in a pitifully helpless way, to think how appearances might still be kept up and a little shred of respectability retained. She saw the artist looking at her with stern, white face, and heard him mutter: "What were you to me that you should commit this awful deed and lay it at my door, thus blighting a life full of the richest promise ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... far away, soothed and lulled him. It was pleasant to lie there, unharmed, and witness its course at a far point. He dozed a while, fell asleep, and awoke again in half an hour. Nothing had changed. There was still an occasional flicker of lightning and mutter of thunder and the darkness remained heavy. He could dimly see the forms of his comrades lying on their blankets. Not one of them stirred. They slept heavily and he rather envied them. They had little imagination, and, when one was in bad ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler |
