"Mumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you are, Killeny Boy, high-strung but reasonable," he continued to mumble as Kwaque helped to roll him ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... you?" she said. "'Tis but a mumble, his little tongue is not nimble enough for clearness, but he says it his pretty best. 'Tis Mother Anne, he says—'tis ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to mumble, Gray sat motionless, keenly conscious, meanwhile, of that other presence closing in upon him from the rear. He simulated a violent start ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... upon the second floor, and it was from the central of these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking sometimes into a dull mumble and rising again into a shrill whine. It was locked, but the key had been left on the outside. Holmes flung open the door and rushed in, but he was out again in an instant, with his hand ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends, "All those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall be heard." However, you would have thought it was of no import here. Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink to a mumble. A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition to these there were present a court clerk—small, pale, candle-waxy, with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored hair and beard, who ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... he!" added the Savelli, "we had him before us, and drew his teeth, one by one;—I would you could have heard the fellow mumble ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... oranges . . . ! particularly while dangling the censers they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... father's house, you, the Servian Army, behaved like enemies. You profaned the church, that Bulgarian church where I took my first communion. You have despoiled the archives and burned our libraries; you ordered closed our national school where I learned to mumble the alphabet of my ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... with stern and wrinkled face, Her mild eyes gliding very slow Across the letters to and fro, While wagged the guttering candle flame In the wind that through the window came. And sometimes in the silence she Would mumble a sentence audibly, Or shake her head as if to say, "You silly souls, to act this way!" And never a sound from night I'd hear, Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; Or her old shuffling thumb should turn Another page; ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... domestic Lares. Having this information from James, whose brow wore rather an anxious look on the occasion, I dispatched a Highland chairman to the livery stable with my Bucephalus, and slunk, with as little noise as might be, into my own den, where I began to mumble certain half-gnawed and not half-digested doctrines of our municipal code. I was not long seated, when my father's visage was thrust, in a peering sort of way, through the half-opened door; and withdrawn, on seeing ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... house in Paris was the rendezvous of the most fervent Catholics. Her writings had filled him with insufferably horrible boredom; they were more than merely wretched: they were wretched in every way, resembling the echoes of a tiny chapel where the solemn worshippers mumble their prayers, asking news of one another in low voices, while they repeat with a deeply mysterious air the common gossip of politics, weather forecasts and ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... new and harsh! The Indian and the Chinaman And Mexican were fain to learn What had subdued the Saxon clan. Why did they mumble, brood, and stare When the court-players curtsied fair ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... with a reckless revelation of self. Yet the mystery of his being is still unpierced. He is traitor, schemer, spy; but is he an Abbe? Perhaps not. At any rate, he once attended the 'Messe des Morts,' and was heard to mumble a 'Credo,' which, as every good Catholic remembers, has no place in that ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... lest Hugh be tempted to put his threat into execution, Nick managed to swallow his pride, and mumble that he guessed he must be out of condition just then, a fact so evident that Thad ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... what you are, Master Syd, as thinks he's got the mumble-dumbles horrid bad, when ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Lieutenant Jarvis was shot through the arm, Captain Belknap of E Company was lying dead near his company, and scores of other brave men had gone to their last reckoning. Hanigan, Hogan's bunkie, was badly wounded, and out of his head. Every once in a while he would mumble, "Never you mind, fellers, we will be all right yet, just stand 'em off a little while longer and Denny will be here with the 11th Cavalry. He said he'd do it and by God! ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... used to grin, At breakfast, on the sly, And mock the wobble of his chin And eyebrows belt so high And kind: "How did you rest, last night?" We'd mumble and let on Our voices trimbled, and our sight Was dim, and ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... to speak to you in a loud voice and in a tongue which you do not understand. Appear to listen intently to what I say, and occasionally mumble something as though replying in the same language—our escape may hinge upon the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to!" Lucia was diseased-looking and unkempt-looking and she ironed very badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed her with a flow of English. When Lucia would but shake her head they used the same flow, only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia would mumble to herself for several minutes over her ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... started to mumble an explanation, burst into tears and fled in alarm, never again to emerge from the back regions. My father commanded me to the bell again, but as I rose Thompson entered. He was even then a stately and dignified person, and it was with a measured ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... might not hear the name of Montfort; and the Prince, though overruling him in all that pertains to matters of state, is most dutiful in all lesser matters. I hoped at least to be called Fitz Simon, but some mumble of the King turned it into Fowen, and so it has continued. I believe no one at court is really ignorant of my lineage; but among the people, Montfort is still a trumpet-call, and the King ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stepped down from the tombstone, and the legitimate clergyman took his place. After making a slight apology for his stay, he read his text by the light from a horn lantern, which the clerk held up to his nose, and then proceeded to mumble over a written discourse upon the subject he had chosen, and which held him about half an hour.—'In my country,' observed the Indian, 'they would make a more animated speech at the interment of ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... "you have come to this—you dare not speak, you dare not utter the name of 'Bonaparte' aloud; you barely mumble a few words in a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where, from all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements, from all the very stones, ought to be ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... They've grown too fly. You've got only to pass a remark on his sail-cloth coat to make him shut up. All the town knows it. But he's got you to listen to his crazy talk whenever he chooses. Don't I hear you two at it, jabber, jabber, mumble, mumble——— ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... is a busy one, but I found time to mumble my Greek roots as I trotted in and out of the cellars. My grammar, when weather permitted, was tied open to a bottle in ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... Mrs. Stout answer the bell in person. There was a low mumble of voices. Then the landlady appeared in the parlor doorway, the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... read in our holy books, it shall come to pass through the power of the idol, that these two pieces of reed shall fight together, and whose part shall get the better, to that king shall the victory be given." The astrologers began to mumble their prayers and incantations, while the multitude stood around to observe the result; and after some time, the two pieces of reed seemed spontaneously to fight together, and the portion inscribed with the name of Zingis got the mastery over that of Umcan; and the Tartars being encouraged by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... And them also whose books and writings tell What certain path to heavenly bliss us leads; And hermits good, and ancresses that dwell Mewed up in walls, and mumble on their beads, And virgin nuns in close and private cell, Where, but shrift fathers, never mankind treads: On these they called, and on all the rout Of angels, martyrs, and ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... quicker still, down! See where the sun sets Ere he sets, ere old age Seizeth me in the morass, Ere my toothless jaws mumble, And my useless limbs totter; While drunk with his farewell beam Hurl me,—a fiery sea Foaming still in mine eye,— Hurl me, while dazzled and reeling, Down to the gloomy portal ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... things as they did in the world, but unable to do so. For in the spiritual world everyone is compelled to speak as he thinks. A hypocrite, however, wants to speak otherwise than he thinks, but there is impediment in the tongue as a result of which he can only mumble. Hypocrisies are lighter or more grave in the measure of the confirmation against God and of the outward ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of a tooth to that of a mistress there's no pang that is not bearable. The apprehension is much more cruel than the certainty; and we make up our mind to the misfortune when 'tis irremediable, part with the tormentor, and mumble our crust on t'other side of the jaws. I think Colonel Esmond was relieved when a ducal coach and six came and whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds at the end of ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... looked after right away. And then, Doctor, I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind." She watched them retreat to the bunk-house together. Swan's big form towering above the doctor's slighter figure. Swan was talking earnestly, the mumble of his voice reaching Lorraine without the enunciation of any particular word to give a clue to what he was saying. But it struck her that his voice did not sound quite natural; not so Swedish, ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the prayers seemed to be heard. On November 4 the storm abated, and land loomed up on the horizon, dim at first, but taking shape as the vessel approached it and showing a well-defined, rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom. A cask of brandy was opened, {25} and tears gave place to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear that he recognized this headland, that he had known they were following the right course after all, and that he had never felt any ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... every opportunity I went through my selection with most impassioned voice and lofty gestures, sustained by the legends of Webster and Demosthenes, resolved upon a blazing victory. I did everything but mumble a smooth pebble—realizing that most of the boys in my section were going through precisely the same struggle. Each of us knew exactly how the others felt, and yet I cannot say that we displayed acute sympathy ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... delightful," he would remark to me, "to realize once more that the chief end of man is not, after all, to have fluent meditations upon wrecks of lost empires—to discover beauty in hideousness because somebody else pretends to do so—to mumble praises about frescoes which are frightful to look at, and break your neck besides—to have profound emotions in Jerusalem and experience awe before pyramids and sphinxes. This fictitious life we have been leading is very elegant, no doubt, and gives one material for just ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... am a free man. I will live what I am, and speak what I feel to be the truth. The truth shall be its own justification. I will wear no robes, mumble no ceremonies, call no man Rabbi, and permit no man to call me Rabbi. I proclaim the universal priesthood ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... man, who appeared very harmless, had by the side of the brook piled a great number of stones; he would wade into the river for them, followed by a cur dog, whom he would frequently call his Jacky, and even his Nancy; and then mumble to himself, 'Thou wilt not leave me. We will dwell with the owl in the ivy.' A number of owls had taken shelter in it. The stones he waded for he carried to the mouth of the hole, and only left just room enough to go in. Some of the neighbors at last recollected him; and I sent ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... dejectedly. "It makes me yawn. John says I mumble." She looked at me sharply, distrustfully. "You are very kind, but—it's too ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... place. Jimmie Dale continued to blink at it, and mumble to himself. The Rat's pleasant little plan of robbing somebody's safe of fifteen thousand dollars had nothing to do with her—but it involved a moral obligation on his part that he had neither the right nor the intention to ignore. And the fulfilment, or the attempt at fulfilment, of that obligation ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... ham at the eating-counter below-stairs was exhausted, the oysters were soon after minus, and those who had brought no lunch had to mumble ginger-cakes. It was remarked by good judges that as the morning advanced the coffee grew weaker, suggesting a possibility that the caterer could not distinguish between cocoa and cold water, and only replenished his boiler with the latter. There were more questions of order, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day?" The multitude were bewildered by the glare of royalty. But here and there a sullen fish-woman, leading her ragged, half-starved children, would mumble and mutter, and curse the "Austrian," as the beautiful queen swept by in her gorgeous equipage. These discontents and portentous murmurs were spreading rapidly, when neither king, queen, nor courtiers dreamed of ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... capacity for a sustained tone. The words were distinct, although the melody was broken, and the spectacle was gruesome enough. As he concluded he looked at the valet as if for approbation and began to mumble ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... its natural red. The pale eyes lost their fishy glaze. They stared dazedly up into the deeply concerned face of Carmena. She flung the last cupful of water from the bowl. Slade roused enough to mumble virulent curses. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... eighty-three or eighty-four he was obliged to have assistance (which was long before he wanted it in his own opinion) he used to be wheeled in a chair to his School: and even in the delirium of his last sickness insisted on giving his daughters a Greek author, over which they would mumble and mutter to persuade him that he was still ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... broker, the old miser, obstinate as are the half-fuddled, began to mumble, 'I came not here to drink, O Ukleet, but to make a bargain; and my bags be here, and I like not yonder veil, nor the presence of yonder Vizier, nor the secresy of this. Now, by the Prophet and that interdict of his, I'll ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... made him believe, for money, he could pardon all his sins, and even when in purgatory for them, he could bring him to heaven. And so we must conclude he died 1733, Dec. 23d, and went down to Tophet with a lie in his right hand, and so remains in spite of all the priest could mutter or mumble over him, as the author of his Elegy in his master's name well ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... and brushed the dirt off his knees. "If there's anything that stirs my temper, it's this mumble-grumble, whiffle-and-hint business. Out and open, that's my style." He was reflecting testily on the peculiar reticence of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... looked at John for a moment, and then tried to mumble something, that the boys could not understand. After a few attempts he fairly shrieked ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... you say," he cried in accents shrill with irritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you are ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... room was thick with tobacco smoke. A hundred men or so, garbed in furs and warm-colored wools, lined the walls and looked on. But the mumble of their general conversation destroyed the spectacular feature of the scene and gave to it the geniality of common comradeship. For all its bizarre appearance, it was very like the living-room of the home when the members of the household ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the little runt that throwed that guy's trombone away, well his name is Lahey but we call him Shorty on acct. of him being so short. Well I hadn't payed much attention to this here Sebastian because he has always got a grouch and don't say nothing only to mumble at the officers when they ask him some question but Shorty knows him and last night he told me all about him and he has been pinched 50 times for stabbing people but he has got some pull or something and they can't never do nothing to him except once he served a turn at Joliet for cutting off ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... expectation and excitement. One of the iron rules of the House of Commons is that the Speaker cannot leave the chair until a motion for the adjournment of the House has been carried. This is always proposed by the senior Government Whip. The motion is usually carried in dumb show, and with that mumble in which business is carried through in the House when there is no opposition. But it is one of the ancient and time-honoured privileges of the House of Commons to raise almost any question on the motion for the adjournment of the House. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... respire for a moment, but gradually recovered sufficiently to mumble, "Gents, this is one on yours truly. What'll ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... say in a few plain words. It saves time and money; I'm convinced, too, that it carries more weight. Everyone nowadays can write a book, and most people do; but how many can talk? The art is being utterly forgotten. Chatter and gabble and mumble—an abuse of language. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... she wants to stop away longer she needn't come back at all. And this is on the condition that neither you nor she are to mention her sister Diana to me ever again, whether she is ill, or well, or anything about her. As to your reading to me, I've no doubt you either mumble or squeak, and I couldn't bear it, so pray don't imagine you'll be the least use while she's away, or let her ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... is the sorcery with which you bind him! No longer a man at all, but some aborted thing... a relic! An eunuch! They mumble their incantations over you... the spell is done, and you sink back, cowed and whimpering! You are a machine, a domestic utensil! Never again are you to love and to dare to create No, there are other things in life for you... bread and butter, ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... by. It was as he expected—the soldiers were climbing the slope. For almost half an hour he kept his position, and behind him Roger muttered on, staring up at the sky. Amid the mutterings from time to time the old man heard a curse. They sank at length to a mumble, senseless, rambling on and on, ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... delivery. DERBY brought down his contribution nicely written out on quarter sheets. Whilst ASHBOURNE declaiming, DERBY seized opportunity to read his speech over to himself. This all very well if he had strictly carried out intention, but, when he grew so interested in it as to mumble passages in an audible voice, situation grew embarrassing. At last KIMBERLEY, who sat near, gently nudged him. "One at a time, my dear DERBY," he whispered. "We know you're accustomed to dual action. DARBY and JOAN, you know; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... out a dog-eared chart of parchment and unrolled it upon the table. The boys foresaw his intention and feared the worst. Presently they heard him mumble to himself: ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... hands. But he cried out, "Hold! or I will cleave thee in twain, even as thy cat." And in truth she stopped stone-still, but soon began to spit and murmur. Whereupon he cried out again, "Ay, spit and mumble; but know that my good friend, of whom I told thee, stands without, and if but a finger of mine aches, now or in future, he hath sworn ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... herself the obliged, rather than the obliger? Then let me tell thee, Belford, it is impossible so far to hurt the morals of this lady, as thou and thy brother varlets have hurt others of the sex, who now are casting about the town firebrands and double death. Take ye that thistle to mumble upon. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... paused, coughed, and completed what he had to say in a sort of mumble, but his meaning was wholly clear. He would not accept the offer of Pauline in marriage, even though she was the sister of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... on the floor, and Peg put a piece of meat under his nose. In her excitement, Jinnie rushed away to Lafe. Peg's mumble followed her even through ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... him he could hear Earle poking the fire. He could hear the low mumble of his voice, the soft treble of Marian's. They avoided him now as if he were a plague. He did not try to make it out. His master was providence. He could not question the decrees of providence, but he would circumvent them if he could. Once ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... to mumble and I stooped low but he relaxed suddenly and seemed to shrink. I felt his heart but it was still. I tried his eyes and they were sightless. Patsy sent up a heartrending wail and crawled over behind his master's gun and knapsack, so I knew my old ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... He communed with his tiller, I believe, and marshalled his figures with its help. To hear him talk was to feel a current of clarifying air blustering into a close club-room, where men bandy ineffectual platitudes, and mumble old shibboleths, and go ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Confucius cried, "Alas! there is no one that knows me," and a disciple asked what was meant, he replied, "I do not murmur against God. I do not mumble against man. My studies lie low, and my penetration lies high. But there is ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... her comedy hat and followed the doctor into the sick room. The others gathered noiselessly outside the window and listened. There was a long silence. Then the man on the bed spoke in a low, weak voice. It was only a mumble of sounds to Billie and Richard, but Mr. Campbell understood German and ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... elapsed; and then, being down in the waist, right under the break of the poop, the quarter-master having set me to work flemishing down the slack ends of some of the sheets that he did not think were tidily arranged, I heard the signalman mumble some exclamation or other which he could not get out ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... supposed you had enough—with such a salary—to give yourself a little rope on a trip like this, considering you've nobody but yourself to look out for, and that I do that and pay you heavily for the privilege"—his voice had become a mumble—"and all you do is to take vacations in New York or sit on a horse and watch an army of men plant trout and pheasants, and cut out ripe ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... and the surface be everlastingly damned!" said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown watched his receding ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... past speaking, so I tried to make 'im understand, but 'e only mumbled in reply. W'en I was about to go 'e seemed to mumble very 'ard, so I put down my ear to listen, and 'e w'ispered quite distinct tho' very low—'All right, my 'eartie. I'm too cute for 'em by a long way; go aboard an' say nothin'.' So I came away, and I've scarce been five minutes aboard before you arrived. My own opinion ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... grew from a distant mumble to a shrieking roar, and the next thing, each man had landed upon the concrete-and-paint bull's-eye before ...
— Minor Detail • John Michael Sharkey
... compliance with the request was impossible. None of the rest, however, not even his sister, could keep their countenances, for the eye of the speaker had pointed and sharpened his words; and William, very red in the face, was understood to mumble, as soon as mumbling was possible, that "he wouldn't laugh unless he had a mind to," and a threat to "do something" ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Any woman will break her neck to see two people, for whom she does not care a hair-pin, stand up, one in white and the other in black, and mumble a few words that she knows by heart, and then take position at the end of a room and have "society" paraded up to them by solemn little corporals with white favors, and then file off to the rear for rations of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... jingle, tingle, tinkle, mingle, sprinkle, twinkle, there is implied a frequency, or iteration of small acts. And the same frequency of acts, but less subtile by reason of the clearer vowel a, is indicated in jangle, tangle, spangle, mangle, wrangle, brangle, dangle; as also in mumble, grumble, jumble. But at the same time the close u implies something obscure or obtunded; and a congeries of consonants mbl, denotes a confused kind of rolling or tumbling, as in ramble, scamble, scramble, wamble, amble; but in these there ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... the doorway amidship that led below, he heard Galton mumble: "Yes, we'll be going, Hi think, down some sea sorpint's scaly throat, but th' tug an' ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... was a mumble of mingled confusion and distress. How could he own to his post commander that he was scared? No. 5 now was to be seen swiftly coming up the eastward front so as to be within supporting or hearing distance—curiosity, not sympathy, impelling; and ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... and manner as mechanical as that of the judge, would mumble his oft repeated story, giving the exact minute of his observations, the actions of the woman in accosting different pedestrians and in her final approach ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... perfectly still. The neighborhood and the house itself were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several times to signify that he did ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... turned first red, then white, and tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to be put off ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... are hoarse and drear, As we sit and mumble together, We have no good tidings to hear We had sooner have never (So we grumble together) been born, That are so sick and forlorn; Just shadows— But once bright fishers of shallows, ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... and glistening nails, clawed the keys with a dreadful mechanical motion. There were stacks of music-sheets on counters, and shelves, and dangling from overhead wires. The girl at the piano never ceased playing. She played mostly by request. A prospective purchaser would mumble something in the ear of one of the clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, "'Hicky Bloo!' Miss Ryan." And Miss Ryan would oblige. She made a hideous rattle and crash and clatter of sound compared to which an Indian tom-tom would have seemed as dulcet as the strumming ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... then it is all over with the poor patient's chance of not suffering. Very few people know how to read to the sick; very few read aloud as pleasantly even as they speak. In reading they sing, they hesitate, they stammer, they hurry, they mumble; when in speaking they do none of these things. Reading aloud to the sick ought always to be rather slow, and exceedingly distinct, but not mouthing—rather monotonous, but not sing song—rather loud, but not noisy—and, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... capitalist class, when he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... not move an eyelash. I pondered that it was just my luck that the first gentleman I had addressed was deaf and dumb. As I crossed the threshold, I caught an indignant mumble: "Talkative chap, that; ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... mumble-te-peg that me and Mr. Martin played, he did not come to our house for two weeks. Mr. Travers said perhaps the earth he had to gnaw while he was drawing the peg had struck to his insides and made him sick, but I knew it couldn't ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and there was almost always something funny about old Mr. Crewe. His brown wig was hardly ever put on quite right, and he had a way of raising his voice for three or four words, and lowering it again to a mumble, so that we could scarcely make out a word he said; though, as my mother observed, that was of no consequence in the prayers, since every one had a prayer-book; and as for the sermon, she continued with some causticity, we all of ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... deepest interest.) I knock off quite a number of these while I'm abroad like this. Send 'em in letters to relatives at home—gives them a notion of the place. They are—ar—kind enough to value them. (CULCHARD makes a complimentary mumble.) Yes, I'm a very rapid sketcher. Put me with regular artists, and give us half an hour, and I—ar—venture to say I should be on terms with them. Make it three hours, and—well, I daresay ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... they say are much better than your free pardon; besides, I may offend as often as I please, and you will be compelled to forgive me because I have paid them; and if it were not for these indulgences, I could fast, I could beat myself, and perform numberless other penances; I could mumble petitions to you, not thinking of what I was saying; indeed, I have no fear but what I can make ample amends to you for this gift which you have bestowed, for this pardon which you have offered. Dear friends, you will say what a weak, ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... ruined or deserted church, where owls mope and hoot, where bats flit in the gloaming, where gypsies lodge of nights, and where toads squat under the desecrated altar. Thither the bad priest comes by night with his light o' love, and at the first stroke of eleven he begins to mumble the mass backwards, and ends just as the clocks are knelling the midnight hour. His leman acts as clerk. The host he blesses is black and has three points; he consecrates no wine, but instead he drinks the water of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to mumble that she alone knew the secret of restoring him to health, and that he was rendered peaky and poky only by people ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for her admonition, and observed, 'But she was good,' only, however, in a mumble, that the other two thought it inexpedient to notice, though it made both hearts ache for her, even Alice's—with an additional pang of self-reproach that she herself was not good enough to help ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with many a queer thought in my head, I sat in the kitchen rocker, listening to the mumble of their voices and waiting up to see if they should want me for anything. And so it was, too, that at last I found myself nodding with sleep, and started to go ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... a foot of her she heard voices. Her heart stopped beating, but the blood rang in her ears so that she could not distinguish a word. One of the voices was certainly Gadbeau's. The other— It was!— It was! Though it was only a mumble, she knew it was Jeffrey Whiting ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... in the library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentence in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech—but better where other talking is going on. Thus: "We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies: "I am very gligloglum, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... strangely as though the man were laboring under a strong, repressed excitement. Newman wore an air of triumph, as though he had just accomplished a difficult victory. My tongue had suddenly become very thick, but I managed to mumble a query. "Say, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... suddenly and in such contrasted tones to the mumble in which the miser had heretofore been speaking that for the moment Roy was too startled ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... loaded with good provisions of several sorts, which, in time of harvest, he was carrying into the field for his master and the reapers to dine upon. On the way he met with a fine large thistle, and being very hungry, began to mumble it; which while he was doing, he entered into this reflection:—"How many greedy epicures would think themselves happy, amidst such a variety of delicate viands as I now carry! But to me this bitter, prickly thistle is more savory and relishing than the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... did, and whatever his motives may have been it was jolly decent of him . . . and . . ." here Grantly lowered his voice to the faintest mumble, "he never said a word of reproof or exhortation . . . I tell you he behaved like a gentleman. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late: We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware! Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer. But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout, and we tramp With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... 68 to mumble painful guilty the dormitory the tie the chin he got off with a good fright without appearing to do so, he was looking at them towards ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... woman seized the note, and began to mumble blessings on Hamilton, which he cut short: "Give me the name of your street and the house where you live, that I may find you easily," he said, and noted down the directions she gave him. Then he turned to the girl and put his arm round ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... lots of songs and we played marbles, mumble peg, and town ball. In de winter we would set around de fire and listen to our Mammy and Pappy tell ghost tales and witch tales. I don't guess dey was sho' nuff so, but we all ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... them and busying himself upon some small job that needed attention. The stillness of the peaceful afternoon seemed to have fallen upon the vessel; the men conversed together intermittently in subdued tones, that barely reached aft in the form of a low mumble; and the only sounds heard were the occasional soft rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, with an accompanying patter of reef-points, the jar of the rudder upon its pintles, the jerk of the wheel chains, and the soft, scarcely audible seething ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... some for Few, Others deep sup, their Thirstings to renew, And mumble into Maunderings, but I, In Kissing, scorn the How Much ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... and, gazing up at the starlit heavens, wandered off into dreams of the life he would like to lead but from which he seemed inexorably shut out. The seriousness of life was striking deeper than ever into Joe's heart, and he lay silent, thinking hard. A mumble of heavy voices came to them from the Reindeer; and from the land the solemn notes of a church bell floated across the water, while the summer night wrapped them slowly in its ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... college; only, in the Kursaal the warning struck the ear, not the eye. They provided French clocks with a singularly clear metallic striking tick; their blows upon the life of Time rang sharp above the chant, the mumble, and the jingle. These clocks seemed to cry aloud, and say of the hours, whose waste they recorded, "Pereunt - et - impu-tantur, pere - unt ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... nature. The remembrance of those childish reproaches haunts me yet oftentimes in my dreams. My school-days come again, and the horror I used to feel, when in some silent corner, retired from the notice of my unfeeling playfellows, I have sat to mumble the solitary slice of gingerbread allotted me by the bounty of considerate friends, and have ached at heart because I could not spare a portion of it, as I saw other boys do, to some favorite boy; for if I know my own heart, I was never selfish,—never possessed a luxury which I did not hasten ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... them faltered. The prompter, surely he was destiny, fate, the irresistible course of events, with which no man can struggle, any more than the actor can struggle with or alter the lines that are set down for him. He may mumble them, he may act dispiritedly and tamely, but he has undertaken a certain part; he has to ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... in the official reports of the Lords' debates a speech begins thus: "Lord —— (who was indistinctly heard)." The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged the use of the English language in the Egyptian Courts, ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... ain't one of the scared-mouse kind. She looks you square in the eye when there's any call for it and she don't mumble her remarks when she has something to say. Not Miss Joyce. Her words come out clear and crisp, with a slight roll to the r's and all the final letters sounded, like she'd been taking ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... of the rail, now with the judge, now with one another; and now it was the clerk of the court who was speaking; and I couldn't repress the absurd feeling of surprise that they should turn their backs and mumble so, since it appeared irresistibly to me that we were an audience, and the thing was being done for ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... managed it. As Raven remembered, it was something about pa'tridges and his gun. Whether he was shaken by fright, one could not have told, but he was, as Charlotte remarked upon it afterward, "all to pieces." Raven ignored the mumble, whatever it was, and Tenney, finally understanding that he might as well be as far off the earth as Dick, for all the attention anybody was going to pay him, turned, limping, and then Raven, with that mechanical sensitiveness to physical ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... little merriment among us; that all fellow travellers were for the time upon the level, and that it was always his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember," says he, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my Lord Mumble and the Duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all ready to burst with laughter. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... There was a new sound in the air, a low mumble, a vague murmur. Men's voices. Outside, coming nearer swiftly, were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was too soon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, and returned. A deep, heavy bass voice drowned out ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... in log cabins. When she got into one of her joking times she would call Pony "Honey! Honey!" like the old colored aunty that had the persimmon-tree in her yard; and if she had to go past him she would wind her arm around his head and mumble the top of it with her lips; and if there were any of the fellows there, and Pony would fling her arm away because he hated to have her do it before them, ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... reason to doubt how far the second line could justly be applied to the parish! but there was no judging of the sermon, for only detached sentences reached us in a sort of mumble. Griff afterwards declared churchgoing to be as good as a comedy, and we all had to learn to avoid meeting each other's eyes, whatever we might hear. When the scuffle and tramp of the departing congregation had ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brought out if we could get her away and place her under the proper treatment. Well, we learned that she had a sister living in New Jersey. The detective went to see her, and you know the result—the old lady's removal. Recently we received word that she was so much improved that she could mumble in a way to be understood, and last week the detective and I went to see her. This was my apparently ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... cheer! What jolly, fat friars, Sitting round the great, roaring fires, Roaring louder than they, With their strong wines, And their concubines, And never a bell, With its swagger and swell, Calling you up with a start of affright In the dead of night, To send you grumbling down dark stairs, To mumble your prayers; But the cheery crow Of cocks in the yard below, After daybreak, an hour or so, And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds, These are the sounds That, instead of bells, salute the ear. And then all day Up and away Through the forest, hunting the deer! Ah, my friends, I'm afraid that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... all his sons and nephews and kinsmen that through them his itching fingers may possess all the wealth of the Temple. The Law of the Jews is for others than those who make it, preach it, sell it or trade in it. Yet for all their sins have these long-faced robbers a scapegoat. Over his head do they mumble their sins and then frighten him away to the wilderness. And when he is departed, lo, they are as innocent as ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... quiet fun for a rainy day is Jack-stones. Although not played much nowadays it is very interesting and is to indoors what "mumble-the-peg" is to outdoors. It is played usually with small pieces of iron with six little feet: but it can also be played with small pebbles all of a size. All kinds of exercises can be used, many of which you ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... this?" exclaimed the youth, almost frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his cheeks, his neck, his head and ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... 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
... woman; What is the colour of your eyes and hair? 50 Why, if you were a lady, it were fair The world should know—but, as I am afraid, The Quarterly would bait you if betrayed; And if, as it will be sport to see them stumble Over all sorts of scandals. hear them mumble 55 Their litany of curses—some guess right, And others swear you're a Hermaphrodite; Like that sweet marble monster of both sexes, Which looks so sweet and gentle that it vexes The very soul that the soul is gone 60 Which ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... "Then mumble thy charm o'er the embers warm," That baron proud replied; "No boon from my hand shalt thou receive, Nor foaming ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... I had but taken a turn from right to left, or gone round a wheel, when I repeated the same words, and I heard Temple somewhere near me mumble something like them. He drew a long breath, so did I: we cleared our throats with a sort of whinny simultaneously. The enjoyment of lying perfectly still, refreshed, incurious, unexcited, yet having our minds animated, excursive, reaping all the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... through that 9th of November his lordship has had a racking rheumatism, or a toothache, let us say, during all dinner-time—through which he has been obliged to grin and mumble his poor old speeches. Is he enviable? Would you like to change with his lordship? Suppose that bumper which his golden footman brings him, instead i'fackins of ypocras or canary, contains some abomination of senna? Away! Remove the golden goblet, insidious cupbearer! You ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray |
