"Stammer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mentally reviewed every accident which possibly could have happened to the boys. Lu met us twenty yards from the trail, trembling with excitement and totally incoherent. He could only point to the south and stammer, "Too many antelope. Over ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... up into a deep bow, but before he had time to stammer out some apologetic self-introduction, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... by the audience. Tom was beaten. A potato, vast and nobbly, fell from his palsied hand. He was speechless. Then he began to stammer. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... closing round him like the clasp of an iron collar. He fancied himself side by side with him in the posts of the same pillory. Gwynplaine lost his footing in his terror, and protested. He began to stammer incoherent words in the deep distress of an innocent man, and quivering, terrified, lost, uttered the first random outcries that rose to his mind, and words of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... took in nothing of the president's speech beyond the acceptance of his offer, and, pale with relief, he tried to stammer his thanks and his devotion to his chosen cause. He made no attempt to contradict the president's confident prophecies; he only made the greatest possible haste to the tower-rooms which were to be his home. His eyes filled with thankfulness at his lot as he paced ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Castaly Let the one rock bring forth for thee, Renewing so from either spring The songs which both thy countries sing: Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long, Thou should'st forget thy native song, And mar thy mortal melodies With broken stammer of ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... long harangue I stood gazing on the floor, blushing painfully. I wanted to tell my mistress why I had no longer dresses, but could only stammer 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am,' and was very glad to escape from the room as soon as my ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... me?' she asked, and threw a look round the room, as if searching for someone. I felt I should die if her husband came out—but he didn't. I managed to stammer that the pearls weren't in their case, and so on; and it seemed as if my words turned her to a block of marble! She just stared at me. 'Maybe you think I stole the pearls!' I said right out. She assured me quite nicely that she believed nothing so foolish, and that even if I'd ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... new picture, Mr. Bopp inspected every feature of the countenance so near his own; and, as his admiration "grew by what it fed on," he fell into a chronic state of stammer and blush; for the frank eyes were very kind, the smooth cheeks reflected a pretty shade of his own crimson, and the smiling lips seemed constantly suggesting, with mute eloquence, that they were made for kissing, while the expressive hands picked at the ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... defends her lover, threatening to reveal the dragoon's neglect of duty. {68} When therefore Belamy's superior appears to hear the important news of which the messenger told him, his corporal is only able to stammer out that nothing in particular has happened, and so after all, Georgette is saved from discovery and ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... the long a[a-macron]nd, we could put e[e-breve]t, or te [tau epsilon]. And there are only three Saxon words in the two lines. But hexameters consisting of purely English words, especially of Anglo-Saxon words, halt and stammer like a schoolboy's exercise. The attempt of Kingsley in Andromeda is ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... for Whistler's fiery, combative nature, and sharp pen, there is much truth, and truth that needed telling, in his contention. "Art," he continues, "that for ages has hewn its own history in marble, and written its own comments on canvas, shall it suddenly stand still, and stammer, and wait for wisdom from the passer-by? For guidance from the hand that holds neither brush nor chisel? ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... much more to say of my own." Then suddenly Wulf became very earnest—so earnest that his great frame shook, and when he strove to speak he could but stammer. At length it all came forth in a flood of ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... Spain; all the mystery of the South was in the grave and tragic eyes. Yet the eyes were cold; and touches of wild ancestral suffering, like the sudden clash of spurs in the languors of a Polonaise, marked the wide nostrils and the heavy eyelids and the broad, black crooked eyebrows that seemed to stammer a little in the perfect ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... I had a picture in my mind of poor Trenchard searching the countryside for some one to whom he might be devoted, tongue-tied, clumsy, stumbling and stuttering, a village Don Quixote with a stammer and without a Dulcinea. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... This is recognized in such common expressions as "she was covered with confusion." Persons in this condition lose their presence of mind, and utter singularly inappropriate remarks. They are often much distressed, stammer, and make awkward movements or strange grimaces. In certain cases involuntary twitchings of some of the facial muscles may be observed. I have been informed by a young lady, who blushes excessively, that at such times she does not even know what she ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... all the imitative arts. Foote's mimicry was exquisitely ludicrous, but it was all caricature. He could take off only some strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle. "If a man," said Johnson, "hops on one leg, Foote can hop on one leg." Garrick, on the other hand, could seize those differences of manner and pronunciation, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... conditions and exhibit precisely the same peculiarities of style. He should reply with the unanswerable postulate that millions of persons possess red hair, snub noses, a scar on the face, blue eyes, bent fingers and a stammer; but it is millions to one against any two persons possessing all ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... Gifford Lectures, after an argument which induced one of his listeners to say that he had a stammer in his thoughts, Mr. Balfour announced his faith in God. One may recall Pascal's exclamation, "How far it is from believing in God to ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... returning diggers checked for a time the flow of people to the west; but in the month of July an aboriginal shepherd on a station near Bathurst burst in upon his master while seated at dinner, his eyes glistening with excitement. He was only able to stammer out: "Oh, massa, white man find little fellow, me find big fellow". When his master drove him in a buggy through the forest, the shepherd pointed to where a hundredweight of gold was sticking out from a rock. It was ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... asleep, that I was usually a wide-awake citizen of the land that Lafayette went to save, that I wanted my dinner, and would like to get out. I walked down near enough to the gate to see the policeman, but my courage failed. Before I could stammer out half that explanation to him in his trifling language (which foreigners are mockingly told is the best in the world for conversation), he would either have slipped his hateful rapier through my body, or have raised an alarm and called out the guards of the palace to hunt ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is such an ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of the paymaster's recent experiences and bravery so effectively that the poor little man became rosy with confusion, and when at the conclusion of the narrative his health was pledged with a round of cheers, he could only stammer ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... calculated. She had pulled the string and the marionette moved with precision. A daze, a flash, a stammer—all the embarrassment of a man who believes that in a day-dream he has given ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... eyed little girl of about twelve summers the remark that she tho't it WAS rich to talk about the crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when we was in a Tower where so many poor pepl's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder stammer and turn red. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... so furiously, that the boy was frightened and could only stammer: "Before the banquet the prince was walking with you, so I could not speak to him, and now I am waiting for him here, for Mandane promised to give me a piece of gold if I did what she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to sit down. I said nothing, but bent over my needlework like the good child keeping quiet in the corner. Oh, but they are stupid, these royal people, all except my own Princess and the dear old Queen at Windsor. Neither York nor Lyonesse knew in the least what to say, and the Princess let them stammer on without helping ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... them facing four pairs of eyes. Miss Taylor reddened; Mrs. Grey looked surprised; Mrs. Vanderpool smiled; but Mr. Cresswell darkened with anger. The couple unclasped shamefacedly, and the young man, lifting his hat, started to stammer an apology; ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... "What a mess every one will make! Oh, if I could but stay away, like Harry! There will be Dr. Hoxton being sonorous and prosy, and Mr. Lake will stammer, and that will be nothing to the misery of our own people's work. George will flounder, and look at Flora, and she will sit with her eyes on the ground, and Dr. Spencer will come out of his proper self, and be complimentary to people ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... an unnecessary fuss?" remarked Polly. "Of course, I remembered uncle's misfortune," she admitted candidly, "though none of you speak of it, and I noticed Oliver stammer dreadfully when Mrs. Maxwell mentioned Mr. Jardine; but I thought that at this time of day, when everybody knew there was no malice borne originally, and Uncle Crawfurd might have been killed, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... any rate matters enough to disturb our amusement, our good-temper, our toleration. Nothing matters so very greatly. And yet everything—each of us, as we try to make our difficult meanings clear, the meanings of our hidden souls, and each of these meanings themselves as we stammer them forth to one another—matters ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... babbled, quivering under the table- cloth they had cast over his nakedness. 'It came—behind me!' and forthwith he began to stammer in his own ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... not get the maid for mate, But thou shalt die, thou knight enamour'd; So make thy shrift 'neath the linden straight, The little birds shall hear it stammer'd. ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... the far, low summons, When the silver winds return; Rills that run and streams that stammer, Goldenwing with his loud hammer, Icy brooks that brawl and clamor, Where the Indian willows burn; Let me hearken to the calling, When the silver ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... blushed and got his grammar badly tangled, but my heart burned as I listened. And I have heard a man talk with smooth speech, and it rolled off me as easily as it rolled out of him. Do your best, and leave the rest. If we are in touch with God His fire burns whether the tongue stammer or has ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... pulpit-propp'd, I flatter; Hermes, god of cheats and chatter, Smile, oh smile on Mr. Smatter, Aid an humble Auctioneer! Wave thy smooth caduceus here, O'er an humble Auctioneer! With its virtues tip my hammer, Model my Grammar, Nor let me stammer. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... the lady, and she said a great many very pretty things to him, which made the gallant little hero blush like a rose in June, and stammer so that he could ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... made the astounding proposition as calmly as though he were asking the Kentuckian to a lunch of bacon and hardtack, and Crittenden flushed with gratitude and his heart leaped—his going was sure now. Before he could stammer out his thanks, the general was gone. Just then Rivers, who, to his great joy, had got at least that far, sat down by him. He was much depressed. His regiment was going, but two companies would be left behind. His colonel talked about ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... and Latin, And not acquire, as well, a priggish mien, If you can feel the touch of silk and satin Without despising calico and jean; If you can ply a saw and use a hammer, Can do a man's work when the need occurs, Can sing when asked, without excuse or stammer, Can rise above unfriendly ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... of the Weston Home Savings Bank, and the inevitable loss of his position there. Sometimes there was a paternal explosion because Bruce liked to murmur vaguely of "dandy chances in Manila," or because Julie, pretty, excitable, and sixteen, had an occasional dose of stage fever, and would stammer desperately between convulsive sobs that she wasn't half as much afraid of "the terrible temptations of the life" as she was afraid of dying a poky old maid in Weston. In short, the home was crowded, the Pagets were poor, and every ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... Cameron's wife; but the sight of Katy, together with the errand on which she came, had unnerved her, and she wept bitterly in her desolation, until Katy's reappearance startled her from her position on the floor, making her stammer out some excuse about "homesickness and the seeing ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... hands become loose and the head droops. After remaining for some time in this attitude, the cacique raises his head, as though he were awakening from sleep, and, lifting his eyes to the heavens, begins to stammer some incoherent words. His chief attendants gather round him (for none of the common people are admitted to these mysteries), raising their voices in thanksgiving that he has so quickly left the zemes and ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... honest sailor was so abashed and confounded at this novel salutation, that he could only stammer out an incoherent reply; and he was evidently disposed to give the tactless zealot a piece of his mind, expressed in the language of the quarter-deck. When the solemn man took his leave, the disgusted captain said, "If ever I should be coming to your office again, and that man should ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... betrayed this high commission! Fain would the tongue in clear, triumphant accents draw example from thy story, to encourage the hearts of those who almost faint and die beneath the old oppressions. But we must stammer and blush when we speak of many things. I take pride here, that I can really say the liberty of the press works well, and that checks and balances are found naturally which suffice to its government. I can say that the minds of our ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... with hardly any living relation, that he had known my parents in his youth, and that he had always heard of me as a very deserving young man, and was assured that his money would be in worthy hands. Of course, I could only stammer out my thanks. The will was duly finished, signed, and witnessed by my clerk. This is it on the blue paper, and these slips, as I have explained, are the rough draft. Mr. Jonas Oldacre then informed me that there were a number of documents—building leases, title-deeds, mortgages, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... release him from his life of toil. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when, much to his dismay, Death stood before him and professed his readiness to serve him. He was almost frightened out of his wits, but he had enough presence of mind to stammer out, "Good sir, if you'd be so kind, pray help me ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... the Englishman's fear of being over-demonstrative. He was easily capable of turning a nice little speech. Apart from the fear of transgressing the canons of negative good form he would have enjoyed turning one. As it was, he assumed a stammer and a drawl, jerking out a few inarticulate phrases of which the lady could distinguish only "so awfully good of you" and "never forget your jolly kindness." This being masculine, soldier-like, and British, he was hurt to notice an amused smile on the Marquise's ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... From the natural point of view the whole region of the dead is 'a land of darkness, without any order, where the light is as darkness.' The usual sources of human certainty fail us here. Reason is only able to stammer a peradventure. Experience and consciousness are silent. 'The simple senses' can only say that it looks as if Death were an end, the final Omega. Testimony there is none from any pale lips that have come back to unfold the secrets ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... act to speak, or rather stammer, But sage Antonia cut him short before The anvil of his speech received the hammer, With 'Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more, Or madam dies.'—Alfonso mutter'd, 'D—n her,' But nothing else, the time of words was o'er; He ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... hat was still sitting under the shadow of the rock smoking, but he rose and threw away his cigar as the deputation of three advanced to address him. Peachy, in her very best Italian, began to stammer out an explanation and excuses. He listened for a moment or two, then shook ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn't you! That would be an excellent way ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... enjoyed a calm existence, full of comforts; in his studio, almost as splendid as a palace, the facade of which was reproduced in the illustrated magazines, he had a wife who was convinced of his genius and a daughter who was almost a woman and who made the troop of his intimate pupils stammer with embarrassment. The only evidences of his Bohemian past that remained were his soft felt hats, his long beard, his tangled hair and a certain carelessness in his dress; but when his position as a "national celebrity" demanded ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the best known of them must needs either speak thickly, or lisp, or stammer," added ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... stammer in the last sentence, suddenly self-conscious again. She told him where her chair was on deck, and next minute, without another word, he was half-way along the alley-way, leaving the tea-things where they were. Then he turned back and spoke ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... filled with such great and unexpected joy that he became almost delirious. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to say a thousand things, and instead he could only stammer out a few confused and broken words. At last he succeeded in uttering a cry of joy, and, opening his arms, he threw them around the little old man's ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... he doesn't stammer either. I'll try presently. Positively, if he wore spectacles and a wig of your hair, I shouldn't ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... not," I admitted; and contrived to stammer out, "and I am very sorry that Doctor Mittendorf thinks you will not ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the first time in his life. He had been struck below the belt by a good-natured giant. The best he could do, as Bacon shuffled calmly out, was to stammer: "Will some one please sing?" And while they sang, he stood in deep thought. Just as the last verse was quivering into silence, the full, deep tones of Radbourn's voice rose above the bustle of ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... understand anything by it! It's a piece of hopeless legal gibberish to me. I stammer out some attempt at an answer, and see Baboo looking at me with a pitying, almost reproachful, glance. "Didn't I," he seems to say, "explain it all to you once at dinner? Do you really mean to say that you've forgotten the way in which I arranged the salt-cellars and the table-knives, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... voice! no longer stammer words which shame the panorama Seen from all the mountain-passes of this old Aurelian Way, With the shore below us sleeping, and the distant steamer creeping From Marseilles to proud Genova, on to Spezzia's famous bay. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... in Oke, not by me, but by his wife. He would look every now and then as if he were going to make a remark, and then evidently restrain himself, and remain silent. It was very curious to see this big, handsome, manly young fellow, who ought to have had any amount of success with women, suddenly stammer and grow crimson in the presence of his own wife. Nor was it the consciousness of stupidity; for when you got him alone, Oke, although always slow and timid, had a certain amount of ideas, and very defined ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... ran on smilingly: "He promised to shackle you to a table until I could stammer out my halting apologies, and now that I've done so in the presence of press and public won't you forgive me and help me to bury the hatchet in a Welsh rarebit?" He was speaking directly to her with a genuine appeal in his handsome eyes. Now that she saw him in ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... stammer out that she didn't mind, and ever since then she has been 'Timoroso' to us all. You know Elsie Gayland. She is the same old Elsie. What the Pied Piper was to Hamelin town, she is to this school. We all still flock after her in spite of ourselves, and no matter what she chooses to pipe ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... too brutally direct to shatter information about silk at one shilling the yard with a prayer for matrimonial freedom. The girl would be shocked—he could see her—she would stare at him, and suddenly grow red in the face and stammer; and he would be forced to trail through a lengthy, precise explanation of this matter which was not at all precise to himself. Furthermore, certain obscure emotions rendered him unwilling to be sundered from this girl.—There was the touch of her hand; more, the touch of ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... I know every idea I have would desert me directly I faced an audience. I'm all right with a definite part that I've got into my head, but I can't make up as I go along, and it's no use asking me. I'd only bungle and stammer, and make an utter goose of myself, and spoil the whole thing. Hallo! There's the ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... burst forth again in these words: "It seems they do not decide to separate so quickly. It is not, however, possible that they will fight.... Can we see them from here?" He approached the window, which indeed looked upon the enclosure. The sight which met his eyes caused the excellent man to stammer.... "The miserable men!.... It is monstrous.... They are mad.... They have found seconds.... Whom have they taken?.... Those two huntsmen!.... Ali, my God! My God!".... He could say no more. The doctor had hastened to the window to see what was passing, regardless of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... vouchsafed an inclination of the head in reply to the graceful and courtly welcome with which the princesses, nieces to the great Cardinal, were received. Eleanor, usually in the background, was left in surprise and confusion to stammer out thanks in broad Scotch, seconded by Lady Drummond, who could make herself far more ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what I had thought, it did not surprise me, and yet I felt sick and giddy. It was some time before I could speak, and then I could only stammer out: ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... Fact is Walthew and I have hustled the rest of the crowd most off their feet, and we mean to keep them on the jump. Last meeting old Macalan's eyes were bulging with horror, he could hardly stammer out his indignation—said our extravagance was sinful. Anyway, you've got ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... perfect knowledge of the sounds of the letters, never guess at a word on sight, lest you get a habit of reading falsely. Pronounce every word distinctly. Let the tone of your voice be the same in reading as in speaking. Never read in a hurry, lest you learn to stammer. Read no louder than to be heard by those about you. Observe to make your pauses regular, and make not any where the sense will admit of none. Suit your voice to the subject. Be attentive to those who read well, and remember ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... to make them uncomfortable is manifestly unfit for society. Now an optional courtesy should be the unfailing custom of such a woman, we will say, one who has the power of giving pain by a slight, who can wound amour propre in the shy, can make a d,butante stammer and blush, can annoy a shy youth by a sneer. How many a girl has had her society life ruined by the cruelty of a society leader! how many a young man has had his blood frozen by a contemptuous smile at his awkwardness! How much of the native good-will of an impulsive person has been frozen into ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... on a thousand and one subjects, a thinker and psychologist. Psychology is his strong point. He argues brilliantly on the subject, yet I need only look at him to upset his thesis, to make him stammer and redden. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... had not even fallen, but excitement as usual had robbed him of the power of connected speech. He could do no more than stammer at the window. "Too heavy. Too heavy." Winnie put out her hand on ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... O'erpower'd by earth, or planetary sway Of Saturn; and the geomancer sees His Greater Fortune up the east ascend, Where gray dawn checkers first the shadowy cone; When 'fore me in my dream a woman's shape There came, with lips that stammer'd, eyes aslant, Distorted feet, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... might have put up a brazen defence, but now he seemed to have lost assurance. "I do no ill," was all he could stammer, "for I have no bias. I am for ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... unsightly one, The Ape was a most unsightly one— So it would not do— His scheme fell through, For the Maid, when his love took formal shape, Express'd such terror At his monstrous error, That he stammer'd an apology and made his 'scape, The ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... very red, and was about to stammer some incoherent reply, when suddenly the young lady called down from the ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... directed against the Church and the clergy. The meeting waxed warm, and seemed likely to come to no good, when Kingsley rose, folded his arms across his chest, threw his head back, and began—with the stammer which always came at first when he was much moved, but which fixed every one's attention at once—"I am a Church of England parson"—a long pause—"and a Chartist;" and then he went on to explain how far ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... dismissal and settled himself to sleep. When Culver began to stammer thanks for the promised promotion, ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... stammer out his thanks, but, without heeding them, the duke came still nearer and said, in ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... a sinister light in his eyes. "How can my lord doubt it? Your respected father has known me these thirty years, and do you suppose that I—I do not know the Syrian? Why, who in Memphis can stammer to compare with him? And has he not killed half my children with your wild young horses?—Half killed every one of my children I mean—half killed them, I say, with fright. They are all still alive and well, God preserve them, but none the better for your horsebreaker; for fresh air is good ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tender little Babes, as well as strong men, ... let not anything straiten you, when God moves: And thou, faithful Babe, though thou stutter and stammer forth a few words in the dread of the Lord, they are accepted, and all that are strong, serve the weak in strengthening them and wait in wisdom to give place to the motion of the Spirit in them, that it ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... to say something further when a glance from Mr. Lawson caused her to stammer and blush in sad confusion. "What have I done?" thought the girl. "He is angry at me." And whenever she turned the reproachful ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... trying to prepare a stammering obvious lie. He confronted a tall, thin man about whom—even if his clothes had been totally different—there could be no mistake. He stood awaiting an apology so evidently that Carson—or Bayle—began to stammer himself even before he had time to dismiss from his voice the suggestion of bluster. It would have irritated Coombe immensely if he had known that he—and a certain overcoat—had been once pointed out to the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Punic, and though he may occasionally use a Greek word picked up from his mother, he neither will nor can speak Latin. You heard, Maximus, a little while ago, you heard my step-son—oh! the shame of it!—the brother of that eloquent young fellow Pontianus, hardly able to stammer out single syllables, when you asked him whether his mother had given himself and his brother the gifts which, as I told you just now, she actually gave ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... lips and my lungs; Walk'd in many a far land, regretting my own; In many a language groaned many a groan; And have often had reason to curse those wild fellows Who built the high house at which Heaven turn'd jealous, Making human audacity stumble and stammer When seized by the throat in the hard gripe of Grammar. But the language of languages dearest to me Is that in which once, O ma toute cherie, When, together, we bent o'er your nosegay for hours, You explain'd what ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... myself down on my knees before Mm, and say that I didn't deserve new skates, or anything like that this year, because I was a wretched, careless boy, who had done something wicked. But somehow I managed to stammer out that I guessed my old ones were going to be good enough for one more season, though, Jack, they are in bad shape; but then it would have made me feel worse than ever if I'd accepted his offer, after failing him when ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... expected these words, but I was not prepared to answer him, and in the rush of his indignant accusation my defence was swept down, and I could only stammer out— ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... miles farther to my house,' he added; 'it's a long way to walk; let us first go to Hor's.' (The reader must excuse my omitting his stammer.) ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... shame-faced of the bustling madness of our heaven-touching Babel. Of course, your secret adoration of Manhattan, the greatest wild poem ever begotten by the heart of man, is not readily transmissible. You will stammer something of what it means to climb upward from the subway on a spring morning and see that golden figure over Fulton Street spreading its shining wings above the new day. And they will smile gently, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... silence, seeing that I would not get him to respond in that way, I began to stammer something about my calling, my love of art, my desire to learn and so forth. . . . He continued to peel his potatoes. Finally, I asked him to give me lessons. He glanced at me and grumbled: 'How old are you, my boy?' I stood there dumbfounded like a ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... great political convulsion. Nature has done little for him. His appearance is common; his countenance, stern; his voice, hoarse; and his delivery, embarrassed; so much so that he speaks only by splitting his syllables. A stammering lover! MOLE, it is true, sometimes indulged in a sort of stammer, but it was suited to the moment, and not when he had to express the ardour of love. A lover, such as is represented to us in all French comedies, is a being highly favoured by Nature, and FLEURY shews him only as much neglected by her. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... was soft and strong, had at its heart a tiny stammer which came out now and then with a hesitating, almost childish, charm. As he stood there, leaning on his stick, smiling at them, there did seem a great deal of the child about him, and Brandon, Ponting and Ronder ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... the crowd were surprised to hear him speaking without any degree of his usual stammer:—'Have I not told you, my friend, that I had drank a considerable quantity of wine before I committed myself to the river. You know my general sobriety, and as a professional man you ought to know that the unusual existence of internal ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... elsewhere was a profane expressman, and had become quite imbecile under Mr. Wynn's active heartiness and brotherly horse-play before spectators) managed, however, to feebly stammer with a blush something ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... are women of whom no man can ever deserve that!" There his manner was all at once so personal that she dared not be silent, but fell to generalizing, with many a stammer, that a woman ought to be very slow to give her trust if, once giving it, she would ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... (Mrs. Stammer was the jade's name) and my wife's moody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant: hence I was driven a good deal abroad, where, as play was the fashion at every club, tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged to resume ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... travelling bonnet. The seconds were like hours as Raymond waited. He had a peep of her, smiling and patient, talking over her shoulder to a big Englishman behind her. Then, as the slow stream brought her down, she stepped lightly on the wharf, turned to Raymond, and, before he could so much as stammer out a word, flung her arms round his ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... with plain-spoken, straightforward, strong-minded men, felt the dreary absurdity of the position. He could only stammer a ridiculous excuse about the clause, having been accidentally left out by a copying secretary. To represent so important an omission as a clerical error was almost as great an absurdity as the original device; but it was necessary ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to swell to bursting, and the blood rushed through my veins so that I could hear it and nothing else for a while. I managed at last to stammer forth some words of awkward congratulation, and he left me, singing merrily, after asking permission to bring his bride to see me on the morrow as they returned ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... closed, and whose jaw by gentle pressure he had brought back, till the lips were only half parted. She could hardly speak, as she laid a timid hand on her late principal's shoulder, directing his attention to the breakfast tray. "Look away, please, for Cecile's sake if not for mine," she managed to stammer, and, as he turned his head aside, she flung herself upon her knees beside the bed, and took the apparently dead man's hand in her own, covered it with tears and kisses, and transferred the ring she had once worn back to her own hand, replacing it with one of her own that would ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... fixing the speaker with his pale-blue eyes,—a little threateningly; always ready to shatter an exuberance, to check an oratorical flow by some quick double-edged word that would make Manisty trip and stammer; showing, too, all the time, by his evident shrinking, by certain impregnable reserves, or by the banter that hid a feeling too keen to show itself, how great is the gulf between a literary ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... being, incapable of manifesting his existence save by an occasional change of place, dying of thirst rather than approach the buffet, and going away without having uttered a word, unless perhaps to stammer out one of those incoherent pieces of foolishness which he remembers for months, and which make him, at night, as he thinks of them, heave an "Ah!" of raging shame, with ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Before Rob could stammer a word in answer, Captain Cuttle turned out, all in a heap, and covered the boy's mouth with ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the floor at her feet in tears. She was shaking with sobs, and could scarcely manage to stammer out that Lizzie was all right. Mrs. Brady settled back with a relieved sigh. Lizzie was the first grandchild, and therefore the idol of her heart. If Lizzie was all right, she could afford to be patient and find out ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... ladyship's command," and he bowed with the most deferential politeness as he delivered himself of this harangue; then recollecting for the first time that he had no card of invitation from, or introduction to, her ladyship, began to stammer forth his excuses, that he had dropped in on the strength of having met Sir Lexicon for a few minutes at the mess of the Fusiliers, and had accepted his general invitation as a carte blanche. He was quickly relieved from his embarassment by his handsome ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... how we got the animal and where we got her. They insisted that we had stolen her and that she was running back to her owner. They declared that we ought to go to prison until the truth could be discovered. At the very mention of the word "prison" I turned pale and began to stammer. I was breathless from my race and could not utter a word. At this moment a policeman arrived, and, in a few words, the whole affair was explained to him. As it did not seem at all clear, he decided to take possession of the cow and have us locked up until we could prove that it belonged ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... all that the astonished courier could stammer out. Then, as the real facts dawned upon him, he knelt at the feet of the young queen and ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... nor is it much more likely to reissue thence than was one of the frail nuns built into the wall in the old times likely to come stepping out again. Bobby has at length ceased to offer me every object which it devolves upon him to hand me, with a quavering voice and a prolonged stammer, since, though I was at first excellently vulnerable by this weapon of offense, I am now becoming hornily hard and indifferent to it. We have stepped over the boundaries ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... endurance had been reached. The obligation of going to the front door to "show in" a visitor was in itself so subversive of the fundamental order of things that it had thrown her faculties into hopeless disarray, and she could only stammer out, after various panting efforts at evocation, "His hat, mum, was ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... before Crewe's house. Then I noticed lights and a confusion of voices. No one came to meet us. And we got out of the motor and went in through the open door. We found a group of excited servants. An old butler began to stammer ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... did amuse herself by telling him the names of the things he touched. He could only stammer, reiterating the syllables, and failing to utter a single word plainly. However, she began to walk him about the room, holding him up and leading him from the bed to the window—quite a long journey. Two or three times he almost fell on the way, at which ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... great: and though he turned language into ignoble clay, he made from it men and women that live. He is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. Even now, as I am speaking, and speaking not against him but for him, there glides through the room the pageant of his persons. There, creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning from some girl's hot kiss. ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... again. Poor Hilary looked very uncomfortable. With an apologetic air he began to stammer something about Parish Councils. I was not to be diverted by any such maneuver. It was impossible that he could really wish to ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... arranging her underclothing. The mother stopped dead and shot me one glance I shall never forget. 'Why, Alice, you frighten me!' she said. I feigned surprise and asked 'What is the matter?' Alice, although she was frightened out of her wits, managed to stammer: 'He couldn't see me—you couldn't see me, could you?' appealing to me. But I had managed to collect my senses a bit and although still under that maternal eye I asked,—at last turning slowly around to Alice: 'See? What do you mean? See what?' ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a family—with stepchildren, so to speak, who adored him. And what could he say to his mother's obsession, to which she came back again and again—her longing to see her grandchildren before she died? Madame Dupont waited only long enough for George to stammer out a few protestations, and then in the next breath to take them back; after which she proceeded to go ahead with the match. The family lawyers conferred together, and the terms of the settlement were worked out and agreed upon. It happened that immediately ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... these details first hand! Young man," and she fixed Eric with her lorgnettes, "have you been wounded—I see no stripe on your arm?" and she eyed him severely. Now E. has always had a bit of a stammer, but at times it becomes markedly worse. We were both enjoying ourselves tremendously: ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... little fight that morning. She had yielded and she could not renew it. She had spent three miserable hours framing reasonable arguments why last night should be forgotten. But the sight of her lover coming across the meadow had set her heart so leaping that she could only stammer out a few tags ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... of thinking. The child has no natural love of truth, as is experienced by all who have the least acquaintance with early youth. If they are charged with a fault while they can hardly speak, the first words they stammer forth are a falsehood to excuse it. Nor is this all: the temptation of attracting attention, the pleasure of enjoying importance, the desire to escape from an unpleasing task, or accomplish a holiday, will at any time overcome the sentiment of truth, so ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... with thy clamor; Bird, beast, and reptile take part in thy drama; Out-speak they all in turn without a stammer,— Brisk Polyglot! Voices of Killdeer, Plover, Duck, and Dotterel; Notes bubbling, hissing, mellow, sharp, and guttural; Of Cat-Bird, Cat, or Cart-Wheel, thou canst ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... by a shake of the head which gave Philammon courage to stammer out a courteous refusal. The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand, sent him staggering half across the court: but ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... detaining him, shaken and filled with inexplicable grief as he was by his presence, worst of all was the fear of being alone again after a frightful, brief adventure in his life, vanished and unexplained. He wanted to reassure and comfort the wavering, sorrowful boy, but all he could stammer in apology for his shout was: "Wh—where are ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Ella, Algernon crimsoned to the eyes, and became so exceedingly confused, that he could with difficulty stammer forth, by way of reply, the query as to the time when the important event was expected ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Snaggs managed to stammer out after a bit, his long face perceptibly longer and his rubicund complexion turned to an ashy grey. He was conscience-stricken and thoroughly frightened at the second-mate thus bringing up again, as he thought, his cruel murder of the negro cook; ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... English Judges of the Land undertaking such a Hangman's Office! The poor Wretch made no other complaint than to murmur that the King had directed that he was not to be ill-treated; and when they further questioned him, could only stammer out some Incoherent Balderdash about the Archbishop, the Parliament, and the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... old school-fellow. The sight of his blank, unrecognizing gaze brought him back to the consciousness of the utter change in himself. He looked down at his coarse hands and mechanic's dress, and remembered that he was no longer Roland Sefton. His tongue was parched; it was difficult to stammer ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... which nobody was able to bear. Lamb would parade his admiration for some favourite author, Donne, for example, whom the rest of the company probably abhorred. He would select the most crabbed passages to quote and defend; he would stammer out his piquant and masterful half sentences, his scalding jests, his controvertible assertions; he would skilfully hint at the defects which no one else was permitted to see; and if he made no converts (wanting none), he woke no weary wrath. But we all ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... all this news been digested than somebody discovered a diamond ring on Clara Tuttle's left hand. So Clara was surrounded and an explanation demanded. But before she could conquer her blushes and stammer out her news Max Longman came in from another room and, putting his arms about her, said, "Don't be afraid, girl of mine, I'm here." And so everybody knew then that it was Max, after all, and not ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... unfrequented woods, and at last seemed about to desert him as he stood in a little hollow with her hand in his—their only listener an inquisitive squirrel. Yet this was all the disappointed animal heard him stammer,— ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the pitchers?" In secret the children they smile, as they wait; At last, though, they stammer, and ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... with a tremendous incursion of Teutons, who always seem to travel in hordes, only German gutturals held the table, and we who had no facility with them muttered meek French or sullen English to our neighbors. The next day French would be the rule, and Teuton must mumble in it and Anglo-Saxon stammer or hold its peace. Curiously enough, although we were in Italy, Italian was rarely, almost never, spoken among us, our only use of it being in orders to the servants. Our landlady was English, with an Italian husband, but they both held only upper menial places in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Even reach the town; Urban muses stammer Hints of alien glamor, But the city's clamor Beats the voices down; Hints of alien glamor Even ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... I do remember is that Hugh would under no circumstances and for no considerations ever consent to go into a room in the dark by himself, being extremely imaginative and nervous; and that on one occasion when he was asked what he expected to befall him, he said with a shudder and a stammer: "To fall over a mangled corpse, squish! into ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to speak a piece is a fact profoundly significant. They know it is nothing in the world but foolishness; and if there is one thing above another that a child hates, it is to be made a fool in public. That's what makes them work their fingers so, and gulp, and stammer, and tremble at the knees. That is what sends them to their seats, after all is over, mad as hornets. This is something that I know about. It happened that, instead of getting funny pieces to recite as I wanted to, discerning that one silly turn deserves another, my ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood |
