"Incoherently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... last successful attempt at speech. Thereafter he babbled incoherently, pawing the air with shaking arms till a fresh convulsion stretched ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... aptly described as being of a "busy" character, usually manifests itself within a few days of the patient being laid up. For two or three days he refuses food, is depressed, suspicious, sleepless and restless, demanding to be allowed up. Then he begins to mutter incoherently, to pull off the bedclothes, and to attempt to get out of bed. There is general muscular tremor, most marked in the tongue, the lips, and the hands. The patient imagines that he sees all sorts of horrible beings around him, and is sometimes ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... was pacing the deck, carrying in his hand a rattan cane such as he used on shore. As he overhauled him, Captain Hill, with the instinct of a drunken man, locked arms with the young man, and forced him to promenade in his company, talking rather incoherently meanwhile. Clinton's look of distress and perplexity, as he submitted to his fate, caused Harry nearly to explode with laughter. They were ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... which the sick man swallowed without protest. He seemed stronger in a few moments, and began talking incoherently to himself. We got him down to the doctor's carriage, and drove rapidly to his lodgings, where we put him to bed ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... nor the will to work; all my money is spent, and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Rather incoherently she returned to her subject, but she did not succeed in giving Miss Rose anything more than a confused idea of a trip somewhere that would really be an outing, and a tremendous opportunity to make thousands of dollars with very little effort. This sounded ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... boneless thing, and all but fell. His head flopped towards Jean-Christophe; he looked at him and babbled incoherently and irritably. When Jean-Christophe's eyes met those clouded eyes he was seized with panic terror. He ran away to the other end of the room, and threw himself on his knees by the bed, and buried his face in the clothes. He remained so for some time. Melchior ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... glass of wine and became absorbed in the general conversation. Voices sounded harshly, faces were red, and eyes glowed through a mist of alcoholic intoxication, while many lips were already mumbling indistinctly and incoherently. All were talking at once, arguing heatedly and quarreling volubly, unceremoniously swearing, ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... comradeship and a song of good wishes. Each one he wrote in the haste of having the task quickly over, only to throw away what he had written when he read it. The touch that he wanted would not come. He was simply flashing out a few of a thousand disconnected thoughts that ran away incoherently with his pen. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... delight. Sticking out of the Colonel's belt was the ebony handle of a cavalry revolver, and he made up his mind to get it. There were no troopers around—the Colonel had admitted as much. He began talking rapidly, sometimes incoherently. In a corner of the room he saw the cords which had been around his wrists and ankles the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... and started running, blindly. Each gasping breath was an agony as the blistering gas dug deeper and deeper into his lungs. Reason departed from him; he was screaming incoherently as he stumbled up a stony ramp, crashed into a wall, spun around and smashed blindly into another. Then something ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... minutes before Oliver aroused himself from the abstracted position in which he was standing when Louisa last saw him; but when he did, he muttered something rapidly and incoherently, and, throwing his rod over his shoulder, he strode down the walk through the gate and along one of the streets of the village, until he reached the lake-shore, with the air of an emperor. At this spot boats were kept for the use of Judge Temple ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... know; I fear so. I warned her; I told her it would come. But she would do it," cried the doctor incoherently, as he tried to feel her pulse with one hand while he tore at the fastenings of her dress with the other. He set Paul at work chafing the hands of the unconscious woman, while Miss Ludington sprinkled her ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... my own face!" she cried incoherently, holding out the little pot. "My poor little ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... led him out into the hall while the others searched his room. Belgezad was sputtering incoherently. Another policeman was trying to ...
— Heist Job on Thizar • Gordon Randall Garrett
... other musicians, whose playing pleased the crowd infinitely better, were relying on their memories, the old man had placed before him in the midst of the surging crowd a small, easily portable music-stand, with dirty, tattered notes, which probably contained in perfect order what he was playing so incoherently. It was precisely the novelty of this equipment that had attracted my attention to him, just as it excited the merriment of the passing throng, who jeered him and left the hat of the old man empty, while the rest of the orchestra pocketed whole copper mines. In order ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... return to the farmhouse, or incoherently trying to explain to his wife the scene he had witnessed. A stiff jolt of elderberry wine drove off the jitters and reasoning returned. His wife sat patiently, eyeing him oddly, as Zack muttered over and over again, ...
— The Shining Cow • Alex James
... and the poor lad was muttering incoherently, and not in a condition to pay heed to the words of ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... the floor rapidly, and to Mrs. Crawford it seemed as if he really were unsettled in his mind, he talked so incoherently ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... down to breakfast; which we had hardly done, when two of them, an old man and a boy, came to the door of our tent and prostrated themselves before us, apparently in great alarm, for they answered incoherently, "ooa" (yes) to every question we asked them. At last we raised the old man on his knees, but he would not quit this posture till we gave him a glass of rum, which re-assured him a little, and shortly afterwards he consented to stand on his legs. Having thus ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... priest, his broad Irish face ornamented by a black clay pipe, was tramping up and down in his wet clothes. Blake was helping Miss Grant to wring the water out of her clothes, and she was somewhat incoherently trying to thank him. As Hugh drove up, Blake looked up and caught his eye, and there flashed between the two men an unmistakable look of hostility. Then Hugh jumped from the waggonette, and walked up to Miss Grant, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... though not unimportant, were not satisfactory, for men were compelled to see that from various causes the huge numbers brought upon the field lapsed into confusion, and that battle, however well planned in large outline, resolved itself into a mere mass of warring units incoherently struggling one with another. There was lack of proportion between effort exerted and effect achieved. A period of systematization and organization set in. Unwieldy numbers were reduced to more manageable dimensions by excluding ships whose size and strength did not add to the efficiency of the order ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... fists and rubbed his head from front to back in his old indecisive way, and began to swear incoherently ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... being much busied in preparations for her journey, had sent Annis to the sports with the Lady of Terreforte, and was ready to receive the poor, drenched, exhausted being, who almost stumbled into her motherly arms, weeping bitterly, and incoherently moaning something about her sisters, and her ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... only keeping Mr. Mellowes, Daddy...." Something in her voice made Micky's eyes smart. It was hard luck that for the second time he was forced to humiliate her. He stammered out incoherently that he hoped they would forgive him, but he was in such a deuce of a ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... time the door was open. His hand darted to his holstered furnace beamer and unlocked the safety. It was almost pitch dark in the room but he heard the room's occupant turning over on the bunk and mumble low, incoherently, in his sleep. Nelson waited a minute but the man ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... her wrists said: "Thanks; I adore you." She took his arm as if he had been her husband, and led him to a couch, upon which they seated themselves side by side. Duroy stammered, incoherently: "You ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... soul cried incoherently, how can I come, how can I find! A wordless, baffled, impotent ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... time being come again. And once again, vast multitudes of phantoms sprung into existence; once again, were incoherently engaged, as they had been before; once again, faded on the stopping of the Chimes; ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... the fitful light of the fires, which flared wildly in the storm and, as they had by that time gathered intense heat, bid defiance to the rain. There were several passengers, who had just been extricated, lying on the ground, some motionless, as if dead, others talking incoherently. These he looked at in passing, but Garvie was not among them. Leaving them under the care of the surgeons, who did all that was possible in the circumstances for their relief, he ran and joined the surface-men in removing the broken ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... an amiable bachelor, an old friend of Ralph's who happened to be in town and for whom prompt commerce with Miss Stackpole appeared to have neither difficulty nor dread. Mr. Bantling, a stout, sleek, smiling man of forty, wonderfully dressed, universally informed and incoherently amused, laughed immoderately at everything Henrietta said, gave her several cups of tea, examined in her society the bric-a-brac, of which Ralph had a considerable collection, and afterwards, when ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the forearm exposed. The hypodermic needle pricked the flesh. There was no sound of any step; but the cretonne hanging wavered almost imperceptibly, as though some one, or perhaps but a current of air from the passage without, had swayed it slightly. Jimmie Dale was mumbling incoherently to himself now; his lips, like his fingers, working in nervous twitches. A few seconds passed—a half minute. Still mumbling, Jimmie Dale, with a caress like that of a miser for his gold, was fondling the shining little ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Still groaning, and incoherently muttering, Nick permitted himself to be raised to his feet, and Stall then supported him and urged him out through the open doorway ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... very much—it doesn't matter about the heel, it really doesn't matter at all," said Rosemary incoherently, her one wish being to get away ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... "Thus incoherently she began; but the first step taken, and secure of sympathy in her hearer, she went on, and you will believe me when I tell you we talked till midnight, and that then Mary sunk, like a weary child, into my arms ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... arrived. It was a few minutes to 12. I was alone in my private office, all in a fidget, as if the meeting I was expecting were a love-tryst. Reminiscences and reflections were flitting incoherently through my mind. Some of the events of the day which I was about to celebrate loomed up like a ship seen in the distance. My eye swept the expensive furniture of my office. I thought of the way my career had begun. I thought of the Friday evening when I met Gitelson on Grand Street, he an American ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... what you think I am!" she sobbed out, incoherently. "I'm not different from other women; I'm just as selfish and bad and mean as the worst of them! And I'm not worthy to ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... incoherently of a conspiracy, a contract, and of the great wealth that would be theirs in one week from that time, that she was completely bewildered, and for the first time in her life began to wonder if her papa knew exactly what ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... stout man sprang up from a table, his face ghastly pale and distorted as though with terror. His eyes were wild and staring. He chattered incoherently as he hastened away with tottering steps. Then his hands gripped his hair, as though about to tear it from ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... arm, which was drawn back with a sharp wince, and its owner uttered a groan. Bearing to the left and whispering to Punch to take care, Pen crept on, to find himself almost in contact with another sufferer, who said something incoherently; and then a whisper from Punch checked ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... explained," says he, somewhat incoherently, upset not so much by her words (which are strange, too) as by the strange look ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid from Simon's arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way. As they slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... tremulously and incoherently that I felt really sorry for him. Jones was not a bad fellow, though he was in bad company just then. I told him so, and that it would be best for him to go out quietly, or he might hurt himself. He seemed ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... of Inamoratos, who are not so very much lost to common Sense, but that they understand the Folly they are guilty of; and for that Reason separate themselves from all other Company, because they will enjoy the Pleasure of talking incoherently, without being ridiculous to any but each other. When a Man comes into the Club, he is not obliged to make any Introduction to his Discourse, but at once, as he is seating himself in his Chair, speaks in the Thread ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and constantly interrupted her story to say: "No, I can't! I'm not telling it right; no, you don't understand," though he encouraged ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... know what answers he made to her further remarks. A faint memory remained with him of talking incoherently against reason, against sentiment, against time, as, with her velvety regard resting upon him sadly, he swung on his overcoat and hurried ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... suggestions. Haviland and Zotique, driving past to make sure of Misericorde, heard a commotion and turned their horses in. Benoit threw himself on his knees to Chamilly, violently begging his forgiveness, and incoherently confessing the evil work of himself and Spoon, whereat ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... the mike, incoherently. I caught words, cursing. Then Chilcote's voice, "Captain," he said. "Captain, please come quick." There was a loud clatter, noise, then only the ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... He murmured incoherently and took her to his arms. I really do not see that he could have done anything else. It was a plain and simple issue, and she herself had protested that the ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... might be expected, Jack's disorder, which had hitherto been comparatively of the calm and melancholy kind, broke out into the most violent and phrenetic exhibitions. He sometimes raved incoherently, for hours together, against the Squire; often, in the midst of his speeches, he was assailed with epileptic fits, during which he displayed the strangest contortions and most laughable gestures; he threw entirely aside the decent coat he had worn for some time ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... He spoke wildly, incoherently, scarcely knowing what he said, and she, half lying on her couch of roses, looked at him curiously, with somber, meditative eyes. A smile of delicate derision parted ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... burning brightly, but both Tessa and Maoni were sunk in a heavy slumber, and although Latour called loudly to them to arise, they made no answer, though Tessa tried to sit up, and her lips moved as she muttered incoherently, only to fall back again with ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Helen's face, and she read what was so easy to read in them. It was her business, her chief affair in life just now, to keep her two eyes wide open; hence she saw, too, the look which Helen had flashed at the cattleman. And while she observed all of this she was speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, as though her one concern lay in the tragic error she had made. Had she been less than a very clever woman who had long lived, and lived well, by her wits, she must have found the situation too much for her. But no one ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... worse, would take hardly any food, was persistently wakeful and restlessly raving; but still not violent. Contrary to Bulstrode's alarmed expectation, he took little notice of Lydgate's presence, and continued to talk or murmur incoherently. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... And hurriedly, incoherently, she explained that the letter from Lord Broadstone was an urgent appeal to Ferrier's patriotism and to his personal friendship for the writer; begging him for the sake of party unity, and for the sake of the country, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the liquor, he was rendered by it incapable of calm reflection. In certain nervous conditions our mere physical powers are proof against the action of alcohol, and though ten times more drunk than the toper, who, incoherently stammering, reels into the gutter, we can walk erect and talk with fluency. Indeed, in this artificial exaltation of the sensibilities, men often display a brilliant wit, and an acuteness of comprehension, calculated ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... rather incoherently, between the puffs. He did not attempt to make a story of it, but merely related the facts as they had happened to him. It is probable that to him the act was veiled which ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... the laboured breathing became easier. He stirred feebly, and whispered incoherently from time to time. He was still in his cell. Wentworth's name, the Italian doctor's, rose to his lips. Then, after a pause, he ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... for a Captain Jackson," said the old woman, turning to the girl. "I thought he—he doesn't seem quite sure whether it is Captain Jackson he wants—he may bring news," she concluded incoherently. ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... incoherently. After a time she raised herself on her arms and crouched beside Hilda, who put her arms around her and held her close, as she would have held a ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... and putting hands up to his eyes as if to shut out some awful sights, he began muttering incoherently about "Louvain," "children screaming," "blood all over his breast," repeating constantly "schrecklich, schrecklich." "I don't want to see any more war. I want to see my wife ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... white tulle skirt, a thin foot, a thin bosom, and a pair of bright grey eyes. Vaguely he sought for equivalent words, but loud-talking dancers passed into the room, and, abashed by their stares, the Marquis broke off a flowering branch and said, stammering the while incoherently: ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... pen's business is to write, and not to speak.'" Madame, who liked the Keeper of the Seals, was very much concerned, and begged the first physician not to mention what he had perceived. Four days after this, M. Berryer was seized with catalepsy, after having talked incoherently. This is a disease which I did not know even by name, and got it written down for me. The patient remains in precisely the same position in which the fit seizes him; one leg or arm elevated, the eyes wide open, or just as it may happen. This latter affair was known to all the Court at ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... shadows in the furrows of his forehead. In a moment he got to his feet and went to where Ernestine sat, his hat in his hand, kind words of greeting upon his lips for a lonely woman. She grew suddenly sullen; in a moment the sullen mood melted in a burst of tears, and she was talking with him incoherently. ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal glasses. He placed this on the library table, filled the glasses, and at a ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... explain, a little incoherently, that she had taken Miss Minford to her house, the day after the murder, and had asked the poor child to live with her, to be her adopted daughter. Miss Minford had gladly accepted the offer, and had stayed there until yesterday. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... man, but whether passenger or seaman it was impossible in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling on his belly in the wet scuppers, and kicking feebly with his outspread toes. We asked him what was amiss, and he replied incoherently, with a strange accent and in a voice unmanned by terror, that he had cramp in the stomach, that he had been ailing all day, had seen the doctor twice, and had walked the deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... without formality. Mrs. Artemas vanished bodily, Mrs. Standish in the car with her brother to see him off; Bob and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and disappeared forthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading overdue correspondence, Trego was snapped up for auction bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sally being elected to fourth place as one whose defective education must be promptly remedied, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Church, the effects resembled intoxication. They were full of the Spirit, and mocking bystanders said, "These men are full of new wine;" for they found themselves elevated into the ecstasy of a life higher than their own, possessed of powers which they could not control; they spoke incoherently and irregularly; to the most part of those ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... room, talking incoherently: but he is brought to a dead halt by seeing Caroline dry her tears, which are really flowing ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... alarmed and summoned a doctor immediately, who, on entering the room, perceived at once the cause of Mrs. D'Alton's malady, and ordered her to be conveyed to bed. In the morning she was a little better, being able to speak; but she was still very much shaken, and raved incoherently. Mr. D'Alton was telegraphed for, and came immediately; but, being merely informed that his wife had had a fit, he imagined her to be afflicted with hysteria; indeed, although he knew she was fond of a glass of wine, and often joined him in partaking of brandy and water, ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... some shelter, but rarely with any permanent effect, for the sleeper usually contrived to turn himself, and to roll again into the spot where the fire glowed the brightest. His torpor was generally profound, but he would sometimes discourse incoherently for a long while in his sleep. At six he would suddenly compose himself, even in the midst of an animated narrative or of earnest discussion, and he would lie buried in entire forgetfulness, in a sweet and mighty oblivion, until ten, when he would suddenly start up, and rubbing ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... to play here the whole summer." The head waiter fumbled with the knife and fork at the place opposite, and blushed. "But you'll hear her to-night yourself," he ended incoherently, and hurried away, to show another guest to ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... most of his days sitting in the sunshine. He talked cheerfully, withal a trifle incoherently, to all of his friends and neighbours who came to gossip with him; but he was always at his best when Mr. Selincourt or Jervis Ferrars was there to talk to him, for they spoke of things right away from the ordinary course of daily life, and his mind ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... He lay muttering incoherently some little time; then for a time he lay silent, and apparently sinking away toward death. Presently his fingers began to pick busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his end was at hand with the first suggestion of the death-rattle in his throat he started up slightly, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mere hint of such a thing made his brain reel with rage. Every circumstance pointing to it appeared incredible. The statement of Hirsch, which was so absolutely fatal to his hopes, could by no means be admitted. It is true, too, that Hirsch's story had been told so incoherently, with such excessive signs of distraction, that it really looked improbable. It was extremely difficult, as the saying is, to make head or tail of it. On the bridge of the steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... gestures, and expression of countenance were in keeping with the language itself, and truly horrible. Suddenly a change came over his countenance; the dark lines of passion retreated, and an expression of timidity or fear came in their place. He muttered incoherently for a time, and then, as if communing with himself, he spoke in a subdued voice of the last scene in his conscious life. A few sentences were audible and connected, showing how his mind was ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... it? They are talking about a warrant and an arrest in there. It is not true—oh, it can not be true!" said the young wife, a little incoherently. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that she was "wicked, wicked!" and that, even saying so, staggered, and fell beside her late burden. And all that Mr. McClosky could do was to feebly rub his beard, and say to himself vaguely and incoherently, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... was huddled round the side of the clubhouse, too scared to talk much, just muttering incoherently and wringing their hands, and Beryl Mae pipes up and says: 'Oh, perhaps I wronged him after all; perhaps deep down in his heart he ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... evidently labouring under strong excitement, who, having thrust his way past the police, advanced to the Coroner's table and demanded to have sight of the body. The man's gestures were wild, and on being asked his name he answered incoherently. His manner seriously affected one of the jury, who swooned and had to be ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... now and not find a baby? He wouldn't forgive a LITTLE lie, what would he do with a WHOPPER like this?" Then with sudden decision, she rushed toward the 'phone. "Let me talk to Jimmy," she said, and the next moment she was chattering so rapidly and incoherently over the 'phone that Aggie despaired of hearing one word that she said, and retired to the next room to think out a new plan ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... he began to grow restless. He could not sit still, but paced to and fro, with terror-haunted eyes, muttering incoherently to himself, and taking out his watch every few moments to note the passage of time. At last, when his watch pointed to half-past eleven, he retired, without a word of farewell to his guests, to his bedroom, not knowing that ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... Dr. Hosack, the uncertainty of his recovery. Being at that time a student of medicine, I was requested to watch him; on the second day of his sickness, his fever raging higher, he betrayed a disturbed intellect. On the night of the third day raving mania set in. Incoherently he called his family around him, and addressed his sons as to their peculiar avocations for life, giving advice to one ever to be temperate in all things, and to another urging the importance of knowledge. After midnight he became much worse, and was ungovernable. With herculean strength ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... so completely confused that I answered incoherently: "After all, 'twas but a shadow—nothing but a shadow—one can manage without it; and surely it is not worth making such a noise about." But I felt so deeply the deception of my language, that I was silent before he deigned to ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... fact that Gethryn's "cellar" was no longer open to the public. Since the day when Rex returned from Julien's, tired and cross, to find a row of empty bottles on the floor and Clifford on the sofa conversing incoherently with himself, and had his questions interrupted by a maudlin squawk from the parrot — also tipsy — since that day Gethryn had carried the key. He now produced a wine glass and a dusty bottle, filled the one from the other and emptied it three times in rapid succession. Then he ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... manly tears, perhaps, and certainly in womanly tears. But really is it any such emotion? Honestly is not it a cruel embarrassment, which all the hypocritical pretences cannot hide? The old friends smile and laugh, and babble incoherently at one another, but are they genuinely glad? Is not each wishing the other at that end of the earth from which he came? Have they any use for each other such as people of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to ramble and babble incoherently, her memories of her own and the experiences of others all confused in her mind. When she had about finished a story about how one of the slave women, "bust de skull" of the head of her marster,'" 'cause ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... for him.' So then I wrote my note to you and sent it off. Since then the doctor and my sister have succeeded in carrying her upstairs—and the doctor gives leave for you to see her. He is coming back again presently. During her sleep, she talked incoherently once or twice about a lake and a boat—and once she said—'Oh, do stop that music!' and moved her head about as though it hurt her. Since then I have heard some gossip from the village about a strange lady who was seen in the park ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all out on the table, and gloated on them with greedy eyes. They looked so inviting, that he said to himself they would be safer in his custody than in that of a delirious person, who was even now raving incoherently before him, and could not see what he was doing. He therefore proceeded to transfer them to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Still, as the sun rose, all hands began to complain of thirst. Something must be done, however. I asked Pember what he would advise, as he, being the highest in rank among us, would have to take the command; but his drinking habits had unnerved him, and he answered, incoherently, "We must swim, I suppose, if we cannot get the wreck under way." Esse and I then turned to Mr Noalles. He had occasionally uttered a deep groan, as if in pain. I found that he was severely hurt, partly from the fire, and also from the blows he had received. ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... believe it. I can't tell you how it hurts me. I would willingly take your place if it were possible. Forgive me for deserting you—" Graydon was saying incoherently when his father lifted his face suddenly, a fierce, horrified look of understanding in the eyes that flashed upon Elias Droom. Even as he clasped his son's hand in the bitterness of small joy, his lips curled into a snarl of fury. Droom's eyes shifted instantly, his uneasy gaze ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... death and sorrow and tears of blood and not lifting your head for groans," said Widow Anne incoherently, "and there's meanings in mubble-fumbles, as we're told in Scripture. Not but what the Perfesser's been a kind gentleman to Sid in taking him from going round with the laundry cart, and eddicating him to watch camphorated ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... dizzily in his walk and began to talk incoherently—a thing I had never heard him do before ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... husky undertone, and brokenly, incoherently. He made an appeal, which Lanfear seemed not to hear, where he remained immovable with his ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... lay in a bunk on the whale-ship Bedford, and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told who he was and what he had undergone. He also babbled incoherently of his mother, of sunny Southern California, and a home among the orange ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... more words than any in the tribe. And her talk was a terrible thing to hear. Sometimes she screamed and moaned incoherently, and sometimes the shape of her guttural cries was the mere phantom of thoughts. But she conveyed to Eudena, nevertheless, much of the things that were yet to come, of the Lion and of the torment he would do her. "And Ugh-lomi! Ha, ha! Ugh-lomi ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... of the next few minutes can be better imagined than described. Miss Carr shed tears into her teacup; the girls repeated incoherently that they had always expected it, and that they had never expected it; and Mr Bertrand was as mischievous in his teasing ways as Raymond himself could have been under the circumstances; but the lovers ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the morning Holt found himself entering the village at a point opposite to that at which he had left it. He soon arrived at the house of his brother, who hardly knew him. He was wild-eyed, haggard, and gray as a rat. Almost incoherently, he related his ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... fellow," said Bones, incoherently, "don't let's discuss it ... I can't understand how these things get into the ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... was sobbed out, incoherently enough, on his hitherto immaculate shirt-front. "You don't mind," she whispered, "if I cry down your neck, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... they're taking him out to the oak. Been gone about ten minutes. They had it in for him, and—I couldn't do a thing! The men in this town—" Epithets rushed incoherently from Bill's lips, just as violent weeping marks the reaction from a woman's first silence in the ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... he stammered, he changed color. Still those eyes regarded him—still Hiram continued to hesitate, and stammer, till some sort of response came out, by piecemeal, incoherently. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... am," he said incoherently, beginning to feel better. It was only Gibson who was cross, he reflected; Mrs. Sterling herself was as nice as she ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... while that he was shrieking senselessly and incoherently, the disorder in the hall increased. Many people jumped up from their seats, some dashed forward, nearer to the platform. It all happened much more quickly than I describe it, and there was no time to take steps, perhaps no ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sez I, almost incoherently. "Be you a ghost? Oh, Josiah, Josiah!" And I sunk back onto the pillow and busted into tears. The ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... across the room in sudden, blind panic. "We can't shake it! Nobody can shake one!" Mumbling incoherently, he grabbed a spacesuit and ...
— No Hiding Place • Richard R. Smith
... night-attire as she lay quite still, trying to find a way out through the jungle of pain and grief which seemed to spread round and about so many she loved; whilst Dekko, puffed out with sleepiness, sat on the back of a chair, muttering incoherently to some fanciful image ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... build the gallows to hang the criminal. When Omic was led out by Sheriff Baldwin to execution, he remarked that the gallows was too high. He then called for whisky and drank half a pint, which loosened his tongue, and he talked rapidly and incoherently, threatening to return in two days and wreak his revenge on all the pale-faces. More liquor was given him, and he asked for more, but Judge Walworth denounced the giving him more, that he might die drunk, as an outrage, and his supply of liquor was ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... Incoherently, she rambled on and the man's countenance took on an expression of such rage that Helen Young uttered a cry of dismay. She had never seen Ebenezer in one of his savage moods. Before she could draw him away, he had lifted his riding whip ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... no glimmer of hope, the clouds had rolled away. He glanced at the pistol, harmlessly resting on a shelf, and a rush of gratitude filled his heart and brought tears to his eyes. He clasped his friend's hand and tried incoherently to ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... awful, awful! Apparently she had been kissed speechless, for she said nothing. The man fool did all the talking, incoherently enough, but evidently satisfactory to her, judging from the way she looked at him, and blushed and blushed, and touched her eyes with a ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... wretched hovel, which was about as tumbledown as a place can become where wind and storm have, for many years, been allowed to work havoc, they saw the old crone standing erect and sober at the roadside, on the same spot where she usually sat in a drunken stupor, lurching to and fro, and babbling incoherently, and with her were four of the children. All five were now washed and combed, and as decently dressed as was possible for them ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... Beauchamp spoke hoarsely and incoherently in contrast with her composure: 'You will misunderstand me for a day or two, Renee. I say if you were free I should have my first love mine for ever. Don't fear me: I have no right even to press your fingers. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... saw it wasn't there and I searched everywhere. I saw it with my own eyes," said Tootsie incoherently, and between rage and tears she repeated her account in a manner to be completely unintelligible. Mr. Bedelle was a theorist afflicted with indigestion. He carefully selected his diet with due regard for starch values and never ate a raw tomato ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... tried to shake him awake so that he could have his breakfast and the morning paper, but Johnny swore incoherently and turned over with his ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... incoherently as Ben finished his harangue, but made no motion to take the apple. "You don't know what you are missing," Ben went on. "Now just for the sake of old times, let's try to be jolly and remember when we were boys. Why, many ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... "only let me say half a dozen words to my mother; "and, rushing upstairs, I dashed into her room, told her the whole matter on the spot, incoherently, and without the slightest preparation, whereby I set her crying violently, to make up for which I kissed her abruptly (getting very wet in so doing), pulled down the bell-rope in obedience to the dictates of a sudden inspiration that she would be the better for a maid-servant, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... driving with Mrs. Rolleston, and the others, she thought were with the General; but it did not much matter. It was a blustering February afternoon—Cecil long remembered it; the north wind had strewn the ground with dead branches, and cawing rooks, on the eve of wedlock, were drifting about incoherently on the breeze. She was following the course of a brook where the grounds widened into a wild, brambly park, and looking over her shoulder she perceived Jack Vavasour some distance off, coming along with rapid strides as if bent ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... was just words. No weapon remained in his hands. "I'll get you yet, you devil!" he screamed, almost incoherently. "I'll lay in wait and kill you—you can't get away! The wolves have got your grizzly meat—you ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... whole island assembled around it. One of their preachers (a slave like the rest) gave out the words of a hymn, which they all sang in unison; after which he made an exhortation, and bade us pray, and we all kneeled down on the earth together, while this poor, ignorant slave prayed aloud and spoke incoherently, but fervently enough, of Life and Death and Immortality. We then walked to the grave, the negroes chanting a hymn by the light of pine torches and the uprising of a glorious moon. An old negro, who possessed the rare and forbidden accomplishment ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... of me that he didn't, you know. I really owed it to you. And after the way I talked to you—so long as I had the money—I—and, anyhow, its very disagreeable and eccentric and horrid of you to object to being rich!" Margaret concluded, somewhat incoherently. ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... brass of the defense forces into a frenzied tizzy. The anguished consternation of previous occasions would seem like very calm contemplation by comparison. The high brass of the armed forces should grow dizzy. Top-echelon civilian officials should tend to talk incoherently to themselves, and scientific consultants—biologists in particular—ought to feel their heads spinning ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a frenzy of mingled hope and fear. He gabbled half incoherently his allegiance to his captor, his love for him, his willingness to do this, that, anything—only, not the Deep Place—prease! He was a pitiable object, could Martin have found pity for him in his heart. He was no longer ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... that this news excited in the mind of the queen it would be impossible to describe. She fell at first into a swoon, and when at length her senses returned, she was so completely overwhelmed with disappointment, vexation, and rage, and talked so wildly and incoherently, that her friends almost feared that she would lose her reason. Her son, the young prince, who was now nearly nineteen years of age, did all in his power to soothe and calm her, and at length so far succeeded as to induce her to consider what was to be done to secure her own and his safety. To remain ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... her mind quite clearly that the man who was at that moment talking to Mademoiselle Therese, was the solicitor himself. Before she could move from her place, the son had cast himself down on his knees, and was begging her incoherently to spare him and his father—not to inform against them. The thought of going to prison, he said, would kill him, as it had his mother, as it nearly had his sister; and if she would spare them, he would take his father ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... her sudden appearance seemed to root Bruce to the spot. All but the discolored places on his face turned white. He held his breath a moment, then expelled it hard. His effort to recover from the shock was painfully obvious. He stammered incoherently. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the bell and ordered his car. He talked to the Terror jerkily and somewhat incoherently till it came; and the Terror observed his perturbation with considerable interest. It seemed to him very curious in a hard-bitten hunter of big game. They started and in the two level miles to Little Deeping Sir James changed ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... uttered a cry with such terror in it that she shuddered and was still. Then he began to mutter incoherently, and she heard her own name ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the City Hall Station. The policeman's face was chalky white; his eyes were staring, his cap was over one side, he staggered uncertainly. As he caught sight of Darrow he stumbled to the young man and clung to his neck, muttering incoherently. People passing in and out looked at him curiously ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... melting moved in Peter Siner's breast. He caressed his mother and murmured incoherently, as had Tump Pack. Presently the master of the launch came by, and touched the old negress, not ungently, with the end ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... one and then another began to mutter incoherently before sinking into a heavy sleep, the mate, who was the most vigorous man present, having the hardest fight of all, and when he did cease babbling as he lay there in the darkness there was a coldness of hand and weakness of pulse ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... unconsciousness as he lay stretched on the raft, on hearing Alice shriek out at the moment she was dragged into the water, started up, his senses completely bewildered, and instead of lowering the sail, stood waving his hands, and incoherently shrieking out to her to come to him. The mate shouted to him to lower the sail; but he did not understand the order, and continued leaping frantically about the raft, waving his hands and shrieking as before. The consequence was that the raft got further and ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Darling—darling," he said, incoherently, "what have I done to make your dear eyes wet? Oh, I love you so, I love you so, and I have only made ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... she said, in French, almost incoherently, so great was her agitation—"Madam, I am a poor serf belonging to a Polish family who have lately arrived in Florence. I have escaped from them; protect, shelter me. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... still murmuring incoherently, 'Man, I tell you... for the soul of Julina... Ave Maria...', and rocked on ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... ain't to blame for it, if he is blind, is he?" chattered the boy, a bit incoherently. "If you're blind you're blind, and you can't help yourself." And with a jerk he freed himself from Mazie's grasp and hurried ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... gratitude for the chance, though at the same time with a sort of notifying firmness. The odd thing, as she was afterwards to recall, was that her wonder for what had brought him was not immediate, but had come at the end of five minutes; and also, quite incoherently, that she felt almost as glad to see him, and almost as forgiving of his interruption of her solitude, as if he had already been in her thought or acting at her suggestion. He was some-how, at the best, the end of a respite; one might like him ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... a while, defiantly and incoherently, and at length she turned in dumb rebuke, which ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... remarkably absent—sometimes he did not answer at all—at others, he answered incoherently to the questions of Verkhoffsky, by whom he rode, gazing abstractedly around him. The Colonel, thinking that, like an eager hunter, he was engrossed by the sport, left him, and rode forward. At last, Ammalat ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... nobody will know. They tricked you, Chiquita dear; I can't explain, but it wasn't all politics, by any means. Oh, girl! Don't you understand, I love you—love you? It's our only chance." The words were tumbling from his lips incoherently; he was pleading as if for his life, while she clung to him to support herself. Through it all their feet moved rhythmically, their bodies swayed to the cadences of the waltz as they circled the ballroom. He guided her among the other whirling ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... exhausted in body, still incoherently raving, sank back in piteous collapse, a terrifying gurgle breaking from his throat, while his tongue absolutely ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid; yet I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible you must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to me. The interest taken in an author is fragile: ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... everything—it knows you, and is frantic and atrocious. It reviles. I send you this. It knows every word I have written—I write. This I promised, and I therefore write, but I fear very confused, very incoherently. I am so ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... As he did so, a change came over John Harvey's face, he muttered a few words incoherently, swayed backwards and forwards, and then slid to the ground in a heap. A rush of blood poured from his mouth, and he fell ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... me, Paul! not yet! not yet! I dread to see them. And yet—who knows? they may relieve this dreadful suspicion! they may point to another probability," she said, incoherently. ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... I'll——" She ran past them without finishing her sentence and burst incoherently into the presence of an extremely calm little man with gray whiskers and dust on the shoulders of his coat. These details, I may add, formed the sum of Lorraine's first impression ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... the sleeve of his Magian's robe. The landlord found this document and, being able to read, confirmed the statement of the sick youth; he was, however, soon seized by a fresh attack of fever, and began to speak incoherently." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Officers, chamberlains, guards, servants, came running to the gallery, white-faced, to see what had happened. They found their royal master in a state bordering on collapse. Yet, to the anxious questions which they put to him, he only replied incoherently and evasively; it was as if he knew something terrible, something dreadful, but did not wish to speak of it. Eventually he retired to his own apartments, but it was not until several hours had passed that he returned to his normal ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... tired. It's awful cold. My feet hurt awfully. Carl dear, oh, pleassssse take me home now. I want my mamma. Maybe she won't whip me now. It's so dark and—ohhhhhh——" She muttered, incoherently: "There! By the road! He's waiting for us!" She sank down, her arm over her face, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis |
