"Prattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not so much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. This is the reason why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some parts of the brute creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the charms ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... upon our hearth lights up your innocent eyes, little Annie, and dispels the gathering shade. The flame dies down again, and you draw closer to my side. The pure moon looks in at the southern window, replacing the ruddier glow; while the fading embers lisp and prattle to one another, like drowsy children, more and more faintly, till ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the Cabinet Order is not the outcome of religious feeling? By describing the Cabinet Order everywhere as an outcome of religious feeling. Is an insight into social movements to be expected from such an illogical mind? Listen to his prattle about the relation of German society to the Labour movement and to social ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... Fromm's, the delicate attention of little Miss Pugnose was indeed burdensome. She would prattle all kinds of nonsense. She asked of what the fine dinner consisted; whether it was true that the daughter of the "consiliarius" had a doll that danced, played the guitar, and nodded its head. Ridiculous! As if people of ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... "That is child's prattle," said the young man a little impatiently. "Gold is all very well, but a man's life is in his work, not his wages. If you can tell me nothing of what I seek, I ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine, and turned to me as the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... between the first and second fingers; with much more to the like innocent purpose, to which Mrs. Belding listened with nods and murmurs of approval. This was all the amiable young man needed to encourage him to indefinite prattle. He told them all about the men in the bank, their habits and their loves and their personal relations to him, and how he seemed somehow to be a general favorite among them all. Miss Alice sat very still and straight ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... him; and so, also, thought some of his patients, and called in a new physician. Still his general practice continued large; and although he found a little more time for his wife,—for a father to sit in, in darkness and silence, and recall the sunny faces and sweet prattle of his children. But he felt that unseen eyes might be watching him even there, and that a sigh, though breathed never so softly, might reach the ears of some who would rejoice in it and come all the more confidently ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the intimate stars Carelessly prattle of cosmic affairs. Flat on your back, with your nose pointing Mars, Search for the star who fled South from the Bears. Gaze for an hour at that little blue star, Giving him, cheerfully, wink for his wink; Shrink ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... unaccountable creature of her sex. To hear her talk seraphics, and run over Norris,[327] and More,[328] and Milton,[329] and the whole set of intellectual triflers, torments me heartily; for to a lover who understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by understanding them literally. Why should she wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that makes her adorable? If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea of intuition: if I offer at her ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... expression, roguish nose and soft radiance swept all his misgivings and prejudices before her. One might as well hold grudges against a flower, he thought. He liked the confiding way she had of suddenly slipping her little hand into his great one. Her prattle amused him, and he was both flattered and worried by the fearlessness with which she followed him everywhere. She seemed to bring a veritable shower of song into this home of long silences. The very chaos made Mrs. Wade's heart beat tumultuously, and once when Martin came upon ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... of vivacity and wit; the acidity of the lemon will very aptly figure pungency of raillery, and acrimony of censure; sugar is the natural representative of luscious adulation and gentle complaisance; and water is the proper hieroglyphick of easy prattle, innocent and tasteless. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... again wearing a hideous pannier petticoat under her new frock. She guessed her husband's disappointment, and, though she longed for a word of admiration, or at least of wondering attention, for her square-rigged petticoat, she thought best to be content with the excited prattle of her maid, a young bond-servant bought off the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... the city; but he got, as he confessed, small satisfaction out of the whirl of it, although we knew that he met Mrs. Henderson everywhere, and in a manner assisted in her social triumphs. But he renewed his acquaintance with Miss Eschelle, and it was the prattle of this ingenuous creature that made him more heavy-hearted ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... delicacies she prepared to his liking—broiled kids' flesh, the red wine, the mushrooms sought through the early dew—his hunger and thirst so daintily satisfied, as he sat at table, like the first-born of King Theseus, with two wax-lights and a fire at dawn or nightfall dancing to the prattle and laughter, a bright child, never stupidly weary. At times his very happiness would seem to her like a menace of misfortune to come. Was there not with herself the curse of that unsisterly action? and ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... city, so frivolous and gay; And, as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Mother's knee, Mother's knee: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Where I used to stand and prattle With my teddy-bear and rattle: Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee, They sure look good to me! It's a long, long way, but I'm gonna start to-day! I'm going back, Believe me, oh! I'm going back (I want to ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... to resume her place. She complied without difficulty: She knew not that there was more impropriety in conversing with him in one room than another. She thought herself equally secure of his principles and her own, and having replaced herself upon the Sopha, She began to prattle to him with her usual ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... born in a house-boat on the Pearl River near Canton, and, with hair plaited down her forehead and cheeks, slanting eyes and wooden shoes and a silk robe, had landed at San Francisco when it was still a heterogeneous trading-post, and had come up with the miners to prattle "pigeon English," and cook, as it turned out, for Squire Perkins. When other women came—Americans from the States—the old man married her. Long since she had adopted American ways and had joined the Methodist church, and not one of the neighbors, who always ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... multum, Divusne loquatur, an heros; Maturusne senex, an adhuc florente juventa Fervidus; an matrona potens, an sedula nutrix; Mercatorne vagus, cultorne virentis agelli; Colchus, an Assyrius; Thebis nutritus, an Argis. The playful prattle in a frolick vein, And the severe affect a serious strain: For Nature first, to every varying wind Of changeful fortune, shapes the pliant mind; Sooths it with pleasure, or to rage provokes, Or brings it to the ground by sorrow's heavy strokes; Then of the joys ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... if any effort could resuscitate it again; whether it was that the lingering echo of a certain sweet, childish voice that had beguiled the weary hours of their dullness and monotony, and with its innocent prattle, had, in some degree, forced an opening through the firm frost-work which had been gradually gathering for years round their hearts, I cannot tell; but true it is that as the sister spinsters sat there, with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... of children," smiled Francisco on the evening before their departure. He was writing a novel, in addition to the other work for Carmony and Pixley. Sometimes it was hard work amid this unusual prattle by his usually sedate and silent parents. He tried to imagine the house without them; his life, without their familiar and cherished companionship.... It would be lonely. Probably he would rent the place, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... overflogging his son, Anglesea Glanders,—with all the village in fine. And Pendennis and his wife often blessed themselves, that their house of Fairoaks was nearly a mile out of Clavering, or their premises would never have been free from the prying eyes and prattle of one or other of the male and female ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... complaint to present you. So much happy that might be one's self, one have not all theirs eases in this world. Your letters are shortest. You have plaied wonderfully all sentiments; less her prattle, etc. ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... any one of those hateful pictures she had conjured up in the witches' kettle of her imagination. She was no rival; she was not a great lady, she was a companion, a child of seventeen years, with whom she could prattle away the time, and before whom she must not choose her words so nicely, seeing that she was not so sensitive to insult. And it seemed that Melanie liked the idea of there being a girl in the house, whose presence threw a gleam of ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... and the minister and child roamed about amid the green things of the earth. All the loveliest haunts of that pleasant spot had echoed the grave, but gentle tones of the man of God, and the answering prattle of the little one who went tripping on by his side, sometimes thoughtful and earnest, sometimes merry and glad; and now the time had come for Mrs. Dunmore to return to her city residence, and they must bid their kind friends at the Rectory good-by. Mrs. Colbert ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... paper in his hand, then, with the cigar, it fell to the floor, and he lifted his head as if for breath. Something had snapped, something that had been tense and tight, and his throat seemed closing. Presently his face dropped in his arms. What a fool he had been! He had let the prattle of a child torture and torment him and keep him silent, and now she was gone. After a while he raised his head and wiped his hands, which were moist; and, as he saw the writing on the letter beside him, ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... married only to the Church. "Domestic affections suited ill with the duties of a theocratic ministry." Anything which diverted the labors of the clergy from the Church seemed to him an outrage and a degeneracy. How could they reach the state of beatific existence if they were to listen to the prattle of children, or be engrossed with the joys of conjugal or parental love? So he assembled a council, and caused it to pass canons to the effect that married priests should not perform any clerical office; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... roof with an attractive young person of the opposite sex. He had an engaging habit of appearing at the door of Sara's sitting-room with an ingratiating: "I say, may I come in for a yarn?" And, upon receiving permission, he would establish himself on the hearth-rug at her feet and proceed to prattle to her about his own affairs, much as a brother might have done to a favourite sister, and with an equal assurance that his confidences would ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... left her infant prodigy, Clarence, in our care for a little while that she might not be distracted by his innocent prattle while selecting the material for a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... when I got to this point. You people who prattle about your Universal Laws never really consider the exact meaning of the term. My knowledge of the history of science is very vague, but I'm willing to bet that the first Law of Gravity ever dreamed up stated that things fell at such and such a speed, ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... Was it, she wondered, the noble fear that he might subject her to those social rumors that are so often all the more annoying because only premature? Ah, if he could but know how lightly she regarded such prattle! But she would not tell him, even in impersonal verse. On the contrary, she contributed to the Presbyterian Monthly—a non-sectarian publication—those lines—which caught one glance of so many of her friends and escaped ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... was next to theirs, and as she sat sewing she could hear the children's talk, for they soon forgot to whisper. At first she smiled, then she looked sober, and when the prattle ceased she said to herself, as she ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... side, might well renounce manhood, and annihilate himself, dedicate himself to God, to whom his mother gave him. And he still felt within him the soft bitterness of that last interview: Marie smiling painfully at memory of their childish play and prattle, and speaking to him of the happiness which he would assuredly find in the service of God; so penetrated indeed with emotion at this thought, that she had made him promise that he would let her hear him ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Through all that prattle of your age, Through lore of fribble and of sage I've read, and chiefly Walpole's page, Wherein are beauties famous; I've haunted ball, and rout, and sale; I've heard of Devonshire and Thrale, And all the Gunnings' wondrous tale, But nothing ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... prayed God to take him, too, until it seemed that Cynthia frowned upon him for his weakness. One mild Sunday afternoon, he took little Cynthia by the hand and led her, toddling, out into the sunny Common, where he used to walk with her mother, and the infant prattle seemed to bring—at last a strange peace to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... their faces lined? Their clothes were shabby, all ambition had been ruthlessly crushed out of them, but no matter. They still stood sunning themselves on the Rialto, listening good naturedly to the youngsters' prattle. Now and then grim tragedy could be detected stalking behind comedy's mask. Haggard faces and shabby clothes spoke eloquently of poverty's pinch. A long summer ahead and nothing saved. Well—what of ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... of the narrative are in themselves so improbable, we had all but said so impossible! Polly, at once so quaint and so captivating, when her words are perused upon the printed page, is so incapable of having her baby-prattle repeated by anybody else, without the imminent risk, the all but certainty, of its degenerating into mere childishness. It can scarcely be wondered, therefore, that "Barbox Brothers," though it actually ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... lives were different—their aspirations were directed in different channels, that was all. What was true civilization and culture, any way? Who had ever succeeded in defining them? The so-called civilized world might prattle of culture. Its ideas compared with those of mankind as a whole were purely relative and of a local origin and color, and could not be gauged by a uniform standard of ethics. What pleases the one fails to attract the other. The man in power who talks of culture may be taken seriously ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Forsooth, a great Arithmetician. * * * * * That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows More than a spinster; unless the bookish theorick, Wherein the toged Consul can propose As masterly as he; mere prattle, without practice, Is all his soldiership. But, Sir, he had ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... sovereigns with a gloomy, inquiring glance. But suddenly his face brightened, and a smile played round his lips. "Ah," he cried, "I understand! Your majesties have overheard my prattle, and have sent for me to order me to be silent. But I cannot, your majesties; I cannot! I must give vent to my wrath, my vexation, and grief! I must be allowed to scold, for if I did not I would be obliged to weep, and it would be a disgrace for Blucher to act like an old woman! ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... his digressions and discourses, he has indeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too fond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full, ample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little of scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in him, that of so many souls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he judges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience, as if all these were utterly extinct in the world: and of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... poet's home-life would be incomplete did I not touch on his passionate fondness for his grand-children, the two little beings whose prattle and caresses lend a charm of peculiar sweetness to the waning hours of that illustrious career. For them the world-renowned genius is but the most loving and tender of grandfathers. Their games, their studies, their baby ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... introducer on this occasion was herself a lady of no ordinary birth, being the daughter of Stuart, our greatest portrait painter. I have passed many quiet hours in the quaint studio (the same her father had used), hearing her prattle—as she loved to do if she found a sympathetic listener—of her father, of Washington and his pompous ways, and the many celebrities who had in turn posed before Stuart's easel. She had been her father's companion and aid, present at the sittings, preparing his ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... and embraced the recovered girl most cordially. Every word of censure was carefully avoided; the more so, indeed, as even Undine, forgetting her waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with caresses and the prattle of tenderness. ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the story has other features—delightful nonsense not surpassed by anything in 'Wonderland,' childish prattle with all the charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would have been a great success. As things are, there are probably hundreds of readers who have been ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... scholarly. Clarkit, clerked, wrote. Clarty, dirty. Clash, an idle tale; gossip. Clash, to tattle. Clatter, noise, tattle, talk, disputation, babble. Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle. Claught, clutched, seized. Claughtin, clutching, grasping. Claut, a clutch, a handful. Claut, to scrape. Claver, clover. Clavers, gossip, nonsense. Claw, a scratch, a blow. Claw, to scratch, to strike. Clay-cauld, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... continued to prattle on. She had taken the girl's hand in hers, and was gently forcing her down on to a low stool beside her armchair. She was talking about Paul, and said something about Anne Mie, and then about the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... anecdotes regarding himself and his own history? In these humble essaykins I have taken leave to egotize. I cry out about the shoes which pinch me, and, as I fancy, more naturally and pathetically than if my neighbour's corns were trodden under foot. I prattle about the dish which I love, the wine which I like, the talk I heard yesterday—about Brown's absurd airs—Jones's ridiculous elation when he thinks he has caught me in a blunder (a part of the fun, you see, is that Jones will read this, and will perfectly well know that ...
— English Satires • Various
... prattle of the momentous marriage impending, until her complacent chatter was interrupted by the entrance of her half-sister, Mrs. Wynyard, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... I ruminated thoughtfully upon this tribute as we went away. We had learned through the innocent prattle of our hostess's busy tongue that she desired a garden, but that Hans thought it a waste of time; that she had suggested open plumbing, and that Hans declined to go to the expense; that she saw ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... to hear him mention The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment. Tods had heard the bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... Many a time when night came, the father was unable to find her, and perhaps saw nothing of her until the next day, but he never felt any solicitude. He knew that some of the men had persuaded her to remain with them, and he was too considerate to rob them of the pleasure of listening to her innocent prattle, while they racked their ingenuity and threw dignity to the winds in the effort to entertain her. Each one strove to make her think more of him than the others, and it ended by ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with confidence, and regard not the prattle of fools, who ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... which "must appear dull in description; for who can describe the pleasures which the morning air gives to one in perfect health; the flow of spirits which springs up from exercise; the delights which parents feel from the prattle and innocent follies of their children; the joy with which the tender smile of a wife inspires a husband; or lastly the cheerful solid comfort which a fond couple enjoy in each others' conversation.—All these pleasures, and every other ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... gave him ecstatic delight and solid joy, is vanished from his sight; and all, that once was fair and lovely, wears the frown of darkness and indignation. He gazes upon little children, and hears their artless and innocent prattle, reflects what he once was, and every joy, that sparkles in their eyes, sends a dagger to his heart. The rustling of a leaf strikes him with terror and alarm, and every passing breeze bears to his tormented soul the groans of the dying man, and conscience ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... and there we sat, side by side, she laughing and talking and I hearkening to her childish prattle with marvellous great pleasure. Presently I ventured to touch her soft cheek, to stroke her curls, and finding she took this not amiss, summoned courage ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the reflection that this must be a further manifestation of the New York manner, and her self-respect was propitiated by the cordiality of her entertainers. The conversation was bubbling and light-hearted on the part of both Mr. and Mrs. Williams. They kept up a running prattle on the current fads of the day, the theatre, the doings of well-known social personages, and their own household possessions, which they naively called to the attention of their guests, that they might ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... my mother's admonishment not to annoy people with too much talk, I apologized to the young ladies. Smilingly, they begged me to continue, for they seemed to enjoy my boyish prattle. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... that took with him immensely. And now-a-days, no one ever saw the old gentleman going out of a morning, when Jasper was busy with his lessons, without Phronsie by his side, and many people turned to see the portly figure with the handsome head bent to catch the prattle of a little sunny-haired child, who trotted along, clasping his hand confidingly. And nearly all of them stopped to gaze the second time before they could convince themselves that it was really that queer, stiff old Mr. King of whom they had heard ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... mother's care, was beginning to be an intelligent and interesting child, though he was still painfully like M. de Talbrun, was always with them in the coupe, kindhearted Giselle thinking that nothing could be so likely to assuage grief as the prattle of a child. She was astonished—she was touched to the heart, by what she called naively the conversion of Jacqueline. It was true that the young girl had no longer any whims or caprices. All the ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... lit a cigar, and stared silently at the fire. From the mantelpiece Jill's photograph smiled down, but he did not look at it. Presently his attitude began to weigh upon Freddie. Freddie had had a trying evening. What he wanted just now was merry prattle, and his friend did not seem disposed to contribute his share. He removed his feet from the mantelpiece, and wriggled himself sideways, so that he could see Derek's face. Its gloom touched him. Apart from his admiration for Derek, he was a warm-hearted ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... mother's mortuary prattle with a face from which no impatience of it could be inferred, and Mr. Ferris made no comment on what was oddly various in character and manner, for Mrs. Vervain touched upon the gloomiest facts of her history with a certain impersonal statistical ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... alone because he was faithful to the memory of one who, but for the hand of God, would have lived with him until she was an old woman, filling, perhaps, the great gloomy house in the Calle de la Paz with the prattle of children's voices, with the clatter of childish feet ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Nor haue I seene More that I may call men, then you good friend, And my deere Father: how features are abroad I am skillesse of; but by my modestie (The iewell in my dower) I would not wish Any Companion in the world but you: Nor can imagination forme a shape Besides your selfe, to like of: but I prattle Something too wildely, and my Fathers precepts ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... was dressing for dinner, Suzee standing by me or playing with my things and somewhat impeding me, as usual. She seemed to have recovered from her ill-temper and was all smiles and gay prattle. ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good. So you ought to have come." She asked him no other question than this; she began to prattle about her own affairs. "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they're the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter, if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... of a fair-haired wife,—the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Para. In a few years after, several sweet children called him "father,"—only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... been with Miss Nimmo; she is indeed a good soul, as my Clarinda finely says. She has reconciled me in a good measure to the world with her friendly prattle. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... of us ever really disappointed or melancholy in a hay-field? Did we ever lie fairly back on a haycock and look up into the blue sky and listen to the merry sounds, the whetting of scythes and the laughing prattle of women and children, and think evil thoughts of the world and of or our brethren? Not we! Or if we have so done, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and deserve never to be out of town again ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Hogboom only grinned. "Prattle away all you please," he said, "but I mean it. I've got magnificent facilities for dying just now. I'll consider a proposition to die for the benefit of the cause if you fellows will agree to keep me in cigarettes and ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... insisted he should have at least three more to make him at all bearable, and he said there would be no living with him he would be so charming and agreeable, and so the talk ran on, the battledoor and shuttlecock kind of talk—the same prattle that we have all listened to dozens of times, or should have listened to, to have kept our hearts young. And yet not a talk at all; a play, rather, in which words count for little and the action is everything: Listening to ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... home to the papers a complete story of Herr Bergdoll's doings in those parts, we would know exactly what to do. We would go straight to the excellent Herr Leutz, proprietor of the Gasthof zum Ochsen in Eberbach, and listen to his prattle. Herr Leutz, whom we have never forgotten (since we once spent a night in his inn, companioned by another vagabond who is now Prof. W.L.G. Williams of Cornell University, so our clients in Ithaca, if any, can check us up on this ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... occasions to present my official thanks, but I was invariably met at the door with word that he was sleeping and did not wish to be disturbed. The first two times I believed Mrs. McGurk; after that—well, I know our doctor! So when it came time to send our little maid to prattle her unconscious good-bys to the man who had saved her life, I despatched her in charge ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... is to an affectionate mind, even in a way of nature, to walk through the fields, and lead a little child by the hand, enjoying its infantine prattle, and striving to improve the time by some kind word of instruction! I wish that every Christian pilgrim in the way of grace, as he walks through the Lord's pastures, would try to lead at least one little child by the hand; and perhaps, whilst he is endeavouring to guide and preserve ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... 'em, and discover presses, holes, stains, and oldness in their Stuffs, and make them shop-rid: May they keep Whores and Horses, and break; and live mued up with necks of Beef and Turnips: May they have many children, and none like the Father: May they know no language but that gibberish they prattle to their Parcels, unless it be the goarish Latine they write in their bonds, and may they write that ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... them that she was the only child of Eldon Maise and how she spent her winters in a fashionable boarding school, only coming to the country in summer to spend her vacation. Eldon Maise, as Peri knew, was the rich man of the "clan." But the lively prattle of his sister and their dainty cousin on topics of interests common only to girls, bored him and he soon found himself becoming interested in the conversation of ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... without some-indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well.(26) We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay a place in the highest rank ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... without mercy. Fury everywhere raged and the cowardly cunning of weakness. Ne'er may I men so carried away by injurious passion See again! the sight of the raging wild beast would be better. Let not man prattle of freedom, as if himself he could govern! Soon as the barriers are torn away, then all of the evil Seems let loose, that by law had been driven deep back ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... were hurried up to the marble-mosaic landing by an active boy, and, almost before we could ask for rooms, were shown into a suite of magnificent apartments. I had a glimpse of a garden in the rear,—flowers and plants, and a balcony up which I suppose Romeo climbed to hold that immortal love-prattle with the lovesick Juliet. Boy began to light the candles. Asked in English the price of such fine rooms. Reply in Italian. Asked in German. Reply in Italian. Asked in French, with the same result. Other servants appeared, each with a piece of baggage. Other candles ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... them all, there now lay that great gulf. 'Ich habe gelebt und geliebet.' That the little blackbird, as they used to call her, should have been on the verge of running away with her own husband was a half understood, amusing mystery discussed in exaggerating prattle. This was hushed, indeed, in the presence of that crushed, prostrate, silent sorrow; but there was still an utter incapacity of true sympathy, that made the very presence of so many oppressive, even when they were not in murmurs discussing the ghastly tidings ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... asleep at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of the Koran, and the drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among the varnished leaves above. The night was intensely hot; not a breath of air could stir within our living-cabin, and the cooling moisture which always comes with nightfall on the equator was lapped up by the thirsty fronds above our heads, so that I had ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... and laughed silently. She did not fear to confront these guests. Who then? She dreaded the flash of her own mother's eye. Yes, indeed, her pretty mamma had ceased to love her, banished her more and more from her presence, made sharp or dry responses to her prattle. Cecilia sighed inaudibly as she crouched there. Hark! The visitors approached the window; she could touch one by extending her arm from her hiding-place. Who were they? Oh, some of her mamma's gentlemen friends lounging in for an afternoon call. They spoke in a low, rapid tone, and their conversation ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... confabulation, Maltravers and Evelyn were left alone with Sophy. Maltravers had continued to lean over the child, and appeared listening to her prattle; while Evelyn, having risen to shake hands with Mrs. Hare, did not reseat herself, but went to the window, and busied herself with ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... voice the then popular American song "Climbing Up the Golden Stairs." She told me the very next day that she had been married less than a year, and one of the first things I noticed about her was the pleasure it gave her to refer to her husband or to quote him. Her prattle was so full of, "My husband says, says my husband," that it seemed as though the chief purpose of her jabber was to parade her married state and to hear herself talk of her spouse. The words, "My husband," were music to her ears. They actually ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... pretty assiduously too after that meal—a practice which I can well pardon in him—for, between ourselves, his wife, Maria Newboy, and his sister, Clarissa, are the loveliest and kindest of their sex, and I would rather hear their innocent prattle, and lively talk about their neighbors, than the best wisdom from the wisest man that ever wore ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of her cup of grief was still one more bitter drop,—oh! how much more bitter than the rest! Her child, as if inheriting the melancholy of its mother, ceased to prattle, to smile; it did not thrive, it sickened; and in spite of all her care and watchings, of whole nights passed in prayers to the Virgin, to her patron Saint, and God, in spite of many an hour of repentant and sorrowing tears,—it died! Bowed to the earth by this fresh, this ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... saw me. I knew her favorite path across the mountains,—it led past a rocky chasm. On the edge of that chasm there was a broad, flat stone, and there she would sit often, reading, or watching the fishing-boats on the Fjord, and listening to the prattle of her child. I used to dream of that stone, and wonder if I could loosen it! It was strongly imbedded in the earth—but each day I went to it—each day I moved it! Little by little I worked—till a mere touch would ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and ask no favor; You stand where you have stood before, The old salt hasn't lost its savor. You now can laugh with friends, at foes' Ne'er heeding Mrs. Grundy's tattle; You've dealt and taken sturdy blows, Regardless of the rabble's prattle. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... back, and that he has gone a little out of his way to tell you these things? The Primitives tell us nothing of that sort; they stick to their business of creating significant form. Whatever of their personalities may reach us has passed through the transmuting fires of art: they never prattle. The Primitives are always distinguished; whereas occasionally the douanier is as much the reverse as the more successful painters to the British ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... odd!—the more I try to talk Of you the more my tongue grows egotistic To prattle of myself! I'll try to balk Its waywardness and be more altruistic. So let us speak of others—how they sin, And what a devil of a ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... with pleasure this light-hearted prattle of a pretty woman, agreed with her, gave her half-joking counsel, and altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in talking to such women. In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... so to Miriam, who was fatally deficient, as so many of her countrymen and countrywomen are, in that lightness which distinguishes the French or the Italians, and would have enabled her, had she been so fortunately endowed with it, to sit by the fire and prattle innocently to her husband, whatever he might be doing. When she came to her new abode and was turning out the corners, she discovered upstairs in a cupboard a number of brown-looking old books, which ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... with their song and fence, and quibble and prattle and pun; the gaily dressed ladies; the masques in the great hall of the castle; the pomp and ceremony that attended the queen when she went abroad: all appealed to ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... were those few strangers passing us with brief greetings and kind faces, and the great quiet boats floating by (in one—dost thou remember?—stood a horse pensively gazing at the gliding water), the baby prattle of the tiny ripples by the bank, and the very bark of the distant dogs across the water, the very shouts of the fat officer drilling the red-faced recruits yonder, with outspread arms and knees crooked like grasshoppers!... We both felt that better ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... gurgled in its throat immediately afterwards, and then a door crashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of a sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... took thee up, and on my journey wend, Within a little thorp I stayed at last, And to a nurse the charge of thee commend, And sporting with thee there long time I passed, Till term of sixteen months were brought to end, And thou begun, as little children do, With half clipped words to prattle, and to go. ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... of Punch. But so irresistible is the derision of the woman that all Charles Keene's persistent sense of vulgarity is intent centrally upon her. Never for any grace gone astray is she bantered, never for the social extravagances, for prattle, or for beloved dress; but always for her jealousy, and for the repulsive person of the man upon whom she spies and in whom she vindicates her ignoble rights. If this is the shopkeeper the possession of whom is her boast, what then ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... then, your wonted prattle, The oaten reed forbear; For I hear a sound of battle, And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... went those pretty babes, Rejoicing at that tide, Rejoicing with a merry mind They should on cock-horse ride. They prate and prattle pleasantly, As they ride on the way, To those that should their butchers be And ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... understand. I do not mean that I am simply absent from Bodfish's place in the country. I mean that I am deliberately not spending the weekend there. When you interrupted me just now, I was not strolling down to Bodfish's garage, listening to his prattle about his new car." ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Oceans wide have parted: Some are broken-hearted, Some lie in the clay; Those I once heard prattle, For whom I shook the rattle, Engaged in life's vain battle, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... spent most of their time making fudge in the palace kitchens, counseled Jinjur to resist, she listened to their foolish prattle and sent a sharp defiance to Glinda the Good and the Princess Ozma. The result was a declaration of war, and the very next day Glinda marched upon the Emerald City with pennants flying and ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... for a month or two, but more than a year had now elapsed without her even hearing of him. Proportionably great was her surprise and joy at his sudden re-appearance, and his happiness was not less real at seeing once more those he so dearly loved. What with Bibi's eager questions, and the prattle of the little ones, an hour or two had glided away swiftly enough, when Boulanger suddenly asked what had become ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... creatures were a few days after put into a fine coach, and with them the two inhuman butchers, who were soon to end their joyful prattle, and turn their smiles to tears. One of them served as coachman, and the other sat between little William ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... now, with his face all glowing, And eyes as bright as the day With the thoughts of his pleasant errand, He trudged along the way; And soon his joyous prattle Made glad a lonesome place— Alas! if only the blind old man Could have seen that happy face! Yet he somehow caught the brightness Which his voice and presence lent; And he felt the sunshine come and go As Peter ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... when a man of my type quits drinking the fact is accepted after the probationary period has passed, and no further comment is made on it. Not so with the asinine contingent. They have the same patter to prattle unceasingly about it. They have the same comment, the same bromides to get off, the same sneers to sneer and the same jeers to jeer. If there was no other reason—and there are a hundred—why I shall not do any more drinking, ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... Her resting-place how sweet! But thou wilt sadly miss The busy hands, the dancing feet, The prattle ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... Mowbray; "you possess a childlike ingenuousness and simplicity which is exceedingly refreshing to me after intense study. I would call your conversation at times prattle, but for the fear of ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... in this part; I am not encouraging them to leave their shops and warehouses, to go to taverns and ale-houses, and spend their time there in unnecessary prattle, which, indeed, is nothing but sotting and drinking; this is not meeting to do business, but to neglect business. Of which I shall speak ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... a Dean, but how characterised I forget. I did not think, however, that the proposed antidote, in which the mysteries of religion and the specialties of a zealous class in the English Church were mixed up with childish prattle, was much more decorous or appropriate than what it was ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... green fields, the changes of the varying year supplied him with a wealth of beauty which was sufficient for all his needs, and when—after some long day's work amid the cottages, reading to the sick at their lonely bedsides, listening to the prattle of the children in the infant schools, talking to the labourers as they rested at their work—he refreshed himself by a gallop across the free fresh downs, or a quiet stroll under the rosy apple-blossoms of his orchard or garden, Julian might have said with more truth than most ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... waters, written by the wife who accompanied him, and who is herself, as she proves on many pages, one of the most enthusiastic of those admirers. You may say there is nothing very much in it all, but just some pleasant sea-prattle about interesting ports and persons, and a number of photographs rather more intimate than those that generally illustrate the published travel-book. But the general impression is jolly. Stevensonians will be especially curious over the visit to Samoa, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... gave them considerable food for exchanging opinions. They even tried to picture what the cabin on the Point may have looked like many years ago, when a woman's hands took care of the home, and the prattle of a child sounded among those great ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... tell the truth, and you shall hear it. That man's father is an outlaw. He is a fugitive from justice. All this prattle about him being ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... Abbott, for all her goodness, could not comprehend it, though such a thing is more within the comprehension of women. And when Gino pointed first to himself and then to his baby and said "father-son," she still took it as a piece of nursery prattle, ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, "That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day before, waited ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... made immortal the simple phrase: "There's no place like home." Verily, one must take a long day's journey from New York ere he discover a place in any essential comparable with the home of our childhood's prattle, the home with its mother and its mother love, its rosy boys and its sweet faced lasses. That home has been handed over to the house-breakers, to make way for modern buildings, for improvements on the surroundings that made our mothers ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... to join in the confederacy with her mother, she afterwards kept her secret. For this her motive was commendable, although I will not determine whether she did it well or ill. Two women, who have secrets between them, love to prattle together; this attracted them towards each other, and Theresa, by dividing herself, sometimes let me feel I was alone; for I could no longer consider as a society that which ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... in his arms had opened her eyes, and was looking about her in wonder, he checked himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then slowly winding one of her long tresses round and round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his dusty ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... a day gloomy and dark, a day of clouds and of thick darkness with Mansoul. Now they saw that they had been foolish, and began to perceive what the company and prattle of Mr. Carnal- Security had done, and what desperate damage his swaggering words had brought poor Mansoul into. But what further it was likely to cost them they were ignorant of. Now Mr. Godly-Fear began again to be in repute with the men of ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... at Riversley through a visit paid to her by my aunt Dorothy in alarm at my absence. The intention was to cause the squire a distraction. It succeeded; for the old man needed lively prattle of a less childish sort than Janet Ilchester's at his elbow, and that young lady, though true enough in her fashion, was the ardent friend of none but flourishing heads; whereas Julia, finding my name under a cloud at Riversley, spoke ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with Swift, said that he knew of "nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these notes." Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they were no longer alone, but "a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD." In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth "just as if ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... why discussion is waning is the disrespect we feel for great subjects. We only mention them, or hint at them; and this cannot lead to very brilliant talk. Tho prattle and persiflage have their place in conversation, talkers of the highest order tire of continually encouraging chit-chat. "What a piece of business; monstrous! I have not read it; impossible to get a box at the opera for another ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... Don't suppose I bandy compliments; but, with moderate care, any such Translation of such a writer as Hafiz by you into pure, sweet, and partially measured Prose must be better than what I am doing for Jami; {304} whose ingenuous prattle I am stilting into too Miltonic verse. This I am very sure of. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... not speak of petty verse-writers,—I say a great Poet, by which term I imply a great creative genius who is honestly faithful to his high vocation. Such an one could no more tell you his methods of work than a rainbow could prattle about the way it shines,—and as for his personal history, I should like to know by what right society is entitled to pry into the sacred matters of a man's private life, simply because he happens to be famous? I consider the modern love of prying and probing into other people's ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and in listening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full of interest; men seemed to him good and just; he no longer reproached any one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a very old man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future stretching out before ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Affectation, why this mock grimace? Go, silly thing, and hide that simp'ring face. Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait, All thy false mimic fooleries I hate; For thou art Folly's counterfeit, and she Who is right foolish hath the better plea; Nature's true ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... was said of old Time conquer'd Grief. But unto me it seems That Grief overmastereth Time. It shows how wide The chasm between us, and our smitten joys And saps the strength wherewith at first we went Into life's battle. We perchance, have dream'd That the sweet smile the sunbeam of our home The prattle of the babe the Spoiler seiz'd, Had but gone from us for a little while,— And listen'd in our fallacy of hope At hush of eve for the returning step That wake the inmost pulses of the heart To extasy,—till iron-handed Grief Press'd down ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... betrothal night) Winifred prattled on, while I listened to the prattle, craftily throwing in a word or two, now and then, to direct the course of the sweet music into such channels as best pleased my lordly whim,—when suddenly, against my will and reason, there came into my mind that idea of the sea's prophecy which was so familiar to my ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... chalked me out to win, To be the steady of her darling child. She thinks I am a kick-up, something wild, And no sweet girl should wear my college pin. She thinks I'm some too piffly with my chin And my soft prattle simply gets her riled. I've lost my keys with her, to put it mild, I don't belong, because I ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... the generous heart that never could see want without an impulse to relieve it. She had meant only to point the way, but, following a new impulse, she went on, listening to the poor soul's motherly prattle about "me baby" and the "throuble" it was to "find clothes for the growin' childer when me man is out av work and the bit and sup inconvaynient these hard times" as they descended to that darksome lower world where necessities take refuge when luxuries crowd them ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... girl, in making her very marked advances, had been governed by the unwavering instinct which always guided her choice of companions, the old man, for his part, could not but find refreshment, after his long, solitary voyage, in the pretty Tuscan prattle of the child. Most Italians love children, and the Count Giovanni Battista Allamiraviglia appeared to be ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... alone rather dismally, and now I shall imagine that I receive a visit from a young lady about twenty-three years of age, who enlivens me by her prattle. Is it her or her angel? But I believe that she is an angel, pale, volatile and like Laodamia in Wordsworth, ready to disappear at a moment's notice. I could write a description of her, but am not sure that I could do ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... to pursue would be criticised, how the story would be garbled and misrepresented, and how, in all probability, he would be accused of showing the white feather. Under ordinary circumstances he would have been very indifferent to what was said of him: he could well afford to allow idle tongues to prattle forth slander about him till weary of the occupation, but he could not bear to fancy that Mrs Edmonstone, or rather her friend, should hear anything to his disadvantage which he might not be present ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... so trivial that one wonders why he ever troubled to accumulate so much insignificant material), but after quoting them he does not hesitate to call their ideas "pedantial" (p. 24) and to refer to their statements as grammarian's "prattle" (p. 11). And, though at times it seems that his curiosity and industry impaired his judgment, Rapin does draw significant ideas from such scholars and critics as Quintilian, Vives, Scaliger, Donatus, Vossius, Servius, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly, when I remember that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it must have been by that time ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enjoyed a quiet hour, hand in hand, before the wood fire. The sunlight and warmth of years gone by, coined into stick and fagots from the forest, were released again in glow and warmth, making playful lights and warning shadows. The golden minutes passed by. The prattle of lovers and the sober wisdom of experience blended. Then, night's oblivion. Again, the cheerful morning meal and the merry company, the incense of worship, and the separation of each and all ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... "God does not approve a man merely for going through a routine of outward, formal ceremonies, but for a thoroughly religious life." This explanation assumes that the apostle is here talking to simpletons, and that what he says is no more worth listening to by us than the prattle of ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... still water, it run deep. Dat shaller water prattle. Dat tongue, hung in a holler head, Jes ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... walked to and fro while she described her dream, the beauty of her chosen mission, the glory of the saloon whose high priestess she had become. And Dickie had listened with the bitter and disillusioned and tender face of a father hearing the prattle ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... You will touch with your left hand the wounds that you inflict with your right; you will make a shroud of your virtue in which to bury your crimes; you will strike, and like Brutus you will engrave on your sword the prattle of Plato! Into the heart of the being who opens her arms to you, you will plunge that blood-stained but repentant arm; you will follow to the cemetery the victim of your passion, and you will plant on her grave the sterile flower of your pity. You will say to those who see ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... years I have had the privilege of your acquaintance. Duchesses, my dear boy, duchesses with strawberry leaves around their snowy brows, (like the French grocer, I make a point of never believing a duchess is more than thirty,) ask me to tea so that they may hear me prattle of your childhood's happy days, and I have promised to bring you to lunch with them, Tompkinson, whom you once kicked at Eton, has written an article in Blackwood on the beauty of your character; by which I take it that the hardness of ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... prattle in mine ears, I'd lie awake and scan The good and evil of the coming years, And see the child ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... by his blood a memorable field of battle and slaughter, but as the centre of a happy and virtuous household on a New England farm. He made that home happy by his benignant virtue. Although denied the blessing of children of his own, his fireside was enlivened with the prattle and gayeties of the young. Joy and hope and growth were within his walls. He was not a parent; but his heart was kept warm with parental affections. He had a home where dear ones waited for him, and rushed out to meet and cling round him with loving arms, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... said. "I wanted to see you, so I came. In these emancipated days ladies call upon their men friends if they like. It's archaic to prattle of chaperons." ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... not, Ernest." And the dove-like eyes filled brimful; and all her innocent prattle ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... Rhoder cross without meanin' it. But that just shows what she feels towards you, you see. And you'd talk healthy-like to her, which is more than some does, if I know anythin'. One feels that of you, Mr. Peter, if you'll excuse my sayin' it, that your talk is as innocent as a baby's prattle, though it mayn't ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... more pathetic figure. Every circumstance that could contribute to this effect is skilfully seized and emphasised: Charles's incredibly selfish weakness, the implacable sternness of Pym, the triste prattle of Strafford's children and their interrupted joyous song in the final scene, all serve to heighten our feeling of affectionate pity and regret. The imaginary former friendship between Pym and Strafford adds still more to the pathos of the delineation, and gives rise to some of the ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... It was evident that speech was difficult, as she added in a muffled tone: "It must be kept secret—Rhodian sailors—thank the gods, it is still very doubtful—it cannot, must not be true—and yet-the prattle of that zither-player, which has filled the multitude with joyous anticipation, is abominable—the great ones of the earth are often most sorely injured by those who owe them the most gratitude. I know you can be silent, Dion. You could as a boy, if anything was to be hidden ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... PRATTLE. Well, I wanted to see if I could get one or two decent ties to wear,—you can get nothing out there,—then I thought I'd have a look and see ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... numbered streets. But the road wound around to get out of a low marshy place, a pond in the rainy season, and some rocks that seemed tumbled up on end. They struck a bit of the old Boston Post Road, and that caused the little girl to stop her prattle and think of the old ladies they had never visited. She must "jog" her father's memory. That was what her mother always said when ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... insane. In the face of the insoluble problem his mind might have retreated into a shadow world of its own, perhaps to prattle happily the last few hours away. But there was something else there. The pre-flight school psychiatrist had recognized it, Johnny himself probably wouldn't have and it wasn't their policy to tell him. It saved him. The labored heart ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... hero at head, and a nation Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed, And a gospel of war and damnation, Has not empire a right to be proud? Fools prattle and tattle Of freedom, reason, right, The beauty of duty, The ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and stood over the little lady, and looked down on her with faces of pity, which seemed blent with a serene and half-amused indulgence. It was a heavenly amusement, such as that with which mothers listen to the foolish-wise prattle of children just ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... man alive, you've done nothing but prattle of Pollyanna ever since you came home from Boston and found she was expected. I thought you were dying to ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... sir," said Uncle Paul, with a soft chuckle. "None of your artfulness! You are trying to lead me on to prattle about Bony, so as to avoid my lecture upon the fresh-water polypes I have taken to-day. Get out, you transparent young scrub! In with you, and fetch down the case, and light the two candles on the parlour table. Nice ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... with half an ear to the lieutenant's prattle and the loud explanations of the deputy-commandant, when I pitchforked into what might have been the end of my business. We were going through a sort of convalescent room, where people were sitting who had been in hospital. It was a big place, a little warmer than the rest of the building, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... by, and Harry Forsyth remained in this state of semi- imbecility, free from anxiety about his mother and sister at home, forgetful of all but his animal comforts and the superficial interest he felt in such prattle as this. His bodily health improved before his mental activity; perhaps it was owing to the freedom from worry consequent upon this lethargic state of mind that he was able ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough |
