"Mumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her quick pleasure-thrills, but no thrill was hers now. She pondered the flower slowly and thoughtfully, as a hasheesh-eater, heavy with the drug, might ponder some whim-flower that obtruded on his vision. In her ears was the voice of the stream—a hoarse-throated, sleepy old giant, muttering and mumbling his somnolent fancies. But her fancy was not in turn aroused, as was its wont; she knew the sound merely for water rushing over the rocks of the deep ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... the room where they worked together for the discomfiture of the opposite party, and had given him some account of the representation of the play at the Parthenon. Her father was delighted to find her in high spirits. So many people come back from the theater looking glum and worn out, yawning and mumbling when asked what they have seen and what it had all been about. Phyllis was not glum, nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene, and more than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her own powers of description, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... obey my sister's injunction to keep the woman's attention I began to talk to her, asking her how long she had lived in Sea-Strand Cottage. I had just gathered from her grudging, mumbling speech that she had lived there since the cottage was built, when my sister ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... at the window in a Voltaire armchair, and dismissed her maids. The candles were taken away, and once more the room was left with only one lamp burning in it. The Countess sat there looking quite yellow, mumbling with her flaccid lips and swaying to and fro. Her dull eyes expressed complete vacancy of mind, and, looking at her, one would have thought that the rocking of her body was not a voluntary action of her own, but was produced by the action of ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... report. I bade him give me his letter; he dismounted and came towards me, fumbling in his cloak. "'Tis here," he was muttering to himself. "No, no, that is my pardon from his Holiness. Ah, what have we here? Nay, 'tis my certificate of communion. How, how? Have I lost it?" Grumbling and mumbling, grating his loose tooth, he was close upon me, his hand deep in his cloak. "Ha, ha!" he suddenly cried, "now I have it!" and whipped out his hand. Belviso shrieked my name aloud, "Francis, my lord and ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... owed to the appointed means of instructing our youth. The vital knowledge—that by which we have grown as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our whole existence, is a knowledge that has got itself taught in nooks and corners; while the ordained agencies for teaching have been mumbling little else ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... come out, one by one, these creatures of deformed body and dwindling movement, leaning on each other, as though attached, and mumbling, "Nothing ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... at one another in silence for a moment, and then both began to speak at once, their counsellors interrupting them and mumbling their guttural comments with anxious earnestness. It did not take them very long to see that they were all of one mind, and then they both turned to Gordon and dropped on one knee, and placed his hands on their foreheads, ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... a dumb beast shu'! Rubbin' dirt right inter clean cabbage! Sich muxin'! mux, mux, mux! Dat a coon? Dat ain't no coon. Dat's a mux!" And she scuffed off to the house, mumbling, "De muxinest thing I done evah seen." ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... a woman). Good Heavens! What a pretty creature! What a darling she looks! How now! What are you mumbling? Without offence, may I remove your ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... but Antonio tore it back, to meet the villains boldly in the face. He had drawn his sword; but he remained like a statue, standing with uplifted arm, when he saw two sickly decrepit hermits lying on their knees before the cross, mumbling their prayers. ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... almost fell over a figure in his path. It was an old woman mumbling and sobbing incoherently as she stumbled weakly in the direction of the temple. Like an inspiration the thought came to him that here was his opportunity of gaining admittance to that multitude of women and children. He seized the old woman by the arm and spoke words of courage to her as ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... Then blockishly mumbling with a set on countenance a piece of scurvy grace, he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot of a hog, and talked jovially with his attendants. Then the carpet being spread, they brought plenty of cards, many dice, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... still be mumbling that! Come now, forget you are a woman, and be reasonable! You exercise the fair and ancient privilege of kinship by calling me harsh names, but it is in the face of this plain fact: I got from you what never man has got before. I am ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... piece of rock and handed it to Rhodes who stared at it with sun-blinded eyes—then suddenly he whipped out a case and focussed a pair of magnifying glasses meanwhile mumbling ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... it after you left, Senor, and put it away—so! The mad caballero soon came—he was not happy. We searched the floor, and all the time he was shaking his head and mumbling that Mademoiselle had confessed to writing it—and to a detective! He was quite crazy. Ah, with what care and sympathy did I help him, Senor, and how generously did he reward my ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... extreme decay, Weak, sick, and faint, expiring lay; All appetite had left his maw, And age disarmed his mumbling jaw. His numerous race around him stand To learn their dying sire's command: He raised his head with whining moan, And thus was heard the feeble tone: 'Ah, sons! from evil ways depart: My crimes lie heavy on my heart. 10 See, see, the murdered geese appear! ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... even solemnly avowed that the three men were college chums of his. They waited to hear the girl's scream, but as there was nothing but silence they finally stole into the room. And there they saw the girl sitting on the floor, holding the arm in her hands. As she sat there she was mumbling to herself and eating one end of it! Of course the poor thing had ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... nothing. If you say another word, I'll put you down four. You tall gal, what's your name, you keep back there, or I'll fetch you such a cut as'll keep you at home till next reckoning. Cuss you, you old fool, do you think I am to be kept all day while you are mumbling here? Who's pushing on there? I see you, Mrs Page. Won't there be a black mark against you? Oh! its Mrs Prance, is it? Father, put down Mrs Prance for a peck of flour. I'll have order here. You think the last bacon a little too fat: oh! you do, ma'am, do you? I'll take care you shan't complain ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near OEnophytae, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and his wife and son, Athena knew what saved ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag who did the casual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to be hardly able to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled behind them, mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of sail-cloth, belonging to Cornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... you do, miracles or fruitless deeds, You're a man, man, man, if you do them with a will; And no matter how you loaf, cursing wealth or mumbling creeds, You are nothing but a noise, and its ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... a rich and gold-embroidered cloth, bordered with heavy gold fringe, upon which stood four tall wax candles, surrounding a mimic altar surmounted by an ebony crucifix. His chaplain, dressed in Popish canonicals, was mumbling forth some form of prayer, and a splendidly-illuminated missal lay open before him. There was also on the table a small marble basin of water, and a curiously inlaid box filled with bones—relics, no doubt—imbued with the spirit of miracle-working. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... his gentle head, mumbling her shoulder with soft, dusty lips; she stifled a sob, lifted saddle, saddlebags, and bridle and carried them up the rocky bank of the stream to a little hollow. Here she dropped them, unstrapped her revolver and placed it with them, then drew from the saddlebags a homespun gown, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... and again crouched upon the hearth, mumbling over his last words, 'Sick at heart! sick at heart!'—nor did he appear to recollect Grosket's question respecting Craig. If he did, he did not answer it, but with his arms locked over his knees, he rocked to and fro, like one in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Then a rousing cheer was given for the "next Marshal of Tinkletown," followed by the customary mumbling ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... to be helped back to the vestibule. There she seeks refuge in a corner, under a stairway leading up to the steeple, and essays to repair the damage with pins produced from various nooks and crevices of her person. Meanwhile the guilty usher stands in front of her, mumbling apologies and trying to look helpful. When she finishes her work and emerges from her improvised dry-dock, he again offers her his arm, but she sweeps past him without noticing him, and proceeds grandly to a seat far forward. She is a cousin to ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... in the shade of a farm-wagon, not far from the trader's store at Washakie, eating a cracker and mumbling to herself, when a white man in miner's dress spoke to her in a kindly voice and offered her an orange. She studied him with a dim, shining, suspicious gaze, but took the orange. Eugene, the grandson of her niece, stood beside the stranger, ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... peasant so much, that he sprang out at the door, and overthrew his father in his flight. The old gentleman would not spend time in getting up, but crawled backwards like a crab, with great speed, till he had got over the threshold, mumbling exorcisms all the way. I was exceedingly mortified to find myself in danger of perishing through the ignorance and cowardice of these clowns; and felt my spirits decay apace, when an old woman entered the barn, followed by the two fugitives and with great intrepidity advanced ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... rhythm, and composed in stark defiance of those laws which should regulate the breaking of bad news. You, please remember, were carefully prepared by me against the shock of the Duke's death; and yet I hear you still mumbling that I didn't let the actual fact be told you by a Messenger. Come, do you really think your grievance against me is for a moment comparable with that of Mrs. and Miss Batch against Clarence? Did you feel faint at any moment in the foregoing chapter? ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... were left alone with the roses and the candles and his cigar, with only Jasper's gratified voice mumbling over compliments to Petunia in the distance, I took my courage in my ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the world disported themselves where the flower- garden ought to have been. At first the place seemed altogether deserted. We knocked, shouted, ran hither and thither in vain. By-and- by crawled forth, one after the other, three ancient, hag-like women, staring at us and mumbling words we could not understand. On nearer inspection they seemed worthy old souls enough, evidently members of the household; but as their amount of French was scant, they hurried indoors again. A few minutes later a young, handsome, untidy woman popped her head from ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... having discovered her handkerchief, was mopping very flushed cheeks and mumbling on about her own woes. "Why can't you be satisfied just to go on the way we always have? Why can't you be satisfied to have me like you almost as ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Marcus paid the locksmith his ten shillings, and suggested that he need not wait longer. The locksmith, having received the money, thought it incumbent upon him to apologize and explain still further, till Marcus took hold of the door, as if to close it, when he accepted the hint, and departed, mumbling an apology as ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... sounded to her like the ceremonies she had heard in the Temple. She caught little of it clearly; she remembered practically nothing. She was not given anything to show that a ceremony had been performed, and she did not ask for anything. The elderly bridegroom kissed her when the mumbling ceased, led her out to the carriage, took her back to her mother's house, and that night ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... to look for mines for a great German company. I am lucky and I have brains and I have the greatest training in the world, German training, so I find several mines and then jealousies, jealousies—jealousies—" he fell to mumbling ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... heads and spit upon the ground at the sight of a Christian. Every day the "Holy woman," with wild eyes and vermilion-painted cheeks, is to be seen prophesying in some public place. And the "Holy man," too, who is incessantly walking like the wandering Jew, always in a hurry and all the while mumbling his prayers. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... just like it," said Dan hurriedly. "It's stamped on some papers he give me to keep once, when he was himself for a few minutes. He said, if he died I might open 'em, and they'd secure justice. He didn't say justice to who. Then he went off again, mumbling and muttering. I never could find out just what he wanted ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... head, and with tears filling her eyes, as her mother prompted her continually, repeated the text in a low mumbling voice, half crying: "Whose adorning, let it not be the putting on of gold, or the plaiting of hair, or the putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... old, mangy, toothless and deserving of nothing better, my dear father," replied the fair young man, and his glances at the white beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentleman had an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it would have seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmless benevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, it was well known that the old ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... the hounds, like some Lukeworm from Laodicea?) ... Now he is mentioning "certain circumstances, which he is bound to tell the jury have made a strong impression on his own mind." ... Alack, that, owing to the incorrigible mumbling of his diction, I cannot succeed in ascertaining what these said circumstances are!... He has begun (I think) to discourse concerning my latest offer of marriage in open Court. What a pity that hon'ble judges should not study to acquire at least ordinary proficiency in such ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... said presently, "I can't stand this any longer. I must see the ticker. I must find out how it opened to-day. Gad, I'll go crazy if I sit here all day mumbling '57-1/2!'" ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... would have to be done. He had ceased to be able to imagine life without this new interest, but that which is not imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually finding to their cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar. After to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be abandoned. He could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the pretext of seeing his man of business. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... weeping, I was so overcome by my feelings that I stood still, unable to speak, not knowing what to say. Instead of giving sympathy, I myself was in need of it, therefore I departed, completely overcome by the sad sight, mumbling and speechless, as you noticed or might have noticed. Perhaps this happened to me because you had need of neither my sympathy nor my condolences; for, knowing my devotion and fidelity, you would also be aware of the pain which I felt on account of your sorrow, ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... Plonkett," appealed to them. Amidst the chuckles and gluggels of all, the G.S.O.3 was obliged to lift the receiver. Something of the seriousness of the occasion must have communicated itself to the others, for they crowded round him, mumbling and munching sympathetically. Speechless, the poor fellow wrote hastily on a buff slip of paper a Name, and passed it round. It was the name of an Excessively Resplendent One, whose lightest word results in headlines in the less ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... bare crag above it on which was Tong Tong Tarrup. All day he climbed and evening found him above the snow-line; and soon he came to the stairway cut in the rock and in sight of that grizzled man, the long porter of Tong Tong Tarrup, sitting mumbling amazing memories to himself and expecting in vain from the ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... at those awful words, and for the first time she saw the stake and the mass of red coals—redder and angrier than ever now under the constantly deepening storm-gloom. She gasped and staggered up out of her seat muttering and mumbling incoherently, and gazed vacantly upon the people and the scene about her like one who is dazed, or thinks he dreams, and does not know where ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over herself, Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... already portioned out a plateful for the grandfather. Few words were uttered, for Martha was hot, and rather testy; and Stephen felt a sullen weight hanging upon his spirits. Only every now and then the old grandfather, chuckling and mumbling over the uncommon delicacy, would call Stephen by his father's name of James, and thank him for his ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... that the time had come for prompt action. He snatched up his loaded rifle from the corner where it stood always ready, ran out upon the steps, and shouted at the bull. The great black animal stopped and looked around, mumbling deep in his throat. He wheeled half-about to return to the old enemy. Then he paused irresolutely and eyed the gay bevy of children. Which foe should ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... mumbling the dainties that he can no longer enjoy, and glowering with bleared eyes at the indulgences which now mock him even while they tempt him. The goal of the path of covetousness may be discerned in the face of any old money-worshipper; keeping guard over his piles of wealth, like a surly watch-dog; ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... big grown boy in one of my classes who did not open his lips properly when he spoke. So I asked him to prop his mouth open with a piece of stick and then talk. I made him do it until he learned to speak much more clearly. A famous Greek orator, named Demosthenes, who had a habit of mumbling his words, trained himself to speak clearly by putting pebbles in his mouth and then reciting ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... circle, crescent shaped. Louder came that harrowing medley of sounds, its component parts voicing the uttermost depths of the soul of each separate individual man and woman there—some moaned in terror; some prayed, mumbling, still upon their knees; some laughed hoarsely, wildly, their senses for the moment gone; and some were dumb; and some shrieked their prayers in frenzy. Louder it grew—the end had come—that deformed thing stood erect, a perfect man—he turned his face toward them—he stretched out ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... old cause" from one of them; every second or third pamphlet in the booksellers' shops had "The Good Old Cause" on its title-page or running through its text; veterans rolled out the phrase sonorously in their nightly prayers, or went to sleep mumbling it. One notes constantly in the history of any country this phenomenon of the expression of a great wave of feeling in some single popular phrase, generally worn out in a few months; but the present is a peculiarly remarkable instance. The phrase, in itself, was ambiguous. One might have ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... went away, nodding and mumbling,—"Aha! Mistress Constance, white as they call you, you shall be dyed so red that all the water in your church font shall not wash ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... throughout the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!' Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description, Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what you so anxiously sought,' and whilst uttering these words he fell ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... kindness could conciliate the wicked old creature. Of course, neither my father nor mother paid her the least attention, or made her presents; and no one spoke a word to her, at which she flew into a great rage, and went away shaking her wand, and mumbling in a spiteful manner, 'Well, good people, you are all mighty silent now, but before long you shall have ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... puffing friar; Close wrapt he bore some secret instrument Of Christian superstition in his hand: My servant followed fast, and through a chink Perceived the royal captives hand in hand; And heard the hooded father mumbling charms, That make those misbelievers man and wife; Which done, the spouses kissed with such a fervour, And gave such furious earnest of their flames, That their eyes sparkled, and their mantling blood Flew ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out, Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon, To prove's ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... said, "it's hopeless jargon to me. If I try to analyse it, I am knocked out right and left by countless questions; but leave that. It is when I try to take you practically at your word that I find you are mumbling a fetish. Forgive me, but ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... other people's hilarity. An episode of humor or kindness touches and amuses him here and there,—-a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the wagon mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home, you sit down, in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... discipline cleared poor Wamba's wits or cooled his humor, it is certain that he became the most melancholy fool in England, and if ever he ventured upon a pun to the shuddering poor servitors, who were mumbling their dry crusts below the salt, it was such a faint and stale joke that noboby dared to laugh at the innuendoes of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best applause he could muster. Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a half-witted poor wretch), ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Toussaint is a feste til noon called les Trespassez[230]. The papists prayes for their dead ancestres, over their graves mumbling so many ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... upon my feet, and lifting Melannie into a more easy position, I turned my attention to Van Luck. He was sitting in the stern, handling the gems and mumbling over them, and when he saw me he clutched the bag, and, springing up, made as though to run from me, unmindful of the fact that we were tossing in mid-ocean. Without turning his head from looking back at me, he stumbled ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... last speaker, Samuel Fielden, was saying, "In conclusion——," a good part of the crowd had been driven home by rain which began falling when he started his speech—a squad of armed police descended upon the Haymarket Square. Mumbling orders for the crowd to disperse, they fell upon the assembled men and women ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... have gone to sleep soon after that. The moon, big, weird, solemn, rose slowly over yonder parallel range of mountains. The men at the fire talked low and mumbling between long intervals. Presently the heavy man rose, skirted the thicket, and stumbled off across the field toward the road. The smell of him polluted the air no more. Then the woman came quietly out of the car and joined the ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... room. Two monks were standing with lighted tapers on the further side of the bed, one of whom was mumbling a Latin prayer. The man who had brought him here was gone. There was no one else in the room, except ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... himself, the Manager looked round again, and stopped. The old woman, who had not removed her pipe, and was munching and mumbling while she smoked, as if in conversation with an invisible familiar, pointed with her finger in the direction ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... come close to me, heard voices, faint and far away they seemed, so I shouted to them (I thought I shouted but it was only a mumbling whisper), and then a voice, low and close at hand, ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... fellows had never been offshore! This isn't going to last. These easterlies are always freakish things! But anyhow! What's the use of getting scared? It's a sailor's place to die at sea! I always said so: sooner a lobster than a mumbling parson and the worms! Pull yourselves together, boys. And lash yourselves to something. The boat's all right. Just don't ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... dear?" Rachel murmured, bending over her, and caught enough of the answer to guess that Miss Deane was mumbling again and again: "Now we see through a glass darkly, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... not many. A few mothers with brown babies in their arms; a few mumbling crones, and bent old men with faces like strange masks; but the flow of children ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... tumble-down house. Mistah Buzzard fly right over an' sit on that chimney-top fo' to warm his toes. Of course he right smart curious about that lil ol' tumble-down house and who live there. He hear somebody inside talking to theirself, but he can't hear what they say, jes' a mumbling sound that come up ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... candles—one for herself and her husband, the other for Nancy Joe. Nancy had slyly filled three earthenware crocks with water from the well, and had set them on the table, mumbling something about the kettle and the morning. And Caesar himself, pretending not to see anything, and muttering dark words about waste, went from the clock to the hearth, and raked out the hot ashes to a flat surface, on which you might have laid a ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... man about forty years old. There was no harm in the poor creature, who worked at the Lanihorne slate-quarries, six miles off, as a "hollibubber"—that is to say, in carting away the refuse slate. Every morning he walked to his work, mumbling to himself as he went; and though the children followed him at times, hooting and flinging stones, they grew tired at last, finding that he never resented it. His mother—a tall, silent woman with an inscrutable face—had supper ready for him when he returned, ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gave him "Buenos dias," he replied with a whining: "Una limosnita! A little alms, for the love of God." He wore a rosary about his neck and a huge cross on his chest. When I ignored his plea he rode on mumbling. The savage bellow of a bull not far off suggested a new possible danger on the road in this unfenced and almost treeless country. More men passed on asses, mules, and horses, but none afoot. Finally over the brown rise appeared Dolores Hidalgo; ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... out of him. Curled disdainful moustachio; careless glance,—which however surveys the Village-groups, and does not like them. With his eye he bespeaks the yellow Courier. Be quick, be quick! Thick-headed Yellow cannot understand the eye; comes up mumbling, to ask in words: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... all the women were seated on the same side, the Countess having two sisters of Mercy for neighbors, wholly occupied in fingering their long rosaries and mumbling Paters and Aves. One of them was old and so deeply pitted with the small-pox that she looked as if she had received a charge of grape shot full in the face; the other was very shadowy and frail, with a pretty unhealthy little face, a narrow phthisical ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... bemoaned the increasing wickedness of the world: Pius VII, tossed like a helpless cork on the waves of the Revolution; Leo XII and Pius VIII, the associates of the Holy Alliance; Gregory XVI, eating sweetmeats or mumbling his breviary while young Italy sweated blood; Pius IX, grasping eagerly his tatters of sovereignty; Leo XIII, the unsuccessful diplomatist; Pius X, the medieval monk. They saw their Church shrink decade by decade, and they witnessed ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... surprise, half suspicious, half incredulous. But when Henry in low, rapid tones had expounded his plan, the young man's face underwent a change. Hope and life sprang into it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole aspect softened. In a moment he was on his knee, mumbling the prince's hand, his eyes moist with gratitude. Nor was that all; the two talked long, the murmur of their voices broken more than once by the ripple of laughter. When they at length separated, and Henry, his face hidden by the ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... went. Philip scarcely knew how it happened—but in another moment the giant had hurled him clean over his head and he struck the frozen plain with a shock that stunned him. When he staggered to his feet, expecting a final assault that would end him, Bram was kneeling beside his pack. A mumbling and incoherent jargon of sound issued from his thick lips as he took stock of Philip's supplies. Of Philip himself he seemed now utterly oblivious. Still mumbling, he dragged the pile of bear skins from the sledge, unrolled them, and revealed a worn and tattered ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... distant looms soothed Mac Tavish. The nearer rick-tack of Miss Delora Bunker's typewriter furnished obbligato for the chorus of the looms. It was all good music for a business man. But those muttering, mumbling mayor-chasers—it was a tin-can, cow-bell ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Groaning and mumbling he led her out of the gate and helped her into the cart, wrapping her in the dry blankets on which he had ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... her dry tongue lolled a span Beyond the gasping jaws and shrivelled jowl; Her painted hide hung wrinkled on her ribs, As when between the rafters sinks a thatch Rotten with rains; and at the poor lean dugs Two cubs, whining with famine, tugged and sucked, Mumbling those milkless teats which rendered nought, While she, their gaunt dam, licked full motherly The clamorous twins, yielding her flank to them With moaning throat, and love stronger than want, Softening the first ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... nuns mumbling their prayers, and punctuating them with irate commands to the children; the many and various rules, the Mere Superieure, the food, the clothes, the eccentricities of Monsieur le Directeur. She had the rare and unwomanlike art ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... approach the broken-hearted girl, as her proud, unfeeling mother, the stately Lady Ashton, kept close guard over her; and it made me shudder to behold, also, the old hag, Ailsie Gourley, crouching down by her bonny mistress, and stroking the lily-white hand which hung so listless at her side, mumbling the while what seemed to me must be some incantation to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... statuesque, reaching across him to place the first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by an envoy with a scrolled mustache. The pile was in half a minute pushed over to an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. There was a slight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old woman; but the statuesque Italian remained impassive, and—probably secure in an infallible system which placed his foot on the neck of chance—immediately prepared ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... moment, flash. By the foot of the coconut-tree, Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his head on the root of the tree and fell into ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... his stupor. He hurried toward the dining-hall, fumbling his lips, mumbling incoherent sentences. He came to a stand ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... men lifted the heavy, mumbling cripple, carried him up the steps with a rush, and deposited him in the cab, while the driver was still angrily expostulating. The beggar was shivering now, and the cold sweat rolled down his face. His ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... skies upon me, souls of days and nights, Where are the deeds that needs must be, The dreams, the high delights, That I once more may hear my voice From cloudy door to door rejoice— May stretch the boundaries of love Beyond the mumbling, mock horizons of my fears To the faint-remembered glory of those years— May lift my soul And reach this Heaven of ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... half dragged up to the altar, and, before I knew where I was, I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor. It was all done in an instant, and there was the ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... gossip, consisted only in standing by the door, as if she were overhearing something, and then speaking a short monologue. For at least an hour and a half before her cue, while the others were walking, reading, having tea, quarrelling, she never left me and kept on mumbling her part, and dropping her written copy, imagining that everybody was looking at her, and waiting for her to come on, and she patted her hair with a trembling ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... in a tremendous hurry, for he had many other places to visit that morning. He fairly ran through the rooms, sprinkling each with a dash of holy water, mumbling a prayer and raising his hand in blessing, then racing on to the next, with all the household trailing behind him like the tail of a kite. He blessed the kitchen and pantries, he even blessed the cat which was washing her face by the kitchen ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... And mumbling the last lines of the poem, I hastened to the cafe near the Luxembourg Gardens, wondering if I should find courage to ask the girl to come away to the South and live, fearing that I should not, fearing it was the idea rather than the deed that tempted me; for the soul of a ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... drowsily studying his watch. "The beggar puts one shot every five minutes through the same window.—I wonder what he's thinking about? Lying out there, firing at the Red-Bristled Ghosts. Odd! Wonder what they're all"—He put back his cigar, mumbling. "Handful of poor blackguards, all upset in their minds, and sweating round. And all the rest tranquil as ever, eh?—the whole country jogging on the same old way, or asleep and dreaming dreams, perhaps, same kind of dreams they had ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... grow good steersmen when the vessel's crank! Gap-toothed he spake, and with a tottering shank Sidled to gain the sunny bench of Age. It is the sentence which completes that stage; A testament of wisdom reading blank. The seniors of the race, on their last plank, Pass mumbling it as nature's final page. These, bent by such experience, are the band Who captain young enthusiasts to maintain What things we view, and Earth's decree withstand, Lest dreaded Change, long dammed by dull decay, Should ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... up in their houses, closed the doors and windows, and prayed to the Virgin for deliverance from the impending evil. Never had there been seen in Castrillo such a counting of rosaries and beating of breasts, such genuflexions, and mumbling of aves and paters, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... helpless on the bed, she watched him. She was racked with pain, and he was mumbling that it would be all right again in a little time. "A week from now," said he, "and you will have ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... that brought the kiss: He brought it in his foggy hand To where the mumbling river is, And the high clematis; It lent new colour to the land, And all the ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... In search of stream or fount, and fill'd the shores With clamor. Downward from his mountain gorge Stept the long-hair'd long-bearded solitary, Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad, Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it seem'd, With inarticulate rage, and making signs They knew not what: and yet he led the way To where the rivulets of sweet water ran; And ever as he mingled with the crew, And heard them talking, his long-bounden tongue Was loosen'd, till he made them understand; ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... evil-looking young women, and beetle-browed young men; but not many - perhaps that kind of characters kept away. Generally, the faces (those of the children excepted) were depressed and subdued, and wanted colour. Aged people were there, in every variety. Mumbling, blear-eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame; vacantly winking in the gleams of sun that now and then crept in through the open doors, from the paved yard; shading their listening ears, or blinking eyes, with their withered ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, 60 Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled shore, The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling,— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... wearing that vague, forced, pleasant smile which stands propriety-guard over a mind asleep; Mildred Gower felt that her nerves would endure no more; and the general was falling into a besotted state, spilling his wine, mumbling his words. The coffee and the brandy revived them all somewhat. Mildred, lifting her eyes, saw by way of a mirrored section of the enormous sideboard the English butler surveying master and guests with slowly moving, sneering ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... robbers—perhaps from lack of initiative and energy. From Esperanza on, the Indian boys I met driving mules or carrying nets of oranges all folded their hands before them like a Buddhist at prayer when they approached me, but instead of mumbling some request for alms, as I expected, they greeted me with an almost obsequious "Adios" and a faint smile. How the "little red schoolhouse" is lacking in this wooded mountainland! Not merely was the immense majority entirely illiterate, but very few of them had even reached ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... of a firm resolution not to yield to tears, cast herself upon the floor in anguish, and, as she kicked and howled, grasped one of Anna's hands and kissed it, mumbling it, as an anguished mother might a babe's—the hand of an exceedingly loved babe whom she expected, soon, to lose by having given it ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... important little errand is somehow or other, done;—and, in short, that 'Jenkins's Ear [as she named the thing] HAS been avenged,' and the Ocean Highways 'opened' and a good deal more, in a most signal way! For the Eternal Providences—little as poor Dryasdust now knows of it, mumbling and maundering that sad stuff of his—do rule; and the great soul of the world, I assure you once more, is JUST. And always for a Nation, as for a man, it is very behooveful to be honest, to be ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of a tanker, there being none at hand, he would be obliged to lift it to his head, and do his best. To show the creature did not want sense, he shoved, when he was done, the empty plate and the toom bottle through beneath the door, mumbling some trash or other which no living creature could comprehend, but which I dare say, from the way it was said, was the telling me how much he was obliged for his supper and poor lodging. From my kindness towards him, he grew more composed; but as he went back to the corner to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... say I, in a rather sneaky and shamefaced manner, mumbling and looking down, "that you were not in a greater hurry to ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... of paper from a large pocket-book which lay at his elbow on the new green cloth-covered table, and handed it to his friend, who slowly opened and read it in a slovenly way, mumbling the most of ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... it!' he replied, still mumbling his toothpick. '"To be or not to be?" as Will of Stratford says. Kynaston was great on the passage. But here is the bell that rings the ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... combination that netted him two balls and broke the bunch. After that he proved the insincerity of his statement by clearing the cloth for a second time. The succeeding frames went much the same, and finally Blaze put up his cue, mumbling: ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... sound of the hated word "police," Wilfer turned, and mumbling some incoherent words, slunk away. His game was up, and seeing him vanquished, Miss Lester now took the centre of the stage, as it were, and turned her ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... a rule, glibly and easily and with a certain bogus frankness very pleasing to see. Contrary to a general opinion, the Father of Lies is often quite good to his children. But those who were telling the truth were frequently shamefaced and mumbling of speech, making ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... a word of it, you old rascal. I'll see whether Hinton has ordered you to leave here. Likely story, indeed; leave one of his best fields with no one to care for it. Git the whisky and stop your mumbling. You, there, you young imps, step ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... mumbling his thanks as he did so. The two men shook hands again at the outer door, and Craft trudged down the avenue, toward the railroad station, his mind filled with visions of enormous wealth, but his patience sorely tried by the long delay that he must suffer before his ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... a lot of people are standing around glassy-eyed listening to something mumbling in their ear that ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... Girdle, which vanished like smoke; Three Kids ate up half of his Pancaky Coat, And the tails were devour'd by an ancient He Goat; An army of Dogs in a twinkling tore up his Pork Waistcoat and Trowsers to give to their Puppies; And while they were growling, and mumbling the Chops, Ten Boys prigged the Jujubes and Chocolate Drops. He tried to run back to his house, but in vain, For scores of fat Pigs came again and again: They rushed out of stables and hovels and doors; They tore off his stockings, his shoes, ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... eternity, and we couldn't see a thing—I've thought since that maybe it was a good thing we couldn't. But we could feel the width of the ledge with our feet, and there were times when my legs shook under me like I had the ague. Taggart was pretty near collapse all the time. He kept mumbling to himself, making queer little throaty noises and grabbing at me. Two or three times I had to turn and talk to him, or he'd have let ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... keen ears noted the cessation of the regular inspirations and expirations of his companion. His narrowed eyes bored straight down upon the Belgian. Werper felt that he was lost—he must risk all on his ability to carry on the deception. He sighed, threw both arms outward, and turned over on his back mumbling as though in the throes of a bad dream. A moment later ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... even, if necessity arose, painting their throats with turpentine when they were stricken with roop. Then, after dinner, when the lamps were lit, and Mrs. Ukridge petted Edwin and sewed, and Ukridge smoked cigars and incited the gramophone to murder "Mumbling Mose," I would steal away to my bedroom and write—and write—and write—and go on writing till my fingers were numb and my eyes refused to do their duty. And, when time had passed, I might come to feel that it was all for the best. A man must ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse |
