"Stammering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... railway carriage to themselves for a considerable part of the way; and he thought he never could have a better opportunity of declaring himself; so, with rather less stammering and hesitation than is usual on such occasions—for he had not the least doubt of a favourable answer—he made Elsie understand that he loved her, and asked for ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... we were sitting in the garden, and I had been trying in every stupid roundabout way to get her to say that she should be at any rate sorry for a man, if he really loved a woman who would not marry him. I had been stammering and blushing, and been as silly as any one could be, and I suppose had pained her by fishing for pity for myself in such a transparent way, and saying nothing about her own need of it; at any rate, she turned all upon me with a sweet sad ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... has only twice been known to steal, and has often nobly conquered the temptation. The eighth is his favourite commandment. There is something painfully human in these unequal virtues and mortal frailties of the best. Still more painful is the bearing of those "stammering professors" in the house of sickness and under the terror of death. It is beyond a doubt to me that, somehow or other, the dog connects together, or confounds, the uneasiness of sickness and the consciousness of guilt. To the pains of the body he often adds the tortures of the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... admire, no one to love.... The neighbours—rude sons of the steppes, and polished gentlemen alike—treated you as a tutor: some, with rudeness and neglect, others carelessly. Besides, you were not pre-possessing in person; you were shy, given to blushing, getting hot and stammering.... Even your health was no better for the country air: you wasted like a candle, poor fellow! It is true your room looked out into the garden; wild cherries, apple-trees, and limes strewed their delicate blossoms on your table, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... seemed too good to come true, but above all by her arch, provoking smile, Rudolph sat with his head in a whirl, feeling that the wide eyes of all the second-cabiners were penetrating the tumultuous secret of his breast. Again his English deserted, and left him stammering. But Miss Forrester chatted steadily, appeared to understand murmurs which he himself found obscure, and so restored his confidence that before tiffin was over he talked no less gayly, his honest face alight ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... around him, and when the bandage was removed from the messenger's eyes, saluted him thus: "What means this insolence? Do you beard the French general in the middle of his army?" The German recognised the person of Napoleon, and retreated stammering and blushing. He assured his commander that Lonato was occupied by the French in numbers that made resistance impossible. Four thousand men laid down their arms; and then discovered that, if they had used them, nothing could have ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... and nature drove them inward, concentrating, fortifying, intensifying them; to a not wholly normal or healthy brain, freakish and without consecution, adding a stammering tongue which could not speak evenly, and had to do its share, as the brain did, 'by fits.' 'You,' we find Lamb writing ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... long ago from his mother, he said, as a talisman against the moonsickness which had tormented him in childhood. Replying, in stammering and dazed fashion, to further questions, he gave it to be understood that nobody had ever set eyes on the coin in question; he was afraid of showing it, lest someone should take it from him by force. He loved the coin. He got it from ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... was very agreeable, and, at almost any other moment of her life, Mrs. Lee would have liked nothing better than to talk with him from the beginning to the end of her dinner. Tall, slender, bald-headed, awkward, and stammering with his elaborate British stammer whenever it suited his convenience to do so; a sharp observer who had wit which he commonly concealed; a humourist who was satisfied to laugh silently at his own humour; a diplomatist who used the mask of frankness with ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... the children reached the school before the hymn was learned, and Kitty felt very much ashamed when, after stammering through three verses, Mrs. Mordaunt gave her back the book, saying, "I would rather have no lesson from you, Kitty, than one learned so carelessly as this." However, it was too late to repair the fault, so Kitty resolved to give her very best attention to the ...
— Amy Harrison - or Heavenly Seed and Heavenly Dew • Amy Harrison
... that somehow her emotions had managed to slip their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn't help or mend matters much to hear her own voice stammering: ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... minute we could have had the illusion that he had stolen away, unheard, on the thick mats. But I don't think that either of us was deceived. The voice returned, stammering words without connection, pausing and faltering, till suddenly steadied it soared into impassioned entreaty, sank to low, harsh tones, voluble, lofty sometimes and sometimes abject. When it paused it left us looking profoundly at ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... old days when I had seen them trafficking things they had been donated by officials desirous of cultivating their friendship, in the mysterious curio shops beyond the great Ch'ien Men Gate. Nor was I wrong. Stammering, they replied by asking how it was that orders had been broken. Stammering, they said that all the great generals had promised that the inner Palaces were to be kept immune; now men were for ever climbing in, and others were coming openly as we were doing. What ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... to say good-night and good-bye, as he was leaving very early in the morning, I saw at once by his face that all was right. He bent over my hand, stammering out words of thanks and promises of devotion and invocations of blessings in such quantities that I began to feel quite pleased with myself, and as though I had been doing a virtuous deed. This feeling ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... books and magazines, opposite to him a sable-lined coat, by his side a luncheon basket and long hunting flask. Then his eyes were caught by an oblong strip of paper pasted across the carriage window—he read it backwards—"Engaged." What an intrusion! He looked towards the woman with stammering words of apology upon his lips—but the words died away. He ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... in its chains; then he had to submit to the conqueror. Exhausted with death's pallor, Charles de Bonaparte sank back on his couch, and as Death threw his dark shadows on his face bathed in cold perspiration, Charles de Bonaparte, with stammering tongue, in the last paroxysms of fancy, exclaimed: "It is in vain! Nothing can save me! Even Napoleon's sword, which one day is to triumph over ail Europe, even that sword cannot frighten away the dragon of death which crouches on my breast!" [Footnote: See "Memoires ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... thought I had come to order a coffin! Being arrayed in a frock coat and somewhat burnished up, I suppose I had the appearance of a possible customer. I had led him to believe that I could not speak, but now I assured him that my real infirmity was very acute stammering. I glanced through the catalogue carefully so as to arouse no suspicions, to alight upon a specimen of the handicraft which cost 1,000 marks—L50—and with apparent effort stuttered that I would consult my brother upon the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, stammering and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make him understand in the beginning that I had not come to take back my ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... dissatisfaction. He at last condescended to point me to a sofa, and I proceeded to state to him my business. He became much agitated when I mentioned the Testaments to him; but I no sooner spoke of the Bible Society and told him who I was, than he could contain himself no longer: with a stammering tongue, and with eyes flashing fire like hot coals, he proceeded to rail against the society and myself, saying that the aims of the first were atrocious, and that, as to myself, he was surprised that, being once lodged ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... man. The Curate saw instantly that there was comprehension in the flicker of the eyelash and the tremulous movement of the hand upon the bed. It was a new and unaccustomed part which he had now to play; he went hurriedly to the other side and leaned over the pillow to make out the stammering words which began to be audible. Lucy had risen up also and stood looking at her father still with her look of defence. As the feeble lips babbled forth unintelligible words, Lucy's face grew sterner and sterner. As for Miss Wodehouse, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... over with me,' he said, stammering; it was terrible to see how he struggled to rise. 'I must be bled; bleed me!' he cried, clutching my hand.... 'Adrien,' he said again, 'burn this letter!' He gave it to me, and I threw it on the fire. I called for Jacquotte and Nicolle. Jacquotte did not hear me, but Nicolle did, and came hurrying ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... in front, tying her horse to a transplanted cottonwood sapling. What if Prissy Pantin should see her! She was visibly agitated, when she opened the door for Kate—stammering a welcome that had a doubtful ring, but Kate did not appear to notice. She looked older, Mrs. Toomey thought, in swift scrutiny. Yes, she had suffered terribly. Her heart went out to the girl, even while she glanced furtively through the windows to see ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... every power of mind and body forsook the unhappy boy, and he stood shrinking and stammering before the officer—thus confirming a suspicion of intended incendiarism in the mind ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... curiously coloured. As he crossed the bridge he met a woman who stared at him in amazement. He raised his head to speak, but he had lost the power of utterance. The woman waited; and at last with a feeble stammering speech he asked her the name of the place. She shook her head and said she did not understand his words, and with a look of pity she went ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... she knew nothing about. They could walk across waxed floors as though waxed floors were meant to be walked on. They could rise to recite lessons without stammering or choking as she did. They could take reproof jauntily, where she, who had never in her life received a scolding, would have been driven into hysterics. They could wear new dresses just as though all ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... twenty-seven years old, these imposing doors were opened. The first interview was unsatisfactory; the young poet was tongue-tied and stammering, the great man reserved and haughty: they parted mutually dissatisfied. Nine months later Maecenas sent for him again, received him warmly, enrolled him formally amongst his friends. (Sat. I, vi, 61.) Horace himself tells the story: he explains neither ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... do not remember a single connected sentence. It was{279 EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH OF MR. GARRISON} with the utmost difficulty that I could stand erect, or that I could command and articulate two words without hesitation and stammering. I trembled in every limb. I am not sure that my embarrassment was not the most effective part of my speech, if speech it could be called. At any rate, this is about the only part of my performance that I now distinctly remember. But excited and convulsed ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... opened and the doctor appeared, Jeanne darted toward him, stammering out what she knew of the accident, but seeing the nurse exchange a meaning glance with the doctor, she stopped to ask him: "Is it serious? Do ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the apple:" he is a poor builder of his creed, who takes one brick on credit. Be able, as you can be, (if only you are willing so far to be wisely inconsistent, as to bend the stubborn knee betimes, and though with feeble glance to look to heaven, and though with stammering tongue to pray for aid,) be able, as it is thy right, O man of God—to give a Reason for the faith ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... happy. In this room he encouraged stammering Genie Linderbeck to become adaptable. Here he scribbled to Gertie and Ben Rusk little notes decorated with badly drawn caricatures of himself loafing. Here, with the Turk, he talked out half the night, planning future glory in engineering. Carl adored the Turk for his frankness, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... king became more angry than ever. He had tried to learn magic himself, but somehow or other his spells would never work, and he was furious to hear that the prince claimed a power that he did not possess. Stammering with rage, he ordered the youth to be brought before him, and vowed that unless this miracle was accomplished he would have the prince dragged at a horse's tail until he ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... Mr. Fulton," began Jerry, almost stammering in his eagerness. "It wouldn't be any trick at all to get over to the interurban tracks in time to catch the four o'clock northbound. That gets to Watertown at four twenty-five—say half-past. We ought to be able to get the gas and rout out a machine ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... leave you all on the second of January—and—and before I go I would like to have an understanding with you about—about Odalite," said Le, stammering and blushing as if he had been asking for the hand of his sweetheart for the first time; but, then, it was so soon after her broken marriage, and his ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... I tried my stammering Turkish, but the men were in no mood to be patient with efforts in that loathly tongue. None of them knew a word in English. I tried French—Italian—smattering Arabic—but they only shook their heads, and began to think nervousness was driving me out of hand. One ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... being a man of shrewd experience of human weakness, was also kindly hearted, and having, after his first official scrutiny of his visitor and his resplendent watch chain, assured himself that he was not seeking personal relief, courteously assisted him in his stammering request. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... He stopped, stammering with rage. The angry colour had now returned to his face; it was Sally who was pale. She stared at him aghast, and presently began to sob like a ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... to Setanta, and kneeling down he took him by his right hand, and said, "I am thy man from this day forward." And after that he arose and kissed him, and standing by his side cried, "O Cumascra Mend Macha, O stammering son of Concobar, if ever I was a shield to thee against thy mockers, come hither; and thou too come O Art Storm-Ear, and thou Art of the Shadow, and thou O Fionn of the Songs, and you O Ide and Sheeling, who were nursed at the same breast ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... dark, because of course the auditorium wasn't lighted at all. I'll admit she rather took my breath, just glancing up at me, and peering to make out who I was, and then her face going all alight with that smile of hers. I didn't know what to call her, and was stammering over a mixture of Miss Dane and Mrs. Aldrich, when she laughed and held out a hand to me and said she didn't remember whether I'd ever called her Rose or not, but she'd like to hear some one call her ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... of her name, Haight turned suddenly, just as the blushing Miss Bixby was stammering out his name, and catching his eye, she began nodding vigorously, to signify the importance of ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... comfort and satisfaction, as was testified by her peals of tiny laughter. The king stood staring up in speechless amazement, and trembled so that his beard shook like grass in the wind. At last, turning to the queen, who was just as horror-struck as himself, he said, gasping, staring, and stammering: ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... hastened to say, with some idea of preparing her for an experience that could not fail to be one of exceptional trial. "For reasons which will be explained to you by those in greater authority than myself, you are wanted at the house where—" I could not help stammering under the light of her melancholy eyes—"where I saw you once before," ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... mumble over your words and have difficulty in pronouncing clearly, you will find it a great help to talk very slowly and take deep breaths between each two or three words. For stammering, deep breathing is also suggested before uttering the words upon which one is most likely to come ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... of everybody, undertook the defense of his future sister-in-law in the most vehement and positive manner. In his estimation, his brother's choice was something sacred and indisputable. The lady might, and did, treat him with unconcealed contempt, laugh at his awkwardness, grow impatient at his stammering—it made no difference to Uncle George. She was to be his brother's wife, and, in virtue of that one great fact, she became, in the estimation of the poor surgeon, a very queen, who, by the laws of the domestic constitution, could do ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... man and she began to go out together into the neighboring districts, holding out their hands at all the doors, stammering supplications into the ears of all the passers. They could be seen at all hours of the day, on by-paths, in the villages, or again eating bread, sitting in the noon heat under the shadow of some solitary tree. And ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... party—of the certainty of success in the division lobby—to bring out his best powers. The splendid, rattling, self-confident debater of the coercion period now no longer exists, and Mr. Balfour has positively gone back to the clumsiness, stammering, and ineffectiveness of the pre-historic period of his life before he had taken up the Chief Secretaryship. That was bad enough; but what is worse is that the House is beginning to feel it. If you lose confidence in yourself, the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... you are, the fault is in yourself, not in me!' I shuffled my feet about on the stone pavement, not knowing what to say—then I stammered out the foolish excuses young men make when they find themselves in an awkward corner. He listened to my stammering remarks about 'the other fellows' with attentive patience,—then he took his hand from my shoulder with a quick, decisive movement. 'Look here, Harland'—he said—'You are taking up all the conventions and traditions with which ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... but a white tulle skirt, a thin foot, a thin bosom, and a pair of bright grey eyes. Vaguely he sought for equivalent words, but loud-talking dancers passed into the room, and, abashed by their stares, the Marquis broke off a flowering branch and said, stammering the ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... to be. His wife was the next person whom he addressed. "Who—who—who," he said, stammering with rage, "who asked this impudent fanatic ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Cloud-chariot saw his relatives gathered, fell down, and died from the pain of his wounds. Then, while his grief-stricken parents were loudly lamenting, while Shell-crest was accusing himself, Sandal looked up to heaven and, in a voice stammering with tears, reproached the goddess Gauri who had graciously given her this husband: "Oh, Mother! You told me that the fairy prince should be my husband, but it is my fate that ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... bit, I'm stripped bare here," he said in a low voice, "letting you see me. To-morrow I'll be a nervous, stammering fool, hiding all I feel, swanking like hell about my people, myself and everyone I've ever seen, like I was doing to-day when you told me off so beautifully. To-morrow I'll be drunk, and I'll lie to you till all's blue. To-night ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... shudder went through the frame of the horse—"Why speak thus? Of horses' bones the dice are made. Would Kage trifle with the relics of his kind? Make answer, Kakunai." He spoke with a fierce earnestness. Kakunai stammering sought answer. Just then Isuke appeared, to urge ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Voice that raised one poor bewildered boy to sit up on his bier, and begin to speak—broken exclamations possibly, and stammering words of astonishment—shall be flung, like a trumpet that scatters marvellous sounds, through the sepulchres of the nations and compel all to stand before the throne. You and I will hear it; let us be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... only been by me to clap pen To paper and put you down every syllable With those clever clerkly fingers, All I've forgotten as well as what lingers 695 In this old brain of mine that's but ill able To give you even this poor version Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering —More fault of those who had the hammering Of prosody into me and syntax, 700 And did it, not with hobnails but tin-tacks! But to return from this excursion— Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest, The peace most deep and the charm completest, There came, shall I say, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... story, and I thought it was so easy to tell, and I find it isn't easy a bit. I want to do something—to help my parents—I mean they do not need any help—but they can't help me. I have tried lots of things." She was now stammering and blushing in a way that made her hate herself mortally, and the innocent man in front of her tenfold more, but she pushed on manfully and concluded, "I thought may be you could help me get something I ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... stammering. "What do you mean?—a death ray evolved?" And: "What of it?" he demanded; "what of it? What's that got to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... opened my month to speak, that it was impossible to understand my words. I had only one asset, and that was the fact that this being my first station I should belong to them, and when the day dawned that would release my stammering tongue, the honour of having taught and trained me would ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... postponed the visit for a few days, that there might be the regular professional hand present to toll the bell in a note of due fulness and solemnity; an attempt by a deputy, on a previous occasion of his absence, having degenerated into a miserable stammering clang that was a ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Stammering.—This trouble is simply a loss of command of the vocal organs, and is distinctly nervous in its cause. Especially must we look to the roots of the nerves controlling the vocal organs, if we are to see the real difficulty. There is evidently a state ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... get past! But perhaps you think to ride up to the gate, and there to cry, peccavi! and that then it will open, and you will be admitted? But, no! no! I tell you, no! You shall never be able to utter more than pec, pec, pec; and while with your mouths open you are stammering and stuttering to get out cavi, Satan and his blackguards shall come and peck you, even as crows peck carrion. Yes, Jehu and Jezebel! Remember! I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the tale of the Lord Buddha, but, borne by his own thoughts, slid into Tibetan and long-droned texts from a Chinese book of the Buddha's life. The gentle, tolerant folk looked on reverently. All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, and visionaries: as it has been from the beginning and will continue to ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Hereupon Friday cried out, Now master, me make much laugh, me make bear dance. Upon which he fell a shaking the bough, which made the creature look behind him, to see how he could retreat. Then as if the bear had understood his stammering English, Why you no come farther, Mr. Bear said he, pray, Mr. Bear come farther; and then indeed we all burst into a laughter; especially when we perceived Friday drop like a squirrel upon the ground, leaving the beast to make the best of his way down the tree. And now thinking ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... a stick of candy at the village store, he had no sooner determined on one plan of action than his wish fondly reverted to the opposite one. Seesaw was pale, flaxen haired, blue eyed, round shouldered, and given to stammering when nervous. Perhaps because of his very weakness, Rebecca's decision of character had a fascination for him, and although she snubbed him to the verge of madness, he could never keep his eyes away from her. The force with which she tied her shoe when the lacing came ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on the floor, pulled her gray locks into wild confusion, and uttered a cry of mingled rage and grief. "He asks that? he asks that?" she cried, stammering and choking, "when he has ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... rose into a cry; in it rang long repressed passion, hopeless adoration, fierce joy in having broken the bonds of silence. He spoke rapidly, thickly, with a stammering tongue, now throwing out his hands in passionate appeal, now crushing between his fingers the dried moss and twigs with which the ground was strewn. "I loved you the day I first saw you. I have loved you ever since. I love you now. My God! how I love you! Die ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... are. (he smiles a little) I feel so desperate, because if only I could—show you what I am, you might see I could have without losing. But I'm a stammering thing with you. ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... had found it no easy matter to keep him at arm's length. For nine months, Mason had brooded, gossiped, and excused himself; now, conscious of being somehow a fine fellow again, he had come boldly to play the cousin—perhaps something more. He offered now a few words of stammering apology on the subject of his letter to Laura after the announcement of her engagement. She received them in silence; and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The secretary would have raised the sacred book to the president's lips. Washington said solemnly, "I swear, so help me God," and then bowed reverently kissed the book. He went to the senate chamber, and with stammering words, for his heart was almost too full for utterance, he delivered his inaugural address, and then turning to his friends said, "We will go to St. Paul's Church for prayers." It had been the habit of his life. His pastor, Rev. Lee Massey, said, "No company ever withheld him from church."' His ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... the matter, child," says Dr. Johnson, "that you leave Streatham to-day. Art sick?" "He is jealous," whispered I. "Are you jealous of your wife, you stupid blockhead?" cries out his master in another tone. The fellow hesitated, and, "To be sure, sir, I don't quite approve, sir," was the stammering reply. "Why, what do they do to her, man? Do the footmen kiss her?" "No, sir, no! Kiss my wife, sir! I hope not, sir." "Why, what do they do to her, my lad?" "Why, nothing, sir, I'm sure, sir." "Why, then go back directly and dance, you dog, do; and let's hear no more of such ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... countryside of blue hills and dusky woods; and in the air from beyond this wide horizon a sound that rose above the wind gusts and the noise of our going, a faint whisper that seemed in the air close about us and yet to be of the vague distances, a whisper of sound, a stammering murmur, now rising, now falling, but never ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... embarrassment had descended upon him, and he was awkwardly stammering for words, with her cool hand in his grasp. As long as his enthusiasm had lasted he had talked fluently and naturally, swept away from his self-consciousness; but with the return of the formal amenities he became as ill at ease and shy as a boy. "There ain't anything more except ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... stammering foolishly. I was going to get myself some new things soon. There was no hurry; ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... feeble old creature's body seemed to fly up into his face. He made quite an overpowering effort; he really looked as if he would drop down dead of fright at his own boldness; but he forced out the question for all that, stammering, and stuttering, and kneading desperately with both hands at the brim of his hideous great hat. 'I beg your pardon, Miss Gwi-Gwi-Gwilt! You are not really go-go-going to marry Mr. Armadale, are you? Jealous—if ever I saw it in a man's face yet, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... not stir, for all Joan's pleadings. She was about to cry again; then she had an idea, and seized the shovel and deluged her own head with the ashes, stammering out through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... like the trees of the forest in holy writ, given over to the rule of the bramble; then from the basest of the shrubs came forth the fire which devoured the cedars of Lebanon. We bowed down before a man of mean birth, of ungraceful demeanour, of stammering and most vulgar utterance, of scandalous and notorious hypocrisy. Our laws were made and unmade at his pleasure; the constitution of our Parliaments changed by his writ and proclamation; our persons imprisoned; our property plundered; our lands and houses overrun with soldiers; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nature, had found complete relief after less than three weeks' treatment. Another woman had enriched her impoverished blood, and increased her weight by over nine pounds. A man had been cured of a varicose ulcer, another in a single sitting had rid himself of a lifelong habit of stammering. Only one of the former patients failed to report an improvement. "Monsieur," said Coue, "you have been making efforts. You must put your trust in the imagination, not in the will. Think you are better and you ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... you think, Molly?" exclaimed Kitty, stammering almost in her eagerness. "Oh, you'll never guess, for it is so uncommon and unexpected—father and mother both went to London ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... was to thank people as they deserved. Stammering speeches could not do it, but I hope that they all understood. "I were but little happy, if I ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... lordship lived so much by himself he was neither gauche nor stupid when he went into society. Unlike Mr. Spraggon, he had a tremendous determination of words to the mouth, and went best pace with his tongue instead of coughing and hemming, and stammering and stuttering—wishing himself 'well out of it,' as the saying is. His seclusion only seemed to sharpen his faculties and make him enjoy society more. He gushed forth like a pent-up fountain. He was not a bit afraid of the ladies—rather the contrary; indeed, he would make love to them ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... stammering, so he stopped, and stared so hard at Nellie Leroy that she smiled, though rather sadly, for it was plain to be seen her grief over the possible death of her brother weighed down on her. ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... Ferdinand (stammering). Next, next—my lord! You know you told me that the lady loved you, Had loved you with incautious tenderness. That if the young man, her betrothd husband, 50 Return'd, yourself, and she, and an unborn babe, Must perish. Now, my lord! to be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... knew what he wanted to do. With gusto he marked that Ellen too was conscious that the incident was not at its close, for she was still wringing her hands, though the taste of the wine must long have gone from her mouth, and was stammering miserably, "Well, if yon stuff's a temptation to any poor folk—!" Again he felt that their relationship was on a proper footing; he moved towards her, walking masterfully. Oh, it was going to be ecstasy.... There was a loud ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... The cheer passed on to the throng outside, and when Davy and Hugo appeared in the corridor they were borne upon the shoulders of workingmen and were not released until they had made speeches. Davy's manly simplicity and clearness covered the stammering vagueness of hero Galland. ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... "If," said Margaret, stammering as she spoke, "I tell Wilbur, I think it will kill him. If I tell the children, they will never really have a mother again. They will never forget. But if I do not tell, I shall not have myself. It is a horrible thing not to ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... said the stranger, panting and stammering; "be calm, I beg; for it is I, not you, who have any cause for emotion. I am not a brigand, and far from your having anything to fear, it is I, on the contrary, who am come ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... most terrible in life—when the lips are fairly absolved from using them, and when, if the eye cannot express what the muffled tongue refuses to tell, the tongue seeks any stammering compassionate circumlocution rather than utter the dreaded syllable. 'Is there no hope?' says the mother, hanging over her dying child, to the physician, in whose looks are life and death. He dare not say 'yes;' but ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... could only repeat with stammering lips. If, a while ago, he could not believe his ears, just now he felt as if the sky were tumbling ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... grandchild, and I was badgered finally into rising and making a few scattering remarks by way of grateful acknowledgment. An effort of this kind would be trying to the sensibilities of even a real philosopher, and I will confess that, what with stammering and repeating myself, I was uncertain for some moments whether I should be able to make myself intelligible. At last, however, a sudden reflection coming straight from my heart drew me from the slough of renewing thanks ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... choice nor adoption. The merest idea of choice had never entered my head. And as to adoption—well, yes, there was adoption; but it was I who was adopted by the genius of the language, which directly I came out of the stammering stage made me its own so completely that its very idioms I truly believe had a direct action on my temperament and fashioned my ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... every eye, what all perceived, to hide. While the boy-bridegroom, shuffling in his pace, Now hid awhile, and then exposed his face; As shame alternately with anger strove The brain, confused with muddy ale, to move, In haste and stammering he perform'd his part, And look'd the rage that rankled in his heart: (So will each lover inly curse his fate, Too soon made happy, and made wise too late:) I saw his features take a savage gloom, And deeply threaten for the days to come. Low spake the lass, and lisp'd and ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... would myself have written, but there were phrases in it which to Mary's mind could have come only from me. Oh, I admit it was cunningly done, especially the love-making, which was just the kind of stammering thing which I would have achieved if I had tried to put my feelings on paper. Anyhow, Mary had no doubt of its genuineness. She slipped off after dinner, hired a carriage with two broken-winded screws and set off up the valley. She left a line for Wake telling him to follow ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... maid with her," said Sir Charles, almost stammering, and looking at Gertrude, whose ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... strangers welcome; "It is well", they said, "O brothers, That you come so far to see us!" In a circle round the doorway, With their pipes they sat in silence, Waiting to behold the strangers, Waiting to receive their message; Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face, From the wigwam came to greet them, Stammering in his speech a little, Speaking words yet unfamiliar; "It is well," they said, "O brother, That you come so far to see us!" Then the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet, Told his message to the people, Told the purport of his mission, Told them ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Monsieur," cries the other, pale and stammering; "it was no doing of mine—he would ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... waiter—a secret agent on the case—deliberately tipped over a champagne glass that stood within a few inches of the bag. Of course, Mademoiselle was worried lest the wine run over on her gown and while thus preoccupied, the waiter, stammering apologies, mopped up the table cloth with his serviette—mopped up the wine and cleverly covering the bag folded it in the napkin and hurried away. In two minutes he had opened it, abstracted the letter from the young ordnance ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... I dived down into the fo'c's'le. Ally Bazan was sound asleep in his bunk and woke stammering, blinking and bewildered ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... I had been given too much to do. In order to get introductions to the notables I must first get ben Nazir into a proper frame of mind. Then, stammering in an alien tongue, I must make friends with chieftains who had never even heard of me; and that, when their minds were busy with another matter. I must keep in touch with ben Hamza, and convey his messages to Grim without being seen or arousing ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... In a hesitating way, stammering in his utterances, he began reading his Resolutions. Then followed the opening sentences of the magnificent oration of this "Demosthenes of the woods," as ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... because even an involuntary want of caution might easily cause much economic loss to the natives, and to the company that owns the right of hunting. During the journey we were accordingly accompanied by the chief of the village, a black-haired stammering Aleutian, and "the Cossack," a young, pleasant, and agreeable fellow, who on solemn occasions wore a sabre nearly as long as himself, but besides did not in the least correspond to the Cossack type of the writers ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... a happy Invitation for a stammering Member, who, it seems, had but a weak Voice at the best; and having often attempted to speak in the Debate, but to no Purpose, had sat down in utter ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... impression, that strangely affected my risibles; I had always thought him so natural before. I tried to keep from laughing; I compressed my lips, and turning my head, looked steadily from the window, but a sudden stammering, then a pause, showed that my unconquerable rudeness was observed. I was sobered at once, but dared not look round, lest I should meet Mrs. Linwood's reproving glance. He soon after asked Edith for a parting song, and ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Writer,—the Earl of Shaftesbury, in his Characteristicks: "The British Muses, in this Dinn of Arms, may well lie abject and obscure; especially being as yet in their mere Infant-State. They have hitherto scarce arriv'd to any thing of Shapeliness or Person. They lisp as in their Cradles: and their stammering Tongues, which nothing but their Youth and Rawness can excuse, have hitherto spoken in wretched Pun and ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Sally and Oscar would just act like people," said Mrs. Steve once in exasperation. "They get me so nervous stammering at each other that I drop everything I lay my hands on, and I feel as if I'd robbed somebody for the rest ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... reinvigorates the consciousness of our own powers by recalling and confirming our own unvalued sensations and perceptions, gives classic shape to our own amorphous imaginings, and adequate utterance to our own stammering conceptions or emotions. The poet's office is to be a Voice, not of one crying in the wilderness to a knot of already magnetized acolytes, but singing amid the throng of men, and lifting their common aspirations and sympathies ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... under foreman, sent his eyes darting from face to face. In his manner was a curious mingling of bravado and diffidence—a lumbering body, a shrinking way of holding himself, a stammering foreign accent and phrasing. But in spite of it there was ample ground for Torrance's persistent suspicions. Perhaps it was the darting, all-seeing eyes, perhaps the exaggeration of diffidence, but Koppy gave the impression of thinking ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... with immense energy to overcome the natural disadvantages that stood in the way of his success. By hard training he strengthened his weak voice and lungs; it is related that he cured himself of a painful habit of stammering; and he subjected himself to the most vigorous course of study preparatory to his profession, cutting himself off ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... one or two of them, while her father strove to raise the widow's thoughts into some higher channel than that of mere helpless querulousness. She found that the children were truer and simpler mourners than the widow. Daddy had been a kind daddy to them; each could tell, in their eager stammering way, of some tenderness shown some indulgence granted ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... fling he threw the pill far into the night. Then, in an access of energy born of internal panic, he slid nimbly from his perch and started in a steady jog-trot into the road, wiping away the tears as he went, and stammering between sobs as ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... by its fruits,—and the fruits of chance are incoherence, incompleteness, unsteadiness, the stammering utterance of blind, unreasoning force. A coherence that binds all the geological ages in one chain, a stability of purpose that completes in the beings born to-day an intention expressed in the first creatures that swam in the Silurian ocean or crept ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... this rhapsody, and the progressive confusion of the speaker, I whispered (pulling his coat gently at the same time)—'Retire, General, you no longer know what you are saying.' I made a sign to Berthier to second me in persuading him to leave the place; when suddenly, after stammering out a few words more, he turned round, saying, 'Let all who love me follow.' So ended this famous scene—in which, more than in any other upon record, eloquence and presence of mind were needful. And if it should be said that vagueness was not altogether the least eligible ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... splinters of the wood The dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw The tree that shone white-listed through the gloom. But Vivien, fearing heaven had heard her oath, And dazzled by the livid-flickering fork, And deafened with the stammering cracks and claps That followed, flying back and crying out, 'O Merlin, though you do not love me, save, Yet save me!' clung to him and hugged him close; And called him dear protector in her fright, Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright, But wrought upon his mood and hugged him close. The ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... kind of moderate to me," broke in Judge Priest. He shoved a pudgy hand into a pocket of his white trousers. "I reckin this detail kin be arranged. Here, Peep"—he extended his hand—"here's your dollar." Then, as the other drew back, stammering a refusal, he hastily added: "No, no, no; go ahead and take it—it's yours. I'm jest advancin' it to you out of whut'll ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... in grog. This softened brutus, and a harmonious debauch succeeded. Like the old Egyptians they debated first sober and then drunk, and to stagger my general notion that the ancients were unwise, candor compels me to own, it was while stammering, maudling, stinking and in every sense drunk that mephistopheles driveled out a scheme so cunning and so new as threw everybody and everything into the shade. It was carried ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of the world, whose love Keeps watch o'er all things from above, To Thee my stammering prayer would rise; Bend down from yonder starry skies; And from Thy sparkling, sun-strewed way, Oh teach thy feeble child ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... what he meant to her. She thought of the night he had come to tell about Nora and to say good-bye. Her face flushed, and a sweet peace came into her heart as she dwelt upon Stephen's manner that night—his confusion—his stammering words—and the burning kiss upon her hand. She stood on the little bridge now, in the quiet dusk of even, leaning against the railing and looking pensively down into the shallow water below. Suddenly she raised her hand and pressed it again and again ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... a lovely day. You know—you know it's such a beautiful place," was what the resourceful Miss Jones found herself stammering. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... bitter world of wrong They come; God gives us them awhile. His speech is in their stammering tongue, And his ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ILLO (stammering with rage and fury, loses all command over himself and presents the paper to MAX. With one hand, and his sword in the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he drowns, persisted. Footsore and half-frozen, I tramped the dozen squares to the great hotel in the business district. The night clerk sized me up for precisely what I was, listening with only half an ear to my stammering question. But he deigned to answer it, nevertheless. Yes; Mr. Jewett was the gentleman who had Number 706, but he was not in. His key ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... to make a stammering attempt when the string of his apron parted, and the ten cow-horns were scattered in the snow. He dived in pursuit of them, and his ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... that he had mistaken his powers. His argument was formal and long-winded. His uncouth style roused the ridicule of his hearers. His voice was weak, his breath short, his manner disconnected, his utterance confused. His pronunciation was stammering and ineffective, and in the end he withdrew from the court, hopeless ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... And he did trust her. But did she not know what this meant? She was delivering him into the enemy's hands. He should have kept himself from sight until he had rallied his forces.... He was stammering words of protest as she led him toward the door. Armed guards were already between ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... here; Him day and night Th' united quires of angels sing; To Him, enthron'd above all height, Heaven's hosts their noblest praises bring; Disdain not, Lord, our meaner song, Who praise Thee with a stammering tongue. ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... Two or three times he tried to find words, producing nothing but a stammering of incoherent syllables. "I—I can't talk about it here, Barbe," he managed to articulate at last. "You must let me come round and ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... again. The girl caught it. Conscious, for the first time of him—his savage reality as other than a middle-aged man—of her own womanhood, she flushed violently. Shrinking back she reached for Loll's hand, and stammering an incoherent excuse, ran from ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... mistress. Horror seized him, his hair stood on end. Richmodis called him by his name and begged him to open the door. At the sound of her voice the old man started, ran upstairs, dashed into his master's room uttering incoherent sounds, and stammering: "O Lord, the dead rise; outside stands our good Mistress and demands entrance!" But the Magistrate shook his head in deep grief: "Richmodis, my beloved wife is dead and will never return, never, never," he repeated ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... eager, and persistent, and patient, and had never respected his brother one half as much as when he was stammering over the German pronunciation, which he could not well master. But he learned to read with a tolerable degree of fluency, and to speak a little, too, while he could understand nearly all ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the moment she made room for him, dusty clothes and all, on the settee between herself and the Queen of Sheba, Tom was conscious of but one clearly-defined thought—an overmastering desire to get away—to be free at any cost. But the way of escape would not disclose itself, so he sat in stammering misery, answering Ardea's questions about the sectarian school in bluntest monosyllables, and hearing with his other ear a terrible Major tell the Queen of Sheba all about the railroad invasion, and how he—Tom Gordon—had run to find a punk match ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... and in a pretty dilemma. My first thought was to knock down the Dutchman, and run for it, but reflection checked the impulse. Stammering a confused congratulation to the bride and her mother, and meditating an escape at all hazards, I allowed Madame Sendel to hook herself on my arm, and lead me into the hotel in the wake of the newly wedded pair, who made at once for the public room. A magnificent courier, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... came a little nearer to understand the unpure thing that had stammered out into expression through my sister's talent. For the unpure is merely negative; it has no existence; it is but the cramped expression of what is true, stammering its way brokenly over false boundaries that seek to limit and confine. Great, full expression of anything is pure, whereas here was only the incomplete, unfinished, and therefore ugly. There was a strife and pain and desire to escape. I found myself shrinking from house ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... MARTIN DOURAS (stammering) Nothing except in a—in what you might call a general way. There's many a young man left house and land for the sake of ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... hence.... My whole philosophy—which is very real—teaches acquiescence and optimism. Only when I see how much work is to be done, what room for a poet—for any spiritualist—in this great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious America, I lament my fumbling fingers and stammering tongue." It may be remembered that Mr. Matthew Arnold quoted the expression about America, which sounded more harshly as pronounced in a public lecture than as read in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sense Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, They all must err who have to feel their way As bats that fly at noon; for what are we But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps Spell out their paths ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... form which suited his finical taste. This was Stevenson's method, and it leaves much of his work with the smell of the lamp upon it. Lamb apparently wrote for the mere pleasure of putting his thoughts in form, just as he talked when his stammering tongue had been eased with ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... Madge, quite taken aback, colouring and stammering; and then, as if she could not help it—"Oh! Cousin Madelon, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... summoned courage to ask for a few words alone with Knight that Easter morning, in order to explain as well as apologize for the "seeming liberty he had taken." By dint of stammering, and punctuating his sentences with short, dry coughs, he made "a clean breast," as he called it, of ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... impostors? Our intimacy is with poets of the last two centuries,—not the most inspired period in the history of poetry. And in the ranks of our multitudinous verse-writers, it is not the most prepossessing who are loudest in promising us a fair spectacle. How harsh-voiced and stammering are some of these obscure apostles who are offering to exhibit the entire mystery of their gift of tongues! We see more impressive figures, to be sure. Here is the saturnine Poe, who with contemptuous smile ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... away by force there'll be a fight, of course, and—who knows what might happen? That we must leave for a last resort—a last desperate resort. First we must tell the boy." Abruptly he gave a cry of dismay, and the girl looked up to him, staring. "But—but you, Coira!" said he, stammering. "But you! I hadn't realized—I hadn't thought—it never occurred to me what this means to you." The full enormity of the thing came upon him slowly. He was asking this girl to help him in ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... livid, stammering with rage, strode up and down and cursed the departed visitor in lurid language, cursed the errand that had brought him, and rated his ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... with weak and vacillating words and stammering tongue, our bravest men to-day say freedom to woman, what can we hope when the millions educated in despotism, ignorant of the philosophy of true government, religion and social life, shall be our judges and rulers? As you go down in the scale of manhood, the idea strengthens at every step, that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... had been drinking when I went, white and stammering, confused and hesitating, into his room. He looked very ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... after long hours, hours that she could not count, she would fancy that she heard a stumbling walk in the street; then a vinous voice would mount the stairs, stammering "Canaille! canaille of a saloon-keeper!—you sold me the kind of wine that goes to ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... and with an alarming flush of the countenance, Peter succeeded in stammering a declaration of his sentiments. Aggie, with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes, accepted the declaration, and the matter was settled; that was all, for the subject had rushed upon both of them, as it were, unexpectedly, and as they were in ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... adoption of Jane it was uppermost. From the first the girl assumed proprietorship and authority that kept the little gray missionary see-sawing between pleasure and trouble. By Zura's merry teasing Jane's naturally stammering tongue was fatally twisted. She joked till tears were near; then with swift compunction Jane was caught in arms tender and strong and ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... of the Comte de Lalain produced an instant effect, much more than if I had mentioned all the sovereign princes I was related to. The principal person amongst them asked me, with some hesitation and stammering, if I was really a particular friend of the Count's. Perceiving that to claim kindred with the Count would do me more service than being related to all the Powers in Christendom, I answered that I was both a friend and a relation. They then made me many apologies and conges, stretching forth ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... that hindered his utterances, he could be quicker than the quickest, and sharper than the most acrid, as the loquacious barrister discovered who was suddenly checked in a course of pert talkativeness by this tart remark from the stammering Lord Keeper: "There is a difference between you and me,—for me it is a pain to s-speak, for you a pain to hold your tongue." That the familiar story of his fatal attack of cold is altogether true one cannot well believe, for it seems highly improbable that ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... kept looking at me all the time, with her great wide grey eyes, while I kept stammering ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the way he jumped did me good. 'Recruit for the North Wilts,' said I. He turned and his knees caved under him. 'Wha—what do you mean by that?' says he"—and here Leicester burlesqued the poor cold stammering knave to the life—"'Oh, for the Lord's sake, Leicester, have mercy on me!' 'You'll see the kind of mercy you're going to get,' says I; 'but meantime you've a choice between hanging and coming along to join ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... know," she replied, stammering. "She complained of pains in her stomach last evening, and I was ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain |
